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UK Election 2015 (part II)

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cooky1257

pfm Member
Sadly the Torys(and their supporters) seem to think 20/20 hindsight empowered them with 20/20 foresight-it didn't/doesn't, they wanted less regulation and signed off every single Labour Budget. But then they are peerless when it comes to lies.
 
Genuine Keynsian economics seeks to mitigate not eliminate the effects of boom and bust; you create a budget surplus during the boom and borrow during the bust, usually to invest in capital infrastructure projects that also require a significant labour force.

This investment precipitates the economy back to the boom part of the cycle with enduring benefits that create an upward economic trend that rises through the boom-bust cycle.

In the boom period the budget surplus then reduces the overall debt which, coupled with a reasonable level of inflation wipes out the debt.

Unfortunately Brown's version of Keynsian economics was to borrow during the boom (on the basis that he thought he'd ended the cycle) and have to borrow even more during the bust.

And "there is no more money left" was the legacy to the current coalition...
The tory fantasy again that Brown caused the global economic problems. :D
I think you'll find banks were the main problem.
 
Sadly the Tory's(and their supporters) seem to think 20/20 hindsight empowered them with 20/20 foresight-it didn't/doesn't, they wanted less regulation and signed off every single Labour Budget. But then they are peerless when it comes to lies.
Very true.
 
I think Osborne did make some tweaks to the austerity plan when he realised that it wasn't working given a number of outside factors. Credit to him is due for such pragmatism overiding ideology.

It is now working and a reintroduction of a more profligate approach is only going to undermine progress now taking place.

Once again the sequence of events as they actually happened:

1) Osborne launches Plan A, Austerity.

2) Plan A is not working and has snuffed out the nascent recovery engendered by Labour with their Plan B ("A is Too far too fast").

3) Plan A is abandoned in favour of Plan B ("A is Too Far too fast") rhetoric continues with Plan A for political reasons.

4) "Plan A worked we need MOAR PLAN A".

So pragmatism didn't override ideology, he made a terrible, costly mistake that has damaged our economy far worse than anything Gordon Brown did and then adopted the policies of the people he now brands as economically incompetent.
 
I've posted this before, but I'll do it again for the benefit of the deluded out there who believe the Tories and tory media and swallow the myth that only the Tories can be trusted with the economy.


GDP%2Bper%2Bhead%2Bwith%2Blabels.jpg


For the last 65 years, whether Tory or Labour government GDP / head has followed a trend-line..other underlying data backs this up. Unless the government does somethng insanely stupid the economy grows fairly consistently irrespective of the colour of the government. However, this ConDem coalition did something stupid, Austerity. Growth, productivity have cratered. The economy is now slowly struggling back to some growth DESPITE austerity and the Tory policies, NOT because of them.

The way to reduce the budget deficit is to grow the economy, generate tax revenue and thereby reduce benefit claims. One of the issues we have is that the tax base has been eroded by companies offshoring their profits and the 1% hiding their income and wealth in tax-dodges. The last figure I saw was that this costs the exchequer about £20-30bn pa, but the Tories will never do anything about this.
 
Excellent.

Or to precis it.

Tory economic policy and rhetoric is a rather thin smokescreen to hide theft.
 
What should we have done without to ensure no budget deficit between 2001 and 2007?
And would 2001 - 2007 been acceptable to the country as a whole?

There was a lot of expenditure with precious little to show for it. It is too easy to squander other people's money on increasing the scope and power of government for its own sake. I remember one catastrophic, wasteful, eye-wateringly expensive and utterly pointless IT project in particular.

We could have done without nothing.
 
Sadly the Tory's(and their supporters) seem to think 20/20 hindsight empowered them with 20/20 foresight-it didn't/doesn't, they wanted less regulation and signed off every single Labour Budget.
What?

And, FWIW, quantity of regulation is irrelevant.

But then they are peerless when it comes to lies.
That's a very unselfaware comment coming in the same paragraph that contains a completely unnecessary untruth.

We'll leave the inappropriate apostrophe on the table for now.

Paul
 
I've posted this before, but I'll do it again for the benefit of the deluded out there who believe the Tories and tory media and swallow the myth that only the Tories can be trusted with the economy.


GDP%2Bper%2Bhead%2Bwith%2Blabels.jpg


For the last 65 years, whether Tory or Labour government GDP / head has followed a trend-line..
You seem to be making very basic statistical errors.

FWIW what actually is 'GDP per head, logged'?

other underlying data backs this up. Unless the government does somethng insanely stupid the economy grows fairly consistently irrespective of the colour of the government. However, this ConDem coalition did something stupid, Austerity. Growth, productivity have cratered. The economy is now slowly struggling back to some growth DESPITE austerity and the Tory policies, NOT because of them..
Your chart shows a historically catastrophic drop in 'GDP per head, logged' during the financial crisis, so nothing to with the coalition or 'austerity'. It then shows a resumption of growth trend indistinguishable from the historic line you've drawn. It's pretty clear that the trend line doesn't include recent history, why not redraw it to show all available data, and the trend overall?

FWIW I'm always very suspicious of people who fit lines to data and use them to project the future without an underlying physical model to justify the use of a line. And who don't explain what the data they are graphing is, or where it is sourced.

Paul
 
Your chart shows a historically catastrophic drop in 'GDP per head, logged' during the financial crisis, so nothing to with the coalition or 'austerity'. It then shows a resumption of growth trend indistinguishable from the historic line you've drawn.

Because the recovery under Labour followed the path predicted by models based on past recessions and how the economy recovers from deep financial shocks. There are lots of models and theories about how all this works from Keynes, to Hicks, to Samuelson, to Friedman, to Neo-Liberalism, to New Keynesianism.

There are no models for Austerity; a policy which caused the path of recovery to deviate from the expectation when applied, and revert to the predicted path when removed.
 
The post collapse trend looks pretty similar to that in 2001-2007. You could infer from that chart that stimulation leads to reduced rates of growth, given the change between 1995-2001 and subsequent and that Brown started serious spending in 2001 and continued right up until there was no money left. Subsequently minimum austerity spending is still constrained by that prior history of unfunded spending.

And it's not like we ever actually had 'austerity'.

I'm still unclear what 'GDP per head, logged' means. If 'logged' means 'logarithm of' then that's both appalling English and appears to assume the potential for exponentials. Which are unlikely in reality. So maybe that's not what it means.

Paul
 
Why state the bleeding obvious - it's in their manifesto and it is there because it works.

Labour will do the same to a lesser degree as will the Libs. So the three main parties will continue with a varying degree of austerity.

If you disagree with austerity you got to vote SNP or Green because only they are anti.

Again all very obvious because it's in their manifestos. There is no need to state it here, I think we all know it.
Where has it worked?

2010 - 2012 = cuts = unmitigated disaster
2012 - 2015 = spends = growing economy (i.e. shrugging off the cape of ideology in practice, whilst still pretending to wear the cape of ideology in statements)

The most remarkable part of the Tory tenure has been to frame Labour with 'austerity' and Labour has followed suit, foolishly.
 
Where has it worked?

2010 - 2012 = cuts = unmitigated disaster
2012 - 2015 = spends = growing economy (i.e. shrugging off the cape of ideology in practice, whilst still pretending to wear the cape of ideology in statements)

The most remarkable part of the Tory tenure has been to frame Labour with 'austerity' and Labour has followed suit, foolishly.

Greg

It is foolish comments such as "unmitigated disaster" that makes me despair.

It is impossible to discuss anything with someone who bandies expressions like that around.

The FSTE 1000 has grown by approx 20% under Gideon which beats inflation.

We are creating more jobs etc than anyone else in Europe and according to Newsnight, last night, nearly 80% of those jobs are full time. The economy is expanding faster than most EU countries so the only people doing the moaning are the usual professional moaners.

We need more of the medicine, not less and that is why Labour and the Libs will continue with it. The electorate will decide what it wants and what you and I think on a hifi forum is of no importance at all, hence my much reduced input into these pointless discussions and before you ask, Yes I will pull out of this and I already regret my input into it as I am not going to convert you to my way of thinking and vice versa. We are both wasting our time.

Mick
 
Charles Dickens comments: 'I do not remember having ever fainted away, or having even been moved to tears of joyful pride, at sight of any legislative body. I have borne the House of Commons like a man, and have yielded to no weakness, but slumber, in the House of Lords. I have seen elections for borough and county, and have never been impelled (no matter which party won) to damage my hat by throwing it in the air in triumph, or to crack my voice by shouting forth any reference to our Glorious Constitution, to the noble purity of our independent voters, or the unimpeachable integrity of our independent members' ("American Notes", 1842)
 
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