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UK National Debt

raysablade said:
I'm not arguing that this is a bad thing but i think it should be acknowledged that the increasing proportion and longevity of elderly people within the population drives a net reduction in resources available for other government activity.
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It's certainly going to at some level. Though a lot of the expenditure in recent decades has been unnecessarily syphoned away by privatised 'service providers' sucking away NHS spending, especially for things like elderly home care and lowest level care homes. And as the Tories (though started also under Blair) choke off the actual NHS they end up paying for someone to see an expensive private consultant at a clinic. Or as is more common they have people denied timely preventative care and then trapped in a cycle of 'management care' which is another 'drain'.
 
raysablade said:
The Guardian used to map public spending in a way that I felt helped to further understanding and contextualise debate. It is a shame that they seem to have stopped.

If you look at a relatively recent map for 2011 it is clear that benefits and services for the elderly were two of the biggest heads then and they have grown as a proportion since. I'm not arguing that this is a bad thing but i think it should be acknowledged that the increasing proportion and longevity of elderly people within the population drives a net reduction in resources available for other government activity.
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I can’t see the National debt on that graphic, so not sure what point you’re making about the elderly which seems to rely on the presumption that the amount in the ‘pot’ in the middle is fixed.
 
ks.234 said:
I can’t see the National debt on that graphic, so not sure what point you’re making about the elderly which seems to rely on the presumption that the amount in the ‘pot’ in the middle is fixed.
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Only that the the proportion of the current pot consumed by elderly people; be it in direct payments via benefits. or services via LAs and the NHS is already significant and growing. That's likely constrain the flexibility available to manage a larger pot.

The point about the national debt is interesting, that graphic might be akin to a medieval map in terms in terms of economic insight but it is the world the UK public sector inhabits.
 
raysablade said:
Only that the the proportion of the current pot consumed by elderly people; be it in direct payments via benefits. or services via LAs and the NHS is already significant and growing. That's likely constrain the flexibility available to manage a larger pot.

The point about the national debt is interesting, that graphic might be akin to a medieval map in terms in terms of economic insight but it is the world the UK public sector inhabits.
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Apologies if I’m missing your point, but you seem to be talking about spending on public services which has been covered eleswhere
 
raysablade said:
Only that the the proportion of the current pot consumed by elderly people; be it in direct payments via benefits. or services via LAs and the NHS is already significant and growing. That's likely constrain the flexibility available to manage a larger pot.

The point about the national debt is interesting, that graphic might be akin to a medieval map in terms in terms of economic insight but it is the world the UK public sector inhabits.
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Ah, I thought you were talking about real resources. There isn't a limited 'money pot'. We arrive back at the Malthus problem. The only 'solution' if people think there are too many people is not a resources issue.
 
Le Baron said:
Ah, I thought you were talking about real resources. There isn't a limited 'money pot'. We arrive back at the Malthus problem. The only 'solution' if people think there are too many people is not a resources issue.
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I've worked in the public sector for over 40 years. Trying to imagine/remember a world where resourcing decisions aren't a zero sum game isn't easy;)

If i start to get my head around it, something that does concern me about a removal of artificial resource constraints is labour shortages. Would it be acceptable to avoid a hard choice to train and reward our own people or investing to increase productivity, by importing trained and experienced labour from less fortunate economies?
 
raysablade said:
I've worked in the public sector for over 40 years. Trying to imagine/remember a world where resourcing decisions aren't a zero sum game isn't easy;)
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Yes. You would have been forced to work under strict rules. False notions of 'affordability' stemming from the policy confusions of the late 70s.
raysablade said:
If i start to get my head around it, something that does concern me about a removal of artificial resource constraints is labour shortages. Would it be acceptable to avoid a hard choice to train and reward our own people or investing to increase productivity, by importing trained and experienced labour from less fortunate economies?
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As hated ex-Health Secretary Jeremy Chunt (silent h) even said, the UK hasn't bothered to train enough medical personnel (or in fact much personnel for anything) in decades. Of course he didn't add that his government (and their predecessor Tory govts) has also throttled funding for that to all-time low levels. The UK like all neoliberal nations prefers what you mentioned about importing labour from less fortunate economies. Enticing their most educated workers after their country has trained them.

The UK has an artificial level of unemployment and whilst not all of them would be doctors, some could be. That's not the real point though. We have a health service also addressing unnecessary problems stemming from unemployment and associated health concerns. So the double whammy of productivity wastage and quite a number of those people suffering what are essentially social-psycho-somatic illnesses.
 
raysablade said:
My recollection of the IMF requirements is that the were anything but false.
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That was almost everyone's recollection at the time. They were wrong. At that point Britain had total monetary sovereignty. Somehow they managed to convince everyone Britain could be 'bankrupted'. Understandable it was only, what 5 years after the removal of the gold standard. Most people believed the old rules applied. Denis Healey and Callaghan proved to be monetarist fools. Benn was 100% correct and not even a professional economist.
 
raysablade said:
My recollection of the IMF requirements is that the were anything but false.
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IMF requirements are always very real and very unfortunate for many, but they are not necessary. They are based on the same neoliberal ideology that deemed it necessary to overthrow democracies and impose unemployment, poverty and misery for many
 
Le Baron said:
That was almost everyone's recollection at the time. They were wrong. At that point Britain had total monetary sovereignty. Somehow they managed to convince everyone Britain could be 'bankrupted'. Understandable it was only, what 5 years after the removal of the gold standard. Most people believed the old rules applied. Denis Healey and Callaghan proved to be monetarist fools. Benn was 100% correct and not even a professional economist.
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Britain came off the gold standard in 1931, so it was actually, what, 35 after the removal of the gold standard.
 
Joe Hutch said:
Britain came off the gold standard in 1931, so it was actually, what, 35 after the removal of the gold standard.
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It finally came off it in 1971 when Nixon dropped it. The gold standard has been suspended several times. Do your homework.
 
Further down on the page, which is what you're basing this on is:
Britain left the gold standard in 1931 followed by the US in 1971,
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And you're thinking ha-ha! I've got him!. No sir. Britain was on and off it again under Baldwin and up to WWII. But there's more, after WWII the Dollar was dominant and since the US still had a gold standard it ended up forcing other countries to stick to exchange rates fixed to the dollar (gold exchange standard or gold standard exchange...can't remember). Plenty currencies fixed in that way. Nixon's abandonment of it ended it for everyone and made true sovereign currencies with floating exchange rates.
 
Le Baron said:
That was almost everyone's recollection at the time. They were wrong. At that point Britain had total monetary sovereignty. Somehow they managed to convince everyone Britain could be 'bankrupted'. Understandable it was only, what 5 years after the removal of the gold standard. Most people believed the old rules applied. Denis Healey and Callaghan proved to be monetarist fools. Benn was 100% correct and not even a professional economist.
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I understand that inflation is a measure that MMT respects, how would monetary sovereignty have addressed it in 1976? I can't get my head round the idea that currency creation would not have added to it. Even before you started to create currency, acknowledging the potential to do it would have weakened the pound.

It is clear that the IMF loan ultimately proved unnecessary and that its conditions were damaging to the country and particularly to Labour Party . Could it be said however that agreement to the IMF conditions, in itself, shored up the currency and that its subsequent strength damped inflation?
 
raysablade said:
I understand that inflation is a measure that MMT respects, how would monetary sovereignty have addressed it in 1976? I can't get my head round the idea that currency creation would not have added to it. Even before you started to create currency, acknowledging the potential to do it would have weakened the pound.

It is clear that the IMF loan ultimately proved unnecessary and that its conditions were damaging to the country and particularly to Labour Party . Could it be said however that agreement to the IMF conditions, in itself, shored up the currency and that its subsequent strength damped inflation?
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The point is that we had monetary sovereignty in 1976. Borrowing the money from the IMF with interest when it could be created from normal government spending makes no sense. Why would anyone borrow currency at interest if it can create currency without it?

How does the conditions of an IMF loan - privatisation, de-regulation and public service cuts - shore up the currency? The whole point of a floating currency is that it does not need to follow the dollar, devaluation in 1976 was a matter of nationalistic pride, not economic necessity.

Excellent article going into the nuts and bold of the matter here….http://bilbo.economicoutlook.net/blog/?p=33419
 
ks.234 said:
The point is that we had monetary sovereignty in 1976. Borrowing the money from the IMF with interest when it could be created from normal government spending makes no sense. Why would anyone borrow currency at interest if it can create currency without it?

How does the conditions of an IMF loan - privatisation, de-regulation and public service cuts - shore up the currency? The whole point of a floating currency is that it does not need to follow the dollar, devaluation in 1976 was a matter of nationalistic pride, not economic necessity.

Excellent article going into the nuts and bold of the matter here….http://bilbo.economicoutlook.net/blog/?p=33419
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I'm sure that sentiment in international currency markets was driven by the commitments attached to the loan rather than the loan itself. Interesting to speculate what would have happened to the exchange rate if we had instead expressed an intention to create currency to fill the gap.
 
raysablade said:
I'm sure that sentiment in international currency markets was driven by the commitments attached to the loan rather than the loan itself. Interesting to speculate what would have happened to the exchange rate if we had instead expressed an intention to create currency to fill the gap.
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But the real point is that as much as the IMF is neoliberal, the international currency are driven by much the same ideology.
 
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