Enfield boy
pfm Member
Homelessness, relying on foodbanks, some illnesses, pre-pay meters are examples of absolute poverty, but of course you know that. They could all be eradicated and it's a choice that they're not.
UK National Debt
- Thread starter Sloop John B
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Sue Pertwee-Tyr
Accuphase all the way down
Which is another defeatist argument. Letting the best be the enemy of the good. Poverty is not a relative term, it is a noun. It describes the more extreme end of 'poor'. So even if, as you argue, you can't eradicate poverty (the logic in your argument is valid, even if misapplied) you can minimise its impact. You can reduce the number of people in grinding, hopeless poverty to zero, and improve the lot of the less well-off more generally. Thus you eliminate 'poverty' without eliminating the poor, because there will always, as you say, be those at the bottom of the heap. It's just that the bottom of the heap needn't be the godawful, hopeless, vicious spiral of decline it currently is.
ks.234
Half way to Infinity
This is a non argument. Being relatively poor and being in absolute poverty are very different things.
As much as you try to justify it, involuntary poverty in one of the richest countries in the world is inexcusable.
On the specific question of the spectrum of wealth, there will obviously be people at either end, but in a rich country with social and economic justice as a founding principle, the ever growing gap between the richest and the poorest is immoral. It is also, as has been demonstrated by failure over the 50 year span of growing inequality, economically illiterate
ks.234
Half way to Infinity
I‘ve been thinking about this and istm that it isn’t question of understanding economic theories or the electorate embracing one thing or another, it is a moral question.
After the Wall Street Crash in the US and WW2 in the UK, government spending on work programmes and Welfare did not depend on understanding Keynes, it depended on the moral and economic case of improving the lives of the greater number.
In the 70’s the moral case for the basis of our economy was abandoned in favour of profit and financialisation.
The profit motive and financialisation of everything has failed to deliver even on it’s own terms.
We don't need to understand Keynes or anything else to recognise that what we have now is a failure. An economic understanding will illustrate why it’s failed, but the bald fact that it has failed is a matter or empirical observation
Ponty
pfm Member
I’m all for a safety net for those who need a leg up in life. How do you improve things, just borrow and give people more money to live?
Sue Pertwee-Tyr
Accuphase all the way down
The first step is an easy one. Remove the built in poverty trap that benefits claimants suffer from. It’s cruelty by design, unnecessary, and locks people into either benefit dependency, or low hours, low paid work.
If you really wanted benefits to be ‘a leg up, not a hand out’ why on Earth would you prevent people using the safety net to provide the necessary security while they work to improve their lot?
Actually, that’s the second step, the first step is scrapping the vicious and unnecessarily punitive benefits sanctions system.
ks.234
Half way to Infinity
This has been answered so many times now I guess it is not really a sincere question.
Howeber, for anyone genuinely interested, one answer would be to spend government money on creating a buffer stock of employment, it works in much the same way as having, for example, a buffer stock of grain, i.e. to mitigate the effects of a shock in times of famine from a reserve pool of grain
The Guarentee of a minimum wage job with a living wage as the minimum, holiday pay, pension contributions etc would minimise extreme poverty, improve the economy, and control inflation.
The relationship between unemployment and inflation is an economic model still used today, it is a model devised decades ago and it’s definition of unemployment should now include low wages and underemployment. Essentially it is a model that says that rising inflation can only be controlled by decreasing employment.
However…..This is where the Job Guarentee comes in.
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Seeker_UK
Feelin' nearly faded as my jeans
Because, ISTM, you have spent a *lot* of time researching it. Most voters have neither the time, nor the inclination, to invest in such things; they want simple explanations and solutions so they can get on with their own lives.
ks.234
Half way to Infinity
Yes. I have absolutely spent a lot of time researching, but that comes after the starting point not before.
The starting point is easy. It does not require understanding complex stuff. It just involves turning things upside down. Turning my understanding upside down has not been easy. It’s been emotional.
That research is the product of that traumatic period in my life, not a cause.
The turn from Free Market capitalism to Keynesianism did not require the voters to invest in anything. It required a moral decision to promote the greater good through decent employment and public works and services. By and large, it worked.
And the turn away from the idea that public spending on public ends is a good thing, and to the idea that public spending is always and everywhere a really bad thing, was done without voters being required to have a grasp of Milton Friedman.
This is a moral question well before it becomes an economic one.
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ks.234
Half way to Infinity
Even Parliament is starting to ask questions about the nature and function of our “debt”
Bananahead
pfm Member
It is interesting that there were 37 written submissions but you chose to link to just one.
ks.234
Half way to Infinity
Feel free to criticise the one I have linked to.
Or link to the evidence that you do prefer for open criticism?
Bananahead
pfm Member
I linked to all 37 so that people can read what they choose. I have no agenda here.
lawrence001
Basic Member
There are some hilarious ones on there, I assume submissions are open to any member of the public given the highly variable quality of some, and others bordering on fantasy like Mr Morgan the "macroeconomist" at Morganist economics. More than one of them reminds me of the circular MMT posts on here so I wonder if some esteemed Fishies submitted to the committee.
ks.234
Half way to Infinity
Anything to say about the content, the arguments or the substance about the nature, purpose or sustainability of our National Debt?