Politics Thread (encompassing Brexit) - 21 June 2017 onwards

[Guest Kopfkino]

10 minutes ago, toddybad said:

Iceland's GDP has more than doubled in 7 years. They're in the position to.

 

Having engaged in harder austerity, and increased public spending in both nominal and real terms by less than the UK. What it shows is austerity in this country has failed by not existing. So it opposes your argument with full force.

[Guest]

5 minutes ago, Kopfkino said:

 

Having engaged in harder austerity, and increased public spending in both nominal and real terms by less than the UK. What it shows is austerity in this country has failed by not existing. So it opposes your argument with full force.

Out of interest kopf - how do you propose to increase productivity and consumer confidence and deal with the looming credit crisis if you're not putting more money into the economy?

[Webbo]

1 hour ago, Rogstanley said:

 

We’ve discussed the Nordics, Portugal and Iceland and shown how they’ve implemented significantly different approaches to the uk and achieved a much higher degree of success. 

 

I get the feeling you’ve defaulted back to droning on about socialism for some reason - I thought we’d established that nobody is actually advocating full blown socialism? 

 

Not sure if you’re aware but even your own beloved dear leader Tories have advocated loosening the purse strings a bit.

 

Weird post overall mate. What with the childish insult about Corbyn, shifting the argument towards socialism for no reason, and signing off by calling everyone who doesn’t agree with you simpletons, can’t help but think you know you’ve lost. And make no mistake - you’ve lost.

Putting up taxes and nationalisation sounds like socialism to me. The trouble is you're just to stubborn to admit you're wrong.

[Rogstanley]

Just now, Webbo said:

Putting up taxes and nationalisation sounds like socialism to me. The trouble is you're just to stubborn to admit you're wrong.

I’ve never advocated nationalisation.

 

Putting up taxes isn’t socialism and you know it. Are the Tories socialists because they put up VAT among dozens of other taxes? Of course not.

 

Wrong about what, exactly? I mean precisely, and in detail. You never seem to go into any detail about anything. 

[Webbo]

1 hour ago, toddybad said:

Trouble is, until the financial crisis - which everybody on the planet besides you and fox know was a global problem - the labour government had probably been the most successful government for decades. I'll wages that your earnings and capital worth increased more in those years than at any other time.

Their mistakes were Iraq and PPI but they'd have stayed in government for years if American banks hadn't fallen first.

We lost more manufacturing industry under the last Labour govt than we did under Mrs Thatcher. The growth we had was based on the speculative banking which you blame for the global crisis and govt spending financed by borrowing. If we were doing so well you have to ask why Gordon Brown needed to increase the deficit during a boom.

[Webbo]

1 minute ago, Rogstanley said:

I’ve never advocated nationalisation.

 

Putting up taxes isn’t socialism and you know it. Are the Tories socialists because they put up VAT among dozens of other taxes? Of course not.

 

Wrong about what, exactly? I mean precisely, and in detail. You never seem to go into any detail about anything. 

They want to tax the rich, not because it'll raise more money, because it won't, the optimal tax rate is 44% and it's already 45%. It's just the usual blame the rich populism when the top 1% are already paying a record share of the country's income tax.

[Guest]

1 minute ago, Webbo said:

We lost more manufacturing industry under the last Labour govt than we did under Mrs Thatcher. The growth we had was on the speculative banking which you blame for the global crisis and govt spending financed by borrowing. If we were doing so well you have to ask why Gordon Brown needed to increase the deficit during a boom.

The Tories have had 2 years of surplus in the last since they started the neoliberal project. Labour have had 3 in less years of government. The stories in the 90s ran deficits of similar size to the labour ones 15 years later - so much higher %s of GDP.

 

The economy was growing at a good pace under labour so borrowing was perfectly fine. Notice how you didn't hear anything about borrowing being bad until George Osborne told you it was.

[Guest]

1 minute ago, Webbo said:

They want to tax the rich, not because it'll raise more money, because it won't, the optimal tax rate is 44% and it's already 45%. It's just the usual blame the rich populism when the top 1% are already paying a record share of the country's income tax.

The top 1% also see a record share of the country's income.

[Rogstanley]

1 minute ago, Webbo said:

They want to tax the rich, not because it'll raise more money, because it won't, the optimal tax rate is 44% and it's already 45%. It's just the usual blame the rich populism when the top 1% are already paying a record share of the country's income tax.

The optimal tax rate is 44%!  Where did you get that from? 

 

The top 1% are earning record amounts so they should be paying record amount of tax.

 

I don’t know who you are talking about when you say “they”, do you mean the Labour Party? 

[Webbo]

1 minute ago, toddybad said:

The Tories have had 2 years of surplus in the last since they started the neoliberal project. Labour have had 3 in less years of government. The stories in the 90s ran deficits of similar size to the labour ones 15 years later - so much higher %s of GDP.

 

The economy was growing at a good pace under labour so borrowing was perfectly fine. Notice how you didn't hear anything about borrowing being bad until George Osborne told you it was.

As I've said before the tories always follow Labour and their balls ups. In 1997 Labour inherited a healthy economy on the brink of a boom. They promised to follow tory spending plans for the first 2 years, which they did, but they still put up NI and raided the private pension funds, one of the reasons why so many pension funds collapsed under Labour. That's why Labour had 2 years of surplus.

[Webbo]

4 minutes ago, toddybad said:

The top 1% also see a record share of the country's income.

They're paying more tax than they were under Labour.

[Guest]

2 minutes ago, Webbo said:

They're paying more tax than they were under Labour.

In absolute or relative terms?

Though either way I'd think it was a good thing.

[Webbo]

1 minute ago, toddybad said:

In absolute or relative terms?

Though either way I'd think it was a good thing.

Both. Considering Labour thought that 40% was the right amount until a month before the election they knew they'd probably lose, that's hardly a surprise.

[Guest]

4 minutes ago, Webbo said:

As I've said before the tories always follow Labour and their balls ups. In 1997 Labour inherited a healthy economy on the brink of a boom. They promised to follow tory spending plans for the first 2 years, which they did, but they still put up NI and raided the private pension funds, one of the reasons why so many pension funds collapsed under Labour. That's why Labour had 2 years of surplus.

3-years of surplus.

And then they fixed the NHS and education and all manner of other services. The economy rocketed, people got richer.

The Tories were also supporting their spending plans at the time.

 

[Webbo]

Just now, toddybad said:

3-years of surplus.

And then they fixed the NHS and education and all manner of other services. The economy rocketed, people got richer.

The Tories were also supporting their spending plans at the time.

 

They wasted billions on PFI, dumbed down education, gave welfare to couples earning £50k a year and added 900,000 to the public payroll and yet still they had higher unemployment than we have now.

[Rogstanley]

8 minutes ago, Webbo said:

As I've said before the tories always follow Labour and their balls ups. 

Go on then, take us on a journey through history and show us how the Tories always follow labour’s balls ups. 

[Webbo]

1 minute ago, Rogstanley said:

Go on then, take us on a journey through history and show us how the Tories always follow labour’s balls ups. 

1979 and 2010

[Guest]

I'm off to have a more interesting conversation. I've had this one about 50 times in recent months.

[Webbo]

Just now, toddybad said:

I'm off to have a more interesting conversation. I've had this one about 50 times in recent months.

Eventually you might win one.

[Rogstanley]

4 minutes ago, Webbo said:

1979 and 2010

Great detail.

 

1979 - labour had reduced debt as a proportion of gdp

 

2010 - situation caused by the financial crisis, and the Tories have made it significantly worse with poor decisions and an unwillingness to admit to their mistakes

 

Where did you get 44% from? I’m genuinely interested. 

[Rogstanley]

6 minutes ago, toddybad said:

I'm off to have a more interesting conversation. I've had this one about 50 times in recent months.

Don’t blame you. I feel like I’m losing brain cells just by engaging in this nonsense.

[Webbo]

27 minutes ago, Rogstanley said:

Great detail.

 

1979 - labour had reduced debt as a proportion of gdp

 

2010 - situation caused by the financial crisis, and the Tories have made it significantly worse with poor decisions and an unwillingness to admit to their mistakes

 

Where did you get 44% from? I’m genuinely interested. 

in 1978 the govt had to ask the IMF for a loan, basically we were broke. 

 

If the Tories had been in charge in 2008 there is no way you'd say it was down to world events. Gordon Brown claimed to have eradicated boom and bust during the longest boom in history and just before the biggest bust for 80 years. His creation the FCA oversaw the reckless banking that was such a big part of the slump.

 

The 44% comes from a report in the Guardian a few months ago from some international body saying that taxes could go up on the rich without losing tax take. It was lauded by Toddy and Co as proof that Corbyn was right and all us tories were stupid. Then a day or 2 later The Economist pointed out they were talking about other European countries (the ones that are doing so much better than us) whose top rates are around 35% and the optimal rate was 44%.I'd looked for if I could be bothered but it's probably 30 or 40 pages back.

[Guest Kopfkino]

44 minutes ago, toddybad said:

Out of interest kopf - how do you propose to increase productivity and consumer confidence and deal with the looming credit crisis if you're not putting more money into the economy?

 

Why does it matter what I propose? Is it to just divert attention away from being wrong about Iceland?

 

Anyway, I will briefly entertain the question:

Immediately the issue with your statement is the govt has engaged in £800bn of deficit-financed fiscal stimulus, or as you like to put it, putting money into the economy, but yet we still have a productivity problem and folk are complaining about lack of growth (conveniently forgetting end of 2013 til this year). As a nation we've pretty much proven that the government just spending is great for growth. The problem you and rog have is you seem assume government will make good, almost perfect spending decisions which is what is required for government spending to help growth. It's a lot of faith to put into a bunch of civil servants and politicians who one suspects are likely under-achievers. Indexed per capita, between 1990 and 2007, UK government spending increased by 65%, achieving GDP growth of 42.8%, compared with US government spending increase of 34.2% and GDP growth of 37.3%. So we managed 5.5% extra growth from 31% extra spending over that period Brilliant, bravo for government spending and 'putting money into the economy'. 

 

Literally everything in your world is demand-side, bar screaming infrastructure or capital expenditure, as if the supply-side doesn't exist. We're not so diametrically opposed here, I absolutely believe we have to be completing infra projects and really investing in transport links etc. But again HS2 shows how easy government wastes money and invests in projects with terrible ROI. And I've said before what I'd do, but I'll repeat

 

Fix housing - reform planning laws so we don't have the most restrictive land regulation laws in the developed world which has a huge effect on prices. Help to Buy is a great example of government throwing money at something and making the problem worse. 

 

Reform the tax system - corporation tax is one that needs serious reform. Osborne's cutting was all well and good (it is) but we've ended with an EMTR barely lower and some firms face a higher marginal tax rate if they invest. Is already and will cause major problems for private investment. 

 

Liberalise immigration policy for people coming from high income countries so we attract high-skilled migrants rather than filling ourselves up with low-skilled migrants because the EU tells us to. 

 

Invest in creative industries which have high productivity and is somewhere the UK excels compared to much of the world.

 

Help SME's access credit - with a similar model to that already implemented in Italy. 

 

We absolutely should be doing more on vocational training as well as improving the quality of our management practices. We actually have some highly productive firms but are brought down by the massive slew of unproductive firms (low interest rates don't help). There must be things to be learnt from those firms, as there must be in the fact foreign-owned firms are more productive than our own much of the time. 

 

I do support some of Hammond's measures this week pushing innovative, high-tech stuff, increasing R&D spending and trying to improve education but it doesn't go far enough. I've said before about free-enterprise zones around the north of England, coupled with actually engaging in Northern powerhouse and further devolution.

 

Oh yeah and ****ing stop faffing about and just build a bleeding runway somewhere. In fact, build two, one at Gatwick/Heathrow and one at Birmingham. 

[bovril]

47 minutes ago, Kopfkino said:

Liberalise immigration policy for people coming from high income countries so we attract high-skilled migrants rather than filling ourselves up with low-skilled migrants because the EU tells us to. 

 

Lots of unskilled migrants came to the UK in 2004 precisely because we didn't do what the rest of the EU did. 

[katieakita]

Came across at first hand this week the Rt Hon Frank Field and how he goes about things, refreshing to see an MP actually get off their arse and do something.