General Election June 8th

[SWP's back]

Fuck teresa may

I think GDM would love to. He has a thing for her.

 

[Magicpole]

I specifically did not call you dense mate. As I said, I alluded to a previous poster being dense or wumming, for which I was banned. I apologise if you thought I was calling you dense; sincerely I was not.

No, I wasn't meaning you called me that, I'm just saying in general doing that does more to harm your own position, no worries and no offence taken at all.

 

[Prestwich_Blue]

The Tories think that the deficit can be reduced with average growth and some cuts.

Labour believe it can be reduced with greater public spending (and front loaded borrowing) to spur the economy and by increased tax rates on business and those earning over £80k.

But you can't have decent growth and cuts on the same scale that have taken place and are to come. Even the economically neo-liberal papers like The Economist and the FT are clear on this. Osborne had to backtrack halfway through the government's first term because his cuts were killing growth.

The right way to eliminate a deficit is via a judicious combination of increases in tax and cuts to spending. But you also have to invest initially to jump start the economy. You can't just cut, as Osborne found out. As growth increases, welfare spending should fall & the actual tax take should increase thereby reducing the deficit still further.

I'm politically neutral. I have no historical affiliation to any party. But Labour's approach here is unquestionably the right one in the circumstances in my opinion. The Conservative one will result in weak growth, further pressure on real wages, lack of productivity improvements and a tail-off in the consumer spending that has previously underpinned what growth we've had.

 

[smudgedj]

Fuck teresa may

Are you the French President?

 

[Chippy_boy]

No, I wasn't meaning you called me that, I'm just saying in general doing that does more to harm your own position, no worries and no offence taken at all.

Thanks, and yes you are right.

 

[Chippy_boy]

But you can't have decent growth and cuts on the same scale that have taken place and are to come. Even the economically neo-liberal papers like The Economist and the FT are clear on this. Osborne had to backtrack halfway through the government's first term because his cuts were killing growth.

The right way to eliminate a deficit is via a judicious combination of increases in tax and cuts to spending. But you also have to invest initially to jump start the economy. You can't just cut, as Osborne found out. As growth increases, welfare spending should fall & the actual tax take should increase thereby reducing the deficit still further.

I'm politically neutral. I have no historical affiliation to any party. But Labour's approach here is unquestionably the right one in the circumstances in my opinion. The Conservative one will result in weak growth, further pressure on real wages, lack of productivity improvements and a tail-off in the consumer spending that has previously underpinned what growth we've had.

I think you mentioned "judicious" above there PB. There's nothing judicious about £350bn of additional spending plans.

Had you been advocating somewhat of a moderate Darling approach then your argument would have more legs I feel. And the Conservative policies thus far have not resulted in weak growth have they? The Brexit result has quashed growth as I feared it would, but prior to that I thought we were doing OK growth-wise and in particular compared to more socialist inclined European competitors. That would tend to indicate to me that the Tory policies were broadly working.

 

[Prestwich_Blue]

I think you mentioned "judicious" above there PB. There's nothing judicious about £471bn* of spending plans.

Had you been advocating somewhat of a moderate Darling approach then your argument would have more legs I feel. And the Conservative policies thus far have not resulted in weak growth have they? The Brexit result has quashed growth as I feared it would, but prior to that I thought we were doing OK growth-wise and in particular compared to more socialist inclined European competitors. That would tend to indicate to me that the Tory policies were broadly working.

* Centre for Policy Studies' analysis of Labour's 5 year plan.

Growth has been OK, not great. But it's what is fuelling the growth that's the problem. Ideally growth involves companies being more productive both absolutely (by producing more) and relatively (by productivity improvements, as well as consumers having more money in their pockets and spending it rather than saving it. So companies do better, they pass some of that info their workers and they spend it.

But that former part, particularly productivity improvement, hasn't been happening so it's consumer spending that's been driving growth. But unless real wages are increasing (and with inflation getting higher then that's not happening) then that spending will eventually run out of steam. And as I said yesterday, real wages in the UK have fallen overall since 2008 whereas those in many other Western countries have risen once recovery from recession got under way.

 

[Ancient Citizen]

Last time I responded to a post like this, I got banned, so I will have to choose my words more carefully. I questioned whether the previous poster was dense, and I am sure you are not.

You must surely realise that if you have a deficit, then your debt rises every year?

10 in debt + 5 more = 15
15 + 3 more = 18
18 + 2 more = 20

The debt is rising because of the deficit. You do understand this, don't you? And therefore by definition, when a government comes into power and inherits a high deficit, then the debt increases every year. This is because of the deficit.

Which government caused the deficit? The Labour one. It was £170bn when the Tories took over. Which government is therefore responsible for the rising debt? The Labour one.

I genuinely don't know if some people just fail to understand this, or whether they seek to deceive others.

Yet you still get the same 'Tories have increased the debt crap.' I sincerely think they're either wilfully ignoring
this reasoning, expediency and all that, or they're just thick. As one left leaning poster likes to put it, anything else
just doesn't cut it.

 

[BlueAnorak]

Growth has been OK, not great. But it's what is fuelling the growth that's the problem. Ideally growth involves companies being more productive both absolutely (by producing more) and relatively (by productivity improvements, as well as consumers having more money in their pockets and spending it rather than saving it. So companies do better, they pass some of that info their workers and they spend it.

But that former part, particularly productivity improvement, hasn't been happening so it's consumer spending that's been driving growth. But unless real wages are increasing (and with inflation getting higher then that's not happening) then that spending will eventually run out of steam. And as I said yesterday, real wages in the UK have fallen overall since 2008 whereas those in many other Western countries have risen once recovery from recession got under way.

Spot on PB. There needs to be a serious increase in investment by companies and by the government on infrastructure to improve productivity.

 

[Chippy_boy]

I agree that UK productivity is very low by western standards (Japan aside). But whereas productivity can be helped by national infrastructure, what it really needs is sustained business investment in r&d, equipment, facilities and skills. You don't improve that by increasing labour costs and taxing businesses more; that would make it worse.