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UK Election 2015 (part II)

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PaulR,

Im struggling to see what you point is about the Finns (and the graph in the article). Please explain. The article is more about politics than economics.

The Telegraph article shows UK Gross GDP crashed after the financial crisis and the onset of austerity. Gross GDP slowly has slowly recovered and recently exceeded the 2008 levels after about 5 years below. The graph I quoted (from Mainlymacro) is GDP per capita - you do know the difference dont you?

Referencing the Telegraph is laughable - the most rabid pro-Tory rag in the country and little better than the Daily Mail for integrity... and by the way, the article is written by a trainee journalist with a degree in Politics, a somewhat lesser authority than a nationally respected Economics Professor.
 
Tory desperation is going to become more embarrassing the closer it gets to the end for them.
 
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

Mick,
Re: Strawmen, I find myself in rare agreement with you. Definitions given above are a bit too convenient. I spent some time researching the whole idea of the Strawman last night and there are numerous variations on a theme.

Mull
 
Anyway, I can't be bothered with the election arguments anymore. The whole charade has now descended into a bizarre bidding war with all parties bastardising what semblance of principle they have in vain attempts to offer 'more' than the others.

If we pull back from all this a little, we all know deep down that no govt. has more than a tangential effect on the winds blowing our economy this way and that.

Which kind of brings us back to looking at what parties believe in and what they intend over and above carping on about the bloody deficit.

I believe, possibly naively, that the Tories are still the evil, self interested lying thieving bastards they've always been and the Lib Dems still don't quite know which way they're facing.

Which leaves me with Labour, who at least make a pretence of caring about rather more that their own arse pockets.

The rest are irrelevant.

Cue Tony ;)

Mull
 
Im struggling to see what you point is about the Finns (and the graph in the article). Please explain. The article is more about politics than economics.
Finns suffering from austerity. Seemed relevant.

The Telegraph article shows UK Gross GDP crashed after the financial crisis and the onset of austerity. Gross GDP slowly has slowly recovered and recently exceeded the 2008 levels after about 5 years below.
Compare gradients to the other countries. Run the trend forwards into the future. Does the public sector pain then lead to later benefits? The graph might imply that if I were a mainlymacro type of chap.

The graph I quoted (from Mainlymacro) is GDP per capita - you do know the difference dont you?
It was 'logged'. What does that mean? Did you actually understand what you were posting? Do you get why a rising straight line on a logarithmic scale is unlikely to represent reality over anything other than a very short time period?

Referencing the Telegraph is laughable - the most rabid pro-Tory rag in the country and little better than the Daily Mail for integrity... and by the way, the article is written by a trainee journalist with a degree in Politics, a somewhat lesser authority than a nationally respected Economics Professor.
Finland. Austerity. European GDP trends. You've clearly demonstrated they are all nonsense.

Your respected Economics Professor seems only interested in demonstrating stuff that is politically helpful to Labour and is happy to manipulate statistics to that end. Which, IMO, is a bit shit for a professor. His blog may have good stuff in, but it's not trustworthy. And, given it is not amusing, it's of much less value than (for example) Guido Fawkes, which is obviously untrustworthy yet occasionally entertaining.

Paul
 
Which leaves me with Labour, who at least make a pretence of caring about rather more that their own arse pockets.

You have to be kidding! IIRC a few of the last Labour govenment got locked up for expenses fraud, flipping properties etc, and plenty more (e.g. Hazel Blears etc) really should have been. Plenty of trough-feeding scum in that party for sure. That they steal from us whilst pretending to stand for social justice makes then even worse IMHO. At least one knows from the outset that Tories are grasping sociopathic short-termist arseholes as it's in their manifesto!
 
Which leaves me with Labour, who at least make a pretence of caring about rather more that their own arse pockets.

The rest are irrelevant.

Cue Tony ;)

Mull

The Greens, the SNP and Plaid Cymru, are the only relevant parties.

All the others are EU-kowtowers, corrupt corporate money-grabbers and racist boneheads.

Jack
 
It was 'logged'. What does that mean? Did you actually understand what you were posting? Do you get why a rising straight line on a logarithmic scale is unlikely to represent reality over anything other than a very short time period?

Taking the log of time series data is a very standard thing no? Certainly it's used all the time in Economics by lots of people not least the BoE. My understanding is that for data that changes at a roughly constant percentage rate the log over time will be linear so it's the best way to see trend and deviation from trend.

Your respected Economics Professor seems only interested in demonstrating stuff that is politically helpful to Labour and is happy to manipulate statistics to that end.

That is equal parts tawdry and risible.
 
You have to be kidding! IIRC a few of the last Labour govenment got locked up for expenses fraud, flipping properties etc, and plenty more (e.g. Hazel Blears etc) really should have been. Plenty of trough-feeding scum in that party for sure. That they steal from us whilst pretending to stand for social justice makes then even worse IMHO. At least one knows from the outset that Tories are grasping sociopathic short-termist arseholes as it's in their manifesto!

We know that there are crooks in all parties. It's a question of scale.

Mull
 
The Greens, the SNP and Plaid Cymru, are the only relevant parties.

All the others are EU-kowtowers, corrupt corporate money-grabbers and racist boneheads.

Jack

Jack

Sorry but you are 100% wrong.

If we have a hung Parliament then either Labour or the Tories will have to do deals on a weekly basis with these minority parties. One side will have to offer this in exchange for that. The end result is that every party is going to have to compromise its manifesto whether we like it or not.

The reason why every party is promising everything is that they know that due to a hung Parliament they will never have to deliver and this is another disadvantage of hung Parliament, every party will promise the earth in the full knowledge that they will have the excuse that the other party with whom they were in partnership stopped them from doing it.

It is often said that we get the political system we deserve and right now we are walking into an environment which we actually encourage politicians to exaggerate and lie.

Manifestos are frankly pointless in this election and the small parties who will hold the balance of power are those most likely to be compromised. In other words, only a fool would believe anyone in 2015.

So all this talk of one party v the other is a total waste of time.

Regards

Mick
 
It is often said that we get the political system we deserve and right now we are walking into an environment which we actually encourage politicians to exaggerate and lie.

Manifestos are frankly pointless in this election

Manifestos are frankly pointless in any election. Unless election promises are made legally binding, politicians will continue to lie and exaggerate as they always have done.
 
To use your own line, the phrase 'black hole' does not actually occur in the report.

But it does appear in nice big letters at the top, the comment from auric is fine and justified.

Tories have £30bn black hole in spending plans, says IFS


The tories are planning further attacks on the vulnerable, which is why they lie and won't explain anything.

The independent tax thinktank said the electorate had been left “somewhat in the dark” about the details of all the parties’ spending plans but the Conservatives have more explaining to do, because they are aiming at much more ambitious cuts in public borrowing
 
Manifestos are frankly pointless in any election. Unless election promises are made legally binding
, politicians will continue to lie and exaggerate as they always have done.
Which is impossible for any govt and is frankly a daft notion.
 
Which is impossible for any govt and is frankly a daft notion.

Why 'impossible'? You can have the usual guff that all parties spout about better schools, better NHS, law 'n order, because 'better' is sufficiently vague, but any specific promises, e.g. 'we will hold a referendum on Britain's membership of the EU', or 'we will build 500,000 affordable new homes' should either be legally binding or not made at all. As it is, politicians promise the earth, and the only way they can be held to account when they fail to do so is by voting them out after 5 years, and voting in another lot who make equally worthless promises.
 
Why 'impossible'? You can have the usual guff that all parties spout about better schools, better NHS, law 'n order, because 'better' is sufficiently vague, but any specific promises, e.g. 'we will hold a referendum on Britain's membership of the EU', or 'we will build 500,000 affordable new homes' should either be legally binding or not made at all. As it is, politicians promise the earth, and the only way they can be held to account when they fail to do so is by voting them out after 5 years, and voting in another lot who make equally worthless promises.
Because realistically circumstances can and do change during a term in govt, eg bankers in very recent times part way through a govt term changed everything, despite how tories may like to lay the blame elsewhere.

I don't like them either and their promises get on my nerves, but the fact is promises made in good faith may not be possible to fulfil due to any number of reasons.
 
Because realistically circumstances can and do change during a term in govt,

That simply means that politicians ought to be more careful with what they promise. If they were put on trial for breaking a specific promise 'unforeseen circumstances' could of course be a valid defence, or might result in a shorter prison sentence.
 
Because realistically circumstances can and do change during a term in govt, eg bankers in very recent times part way through a govt term changed everything, despite how tories may like to lay the blame elsewhere.

I don't like them either and their promises get on my nerves, but the fact is promises made in good faith may not be possible to fulfil due to any number of reasons.

I expect many things outside the control of UK PLC may cause some of the manifesto policies to not come true. I am thinking of a mortgage based crash flowing outwards from the US a few years ago that caused some UK banks to faultier and so incur spending not foreseen in the last manifesto; I am thinking of oil price movements that caused HMRC not to collect the forecast taxes.

One thing you can be sure is that lawyers will be laughing all the way to their banks as they fight to define one way or the other what could be foreseen, what was under the control of UK PLC and the exact meaning of as manifesto.
 
That simply means that politicians ought to be more careful with what they promise. If they were put on trial for breaking a specific promise 'unforeseen circumstances' could of course be a valid defence, or might result in a shorter prison sentence.
No it doesnt.

We'll have to disagree.

Cheers.
 
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