The Autumn Spending Review

[Freakbro]

Because we still spend more than we receive?

And there's nothing wrong in that?

Aiming to run a small surplus is pointless and inefficient.

And there is still a lot of waste and inefficiencies too which can be slashed from the public sector. Slashing waste = better services.

A meaningless soundbite, there are always waste and inefficiencies in large organisations including just the same in the private sector.

And remember just the other week when Cameron wrote the letter complaining of front line cuts in his constituency, the rebuttal letter showed how much back room staff and red tape had already been cut, hence now why it is front line services that are being cut, which hardly makes them better.

 

[Freakbro]

though I'm sure there will be plenty of butt hurt from the left 'muh benefits'

So how come it was just as much the Tory side of the house that were against the proposed implementation of the Tax Credit cuts?

It's not a left/right thing but how is the best way to implement reform, which wasn't the way George was doing it.

 

[Cosimo]

Aiming to run a small surplus is pointless and inefficient.

Why so?

 

[dowie]

1. No-one saw the crash coming. It was a black-swan event. To suggest it was obviously predictable is a form of hindsight bias. A few individuals claim they saw it coming, the majority didn't.

people who saw it coming made a fortune from it, they were indeed a small number

people who saw that the banking system was vulnerable however and/or that models used were flawed were not such a small number - granted they didn't predict the crash though some of them did previously warn against such event - anyone who's read Taleb ought to be aware of that... senior executives, politicians were seemingly mostly unanawre

 

[Tunney]

And there is still a lot of waste and inefficiencies too which can be slashed from the public sector. Slashing waste = better services.

That's not what's happening. Essential services are being slashed. Even David Cameron is shocked by the what's having to be cut.

It's easy to make vague statements about 'slashing waste' and 'tackling efficiencies'. The truth is that these levels of cuts can't be achieved without impacting services. First it's libraries, swimming pools, science and arts programmes. Then it's the police, justice system, post-GCSE education and welfare. It'll eventually all of education and the NHS.

What the country needs is more investment to grow tax revenue. This isn't a controversial idea but it's one that the Tories are happy to ignore for ideological reasons.

 

[StriderX]

Why so?

Because we have too many services to run without damaging their efficacy.

So either something is cut completely or tax is increased

 

[Freakbro]

Why so?

Because a countries economics is nothing like a households economics?

Come on Cosimo, this has been explained countless times, you must have read it at least once!

To maintain a borrowing rate less than your growth rate is the most efficient way as you can service the interest and inflate the debt away.

We are never, ever going to pay off our national debt (Currently 1.5Trillion) I think I calculated before that to run a surplus at the level George is aiming for it would take ~3000 years to pay back.

Just look historically at what countries do, we have run a surplus for 5 out of the last 35 years and deficits for the other 30 years (3 under Labour , 2 under Conservatives). Running a budget deficit is perfectly normal and acceptable, it was only the currency liquidity crisis and the imminent collapse of the banking system that caused our deficit to get out of hand - which does need to be brought under control.

 

[dowie]

So how come it was just as much the Tory side of the house that were against the proposed implementation of the Tax Credit cuts?

It's not a left/right thing but how is the best way to implement reform, which wasn't the way George was doing it.

concerns from the Tory side were more re: the gap in implementing the reforms - i.e. the shortfall between people losing tax credits and the minimum wage increasing rather than any objection to the idea in principle, you might well find he's made an adjustment there

 

[anything I don't mind]

I read that the current gov has decided to give £1 billion to bill Gates charity to help fight malaria. There was less than 1500 cases per year in the uk and most are people coming back from holiday. Bill gate and buffet already put $20 billion in to this charity of theirs but so far only spent small percentage on malaria.

I think it's outrageous and money should be spent at home building houses for European immigrants.

Good example of how easily the government misallocates huge amounts of money.

 

[jimjamuk]

Because a countries economics is nothing like a households economics?

Come on Cosimo, this has been explained countless times, you must have read it at least once!

To maintain a borrowing rate less than your growth rate is the most efficient way as you can service the interest and inflate the debt away.

We are never, ever going to pay off our national debt (Currently 1.5Trillion) I think I calculated before that to run a surplus at the level George is aiming for it would take ~3000 years to pay back.

Just look historically at what countries do, we have run a surplus for 5 out of the last 35 years and deficits for the other 30 years (3 under Labour , 2 under Conservatives). Running a budget deficit is perfectly normal and acceptable, it was only the currency liquidity crisis and the imminent collapse of the banking system that caused our deficit to get out of hand - which does need to be brought under control.

I agree with what you say here but it is the scale of the debt we have racked up in the last 10 years. If another recession was to hit now and we had to increase the deficit to get through that then we would have interest payments so large that it would hamper any form of recovery. Just imagine if our national debt was wiped out - we would have an extra 43Bn a year which is the equivalent to 8% of the tax take

 

[Cosimo]

Come on Cosimo, this has been explained countless times, you must have read it at least once!

Every time I hear it, it is different, at a guess must be taken from a new link in the internet.

 

[Freakbro]

I agree with what you say here but it is the scale of the debt we have racked up in the last 10 years. If another recession was to hit now and we had to increase the deficit to get through that then we would have interest payments so large that it would hamper any form of recovery. Just imagine if our national debt was wiped out - we would have an extra 43Bn a year which is the equivalent to 8% of the tax take

Yep, I agree and our interest payments, while still servicable at the minute, are still at an eye-watering and unpalatable level.

The problem is, the most likely thing to push us back into recession is George's cuts

No-one has disputed we need to bring the deficit down (the debt will take care of itself) the only argument has been the method, and even Osborne et al had to abandon their initial level of planned austerity because it took all the demand out of the economy and we contracted even further.

Like any business, you spend to invest and grow, you don't cut back and expect growth.

 

[Freakbro]

Every time I hear it, it is different, at a guess must be taken from a new link in the internet.

Nope, exactly the same message as I've said for the last 5 years

 

[Burnsy2023]

And there is still a lot of waste and inefficiencies too which can be slashed from the public sector. Slashing waste = better services.

For the police this was true for the first and probably even the second round of cuts. It focused some minds and got rid of roles that brought little value.

The problem is that after these efficiencies, it hasn't stopped, so we're at the stage when we're reducing capability throughout the whole of the force.

This is what really gets me, if you want to prevent terrorism, you need to fund local intelligence gathering by officers who have strong relationships in their communities - which is exactly what is being cut.

 

[Uther]

The next serious attack we suffer here will certainly draw attention to police cuts.

 

[Tunney]

But he's not saying there shouldn't be cuts. He's saying the wrong things are being cut. It's quite simple. The key quotation from your link,

Have no other councils managed to do that?

As I said, making vague statements about cutting waste doesn't do much. Councils wouldn't be closing libraries and cutting back of services to the elderly if it was as easy as some think.

What would help cut out waste is more centralisation but that can't be done as a council level. Sadly, this government is committed to localism, with individual schools and hospitals making their own decisions.

 

[Tunney]

And making vague statements about it not being possible doesn't, either. Can you address the question? Have no other councils managed it? Cameron's suggesting they have... is he wrong on that point?

I don't know of a single council that hasn't cut front-line services. Maybe there are some about but there's definitely none in London.