Student Riots

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Originally Posted by Bolton Midnight

...the coalition's hands are tied re penalising banker's bonuses

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No they're not. They're the government. They are fully able to act regarding bankers bonuses, and they already have just this month, although as this article points out Osborne claimed credit for the very policies his government tried to squash.

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Originally Posted by Bolton Midnight

The only way to get folk spending is tax cuts and we can't have them until Labour's debts have been reduced...

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I know that John Prescott has said Labour needs to tackle its debt, but that's not really any concern of anyone but the Labour Party.

Of much greater concern is that the CBI's departing director general has said that the current government has “taken a series of policy initiatives for political reasons, apparently careless of the damage that they might do to business and to job creation. It's not enough just to slam on the spending brakes. Measures that cut spending but killed demand would actually make matters worse."

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Originally Posted by Bolton Midnight

The only way to get folk spending is tax cuts and we can't have them until Labour's debts have been reduced, so massive cuts to public spending have to come first.

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Not at all. The biggest barrier to consumer spending is lack of confidence: people are worrying about their own job security, and whether they'll see their pay shrink in real terms if they're still employed.

It's a vicious circle, the fear of a double-dip recession is real (as I write this, 68% of respondents to a poll in your trusted Daily Mailforecast one) and will supress spending - supressed spending makes a double-dip recession more likely.

Few people are saying that cuts are unnecessary, but it's the scale and the speed of them which is going to destroy the economy.

Of course you are right Dave and cuts for cuts sake is a destructive policy.

The government is in a no win situation. Whatever cuts they make witll be unpopular with that part of the population and they have to make cuts across all the population. They will be universally dammed because we will all feel hard done by and any condemnation against what hurts us personally will be grabbed with both hands, arms, legs feet and teeth as possible.

Every action they take will be analysed in hindsight and a myriad of different conclusions produced to suit opinion.

However, spending has to be curtailed and cuts must be made. All these experts were living it up when Labour spent us into this mess and nobody remembered that these things go in cycles. What was it? The end of Boom and Bust. No more recessions, just stable economic growth? Remember those words?

So I suggest we tighten our belts and appreciate it's going to be rough but in a couple of years, we will have rode out the worst and hopefully, those experts will have learned the lesson this time.... although somehow I doubt it.

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Originally Posted by Bolton Midnight

The only way to get folk spending is tax cuts and we can't have them until Labour's debts have been reduced, so massive cuts to public spending have to come first.

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Who was it that posted the link that showed that public debt when Labour left govt was better than when they'd come in? :laugh:

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Originally Posted by skc

The government is in a no win situation. Whatever cuts they make witll be unpopular with that part of the population and they have to make cuts across all the population.

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I think most people recognise cuts have to be made but:
1. The idea that Labour were and are the cause of the UK's economic problems is a tabloid headline of an explanation.
2. "We're all in this together" doesn't stand up when some clearly are not as yet and may never be.
3. Government promises over a number of issues have to date proved to be empty which makes trust an issue.
4. Short term pain, long term gain is as meaningful as no more boom or bust.

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Originally Posted by ArrowsFA1

1. The idea that Labour were and are the cause of the UK's economic problems is a tabloid headline of an explanation.

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Personally I believe that everyday people share some of the blame too. People thought they were getting rich when the prices of their houses were just going up and up and up and thought they couldn't lose when buying property so kept on buying at ever increasing prices and were happy borrowing silly at sily LTV's (loan to value). Sure the banks were bad for lending stupid money but what about the morons who borrowed it who should have known better?

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Originally Posted by skc

All these experts were living it up when Labour spent us into this mess and nobody remembered that these things go in cycles. What was it? The end of Boom and Bust. No more recessions, just stable economic growth? Remember those words?

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But don't forget that, when it suited them, the Conservatives backed Labour's policies. In 2007 - when it appeared there might be a General Election in the wake of Brown becoming PM - George Osborne pledged to match Labour's spending for at least two years.

He's Chancellor now, so let's remember his words back then:

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The result of adopting these spending totals is that under a Conservative government there will be real increases in spending on public services, year after year.

The charge from our opponents that we will cut services becomes transparently false."

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http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/6975536.stm

So as shadow chancellor he either failed to understand the economy or he was lying. He can't blame Labour for doing what he admits he would have done himself.

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Originally Posted by Dave B

Yes. It's overly simplistic and deeply flawed. It fails to take into account, just for starters, the revenue brought to the exchequer by those notional employees when they spend their wages - the 20% VAT for example. The economy is a bit more complicated than I think you understand.

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So on that basis why not give the unemployed 2k a month, and let them spend it, after all it'll be good for the economy.

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Originally Posted by skc

We both agree that the scrappage scheme paid for itself by the amount of VAT raised on the sale of new cars, yes?

No, my old Dingleberry, it was a smoke and mirrors stunt that on the surface hasn't cost anything, when you scratch the surface, it explains the mentality of a Government that spent, spent, spent until the country was basically bankrupt.

At the moment, we owe a slither less than one Trillion pounds and if you take into account things like the pension liability bombshell (oh yes, we haven't even really considered that yet), then the figure is eye wateringly large. But even without this, for the first time since the early severnties, debt has passed 50% of our GDP and even with all the cuts so far, it's increasing.

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But it didn't, the cost to administrate it is not be counted.

Agreed, anyone in business (so that totally rules out anyone in the public sector as they seem to think money grows on trees) knows you can not spend your way out of debt.

State pensions are a massive time bomb, even the public sector has not a clue how that is going to be funded. It needs to be massively cut - slash and burn only way to sort out the oversized state that Labour created.