Student Riots

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Originally Posted by Bolton Midnight

Nobody has an exact figure on public sector waste...

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This is public money we are talking about, money that the government of the day collects from our taxes. Are you seriously wanting us to believe that while the public debt is known, and the money used to bail out the banks is known, that the government does not know what it is spending on public services and is incapable of identifying "waste"? Never mind that they are prepared to make potentially damaging and extensive cuts.

I'm sorry, but you have made sweeping statements about how useless the public sector is, and those that work in it are, without providing one shred of evidence.

By all means have a view of what should be done, but at least base it on some sort of reality rather than trotting out Tory soundbites. This is all of our futures we are talking about.

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Originally Posted by Bolton Midnight

I was annoyed about Labour's scrappage scheme as it only helped a small portion of the public sector, a reduction in business rates would have helped everyone and not just a few franchised car dealers.

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Congratulations for getting it so wrong.

We bought a Fiat 500 on scrappage which otherwise just wouldn't have been purchased.

It cost £10,720 now VAT was 15% back then so the VAT we paid on the car was almost £1400. Now the government contributed £1000 and Fiat contributed another £1000 so the government was actually £400 better off from us through the scrappage scheme. Now of course there were some cheaper cars like the Fiat Panda where the government probably lost maybe £200 or £300 but by and large the cost to the taxpayer of scrappage was probably very low or perhaps even a profit.

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Originally Posted by Rollo

I'm sorry, but that's one of the chief reasons why the Great Depression wasn't really stopped in Britain until there was a massive burst in Government Spending called WW2.

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So all the money spent on public works (at least here in the US) in the 30's didn't count? Why?

You are right that the war was the only thing that brought us out of the Depression, but it wasn't solely the public sector spending that did it.

The money spent on public works was largely designed to get the economy moving again. During FDR's first term of office and in part as a result of the First New Deal, GDP grew at quite high levels.

And yes it wasn't solely the public sector spending that did it, nothing is the sole reason for anything in economics.

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Originally Posted by Rollo

Wrong. If you reduce the size of the public sector to zero, then the resulting sectors of the economy need to keep spending at increased levels to maintain the same size of the economy.

Aggregate Income = Consumer Spending + Investment Spending + Government Spending + Exports Receipts - Savings - Taxation - Imports Payments

Y = C+I+G+X-S-T-M

The biggest aggregate stimulants of the economy are spending on Investment in new projects and Government spending (which quite often entails new projects like infrastructure).

Tax Cuts will change the immediate level of consumer spending and savings, but in an economy that's already depressed, tax cuts lead to increased savings as people's sentiment is uncertain and the economy shrinks because with the level of savings increasing, money is removed from the circular flow.
I'm sorry, but that's one of the chief reasons why the Great Depression wasn't really stopped in Britain until there was a massive burst in Government Spending called WW2.


Really? So policemen, doctors, teachers, road builders, politicians, council workers and civil servants don't need to eat, live in houses, pay their utility bills etc? Their incomes simply just diappear into thin air?
If the police force was privatised tommorrow and replace with a private firm, would their work which is identical to the previous day magically "create wealth" as you put it?

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I'm not saying get rid of the entire public sector, just all the non essential non jobs. We need bin men but we don't need bin inspectors or twenty managers of refuse collection - understand?

I've no problems about some large projects to help, some new super prisons, more roads, better airports - not stupid things like wind farms, olympics, drug drop in centres - build things that everyone will benefit from.

Tax Cuts under Tories helped create booms where everyone benefited. With interest rates as low as they are people won't save they will spend.

Tax cuts benefits everyone not just a select few within the public sector. Besides every penny the public sector earns comes from the private sector and the private sector is hurting right now so it only follows that the public sector must shrink and suffer also until the private sector can pay for them it is not the other way round the private sector should not suffer purely to fund the public sector that is idiotic in the extreme (Labour in other words).

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Originally Posted by ArrowsFA1

This is public money we are talking about, money that the government of the day collects from our taxes. Are you seriously wanting us to believe that while the public debt is known, and the money used to bail out the banks is known, that the government does not know what it is spending on public services and is incapable of identifying "waste"? Never mind that they are prepared to make potentially damaging and extensive cuts.

I'm sorry, but you have made sweeping statements about how useless the public sector is, and those that work in it are, without providing one shred of evidence.

By all means have a view of what should be done, but at least base it on some sort of reality rather than trotting out Tory soundbites. This is all of our futures we are talking about.

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If it was so easy to identify waste, then surely it would have been stopped a long time ago, unless you are suggesting Labour encouraged wasting taxpayer's hard earned?

Have you ever had dealings with the public sector, they are absolutely hopeless. A few days ago I got a 4 page bulletin all about how Croc shoes are not needle proof - no **** Sherlock. Some pillocks were paid my money to come up with that pearl of wisdom, no doubt a large committee that first had to go on a fact finding jaunt to Haiti. DVLA biggest bunch of ****wits known to man, after I was banned they didn't send my licence back for months and expected me to remain off the road until they got their act together then sent me two licences. Had to deal with CSA in the past due to an employee, in the end I refused to dock his salary as they just annoyed me so much they were not fit for purpose. Any local council, as much use as a chocolate fire guard yet pay themselves large salaries despite the people in their towns all suffering. But they are allowed to be useless as what alternative have you got, they know you have to go through them so can carry on being useless twats.

Have provided plenty of evidence, not my fault if you choose to ignore it, the taxpayers alliance website is packed with facts and figures re wasteful spending ditto the Ch 4 documentary about how the public sector is now so big it is bigger than the private sector that is still expected to fund it.

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Originally Posted by Daniel

Congratulations for getting it so wrong.

We bought a Fiat 500 on scrappage which otherwise just wouldn't have been purchased.

It cost £10,720 now VAT was 15% back then so the VAT we paid on the car was almost £1400. Now the government contributed £1000 and Fiat contributed another £1000 so the government was actually £400 better off from us through the scrappage scheme. Now of course there were some cheaper cars like the Fiat Panda where the government probably lost maybe £200 or £300 but by and large the cost to the taxpayer of scrappage was probably very low or perhaps even a profit.

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http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/n...for-money.html

http://www.thisismoney.co.uk/bargain..._page_id=53949

You'd have got a better discount without the scheme; well done you've been had.

And pray tell how did the scrappage scheme help a builder, dentist, teacher etc oh no it didn't they just had to fund it.

Not to mention the environmental damage of scrapping so many perfectly fine cars and the environmental damage of building so many unnecessary cars. Where will all the future learner/first cars come from if they have been dumped on airfields and left to rot?

Nope it was a silly scheme, a reduction in Business rates would have been far fairer and really helped the nation rather than a very small section of it. No doubt it was done to appease a few bolshy Union types seeing as they run Labour.

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Originally Posted by Bolton Midnight

Tax cuts benefits everyone not just a select few within the public sector. Besides every penny the public sector earns comes from the private sector and the private sector is hurting right now so it only follows that the public sector must shrink and suffer also until the private sector can pay for them it is not the other way round the private sector should not suffer purely to fund the public sector that is idiotic in the extreme (Labour in other words).

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Every penny the private sector earns comes from households and individuals.

If the public sector "shrinks", there isn't an immediate take up in slack in the economy. What you instantly create is a decrease in the aggregate demand for labour, and the rate of employment falls to a lower equilibrium position. Your solution is to solve the problems with the economy by deliberately causing a rise in unemployment. Rather than make the private sector "hurt" you would choose to exacerbate the problem by cutting off a great chunk of their incomes which is aggregate spending by households.

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Originally Posted by Bolton Midnight

And pray tell how did the scrappage scheme help a builder, dentist, teacher etc oh no it didn't they just had to fund it.

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By increasing aggregate demand for motor vehicles. Motor builders, traders, parts builders and other associated people would have then used their incomes and spent them on things like building works, dentistry, teaching and tutorage etc.

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Originally Posted by Rollo

Every penny the private sector earns comes from households and individuals.

If the public sector "shrinks", there isn't an immediate take up in slack in the economy. What you instantly create is a decrease in the aggregate demand for labour, and the rate of employment falls to a lower equilibrium position. Your solution is to solve the problems with the economy by deliberately causing a rise in unemployment. Rather than make the private sector "hurt" you would choose to exacerbate the problem by cutting off a great chunk of their incomes which is aggregate spending by households.

By increasing aggregate demand for motor vehicles. Motor builders, traders, parts builders and other associated people would have then used their incomes and spent them on things like building works, dentistry, teaching and tutorage etc.

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You can not just give money we don't have to the public sector and hope that they will spend it within the private sector who will give a percentage of it back to fund the public sector, the maths just don't work.

Pay some manager 50k, he then gives roughly a third of that back to the state in Tax and NI, so the private sector is now 35k worse off, the manager spends most of that 34k in the private sector who then give a third to the state in tax/NI say 10k - so the private sector has spent 35k to keep 25k. Sack the manager and pay him benefits only and we can then have a tax cut which will enable us to spend more within the private sector. Everyone wins and if the manager is any good he'll soon find work within the private sector and suddenly realise what the real world is all about.

No it did not, all it did was earn money for foreign car makers at the expense of British taxpayers.

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Originally Posted by Rollo

The money spent on public works was largely designed to get the economy moving again. During FDR's first term of office and in part as a result of the First New Deal, GDP grew at quite high levels.

And yes it wasn't solely the public sector spending that did it, nothing is the sole reason for anything in economics.

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The New Deal worked sooo well. That's why the unemployment rate in 1936 was still 15% and went up again to 18% in 1938. Yep those public works sure did pull us right out of the Depression.