Theresa May

[I'm With Stupid]

The Tories don’t subscribe to Keynesian economics so your argument is totally invalid.

You might want to elaborate on that.

 

[SWP's back]

You might want to elaborate on that.

I do in the following post.

 

[Chippy_boy]

This isn't the slam dunk that Tories often think it is.

Labour are the social investment party. If you have tons of social investment and the country is running on a surplus, why would you ever vote them out?

Because running an economy is difficult and at best it's challenging trying to juggle with various compromises. So there's always opportunity to criticise and the opposition are unhindered in their criticisms since they are not actually in power nor actually implementing anything. So after a while more and more people get bored with the incumbent and start to fall for the sugar-coated promises of the opposition. Much as we find ourselves right now.

 

[Chippy_boy]

Not at all. Labour ran a deficit during record football boom years whilst maintaining a false premise of prudence. Brown and the left supposedly subscribed to Keynesian economics which would mean public infrastructure spending during lean years (as opposed to austerity), but Keynes also states that one should run a surplus when the going is good to ensure there’s sufficient money available for a rainy day.

Labour didn’t. They continued increasing public spending on ideological grounds to ensure they were voted in repeatedly.

Spot on.

 

[robbieh]

Well have a word with Corbyn then, who wants to fleece anyone who earns more than £85k a year.

I disagree with him then.

If I were him I'd do something about all the missing money in the offshore world.

 

[dave_blue12]

'Don't know' for Prime Minister !

 

[Chippy_boy]

'Don't know' for Prime Minister !

"Neither of the above" would have won by a landslide.

 

[Fame Monster]

People go to work, and through either hard graft or good fortune, they earn what they earn. The state takes what is supposed to be a "reasonable" amount off them, to pay for infrastructure and public services. But what is "reasonable"? We have differing views about what reasonable is.

You earn what you earn either through good fortune or bad fortune or more simply, the combination of atoms in your body and how they respond to the environment. If you didn't know what hand you were gonna be dealt in life (hard worker or lazy, intelligent or stupid, good school or bad school, able-bodied or disabled), wouldn't you agree that those dealt a good hand should pay more towards a decent safety net so that those dealt a bad hand don't have to suffer? Even if not out of compassion, purely a selfish motivation in case you got dealt the terrible hand?

 

[I'm With Stupid]

I do in the following post.

Okay, but all of the noises I'm hearing from the Tory party was how Labour were wrong to run a deficit in the good times, so presumably the Tories should be expected to run a surplus in the good times? The Tory on Question Time last night said that we have a choice of either paying for things now or making future generations pay for it by borrowing. The implication was that it's wrong to load future generations with debt (except unpaid students loans, of course). But the Tory party for all but three years of their history since Thatcher was first elected have run a deficit (as have Labour for most of their years in power too). So how do they square demanding that Labour run a surplus with the fact that they almost never have? Or do they have expectations of Labour governments that they have no intention of following themselves? Or is just political opportunism of attempting to somehow link a global financial crisis to Labour's spending?

 

[SWP's back]

You earn what you earn either through good fortune or bad fortune or more simply, the combination of atoms in your body and how they respond to the environment. If you didn't know what hand you were gonna be dealt in life (hard worker or lazy, intelligent or stupid, good school or bad school, able-bodied or disabled), wouldn't you agree that those dealt a good hand should pay more towards a decent safety net so that those dealt a bad hand don't have to suffer? Even if not out of compassion, purely a selfish motivation in case you got dealt the terrible hand?

You’re saying that no one has a say in whether they are lazy or stupid or a bad worker?

That being lazy is simply the hand they are dealt and thus they can simply watch Jeremy Kyle with wanton abandon?