2015 Election season ..........stuff it in here.

[Dr The Singh]

I don't want them in power Singh, I just want an exit from the EU. They have an important voice, as they are the only ones challenging the Union. They will continue to gain popularity, until the bigger parties start to talk about it, without name calling and branding. That tactic doesn't wash anymore.

I agree with a lot garage says, and would like to be out of the EU also

[leicsmac]

What about if you are literally running out of money?

Do you still decide to spend and then shutdown healthcare when you run out or do you start to think about prioritising?

I'm pretty sure there are other less objectionable methods of sourcing money that don't involve privatizing the NHS.

Sorry, but you'll never get me to say that ensuring someone is fit and healthy should come down to how much money either they or another source should have. Material wealth is fvck all use to a dead man...It's not like you can take it with you.

[leicsmac]

I don't want them in power Singh, I just want an exit from the EU. They have an important voice, as they are the only ones challenging the Union. They will continue to gain popularity, until the bigger parties start to talk about it, without name calling and branding. That tactic doesn't wash anymore.

I'm actually in favour of a referendum on the topic. There's not enough direct democracy in the UK as it is, and the EU is rather different from the old Common Market, so it's probably time to have a decisive say either way.

[Guest MattP]

Well no not every policy I've mentioned would do that. I'm all for a mansion tax, Robin Hood tax, I'm in favour of massively cutting our military and nuclear weapons spending.

These Robin Hood thefts have been tried before though and they often reduce the tax take given the amount of people who leave.

Trident I'll give you 100 bill over 30 years - so about 3% of yearly deficit - although will need to balance that out with the thousands being made unemployed as well of course to get a true figure.

[MooseBreath]

And Matt, regarding your point saying that you hope we don't have the attitude now of 'If something is hard to do then we may as well do nothing or not even try'...is that the same attitude you would hold towards, say, pursuing tax evasion by large businesses or change of energy production and climate change in the future? Because they're difficult things to deal with too, but both a feature of our current society and both something many people think we shouldn't do something about either.

How says we shouldn't do anything about tax evasion? I think that's actually something everyone agrees on and we should be glad the tories have actually done something about it.

On climate change I think that's a matter of 'if' we can do something rather than whether or not we should. If there is something we can do that will definitely lead to a stable climate then I'm sure everyone would support it. But we're nowhere near that level of knowledge.

[leicsmac]

I don't think that's going yo happen before the next election.

It won't happen in my life time

Here's hoping not mate...There's still beers I want to sample and I don't like the colour of my bathroom walls! :-)

But...One day, the world is going to change in a way that needs a global response, not individual nations squabbling with each other over who gets to be top of the pile when the dust settles.

[sphericalfox]

I'm pretty sure there are other less objectionable methods of sourcing money that don't involve privatizing the NHS.

Sorry, but you'll never get me to say that ensuring someone is fit and healthy should come down to how much money either they or another source should have. Material wealth is fvck all use to a dead man...It's not like you can take it with you.

 

Matt has NEVER used the NHS, he was born at home in a shoebox and is an example of fitness and health all covered by private insurance and emergency and hospital care... therefore cares not for it. 

[Dr The Singh]

Here's hoping not mate...There's still beers I want to sample and I don't like the colour of my bathroom walls! :-)

But...One day, the world is going to change in a way that needs a global response, not individual nations squabbling with each other over who gets to be top of the pile when the dust settles.

Cheers to utopia.......mankind is such a shitty species

[MooseBreath]

I'm pretty sure there are other less objectionable methods of sourcing money that don't involve privatizing the NHS.

Sorry, but you'll never get me to say that ensuring someone is fit and healthy should come down to how much money either they or another source should have. Material wealth is fvck all use to a dead man...It's not like you can take it with you.

You don't believe in prioritising anything ahead of people's health yet you're using an expensive device to browse the Internet while millions who are suffering from health conditions could have benefitted from a donation to a charity?

[Dr The Singh]

Matt has NEVER used the NHS, he was born at home in a shoebox and is an example of fitness and health all covered by private insurance and emergency and hospital care... therefore cares not for it.

I hear he is the king of Zamunda, and has his royal penis cleaned for him......

[Dr The Singh]

You don't believe in prioritising anything ahead of people's health yet you're using an expensive device to browse the Internet while millions who are suffering from health conditions could have benefitted from a donation to a charity?

that doesn't make sense

[sphericalfox]

that doesn't make sense

 

Duh, if you have an electronic device, this instantly negates any possibility of you giving to charity. He made this point yesterday too, and it was laughable then. 

[davieG]

Cheers to utopia.......mankind is such a shitty species

 

[leicsmac]

How says we shouldn't do anything about tax evasion? I think that's actually something everyone agrees on and we should be glad the tories have actually done something about it.

On climate change I think that's a matter of 'if' we can do something rather than whether or not we should. If there is something we can do that will definitely lead to a stable climate then I'm sure everyone would support it. But we're nowhere near that level of knowledge.

Yeah, I give kudos to the Tories for at least appearing to take action in that regard...Here's hoping it leads to results.

I think regarding climate change I think the worst thing we can do is nothing. Lack of information is a massive problem...as we discussed before, CO2 levels are the only reliable dataset over a period of time long enough to draw definitive conclusions about how they will be in the future. Increased CO2 levels could lead to a whole bunch of possible changes.

But you'd hope we'd be able to do more than throw our hands in the air and admit everyone's fvcked because we don't know how things are going to change.

More information...And more importantly, trust in the sources of that information at levels high enough to dictate policy, is key.

[leicsmac]

Cheers to utopia.......mankind is such a shitty species

Haha...true. But if actually we stopped believing in the evolutionary principle and therefore fvcking each other over to make sure we and those around us are as far up the totem pole as possible we might be something better.

But probably not.

[MooseBreath]

Duh, if you have an electronic device, this instantly negates any possibility of you giving to charity. He made this point yesterday too, and it was laughable then.

No, it's about priorities, which is fundamentally what this debate is about. People who say that spending on people's health should be prioritised above all but themselves prioritise spending on consumer electronics are being somewhat hypocritical, don't you agree?

[Dr The Singh]

Yeah, I give kudos to the Tories for at least appearing to take action in that regard...Here's hoping it leads to results.

I think regarding climate change I think the worst thing we can do is nothing. Lack of information is a massive problem...as we discussed before, CO2 levels are the only reliable dataset over a period of time long enough to draw definitive conclusions about how they will be in the future. Increased CO2 levels could lead to a whole bunch of possible changes.

But you'd hope we'd be able to do more than throw our hands in the air and admit everyone's fvcked because we don't know how things are going to change.

More information...And more importantly, trust in the sources of that information at levels high enough to dictate policy, is key.

I'm flying to the punjab in 10 hours, I will ask those fookers about climate change, and pollution. In fact I will post some pics from Amritsar or Ludhiana which is the 4th most polluted city in the world. Were a puny little shitty nation, Ludhiana is bigger then Birmingham, and I bet you, no Fokker gives a shit about pollution, Cus the world there is about making money, unless we get them to change, it will be like pissing against the wind

[MooseBreath]

Yeah, I give kudos to the Tories for at least appearing to take action in that regard...Here's hoping it leads to results.

I think regarding climate change I think the worst thing we can do is nothing. Lack of information is a massive problem...as we discussed before, CO2 levels are the only reliable dataset over a period of time long enough to draw definitive conclusions about how they will be in the future. Increased CO2 levels could lead to a whole bunch of possible changes.

But you'd hope we'd be able to do more than throw our hands in the air and admit everyone's fvcked because we don't know how things are going to change.

More information...And more importantly, trust in the sources of that information at levels high enough to dictate policy, is key.

I think we should continue working to understand more about the climate before we spend money on 'solutions' that might turn out to make the problem worse. That's not inaction.

[leicsmac]

I'm flying to the punjab in 10 hours, I will ask those fookers about climate change, and pollution. In fact I will post some pics from Amritsar or Ludhiana which is the 4th most polluted city in the world. Were a puny little shitty nation, Ludhiana is bigger then Birmingham, and I bet you, no Fokker gives a shit about pollution, Cus the world there is about making money, unless we get them to change, it will be like pissing against the wind

Quite right. Hence my cynicism regarding the future.

[Strokes]

I'm flying to the punjab in 10 hours, I will ask those fookers about climate change, and pollution. In fact I will post some pics from Amritsar or Ludhiana which is the 4th most polluted city in the world. Were a puny little shitty nation, Ludhiana is bigger then Birmingham, and I bet you, no Fokker gives a shit about pollution, Cus the world there is about making money, unless we get them to change, it will be like pissing against the wind

I'm a climate change denier but in leicsmacs defence, you have to lead by example on issues like this.

[sphericalfox]

No, it's about priorities, which is fundamentally what this debate is about. People who say that spending on people's health should be prioritised above all but themselves prioritise spending on consumer electronics are being somewhat hypocritical, don't you agree?

 

Well considering the contributions made to National Insurance, that prioritisation decision is made for us thankfully and should remain so. Your point has no real correlation.

[Dr The Singh]

I think we should continue working to understand more about the climate before we spend money on 'solutions' that might turn out to make the problem worse. That's not inaction.

I think people with electronic devices should donate more money towards climate research...

[leicsmac]

I think we should continue working to understand more about the climate before we spend money on 'solutions' that might turn out to make the problem worse. That's not inaction.

No disagreement there. Knowledge is power.

But, as I said, trusting the people acquiring the knowledge is as important as actually having it in the first place. Climate change is such a politicised issue that even if you come up with definitive predictions, they might well not be believed by a good chunk of the population. Take the whole anti-vaccine fiasco, and that was because of one doctor, a BS report, and the Daily Fail.

[Guest]

Farage was right with his comments regarding HIV. Well over 50% of those being treated are from Africa and it costs the British taxpayer over a billion a year.

Keep trying to slander to silence - it won't work when it can be backed up with facts.

http://order-order.com/2015/04/03/nigel-farage-is-right-about-health-tourism/#_@/UnWfr8Xp2w-2Uw

 

Farage is a dick! Perhaps that's why he is concerned.

[sphericalfox]

I wonder what Labour connection this lad has...

 

 

The 2016 election is still 19 mind-numbing, soul-killing months away. There is, however, another important election in just six weeks, as Britain goes to the polls. And many of the same issues are on the table.

 

Unfortunately, economic discourse in Britain is dominated by a misleading fixation on budget deficits. Worse, this bogus narrative has infected supposedly objective reporting; media organizations routinely present as fact propositions that are contentious if not just plain wrong.

 

Needless to say, Britain isn’t the only place where things like this happen. A few years ago, at the height of our own deficit fetishism, the American news media showed some of the same vices. Allegedly factual articles would declare that debt fears were driving up interest rates with zero evidence to support such claims. Reporters would drop all pretense of neutrality and cheer on proposals for entitlement cuts.

 

In the United States, however, we seem to have gotten past that. Britain hasn’t.

 

The narrative I’m talking about goes like this: In the years before the financial crisis, the British government borrowed irresponsibly, so that the country was living far beyond its means. As a result, by 2010 Britain was at imminent risk of a Greek-style crisis; austerity policies, slashing spending in particular, were essential. And this turn to austerity is vindicated by Britain’s low borrowing costs, coupled with the fact that the economy, after several rough years, is now growing quite quickly.

 

Simon Wren-Lewis of Oxford University has dubbed this narrative “mediamacro.” As his coinage suggests, this is what you hear all the time on TV and read in British newspapers, presented not as the view of one side of the political debate but as simple fact.

 

Yet none of it is true.

 

Was the Labour government that ruled Britain before the crisis profligate? Nobody thought so at the time. In 2007, government debt as a percentage of G.D.P. was close to its lowest level in a century (and well below the level in the United States), while the budget deficit was quite small. The only way to make those numbers look bad is to claim that the British economy in 2007 was operating far above capacity, inflating tax receipts. But if that had been true, Britain should have been experiencing high inflation, which it wasn’t.

 

Still, wasn’t Britain at risk of a Greek-style crisis, in which investors could lose confidence in its bonds and send interest rates soaring? There’s no reason to think so. Unlike Greece, Britain has retained its own currency and borrows in that currency — and no country fitting this description has experienced that kind of crisis. Consider the case of Japan, which has far bigger debt and deficits than Britain ever did yet can currently borrow long-term at an interest rate of just 0.32 percent.

 

Which brings me to claims that austerity has been vindicated. Yes, British interest rates have stayed low. So have almost everyone else’s. For example, French borrowing costs are at their lowest level in history. Even debt-crisis countries like Italy and Spain can borrow at lower rates than Britain pays.

 

What about growth? When the current British government came to power in 2010, it imposed harsh austerity — and the British economy, which had been recovering from the 2008 slump, soon began slumping again. In response, Prime Minister David Cameron’s government backed off, putting plans for further austerity on hold (but without admitting that it was doing any such thing). And growth resumed.

 

If this counts as a policy success, why not try repeatedly hitting yourself in the face for a few minutes? After all, it will feel great when you stop.

 

Given all this, you might wonder how mediamacro gained such a hold on British discourse. Don’t blame economists. As Mr. Wren-Lewis points out, very few British academics (as opposed to economists employed by the financial industry) accept the proposition that austerity has been vindicated. This media orthodoxy has become entrenched despite, not because of, what serious economists had to say.

Still, you can say the same of Bowles-Simpsonism in the United States, and we know how that doctrine temporarily came to hold so much sway. It was all about posturing, about influential people believing that pontificating about the need to make sacrifices — or, actually, for other people to make sacrifices — is how you sound wise and serious. Hence the preference for a narrative prioritizing tough talk about deficits, not hard thinking about job creation.

 

As I said, in the United States we have mainly gotten past that, for a variety of reasons — among them, I suspect, the rise of analytical journalism, in places like The Times’s The Upshot. But Britain hasn’t; an election that should be about real problems will, all too likely, be dominated by mediamacro fantasies.