advertisement


UK Election 2015 (part II)

Status
Not open for further replies.
uk-national-debt-600x424.png

Interesting to note that even at the very worst of the WWII debt peak the country could still create and implement the NHS, build nuclear power stations, lead the world in military hardware ('V' bombers, Lightning, Harrier, Chieftain tank etc etc), design and build our own trains, planes and cars etc, even develop Concord! I know there are other factors (computer automation, globalisation etc) but it still really highlights how utterly hopeless and destructive thirty years+ of neoliberalism and the lurch to the short-term thinking of the right has been for the UK.
 
Another good graph is who the national debt is owed to. This is up to 2012 when debt was just over 1 trillion. A lot is merely owed to the Bank of England!

percent-gilt-holdings.jpg
 
Joe,

Matthew missed out some important words:-

"and the resulting slowdown may have cost 5% of GDP, or £1,500 for every man, woman and child in Britain".

Nobody knows what would have actually happened.

The OBR numbers are used because a) they come from a source the government is more than happy to quote and b) they are so conservative that we don't need in practical terms to worry about difficulties of predicting hypotheticals.

But you are quite correct that the actual numbers are almost certainly much higher. But for the political point that Osborne made a catastrophic, generational level error the very secure OBR numbers will do just fine.
 
Another good graph is who the national debt is owed to. This is up to 2012 when debt was just over 1 trillion. A lot is merely owed to the Bank of England!

That's the result of QE and in theory the BoE will sell them back at some point (and "destroy" the money they receive in return).
 
Darth,

If a frog had wings it wouldn't bump its ass a hoppin', but it doesn't so it does.

Joe
 
Another good graph is who the national debt is owed to. This is up to 2012 when debt was just over 1 trillion. A lot is merely owed to the Bank of England!

Can anyone explain re the amount owed to the BoE, or is it just "internal" debt?
 
If a frog had wings it wouldn't bump its ass a hoppin', but it doesn't so it does.

Dear Sir,

Just a quick note to say that the winged frog of which you speak can count upon my vote in the upcoming election.

Yours sincerely
 
This is an oft-repeated straw man. I am certainly not saying that Brown caused the crash. I am saying that a budget deficit during the boom made it difficult to apply Keynsian stimulus during the bust. It would be fair to say that we can blame the last Labour government for the need for any austerity measures since.

I don't think so.

Whose 'argument' is the real Straw Man here?

My understanding of a Straw Man is that it is a logical fallacy.

It is not logically fallacious to argue that the banking crisis, caused by the banks, would have happened, irrespective of the activities of the Brown Govt.

Furthermore, Keynsian Stimulus', as you term it, is precisely what Brown is accused of applying prior to the crash, but is criticised for applying after the crash. You can't have it both ways.

Mull
 
A straw man is to misrepresent someone's argument in such a way that it is easy to refute. Steven is suggesting that Brown's opponents do not really say he caused the financial crisis but rather that he failed to take the appropriate macroprudential policy actions to ensure that we could deal with it in a Kenyesian way.

Although as I pointed out he is wrong to say that albeit for different reasons, as as Simon Wren-Lewis would say there is a half truth in what Steven is saying which is what makes it a popular line of argument.
 
It is not logically fallacious to argue that the banking crisis, caused by the banks, would have happened, irrespective of the activities of the Brown Govt.

Furthermore, Keynsian Stimulus', as you term it, is precisely what Brown is accused of applying prior to the crash, but is criticised for applying after the crash. You can't have it both ways.

Of course the banking crisis would have hit irrespective of what our govt did. We could argue that the FSA, the Labour governments 'eyes and ears' in the finance industry, should have seen what was coming and should have done more to prevent it.....

One criticism of Brown was that in the long boom period, the UK was spending quite prolifically and running a deficit (plus countless PFI funded projects on top) whereas other Western economies were not. They were, compared to us, being quite conservative, so when the inevitable crash hit, we were in a much worse situation to be able to deal with the crisis than others like Germany.

Keynes doesn't advocate government stimulus spending during boom periods. He suggests reduced state spending in the booms to let the private sector take up the momentum and increased stimulus spending in recessionary periods when the private sector typically cuts back. Brown did spend in the boom and wanted to spend more in the recession. It was he who wanted it 'both ways' and it was Labour ministers/MP's citing Keynes to justify their spending plans after the crash but they weren't adhering to Keynes whilst we were in the boom, probably because their egos got in the way.
 
After the previous tory govt from 1979 money had to be spent on UK public services. The economy was very much ok until the greed of the bankers hit.

Some may have forgotten the state of our hospitals (for example) but many have not forgotten. It takes money to change things after such tory neglect, regardless of what else needs fixing.

The tories have destroyed many public services again so they need rebuilding yet again. Those who don't want public services need to simply admit it instead of all this waffling, lying and building of strawmen.
 
John Humphrys was abysmal this morning. Gideon did his usual thing of not letting the interviewer get a word in edge-ways, and Humphrys seemed quite content to let him get away with it.
 
Chaps

If you ever go on a negotiation course, you will quickly learn that there is no such thing as a DEFINABLE strawman. If it illustrates the point or potentially illustrates a point, then it is legitimate, even if the example used is false.

It is just a technique such as "facepalming" or saying "you don't know what you are talking about" or accusing them of trolling.

The main tool used on internet fora is sheer repetition.

When you are in an office environment, you tend to rationally discuss subjects, are prepared to be flexible and often come to an amicable agreement with your opponent.

On fora it tend to be more dogmatic and this is illustrated by the same people saying the same thing for years and it is rare for someone to change their mind.


Mick
 
John Humphrys was abysmal this morning. Gideon did his usual thing of not letting the interviewer get a word in edge-ways, and Humphrys seemed quite content to let him get away with it.

I noticed that too. Osborne was positing that the choice was between a Tory government or a Labour/SNP coalition, conveniently forgetting that it is extremely likely that the Tories will also have to do deals - and with the UKIP.

Humphrys didn't challenge this at all.

Maybe he's fed up too? I'm annoyed with all of the the pointless questions being asked about the minutiae of specific spending or the UKIP stance on cheese mining and the Greens commitment to dry stone wall repairs in Yorkshire - along with other policies that will never see the light of day.

What I really want to hear is a debate about what kind of country we want to live in.

Do we want a the UK to become a proper social democracy or a US style free for all? And if the former, what exactly do we need to to to get there? The latter is easier, of course. Lets stop the pussyfooting.


Stephen
 
What I really want to hear is a debate about what kind of country we want to live in.
A TV debate between the PM and the leader of Her Majesty's Most Loyal Opposition would be a start.
 
This chap, who you seem currently to quote a lot, seems somewhat non-objective to me.

'Profligacy' and 'mild imprudence' are a matter of semantics that depend on how you look at them. And why would you use a chart of debt as a percentage of GDP to illustrate it? Debt and GDP are not independent, the other half of your (and his) argument is that debt generates GDP, so profligacy isn't reflected in the rate of rise in the plotted value, it might show up in the consequences though. Oh.... It is indeed disingenuous.

Paul
 
Status
Not open for further replies.


advertisement


Back
Top