Not The Politics Thread.

[Carl the Llama]

23 minutes ago, StanSP said:

How much has the national debt changed since Tory government came in to power? 

 

Over a decade in power, that is...

Experience tells me it must have been drastically reduced as a result of austerity and the vast costs saved by not investing in benefits relative to inflation but encouraging the poorest members of society to seek privately funded support structures ie. Food banks.  You're surely not going to tell me my feelings are not factual?

[FoxyPV]

 

[Sampson]

Great, but long interview with John Major, if you have the time it's well worth listening to. I do wonder whether he even considers himself a small or big c conservative anymore, rather than more aligned with LibDems/New Labour, or whether it's just because he sees this particular government as a much bigger danger to the checks and balances which are designed to hold up the fragility of democracy. 
 

 

[Buce]

[Greg2607]

3 hours ago, Claridge said:

The experience of labour governments

If you search for the information, you'll find that labour governments have been responsible for more instances of surpluses in the economy than the Tories have. 

 

Labour are actually better at running the economy than the Tories. 

 

It's just that the media are all Tory bedfellows so focus on all of the negatives and spread half truths. 

 

https://www.google.com/amp/s/theconversation.com/amp/labour-are-much-better-at-running-the-economy-than-voters-think-new-research-162368

 

https://www.channel4.com/news/factcheck/factcheck-qa-which-party-has-a-better-track-record-on-the-economy

 

https://www.primeeconomics.org/articles/taq30tk04ljnvpyfos059pp0w7gnpe/

 

 

 

 

 

 

Edited 6 November 2021 by Greg2607

[Dunge]

2 hours ago, FoxyPV said:

 

In response to you, @Carl the Llama, this is a good indication of the principles I like to see: When the Conservatives came to power, the debt was increasing a lot year on year, ie deficit. They brought that down over time, albeit debt itself remained high and the situation needed more work. Then the pandemic hit, of course.

 

My concern with Labour, as a comparison, is that they might find things to spend money on, that they wouldn’t be so good at saying No and making the tough decisions if they couldn’t afford it. (Although Gordon Brown largely was, and I credit him for it.)

 

Still, voting is all about trying to predict the future, isn’t it?

 

(And no, it’s not that I have a dataset to define it all; it’s more a judgement.)

Edited 6 November 2021 by Dunge

[LiberalFox]

The narrative that Labour were somehow irresponsible with public spending compared to the coalition and/or Conservative governments that followed doesn't really have much basis in fact. 

[Greg2607]

11 minutes ago, Dunge said:

In response to you, @Carl the Llama, this is a good indication of the principles I like to see: When the Conservatives came to power, the debt was increasing a lot year on year, ie deficit. They brought that down over time, albeit debt itself remained high and the situation needed more work. Then the pandemic hit, of course.

 

My concern with Labour, as a comparison, is that they might find things to spend money on, that they wouldn’t be so good at saying No and making the tough decisions if they couldn’t afford it. (Although Gordon Brown largely was, and I credit him for it.)

 

Still, voting is all about trying to predict the future, isn’t it?

 

(And no, it’s not that I have a dataset to define it all; it’s more a judgement.)

Ah yes.... The way they reduced debt from 62% of GDP to 84% of GDP.  🤔😳

[Dunge]

6 minutes ago, Greg2607 said:

Ah yes.... The way they reduced debt from 62% of GDP to 84% of GDP.  🤔😳

Look at the rate of increase.

[jgtuk]

How many Centrists does it take to change a light bulb?

None. They'd rather sit in the dark and blame Corbyn.

[Carl the Llama]

1 hour ago, Dunge said:

In response to you, @Carl the Llama, this is a good indication of the principles I like to see: When the Conservatives came to power, the debt was increasing a lot year on year, ie deficit. They brought that down over time, albeit debt itself remained high and the situation needed more work. Then the pandemic hit, of course.

 

My concern with Labour, as a comparison, is that they might find things to spend money on, that they wouldn’t be so good at saying No and making the tough decisions if they couldn’t afford it. (Although Gordon Brown largely was, and I credit him for it.)

The average yearly increase of those figures is smaller during the Blair/Brown years, despite the 08 crash, than the administrations since so that doesn't ring true with me.

1 hour ago, Dunge said:

(And no, it’s not that I have a dataset to define it all; it’s more a judgement.)

Or in other words, a 'feeling'.  You cant feasibly cite the economic advantages if you aren't basing it on any metrics, that's not how making economic arguments works.

 

[Dunge]

32 minutes ago, Carl the Llama said:

The average yearly increase of those figures is smaller during the Blair/Brown years, despite the 08 crash, than the administrations since so that doesn't ring true with me.

Or in other words, a 'feeling'.  You cant feasibly cite the economic advantages if you aren't basing it on any metrics, that's not how making economic arguments works.

 

- I’m not quite sure what you mean here, because debt and deficit leapt up following that crash, taking ages to get back under control (and even then just to a balanced deficit, not yet reducing debt). Before that they were prudent and I thought that was largely fine. I thought Brown was a decent chancellor for the most part actually. But he was also strong and put his foot down when necessary.

 

Worth noting that I don’t categorise it as merely a tribal feeling. There are some stats provided above for instance, that it seems I and others are interpreting in very different ways. There are so many moving parts to economics and so many theories and contrasting ideas that there will always be a significant element of “what you think will work” through theory, judgement, ideology and demographics rather than datasets or metrics that are often interpreted in different ways. A lot of the time when I read people making arguments for left wing economics it comes across as cooking the books rather than balancing them. Despite their shortcomings, I trust the Conservatives to do that. I need convincing that Labour will, that they understand that spending forever larger amounts on things that don’t make or save money has consequences, that they can say No to good, deserving causes because the economy has to work. I do believe Starmer understands that. I never believed that Corbyn did. I’m not convinced the SNP do, and that it would hit them as a big shock in an independent Scotland.

 

I believe economics is largely about not getting it wrong more than it is getting it right. There is a range of possibilities in both categories.

[Spiritwalker]

2 hours ago, Greg2607 said:

If you search for the information, you'll find that labour governments have been responsible for more instances of surpluses in the economy than the Tories have. 

 

Labour are actually better at running the economy than the Tories. 

 

It's just that the media are all Tory bedfellows so focus on all of the negatives and spread half truths. 

 

https://www.google.com/amp/s/theconversation.com/amp/labour-are-much-better-at-running-the-economy-than-voters-think-new-research-162368

 

https://www.channel4.com/news/factcheck/factcheck-qa-which-party-has-a-better-track-record-on-the-economy

 

https://www.primeeconomics.org/articles/taq30tk04ljnvpyfos059pp0w7gnpe/

 

 

 

 

 

 

I was going to reply that he was buying into a media myth, but your explanation is better.

[Carl the Llama]

22 minutes ago, Dunge said:

- I’m not quite sure what you mean here, because debt and deficit leapt up following that crash, taking ages to get back under control (and even then just to a balanced deficit, not yet reducing debt). Before that they were prudent and I thought that was largely fine. I thought Brown was a decent chancellor for the most part actually. But he was also strong and put his foot down when necessary.

 

Worth noting that I don’t categorise it as merely a tribal feeling. There are some stats provided above for instance, that it seems I and others are interpreting in very different ways. There are so many moving parts to economics and so many theories and contrasting ideas that there will always be a significant element of “what you think will work” through theory, judgement, ideology and demographics rather than datasets or metrics that are often interpreted in different ways. A lot of the time when I read people making arguments for left wing economics it comes across as cooking the books rather than balancing them. Despite their shortcomings, I trust the Conservatives to do that. I need convincing that Labour will, that they understand that spending forever larger amounts on things that don’t make or save money has consequences, that they can say No to good, deserving causes because the economy has to work. I do believe Starmer understands that. I never believed that Corbyn did. I’m not convinced the SNP do, and that it would hit them as a big shock in an independent Scotland.

 

I believe economics is largely about not getting it wrong more than it is getting it right. There is a range of possibilities in both categories.

I mean precisely that. Despite being the govt of quantitative easing (the main reason deficit shot up) they still managed to have less of a deleterious impact on our debt-to-GDP ratio than the people who made a big show of minimising expenditure with their austerity politics. 

Why do you trust these people to "balance the books"? When have they demonstrated any acumen for it? Examples please.

[Dunge]

6 minutes ago, Carl the Llama said:

I mean precisely that. Despite being the govt of quantitative easing (the main reason deficit shot up) they still managed to have less of a deleterious impact on our debt-to-GDP ratio than the people who made a big show of minimising expenditure with their austerity politics. 

Why do you trust these people to "balance the books"? When have they demonstrated any acumen for it? Examples please.

I believe the very example you cite as them being disastrous is the slow process of balancing the books, because it’s about reducing the deficit - which came about because of QE, which came about because of the financial crash. Blair/Brown kept things level but didn’t start with anything like that sort of problem. The main problem they had was poor and underfunded public services, which they set about funding, although again slowly.

[Big Dave]

53 minutes ago, Dunge said:

 I thought Brown was a decent chancellor for the most part actually. But he was also strong and put his foot down when necessary.

 

……apart from selling 50% of the country’s gold reserves, when the gold market had hit rock bottom.

[jgtuk]

20 minutes ago, Big Dave said:

 

Edited 6 November 2021 by jgtuk
Can’t be bothered

[Guest Kopfkino]

4 minutes ago, Big Dave said:

……apart from selling 50% of the country’s gold reserves, when the gold market had hit rock bottom.

it always amuses me that people of a certain age have this absolute obsession with Brown selling the gold, it’s almost like a mini-Iraq for him. It’s not quite the bad decision often painted and it was a little unfortunate but I do find it amusing that it’s just the first thing loads of people will say if you mention Brown given if you weren’t around at the time you’d probably have absolutely no idea what it was about if mentioned unaware.

 

 

 

 

 

The who is better at ‘managing’ the economy is such an imbecilic argument either way, classic tribal politics detaching itself from the actual situation and the merits. It’s a values argument masquerading as objective and quantifiable, but a Conservative voter isn’t going to be convinced by an ‘akshually’ argument, why do they think x matters and why do they think it’s the best approach makes more sense.

 

Even more imbecilic when you distil it down to debt/GDP ratio. I get why you’d hold the Conservatives to account, they hung their hat on it from the crisis to 2016 cos it was politically useful but just the raw figures is a bit strawman and the actual debate of whether you should target debt/GDP ratio and what is the best way to tackle it in the wider economic context is completely lost. Shame.

[Dunge]

2 minutes ago, Kopfkino said:

it always amuses me that people of a certain age have this absolute obsession with Brown selling the gold, it’s almost like a mini-Iraq for him. It’s not quite the bad decision often painted and it was a little unfortunate but I do find it amusing that it’s just the first thing loads of people will say if you mention Brown given if you weren’t around at the time you’d probably have absolutely no idea what it was about if mentioned unaware.

 

 

 

 

 

The who is better at ‘managing’ the economy is such an imbecilic argument either way, classic tribal politics detaching itself from the actual situation and the merits. It’s a values argument masquerading as objective and quantifiable, but a Conservative voter isn’t going to be convinced by an ‘akshually’ argument, why do they think x matters and why do they think it’s the best approach makes more sense.

 

Even more imbecilic when you distil it down to debt/GDP ratio. I get why you’d hold the Conservatives to account, they hung their hat on it from the crisis to 2016 cos it was politically useful but just the raw figures is a bit strawman and the actual debate of whether you should target debt/GDP ratio and what is the best way to tackle it in the wider economic context is completely lost. Shame.

Tag. You’re It. 

[Guest Kopfkino]

28 minutes ago, Dunge said:

Tag. You’re It. 

My input is that it is stupid whichever way. It’s just a game of let’s pick an economic measurement that I can construct a point around and then pretend it actually says anything useful. If we shorn everything of context we can say absolutely anything we want.

 

Like you can pick it apart anyway without such silliness. You can say the Conservatives shouldn’t have been cutting public spending when they did, it was not economically sane to try cutting spending so quickly following the financial crisis and certainly not during the ensuing Euro crisis.
That would be a reasonable discussion. Like you might also say Brown’s proclamation of the ‘end of boom and bust’ meant they took their eye off the ball and ran economic policy from a position of complacency, that allowing RBS to become what it did is evidence of that. Given the Conservatives spent the whole time nodding along, you could criticise Brown but you’d struggle to say they’d have been better on the economy when they offered no alternative.

 

Rather than some time-series correlations to political party banner It’s about the approach they actually took and the potential counterfactuals in that situation.

Edited 6 November 2021 by Kopfkino

[RobHawk]

Just to add, I'm also tired (and have been for 12+ years) of people looking at the economy as a 2 dimentional thing. 

 

It's easy to say and understand that if you are spending more than you are making you need to cut your bills (austerity). 

 

But economically this is a bullshit argument because it completely ignored growth. If you invest wisely into an economy the amount of money that comes in to the treasury increases Thus meaning you don't need to cut public spending as deeply as the coilition did. 

 

I've always felt that this argument was just a touch too difficult for the electorate to understand so it was easier to compare the country's finances to your household income and expenditure. But this is wrong, moronic and it still pisses me off.

[SecretPro]

Sunday Times isn't looking too good for Johnson from what I can see on twitter. More Sleaze coming to light, including MPs taking money from Southern Water in the last few weeks (a big player in the Sewage Scandal) and talk of Hoyle being extremely angry putting something forward in Parliament on Monday.  

[FoxyPV]

If you want to move away from debt / GDP, I'd look at how most people are doing in the economy and nothing about the Tories over the last 10+ years shows that they've made things better for anyone but the already wealthy.

 

Food banks have increased exponentially, public services are in an even worse state, austerity has been proven to be unnecessary and has killed thousands, ****ing Brexit......to mention but a few things 

 

I say this from the depths of my soul - fvck the Tories.

[What the Fuchs?]

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/conservative-party-corruption-lords-seat-b1952962.html?amp
Surprising, wouldn’t have thought the Tories would be selling seats in the Lords to their donors when they’re already selling their MPs to the highest bidder and selling access to cabinet members to dictate party policy. Thought it was only the prime minister’s relatives, friendly media moguls, sycophants and nice billionaires who pay for his holidays that Johnson did favours for, I was mistaken!

[LiberalFox]

I actually didn't have too much problem with the thought of McDonnel as chancellor. His proposals for public spending were well researched and based on similar schemes that had been successful in other countries. I have no idea who the current shadow chancellor is. Apparently it's Rachael Reeves.