The labour Leader thread...

We've run a deficit of some kind for most of our recorded history as a country. The mantra that they are a bad thing and should be avoided at all costs (mostly costing those who can't afford it) is a nonsense.

Boiling the economics of running a country down to the simplicity of a household budget is a ridiculous folly.
 
Last edited:
Our deficit is tiny compared to the imperial era, then again we did have a mandate to ignore most debt collection.

We are in no trouble, the issue is entirely regulatory.
 
Caged said:
They won't be running a budget surplus either, which it seemed like your timeline for increased public service spending was based on.



Come and find me in 2020 and if our debt has even started to be paid off I will give you £50. I don't think we'll be past running a deficit each year by then.
Click to expand...

The IMF has already said it wont be happening by then.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/...K-will-fail-to-balance-the-books-by-2020.html

http://www.publicfinance.co.uk/news/2015/04/imf-predicts-uk-deficit-will-linger-till-2020

http://economia.icaew.com/news/april-2015/imf-warns-uk-will-not-clear-deficit-by-2020
 
RDM said:
Isn't that the point of political parties?
Click to expand...
Political parties posses ideologies - but they don't use that ideology as the justification for changes. The changes are justified under often fallacious or simply unfounded ideas as excuses for said ideological changes.

They are cutting public services for ideological reasons, not to be fiscally responsible. In fact we see the exact opposite where fiscally sound choices are undone when it contradicts with ideology.

As another point, not all political entities are equally enamoured with the idea of blindly following ideology over facts & reason - others have a greater emphasis on technocratic elements of policy design. This should not be a surprise to anybody, Conservatism is essentially regressive to the core, less flexible to change to match our enhanced understanding of social issues & the solutions presented by the available evidence.
 
MichaelAwkward said:
We've run a deficit of some kind for most of our recorded history as a country. The mantra that they are a bad thing and should be avoided at all costs (mostly costing those who can't afford it) is a nonsense.

Boiling the economics of running a country down to the simplicity of a household budget is a ridiculous folly.
Click to expand...

This, this and this a thousand times.

Unfortunately there seems to be a lot of simple minded people who have still fallen for the soundbites and fear mongering of the conservatives in 2010 when they were talking about 'maxing out the countries credit card' and 'we'll end up like greece'.

They also think running this surplus is going to pay off the countries debt :D:D:D

But hard choices have to be made otherwise we'd be no better than a 3rd world country and we have to protect our standing.

Of course debt has increased, but inroads have been made that wouldn't have and by 2020 we can start to finally pay some of it off
Click to expand...

Oh, look...there's one :p

RDM said:
Isn't that the point of political parties?
Click to expand...

Of course parties have ideological aims, should they blindly follow them in the face of empirical evidence for whats needed at the time to the detriment of the country? Probably not. And I'm not just talking about the current austerity programme.

Take for example Thatchers 'right to buy' which has been pretty universally criticised as a disaster in hindsight for selling off all social housing without it being replaced and they are just continuing with the ideological policy, when social housing is currently in a critical state.
 
Of course they're extending Right to Buy. The less social housing there is, the more private renters there are. The fewer options those renters have, the higher rents will climb. Pay it, or wind up homeless.

It's a no-brainer policy for the Tories. Existing Housing Association tenants will love the idea, and it makes them look like they're "doing the right thing" regardless of the long-term damage.
 
Last edited:
robgmun has been parachuting into threads for months/years, spouting some crap about Labour being fundamentally incapable of managing a country regardless of who the people in the cabinet actually are, and how Our Nige is the only answer. Don't expect him to stick around long enough to actually defend arguments that are so poorly constructed that you can see through bits of them.
 
I've voted for Corbyn. I don't agree with all his policies but I think he'll be good for British politics and open up a lot of debate.

Kendall is dreadful. Burnham got torn apart by Jeremy Hunt in the pre-election health debate forums. Cooper is the only candidate I think could win on a tory-lite platform.
 
Freakbro said:
This, this and this a thousand times.

Unfortunately there seems to be a lot of simple minded people who have still fallen for the soundbites and fear mongering of the conservatives in 2010 when they were talking about 'maxing out the countries credit card' and 'we'll end up like greece'.

They also think running this surplus is going to pay off the countries debt :D:D:D



Oh, look...there's one :p



Of course parties have ideological aims, should they blindly follow them in the face of empirical evidence for whats needed at the time to the detriment of the country? Probably not. And I'm not just talking about the current austerity programme.

Take for example Thatchers 'right to buy' which has been pretty universally criticised as a disaster in hindsight for selling off all social housing without it being replaced and they are just continuing with the ideological policy, when social housing is currently in a critical state.
Click to expand...

For the UK and most western countries to be in debt and also running a deficit there must surely be countries that either have no debt or are running a surplus. This loaned money must come from somewhere? The problem I've had though is finidng a country that isn't in debt. Even china (one of the worlds biggest creditors) has a debt of around $5Bn and it's constantly growing.

Countries are just throwing money at each other and it's becoming diluted. Where does it end?
 
Caged said:
robgmun has been parachuting into threads for months/years, spouting some crap about Labour being fundamentally incapable of managing a country regardless of who the people in the cabinet actually are,
Click to expand...

And yet history says i'm right, time and again
 
robgmun said:
And yet history says i'm right, time and again
Click to expand...

Is this the part where you believe that Labour caused a global credit crunch as opposed to it being a global phenomenon which the UK was susceptible to as a result of economic policies that had broad cross-party support?

For what it's worth I'm not doing this to humour you, I know you're a lost cause and that no amount of facts are going to change your mind that the only way to a prosperous UK involves something about not being in the EU and kicking the migrants out and then everyone will find gold under their patios as a result. This is in case anyone else isn't bored enough by your one-line soundbites to complicated questions and is still reading.
 
Last edited:
One said:
For the UK and most western countries to be in debt and also running a deficit there must surely be countries that either have no debt or are running a surplus. This loaned money must come from somewhere? The problem I've had though is finidng a country that isn't in debt. Even china (one of the worlds biggest creditors) has a debt of around $5Bn and it's constantly growing.

Countries are just throwing money at each other and it's becoming diluted. Where does it end?
Click to expand...

This is just going to be in basic terms, but macro economics and world debt is nothing like your own personal household economics and the loans you owe, so to try and equate them is disingenuous and is what causes the confusion.

A country isn't 'lent' money by another country. If our country wants to borrow, we issue bonds that are bought on the money market (By individuals, companies, pension funds, countries etc). Money can be created out of thin air by central banks by using the fractional reserve system and then it is just eroded away by inflation over time, all you have to do is service the interest until the debt becomes negligible.

A country (especially one who controls it's own money supply) can run a deficit, every year, forever....as long as there is enough growth to outstrip the level of inflation. (not that it matters in the short term if that doesnt happen either, we are looking at the very long term picture.) In fact, in economic terms, running a surplus is a very inefficient and undesirable thing to do - which is why we don't do it!

Just think, we borrowed 2 billion pounds in 1914 to fund world war 1. Which in 1914 was an enormous amount of money. We still haven't paid it off, but now in 2015 2 billion pounds is nothing in comparison to what it was and the interest we pay is negligible - because inflation has eroded the debt away.

We will never, ever pay off the £1.5 Trillion pounds our country owes within the current time frame, but in 1 - 200 years, £1.5 Trillion will just be chump change :cool:

That's not to say our deficit got to levels we were comfortable with after the financial crash (nothing to do with labours spending) and it was prudent to get it back under control, but the methods of doing it are just ideological rather than economic and the Conservatives mantra of aiming for this 'surplus' to pay off the debt is just pandering to simpletons.
 
Caged said:
Is this the part where you believe that Labour caused a global credit crunch as opposed to it being a global phenomenon which the UK was susceptible to as a result of economic policies that had broad cross-party support?

For what it's worth I'm not doing this to humour you, I know you're a lost cause and that no amount of facts are going to change your mind that the only way to a prosperous UK involves something about not being in the EU and kicking the migrants out and then everyone will find gold under their patios as a result. This is in case anyone else isn't bored enough by your one-line soundbites to complicated questions and is still reading.
Click to expand...

Seriously you come across as whiny, no one ever said Labour caused a global credit crunch, i noticed that's the new line that the left likes to lie about those on the right says, that's not a surprise, the left lies.

What did happen was due to the fact that Labour are economic retards we had no money left when the crunch came. :rolleyes:
 
robgmun said:
Seriously you come across as whiny, no one ever said Labour caused a global credit crunch, i noticed that's the new line that the left likes to lie about those on the right says, that's not a surprise, the left lies.

What did happen was due to the fact that Labour are economic retards we had no money left when the crunch came. :rolleyes:
Click to expand...

Yes we did, it was simply conjured.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom