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UK Election 2015 (part II)

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Mick P said:
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
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QUITE!
 
auric said:
Page 4 of would suggest those are not the words used, can't find the phrase "considerably more vague" used at all in the IFS report. Any ideas?
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Yeah, the BBC are pro-Tory and anti everybody else, especially the SNP. That's what you'd expect from the propaganda wing of the government.

Sky are worse, but their advertisers expect that.

Jack
 
Paul R said:
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.
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He is very much non-neutral politically. But he is a highly respected academic and what he is saying is very standard economics to which there is little if no serious objection.

So if you have spotted a basic error then you should probably speak up :) (which is a bit of a lame appeal to authority, but I am very busy).
 
adamk said:
Really ???

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/election-2015-32424739

'The IFS said Labour had been "considerably more vague" about how much it wants to borrow.'
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In the sense that where they have said things like "We will provide extra midwives" they have said where that money is coming from and they have not doe things like, to pick a random example, "We will magic up £6bn a year extra from behind the sofa to spend on the NHS".

I am not sure that political parties projecting detailed debt, tax take and GDP levels with any accuracy makes much sense given that anyone who has every tied this (BoE, Economists, banks, etc) have been consistently wrong.
 
The coalition defined itself as a government of austerity or, as its members preferred, as a government with the courage to take the hard decisions necessary to deal with the deficit. In its first two years it did what it had promised to do – and more – and as a result inflicted palpable harm on the economy. The recovery was delayed, costing the average household the equivalent of at least £4,000. In 2012 the government departed from its earlier plans and eased up on austerity, but pretended it had not.

The numbers are stark. GDP per head, a far better indicator of prosperity than GDP alone, grew on average by just 1 per cent a year between 2010 and 2014. The average growth rate from 1950 to 2010 was close to 2.25 per cent. Even under the last Labour government, average growth was 1.5 per cent, and that period included the global financial crisis. The past few years, as we recovered from the crash, should have been a time of above-average, not below-average growth. Even growth in the past two years has been only average by historical standards.

A government entering an election with that kind of performance should be trying to avoid talking about its economic record at all costs. Yet the opposite is the case. Indeed, the Conservative Party has an election platform that promises to repeat exactly the same mistake it made 2010.
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SWL's New Statesman article is now online : http://www.newstatesman.com/politic...ces-george-osborne-covering-austerity-mistake
 
TPA said:
Analysing the UK economy in isolation has limited value. Comparative performance is more meaningful and it would appear that the UK is doing ok in that context.
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That's totally missing the point of the article, if you've read it.
 
From the UK governments own website:-

"The UK economy is now estimated to have
contracted by -6% between 2008 Q1 – 2009 Q2
(previous estimate was -7.2%)

It subsequently grew by +8.7% between 2009
Q2 – 2014 Q2 (previous estimate was +7.9%)

As a result, GDP reached its pre-crisis peak in
2013 Q3; three quarters earlier than previous
estimates suggested

A key driver of this was the rebound in
business investment, growing by +20.6% during
2009 – 2013 (previous estimate was +3.2%)

Business investment is now thought to have
contributed around one-third of growth
between 2010 and 2013".

Source: Department for Business, Innovation & Skills

The graph of GDP growth over this period shows a typical linear increase following the formula y=bx i.e the rate of GDP growth was proportional to time a year on year steady performance.

This information is a known published quantity unlike 'may have' which is little more than conjecture and is aimed at deliberately stirring up bad feelings. Psychology is a powerful tool and those that use it in politics know that once they have made a person think a thought its very difficult for them to unthink it.

Cheers,

DV
 
auric said:
Page 4 of would suggest those are not the words used, can't find the phrase "considerably more vague" used at all in the IFS report. Any ideas?
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It's not clear whether the phrase is a BBC paraphrase of the report, or a paraphrase of the report by Carl Emmerson, but the report does include the following statement:

'the Labour Party has provided disappointingly little information on exactly how much they would borrow if they were in government after the next election. They have committed to only borrowing to invest by the end of the parliament, but they have been less than clear about when they would like to achieve this.' ('Conclusions', p.39).

'Considerably more vague' doesn't seem to be an unfair summary of those sentiments.
 
matthewr said:
So if you have spotted a basic error then you should probably speak up :) (which is a bit of a lame appeal to authority, but I am very busy).
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I pointed out why his chart was misleading.

Colin's uncredited chart on an earlier page looks similarly sourced, that's misleading too.

So I don't care about his authority because the integrity seems a bit suspect.

This Telegraph story about Finland (victim of austerity and the Euro) http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/...inland-could-tear-apart-the-euro-project.html contains an interesting graph of GDP for various countries that I cannot seem to link directly to. It's much harder to justify your and the Oxford academic's claims with though.

Paul
 
Darth Vader said:
This information is a known published quantity unlike 'may have' which is little more than conjecture and is aimed at deliberately stirring up bad feelings
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It's government's own numbers from the OBR! If you want to accuse them of "conjecture and stirring up bad feelings" then be my guest.
 
Paul R said:
I pointed out why his chart was misleading.

Colin's uncredited chart on an earlier page looks similarly sourced, that's misleading too.

So I don't care about his authority because the integrity seems a bit suspect.

This Telegraph story about Finland (victim of austerity and the Euro) http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/...inland-could-tear-apart-the-euro-project.html contains an interesting graph of GDP for various countries that I cannot seem to link directly to. It's much harder to justify your and the Oxford academic's claims with though.

Paul
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The differences in the charts are because one is Real GDP and one in nominal.

You are questioning a widely respected academics integrity while posting articles from a newspaper that ignores major stories if they reflect badly on major advertisers?
 
Oh and on the subject of Austerity and re-imagining the past, this from Krugman:

David Cameron didn’t say “Hey, we think recovery is well in hand, so it’s time to start a modest program of fiscal consolidation.” He said “Greece stands as a warning of what happens to countries that lose their credibility.” Jean-Claude Trichet didn’t say “Yes, we understand that fiscal consolidation is negative, but we believe that by the time it bites economies will be nearing full employment”. He said

As regards the economy, the idea that austerity measures could trigger stagnation is incorrect … confidence-inspiring policies will foster and not hamper economic recovery, because confidence is the key factor today.

I can understand why a lot of people would like to pretend, perhaps even to themselves, that they didn’t think and say the things they thought and said. But they did.
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http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/20...Opinion&action=Click&pgtype=Blogs&region=Body
 
matthewr said:
The differences in the charts are because one is Real GDP and one in nominal.
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Which charts? The measure I was objecting to was expressing debt as a fraction of GDP when the two are not independent.

You are questioning a widely respected academics integrity while posting articles from a newspaper that ignores major stories if they reflect badly on major advertisers?
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The integrity of his selective use of data to advance a political position.

Is there a problem with the graph from the Telegraph? Is the situation of Finland not interesting? Do Finns not buy enough advertising?

Paul
 
matthewr said:
........

I am not sure that political parties projecting detailed debt, tax take and GDP levels with any accuracy makes much sense given that anyone who has every tied this (BoE, Economists, banks, etc) have been consistently wrong.
Click to expand...

I think we can all agree on this. It' partly why I don't take too much notice of economists, particularly academic economists.
 
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