Theresa May

Damocles said:
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?
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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.
 
SWP's back said:
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.
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Spot on.
 
Chippy_boy said:
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.
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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?
 
SWP's back said:
I do in the following post.
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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?
 
Fame Monster said:
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?
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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?
 
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I'm With Stupid said:
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?
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I really don’t feel that I’m going to be able to explain my feelings on this and the differences between Tory and Labour sufficient as I’m both half cut (it’s weekend here) and on my phone.

Firstly, there’s no harm running a small deficit. Inflation erodes the cost of borrowing over the long term. Just want to make that clear. A small deficit being 1-2% and the Tories have done well to bring the deficit down during this time.

Labour should run a surplus during the good years to ensure that every time the cycle brings about a large recession they can implement the public spending on infrastructure projects they clamour for to boost the economy and keep people in work. The left wing model is one of higher tax higher spend.

The Tories have no such desire to go down that route, they will always advocate austerity in lean years and lower tax and lower spend during the boom years.

I understand the merits in both of the above, but doing what Brown did was neither.
 
SWP's back said:
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?
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Yeah it is. Free-will is an illusion, every event in the universe is entirely predictable and predetermined by the laws of the universe, it's just that humans are sometimes too proud to acknowledge it. The reality is that if you, me or anybody else in the universe were given the exact same bodily makeup and lived the exact same life as somebody who watched Jeremy Kyle all day, then we would be watching Jeremy Kyle all day. So if people knew that before they knew what hand they were dealt, I doubt they would opt for a high-risk, winner-takes-it-all kind of capitalism and probably opt for a society where wealth inequality existed, but the rich paid more to ensure there was a decent safety net in place in case they got dealt a bad hand.
 
SWP's back said:
I really don’t feel that I’m going to be able to explain my feelings on this and the differences between Tory and Labour sufficient as I’m both half cut (it’s weekend here) and on my phone.

Firstly, there’s no harm running a small deficit. Inflation erodes the cost of borrowing over the long term. Just want to make that clear. A small deficit being 1-2% and the Tories have done well to bring the deficit down during this time.

Labour should run a surplus during the good years to ensure that every time the cycle brings about a large recession they can implement the public spending on infrastructure projects they clamour for to boost the economy and keep people in work. The left wing model is one of higher tax higher spend.

The Tories have no such desire to go down that route, they will always advocate austerity in lean years and lower tax and lower spend during the boom years.

I understand the merits in both of the above, but doing what Brown did was neither.
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Okay, fair enough. Good explanation.
 
Fame Monster said:
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?
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Sure.

I am not advocating everyone in the UK should pay the same flat (say) £8,793.34 in income tax irrespective of circumstances, am I.

As it stands, someone on £120k per year pays about £47,000 in tax and someone on £20k pays £3,000.

Is £47,000 not "more"? One might argue than the person on £120k should pay 6 times more than someone on £20k. But in fact they pay 15 times more already. Is that not enough "more"???
 
Fame Monster said:
Yeah it is. Free-will is an illusion, every event in the universe is entirely predictable and predetermined by the laws of the universe, it's just that humans are sometimes too proud to acknowledge it. The reality is that if you, me or anybody else in the universe were given the exact same bodily makeup and lived the exact same life as somebody who watched Jeremy Kyle all day, then we would be watching Jeremy Kyle all day. So if people knew that before they knew what hand they were dealt, I doubt they would opt for a high-risk, winner-takes-it-all kind of capitalism and probably opt for a society where wealth inequality existed, but the rich paid more to ensure there was a decent safety net in place in case they got dealt a bad hand.
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You been reading John Rawls?
 
Chippy_boy said:
Sure.

I am not advocating everyone in the UK should pay the same flat (say) £8,793.34 in income tax irrespective of circumstances, am I.

As it stands, someone on £120k per year pays about £47,000 in tax and someone on £20k pays £3,000.

Is £47,000 not "more"? One might argue than the person on £120k should pay 6 times more than someone on £20k. But in fact they pay 15 times more already. Is that not enough "more"???
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It depends on the circumstances the country is in, to answer your question. So 15 times more is sometimes enough, sometimes it's not enough and sometimes it's too much. But I was just wondering whether you agreed whether the rich should pay more on a general level, which you obviously do.
 
robbieh said:
You been reading John Rawls?
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In terms of the political philosophy then yes I read Rawls at university but I think a lot of people can reach that conclusion without reading his work if they acknowledge the opening part of my post, which is pretty much universal, post-enlightenment scientific thought (or at least in the West).
 
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