How do you envisage the results of general election effecting YOU ?

[rypt]

The whole point of doing work at night is so that during the day the road can be used fully without cones and closed lanes (as night work costs more than day work generally).
If you are leaving the lanes closed during the day, then you should also be working during the day.

And you still have not explained why other Western European countries are able to resurface roads faster (and probably at less cost) than you lot

 

[Slam62]

You really have no idea do you? Printing more money will annihilate the value of the pound which would be good for exports. Except we import a lot more than we export because things just aren't made here that we want to consume. More money would equal higher inflation, thus meaning labour would have to increase the interest rates which means a lot higher mortgage/loan payments.

Just breaking it down to a simplistic formula. GDP = Consumption + Business Investment + Government Spending + (Exports - Imports).

What has been happening under labour, is that they have been borrowing money to spend in order to increase GDP. What the Conservatives plan to do is dramatically reduce government spending, but lower taxes for businesses and people, thus meaning they will have more money to spend, and Consumption and Investment will rise. Lower taxes also have the benefit of attracting more businesses to the country and there should therefore be more jobs available, lower unemployment and thus a smaller benefit bill.

However front line services will be reduced. This leads to the argument of personal responsibility. Everyone should have more money and thus they need to decide if they want things like private healthcare or go with a worse NHS system and have more fancy televisions and such forth.

sorry, you misunderstand, I don't think printing money is a good thing, far from it.

I do think you miss the fact that importing is part of the problem and we need to increase exports. Our indiustry needs to be more competitive, however there are several barriers to this.

The personal responsibility arguement is a joke and a recipe for huge cuts and great suffering for those who cannot fight back. For example those who have relatives who need 24 hr care etc. OK for those not in that situation, devastating for those who are.

If consumption does rise and involves imports, inflation will rise, the pound will weaken and interest rates will rise. Double whammy, less competitive industry, weakening house prices, weakened financial system. The weakening pound also leads to expensive energy.

If the conservatives drastically reduce public spending, fewer people will be employed leaving greater pressure on wellfare budgets and systems.

The problem is nowhere near as simple as you summise. I don't think any of the parties are talking about anything anywhere near the answer.

In theory, unemployment should sky rocket and government expenditure greatly reduce, but this would kill housing market and hence hurt the financial system. As well as all the none export businesses.

 

[Dolph]

They will concentrate on tax cuts for the most privileged in society. The most damning statistic I read recently was that the poorest people in our society pay 35% of their income in tax, while the richest section of society only pay 31% of their income in tax. This gap will only get wider under the Conservatives. It's time for the poor to stop subsidising the rich, why should hard working people lose out so that the privileged few can gain?

So how do you propose to stop it? Labour's measures haven't worked, so what would you like to see to balance the tax burden?

 

[Dolph]

If the conservatives drastically reduce public spending, fewer people will be employed leaving greater pressure on wellfare budgets and systems.

But much of public sector employment at the moment is simply a welfare system, there is no realistic economic benefit to many of the jobs in the public sector.

It's cheaper to have these people on actual welfare than on pseudo-welfare.

The problem is nowhere near as simple as you summise. I don't think any of the parties are talking about anything anywhere near the answer.

I'd agree with that.

In theory, unemployment should sky rocket and government expenditure greatly reduce, but this would kill housing market and hence hurt the financial system. As well as all the none export businesses.

I think a very important question this time around is how we're going to prevent the same thing happening again. It's happened 3 times in 60 years, all as a result of the same party's policies, and the result has been similar each time.

How are we going to prevent the use of government spending for political gain?

 

[izzy eckerslike]

If the Tories get in I'm emigrating to Greece

 

[Slam62]

Yet the Tories say Corporation tax will be cut by 3p.

exactly, overall taxation will definitely increase, whichever part gets in. Just look at the greek model. Only it will be a lot more dificult here because we actually pay tax at the moment.

VAT will almost definitely go up to say 20% and yet it has hardly been mentioned in the campaign.

 

[rypt]

Why would overall taxation increase, you get better economic growth for similar tax income with lower tax levels

 

[Fuzz]

Hoping to pay £3500 quid less tax..
However that wont equate to being £3500 better off per year.
So no different really.

 

[Slam62]

Why would overall taxation increase, you get better economic growth for similar tax income with lower tax levels

it will, you wait and see whoever gets in. The magic economic growth is not going to return until we start paying chinese wages and have indian working conditions. Even then we will be in a worse position because of our pension liabilities, housing costs, energy costs and raw material costs.

The city of london's magic wealth creation scheme has been shown up to be a mirage and now we have to go right back to square one. Unfortunately we haven't really touched on the adjustment yet.

Who's going to bail us out? (the germans)

 

[dante6491]

exactly, overall taxation will definitely increase, whichever part gets in. Just look at the greek model. Only it will be a lot more dificult here because we actually pay tax at the moment.

VAT will almost definitely go up to say 20% and yet it has hardly been mentioned in the campaign.

The principle is that with lower corporation tax there will be more businesses paying it. It is like elasticity of demand. The tax revenue should be similar except there should be more people employed so high income tax revenue.

 

[scorza]

So how do you propose to stop it? Labour's measures haven't worked, so what would you like to see to balance the tax burden?

Any tax rises should be on income tax, which is by far the fairest means of taxation. Maybe CGT too although I confess I'm not that familiar with CGT rules. Eventually when we can afford it, start cutting regressive taxes e.g. VAT and *shock* fuel duty (could we all agree on that one?).

 

[Slam62]

The principle is that with lower corporation tax there will be more businesses paying it. It is like elasticity of demand. The tax revenue should be similar except there should be more people employed so high income tax revenue.

I'll believe it when I see it. It's going to take a while anyway and who are these 'businesses' going to sell to?

 

[Dolph]

Any tax rises should be on income tax, which is by far the fairest means of taxation. Maybe CGT too although I confess I'm not that familiar with CGT rules. Eventually when we can afford it, start cutting regressive taxes e.g. VAT and *shock* fuel duty (could we all agree on that one?).

Income tax is only fair if you remove the stepped bands and the phased removal of the allowance.

I don't have a problem with CGT going up provided primary residence remains excluded.

I'm not sure about cutting sales taxes (fake sin taxes like fuel duty I have no problem with), I'd much rather expand the list of essentials that the sales tax doesn't apply to, which in turn makes it more progressive.

 

[rypt]

it will, you wait and see whoever gets in. The magic economic growth is not going to return until we start paying chinese wages and have indian working conditions. Even then we will be in a worse position because of our pension liabilities, housing costs, energy costs and raw material costs.

The city of london's magic wealth creation scheme has been shown up to be a mirage and now we have to go right back to square one. Unfortunately we haven't really touched on the adjustment yet.

Who's going to bail us out? (the germans)

We don't need to compete on the actual assembly, we need to have an engineering / design based economy ... right now there are plenty of Brits employed by car companies as part of designing bits, but you will find that most of those car company design and engineering studios are NOT based out of the UK, but are in France, Belgium, Germany or Italy.

What is it that those places offer that we can't?

 

[Dolph]

I'll believe it when I see it. It's going to take a while anyway and who are these 'businesses' going to sell to?

It's happened every time corporation tax has been lowered before, why do you think it'll be different this time?

 

[xb8browney]

the ones who care about their security policy like Sunderland and Leicestershire do.

They have very strict policies and use AD to enforce them. A lot of the london based PCTs are getting into it too. I think theres 2 or 3 now that have contracted out their support desk to another 3rd party private company and they have rolled out the security and AD as the people at the PCT plain and simply didnt have the knowledge or expertise to do it. I had a chat with them and the horror stories they found when doing the consultation on what needed doing was horrendous.

Worst story of the lot was the doctor using a 3G Dongle on his work PC as he found he wasnt getting enough speed on hir torrents lol.

Bit off topic. Are you talking partly about the IP phone system that Sunderland PCT use?

 

[Slam62]

It's happened every time corporation tax has been lowered before, why do you think it'll be different this time?

do you seriously think a reduction in corporation tax is going to fix anything?

the only thing a reduction in corporation tax will do will make double digit growth (sorry joking really) slightly easier for one year. Oh and it will make the deficit slightly more painful to fix.

The problems are a lot more fundemental than that.

 

[joeyjojo]

I hope to be able to vote for a minority party (Greens) and have it make a difference.

 

[qqg3]

Very little effect on me to be honest. I'm going to live/study abroad very soon and so I'll be out of the country for a while. Not particuarly bothered truthfully.

 

[Dolph]

do you seriously think a reduction in corporation tax is going to fix anything?

the only thing a reduction in corporation tax will do will make double digit growth (sorry joking really) slightly easier for one year. Oh and it will make the deficit slightly more painful to fix.

The problems are a lot more fundemental than that.

The point of reducing corporation tax is to both encourage companies to base themselves here (rather than, for example, Ireland) which in turn leads to them paying taxes here, and to reduce startup costs of businesses. Both these things are proven historically to be true, and both result in a net increase in tax revenue over higher tax rates, again, based on historical evidence.

It is true the problems are a lot more fundamental than that, our economy is too heavily reliant on public sector spending, especially in some areas of the country, lowering corporation taxes will assist in correcting that problem.

Why do you think, against all economic theory and historical precedent, that it won't work? The only way it will fail is if the cut isn't big enough.