Poll: Which party will get your vote in the General Election?

[Hatter The Mad]

So what have the NuTories done then?

Obviously, nothing yet.

 

[izzy eckerslike]

Why so many want the Tories back in is laughable when so many younger voters have absolutely no idea what they stand for & the damage they left behind last time.

The previous Tory policies of privatisation of everything they can get their greedy fingers have helped to ruin this country.
Is there a fear that they would like to privatise the NHS ? apparently so & particularly as they already privatised hospital cleaning last time they were in power & look what damage it has done with widespread lethal hospital infections rife because of inadequate cleaning.
Then we get ' worse hospital infection rate since Labour took over' type comments,lol
We've all seen the hidden camera programme showing the' I don't give a toss 'cleaners flicking a mop in the corners & then going to have a fag


Scotland is now set to ban all contracted hospital cleaning along with a national nurses campaign to bring back in house cleaning.

 

[Hatter The Mad]

Why so many want the Tories back in is laughable when so many younger voters have absolutely no idea what they stand for & the damage they left behind last time.

It is a choice between a lesser of two evils. Labour are incompetent governors, their economics is flawed and they willingly squander public money as long as it makes headlines - regardless of the value received at the end. We cannot afford another term of that.

 

[britboy4321]

Labour economics gave us the biggest period of economic boom in history.

Conservative economics lead us into a much greater quantity of recessions.


I'll vote for longer economic booms, personally.

 

[Naffa]

It is a choice between a lesser of two evils. Labour are incompetent governors, their economics is flawed and they willingly squander public money as long as it makes headlines - regardless of the value received at the end. We cannot afford another term of that.

The lesser of two evils, economically, is Labour by a country mile. The Tories are obsessed with reducing the deficit, they're obsessed with cutting public spending on day one. It's absolute idiocy as anybody with a background in economics will say that cutting public spending in the depths of a recession is 'a dumb idea'. Three such people that think that are David Branchflower, and Nobel prize for economics winners Joseph Stiglitz and Paul Krugman.

The fiscal stimulus needs to remain, and therefore so does the deficit must remain high, something Osborne can't seem to grasp.

 

[Hatter The Mad]

Labour economics gave us the biggest period of economic boom in history.

No. Labour economics gave us a fake boom. Labour economics essentially (but indirectly) encouraged personal debt on the back of over-inflated house prices by raising taxes throughout the biggest tax receipt boom in history.

The Government continued to rise taxes (particularly from the lower 50% of earners in the country) through fiscal drag (Gordon Brown's greatest weapon of stealth tax), despite the boom.

He got away with it by encouraging personal borrowing on the back of their inflated house prices to feed our increased expectancy and desire for consumption - because, of course, he had "abolished boom and bust" (lololol, is the only retort to that).

The Labour Government had to:

1) Increase the country debt by borrowing more
2) Sell off country assets (such as gold in the Brown Bottom, now almost all owned by India and soon Australia)
3) Increase tax

Despite being the recipient of the largest tax revenues and riding the biggest income boom. Ever.

Although I think it is stupid to look back to history and say "X party did this. A generation on, I won't vote for them for that reason", do you realise that Labour has caused more economic problems to the country than Conservatives have?

 

[Hatter The Mad]

The lesser of two evils, economically, is Labour by a country mile. The Tories are obsessed with reducing the deficit

They have to. Our structural deficit is the highest in the developed world, and both Moodys, A&P, the IMF and the OECD are "concerned" about the fiscal policies conducted in the UK.

More specifically, the OECD warned that we soon have to go to Ricardian.

It's absolute idiocy as anybody with a background in economics will say that cutting public spending in the depths of a recession is 'a dumb idea'.

Firstly, Labour are going to cut and so are the Torys - one would hope by just as much, but not that Labour will tell us until they are relected. We need to balance between cuts and growth. Labour are gambling once again that we will return to X growth by Y - and we know how off the mark and how overoptimistic Labour tends to be. We can't afford to gamble - if we lose, we're gone for broke.

We are no longer in the depths. Now is the time to cut. What money do you expect the Government to spend? We have none. The interest payments on the money borrowed just for our quantitative easing and other public money 'bolsters' to our economy is shortly going to exceed the education budget, and interest rates are going up daily because the market is concerned about our levels of borrowing.

With a National Debt of £1.5 trillion (Darling's forecast for 2014), every additional 1% on gilt yields (UK Plc's debt interest rates, basically) means an extra £15 billion per year just to service the debt (which is 4p on the pound according to the current standard rate of income tax). All this is without correcting for Darling's over-optimism.

Be under no illusion - interest rates will rise for us as borrowing continues. The market already rates UK Plc at A-.

 

[britboy4321]

I don't know much about the economics -- but lots of neutral top economists from all over the world were on 'the money programme' and they all said basically it would be absolutely mental to 'take money out of the economy' right now.

I believe them -- they have nothing to be gained from lying. And every other developed country in the world is increasing the money in the economy. Surely they're not all wrong?


The really sad thing is -- when the tories take lots of money out of the economy, so lots less is spent and businesses start inevitably hitting the wall -- they'll actually somehow blame Labour, and you'll believe them No matter how good or bad the tories do -- anything they get wrong -- they'll blame Labour .. and you'll believe them. They effectively have a 'free ride'.

 

[Hatter The Mad]

I don't know much about the economics -- but lots of neutral top economists from all over the world were on 'the money programme' and they all said basically it would be absolutely mental to 'take money out of the economy' right now.

I believe them -- they have nothing to be gained from lying. And every other developed country in the world is increasing the money in the economy. Surely they're not all wrong?

Not all of them. Take, for example, our counterparts in Europe. They spent the good years building assets (like gold), reducing their deficit and managing their public sector paybill, to make it more efficient. Their economies are in better shape (like America's), and their gilt yields are lower - their debt financing per unit borrowed is lower than ours. They can continue QE and heavy investment.

Our government spent the good years raising debt and selling assets, to fuel their "throw cash at every problem" spending splurge. To boot, they didn't care about efficiency and the public sector bill grew exponentially (more cash creates more demand for cash - more bureaucracy breeds bureaucracy).

We're about to emerge from the recession. The last thing we want to do is lose our life line (what if we double-dip?) of borrowing because the gilt yields are too high. We need to become a trusted economy again, so the gilt yields come down.

We need that cushion, so we need to start reducing our debt and cutting the public sector paybill so that investors trust us and buy gilts without demanding high yield rates.

The really sad thing is -- when the tories take lots of money out of the economy, so lots less is spent and businesses start inevitably hitting the wall -- they'll actually somehow blame Labour, and you'll believe them No matter how good or bad the tories do -- anything they get wrong -- they'll blame Labour .. and you'll believe them. They effectively have a 'free ride'.

Actually, I'd argue that Labour are spending recklessly to make us 'feel good', and when the Tories come in and have no choice but to cut (or further damage our financial standing), we'll vote Labour back in.

• Hence Labour's 2% bingo tax reduction.
• Hence the VAT cut.
• Hence the car scrappage scheme.
• Hence Labour's increase in welfare in the PBR (of, but the small print says it will be reversed in December of this year, mind ).

And they say Labour aren't trying to buy votes... when they should be investing wisely.

so lots less is spent and businesses start inevitably hitting the wall

Why do cuts have to equate to businesses going "hitting the wall"? Some will lose out, yes, but that is business, and Labour's fault for creating a civil service far too large for its own good).

 

[Dolph]

Labour economics gave us the biggest period of economic boom in history.

No it didn't. That was started under the Tories, and for their first term most of the policies that sustained it were unchanged from the Tories. Labour economics created the disasterous situation we're in now where we maxed out the country's credit cards in the good times...

Conservative economics lead us into a much greater quantity of recessions.

Labour brought us into the biggest recession in UK history, and have saddled the country with massive debts for at least a generation.

I'll vote for longer economic booms, personally.

Unfortunately, failure to understand economics and the causes of the length of the boom means ignoring the reality that the longer the boom, the deeper the bust, especially when the boom is goes from natural to fueled by state borrowing.

 

[Hatter The Mad]

I'll vote for longer economic booms, personally.

Then you're voting for longer and deeper busts, with people out of work and made poorer. Nice!

 

[britboy4321]

Labour brought us into the biggest recession in UK history,

Well, this is kind of a technicality. You see, Labour managed successfully to ensure the country didn't enter 'DEPRESSION'. So it isn't as bad as it could be - a recession is only partly down the 'deep trouble' scale.

So saying it's the biggest 'recession' in UK history is a really misinformative statement. Let me think of example .. its like me saying
'Wow, I am the joint tallestest person ever, acccording to this 'rule measure' that only goes up to 1 metre'
'I did the joint ABSOLUTE WORST POSSIBLE in running a marathon (I did 24.9 miles at world record speed, then quit due to injury)'
'My father failed utterley at climbing everest' (He got to within 100 foot of the top then things went a little wrong so he didn't quite make it)

Misleading statements you see. We avoided depression which is the REALLY SERIOUS STUFF. We did better than we could have -- remember this was a global recession -- and Brown was at the forefront of seeing the world through it. He had meetings in America and all round the world persuading them to release more money into the economy to avoid global meltdown. Thank goodness he succeeded where Cameron would have clearly done worse than fail, and TAKEN MONEY OUT OF THE ECONOMY!!!!!!


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Depression_in_the_United_Kingdom

 

[Dolph]

Well, this is kind of a technicality. You see, Labour managed successfully to ensure the country didn't enter 'DEPRESSION'. So it isn't as bad as it could be - a recession is only partly down the 'deep trouble' scale.

So saying it's the biggest 'recession' in UK history is a really misinformative statement. Let me think of example .. its like me saying

'I did the joint ABSOLUTE WORST POSSIBLE in running a marathon (I did 24.9 miles at world record speed, then quit due to injury)'
'My father failed utterley at climbing everest' (He got to within 100 foot of the top)

Misleading statements you see. We avoided depression. Thank goodness.


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Depression_in_the_United_Kingdom

You do realise who was in power during the great depression when it really hit the UK, right?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_...ic_Crisis_and_the_Labour_government_1929-1931

Of course, this doesn't mean too much, but the bottom line is without Labour's massive unaffordable spending during the boom, we would have been in a much better position to weather the recession than we have been...

 

[britboy4321]

Then you're voting for longer and deeper busts, with people out of work and made poorer. Nice!

You just made that 'factoid' up.

Then again, I guess you could argue the following

1) I have £100, then labour BOOM pushed it up to £1000, then recession takes it down to £500. 50% loss = AWFUL RECESSION.

2) I have £100, then tories GENTLY push it up to a sensible £300. The recession only knocks it to £270. WAHAY -- A MILD 10% LOSS! Go Tories I've only lost 10% and have a whopping £270!

Ok, I see your logic now ..

 

[britboy4321]

You do realise who was in power during the great depression when it really hit the UK, right?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_...ic_Crisis_and_the_Labour_government_1929-1931

Of course, this doesn't mean too much, but the bottom line is without Labour's massive unaffordable spending during the boom, we would have been in a much better position to weather the recession than we have been...

Yes. Go on -- tell me they caused the depression .. I'd love to read that ..


(ps at least admit that depression is worse than recession -- so words like 'worst ever recession' effectively mean 'isn't as bad as it could be' ??)

 

[Hatter The Mad]

So saying it's the biggest 'recession' in UK history is a really misinformative

No it isn't

We avoided depression which is the REALLY SERIOUS STUFF.

After bailing out the banks, how do you know we were headed for recession?

and Brown was at the forefront of seeing the world through it

lol jesus... you've swallowed a lot of red propaganda there. The UK has the highest structural deficit of all the OECD. We have higher deficits than Greece or Ireland. We were essentially the last to come out of recession (wait, we're still there) in the G20. We're leading no one - we are a laughing stock.

He had meetings in America and all round the world persuading them to release more money into the economy to avoid global meltdown.

What makes you think Brown orchestrated this? Just because he told us he "saved the world" doesn't make it so. We just happened to host the G20 because we are quantifiably the financial center of the world. Nothing to do with Gordon Brown.

At all.

we will never return to the old boom and bust

 

[Hatter The Mad]

You just made that 'factoid' up.

Uhhh... no I didn't.

What follows a boom? A period of decline.

What is another word for that? A bust.

What happens in a bust? Unemployment soars.

Who gets made unemployed? The lowest 50% of earners in the country.

Who gets poorer (such that they face hardship)? The lowest earners in the country.

1) I have £100, then labour BOOM pushed it up to £1000, then recession takes it down to £500. 50% loss = AWFUL RECESSION.

Your example is fallacious. You cannot reduce an economy of people into one sum of money.

 

[britboy4321]

Uhhh... no I didn't.

What follows a boom? A period of decline.

What is another word for that? A bust.

What happens in a bust? Unemployment soars.

Who gets made unemployed? The lowest 50% of earners in the country.

Who gets poorer? The lowest earners in the country.

I think I made sense of what you were trying to say and edited my post above.

You were claiming the size of the boom directly effects how awful the subsequent recession is. I don't think that's true at all. Nor does anyone else.

 

[doodah]

Just to prove Brown's incompetence - lets not forget he sold a large quantity of our gold reserves when the price of gold was at an all time low.

 

[britboy4321]

Just to prove Brown's incompetence - lets not forget he sold a large quantity of our gold reserves when the price of gold was at an all time low.

And he privatised for peanuts just about everything the government owned. Oh .. wait ..