Soldato
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- 13 Apr 2013
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Labour have always been a threat to national security, none more so than the last Labour government that got us involved in the debacles in Iraq and Afghanistan.
The labour Leader thread...
- Thread starter easyrider
- Start date
Did you forget the global financial crisis and bailing out the banks or is that labours fault too? The spending was fine until the crash happened and we needed to give billions to the banks, which Osborne has now let them off Scott free. Let's not forget Oxbridge George has borrowed even more!
The Tories don't answer questions in the house, they just blame labour, it's getting old and they are going to have to start answering members questions rather than dodging them and going oh labour! I imagine in 2020 they will still be blaming labour
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Both parties doing exactly the same thing of blaming one another then, as they always have and always will, on everything and anything.
FYI Paul Krugman is a Nobel prize-winner in economics. George Osborne has a degree in History.
If Labour were irresponsible with their spending then presumably it should be easy for you to identify what and how much of the spending was irresponsible.
but that's the problem isn't it we weren't putting anything aside for when the crash happened.
its like saying "well the mortgage and car, and credit cards and holidays on finance were all fine, until Dave lost his job like he knew he would"
and obama is a noble peace prize winner?
Well let's not forget that the Nobel Peace Prize is named after the bloke who invented dynamite. Generally speaking though I don't imagine they had out the economics prize to someone who doesn't know their stuff about economics.
Ill trust a man who went to both MIT and Yale in economics over a history student at the reins of economic benchmarks.
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It's nothing like that
was the whole basis of boom and bust wasn't it? ave a surplus during the boom to cover you in the bust?
Both supported by the Tories, of course. I don't think either of the big parties has a great record on this front. Part of the problem is that we're too willing to go along with the US while lacking the power and influence to really pull policy in our desired direction.
but without Iraq and Afghanistan when would it have been we last had a war in the desert? 91?
given its were we're most likley to have a major war atm, it makes sense to get the practice and expertise/find the flaws in our equipment in some minor war so if something serious happens we're not caught out.
If you've got an army where most of your officers sand nco's Havant ever seen combat you're a tad ****ed.
The trouble with that is that the vast bulk of economics is theory, and academics specialise in theory, not practise. Those theories have to simplify situations to be able to draw almost any conclusions, and as soon as you do that, you simplify the relevance to reality right out of them.
Put any major theory into practise in tbe real world, say, QE, and it won't have one or two simple to track impacts, but numerous impacts of different magnitudes, working via different mechanisms, and over wildly different timescales.
So, take QE. A massive QE program like Labour undertook might cause inflation several years down the track. Which is bad. How bad will depend on the state of the economy when that inflation hits. If inflation is really high, it could be disastrous, but if inflation is low, the effect might be negligible, or even welcome. But even if that inflation is disastrous, it may well be less disastrous than not having done QE and having the entire banking system, and economy, implode.
Relying on Nobel prize economists as oracles is pointless, since you can come up with other Nobel winners with the exact opposite view. You provide 40 economists that reckon A, and I'll find 50 that reckon A is daft, and really, B is right. And no doubt, we could find 60 that reckon A and B are equally daft, and C is obvious.
And none of them can prove they are, or were, right. We know what happened as a result of a given policy, but we don't and can't know whether the result of doing something else would be better or worse.
Still worse, none of these economists come from a politically neutral, objective, standpoint.
And even worse, all their much vaunted theories tend to fall apart as soon as you introduce human nature into the process. Nearly always, the assumption is that people act rationally and even a cursory study of humans suggests that's often not the case. The economy is so vastly complex that it's next to impossible to accurately model, even if you assume rational actions.
I'd like to add to this long post by saying that it always seems to be Krugman that keeps getting pulled out to enforce the anti austerity view on the economic situation it Is clear that Krugman has a viewpoint counter to austerity and it constantly gets banded around as if it is the only economist in the world worth listening to.
Most economists will agree that the Conservatives austerity is too much (in varying degrees) and that the current time of extremely low interest rates should be used to borrow and maximise infrastructure spending in the short term to increase long term growth. What the UK did not need was excessive bloat where money was spent on shoring up middle management and pensions that were unsustainable for public sector workers instead of building more houses caused by the boom period in Labours government which left us with higher debt to GDP ratio that the conservatives are so hung up on. The majority being the cost of bailing out the banks that both political parties would have HAD to do anyway.
As stated above it is ALL theory and this period of austerity could be what makes a difference when the next economic downturn happens and Britain is a leaner and more efficient economy with more headroom to borrow when it needs to stop rampant deflation. At this point a lot of economists will come out of the woodwork declaring that they knew this would happen all along and every one else was wrong.
Regardless of this, Corbyn has painted himself into a very small corner with his cabinet and also even after only being leader for a few days seems to be inept at forming a Labour party that could seriously provide competition to the Conservative's current majority. This is disappointing simply because a competitive opposition is necessary to make government work better, if Corbyn cannot unify his party including the new labour masses he will struggle to oppose any bills or reforms the Conservative's post allowing them free reign to pass any number of poorly thought out knee jerk ideas that politicians are well known for.
Umm, No? Countries don't generally run a surplus, it's an economically inefficient thing to do, and certainly not to 'save money' to cover a bust time.
You're thinking very much in household economic terms.
edit : And I agree pretty much with all Aldav and MrC are saying
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Say what? Half of QE has been Tory!
Anyway you are right, there is a common joke that economists have predicted 10 out of the last 3 recessions
(I make this joke as an economist myself)However I think there is one thing that all parties agree on, that is investment into the supply side of the economy is a good thing. Conservatives want to invest in infrastructure, Labour want to create this national investment bank to boost infrastructure and house building.
The debate is really about whether this is funding through cutting current expenditure or funding in another way.
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Suspect David Cameron's special advisors tweeted that out rather than the PM himself. Can't imagine that wasn't a carefully plotted tweet micromanaged by his office, clearly not an off the cuff remark!