Tories show their true colours early

[Totally_Baffled]

Going back to the thread title, I voted tory simply because they are a lesser of two evils.

What was the alternative? Labour, I just dont believe they have the balls to cut public spending anywhere near enough to avoid UK plc going bankrupt. Unions and there voter base just would not allow it. Even now, they still won't say where they would cut to halve the deficit let alone balance the books. They just rely on ridiculous 4%+ growth figures to magic away the debt!

Under such a scenario - eg IMF austerity measures, the poor/disabled/disadvantaged which I would presume most people are concerned about, would get EVEN less!

Cutting public spending will always hit the poor(er) most because as you would expect that is where most of it is spent!!

You can bang on about defence spending, trident and all those other wastes of money - but combined they barely comprise one third of the deficit and only 8% of overall spending.

You can bang on about the banks causing the issue and they should pay. Yes they should, but even if you took all of RBS/lloyds profits - they will take 50-80 years to pay it back! In which time the UK plc has already gone bankrupt many times over.

Which ever way you cut it, unpopular decisions need to be made.

Then on top of all this shite just to deal with the deficit we have to at least get the £1 trillion national debt down to about £500 billion (40% of GDP) to get the overall public finances back into some sort of shape.

[biffvernon]

And you can bang on about public spending...because it is spent on the public. That's a good thing because we are the public and we're worth spending on. If we can persuade rich folk to lend money to the government to do this, great! Interest rates are very low so the rich folk must be pretty desperate to lend us their money. Take advantage.

(Remember the guys who run the Conservative Party ARE the rich guys. Of course they don't like this wheeze so they are trying, sadly successfully, to make people think public spending is a bad thing. Don't fall for it.)

[snow hope]

If economic growth is what you want then using the market to employ resources efficiently is the way to go - you employ the cheapest labour. That's just what Ken criticises the last government for doing.

But he's also criticising it for expanding the public sector recklessly with national debt.

At the time, I agreed with Labour's policy of spending on public services. I assumed it was mostly being financed by high tax revenues from the booming economy, rather than by borrowing.

Since I've learned more about economics, and discovered PO, I can see Labour's policy for the irresponsible and dangerous one that it was.

Given the extraordinary times we live in, any responsible government would be looking to bring down the national debt. I don't think the way the Tories are tackling this is very fair, and I think that they'd be cutting spending even if times were good; but I'm not convinced their cuts would be so stringent if Labour hadn't had us living beyond our means for so long - and if PO and the concomitant end of growth didn't mean that servicing the national debt has to be a priority.

Let's face it, the Troy agenda is to shrink the size of government. Same old same old, but this time they are hiding behind the fig-leaf of national debt.

To call our national debt a fig-leaf is rather missing the scale of the problem.

Remember debt = loan. If national debt is high is just reflects the willingness of players to lend to the government.

It's more than that. If we default on our loans, the pound becomes toilet paper and we can't import anything.

This is why I fear there will be a fast crash. All it takes is for the pound to lose most of its value over the period of a few weeks or months, and virtually overnight we find ourselves with no oil and not enough food.

+1 - agreed - I have been very disappointed with what Labour have done over the last few years. I never liked the Tories since the early Maggie Thatcher period which goes back to my student days. I still feel she seriously damaged the UK manufacturing economy back in the 80s, but even though I disliked her, she was a good leader - even I can recognise that. Tony Blair was also a good leader (yeah I know loads of people will disagree with me) and he stretched the truth too much, but Gordon Brown was such a poor leader in contrast and at the end of the day he was the powerhouse behind the UK economics for the last decade or more! So in my eyes, he has to take his fair share of the blame for the current economic situation in the UK. I simply cannot forgive him for what he did to Pensions back in 1997/8 and what he did with the country's Gold stocks a couple of years later........ never mind the rest that followed.....
Ho Hum.

As I said at the start, I agree with a lot of Ludwig's post.

[RenewableCandy]

Why deliberately create the circumstances for a discontented, angry underclass to appear?

It makes no sense to me either, but that is in fact exactly what the Thatcher government did. I think the idea was to drive down wages. Of course in the end that pulls the rug from under the economy: if your workers can't afford to buy anything, there will be a recession. End of.

[kenneal - lagger]

Why deliberately create the circumstances for a discontented, angry underclass to appear?

It makes no sense to me either, but that is in fact exactly what the Thatcher government did. I think the idea was to drive down wages. Of course in the end that pulls the rug from under the economy: if your workers can't afford to buy anything, there will be a recession. End of.

There was a discordant angry underclass before Maggie started cutting things, just as there is already a discordant angry underclass of long term multi generation unemployed as a legacy of Labour's thirteen years. It was called the Socialists Workers Party and it was running the Labour Party locally and the Trade Unions and it was running the country into the ground. The revolutionary maxim was to "run the country down to foment revolution." And that is what they were doing.

The idea wasn't to pull wages down, it was to balance the books of the nation. As we have found out again, now, if the government spends more than it receives eventually we go broke. Maggie said she was going to run the country like a housewife runs the home - what goes out must be less than what comes in.

[kenneal - lagger]

And you can bang on about public spending...because it is spent on the public. That's a good thing because we are the public and we're worth spending on.

But eventually, like all borrowing, it has to be paid back.

(.......... to make people think public spending is a bad thing. Don't fall for it.)

Public spending isn't a bad thing but excessive spending, of any sort, is. Would you go out and blow £100k on a new car, Biff, because you're Biff and you're worth it? That's what you're advocating and it sounds pretty stupid put that way, doesn't it?

[2 As and a B]

And you can bang on about public spending...because it is spent on the public. That's a good thing because we are the public and we're worth spending on.

And where does the money come from? And don't say "Rich people lending it". The money is paid, with interest, by tax payers - unless your money tree is starting to bear notes.

[biffvernon]

The money comes from the government that issues it and from the banks that multiply it by fractional banking. It's not real - just a way of smoothing the workings of commerce. We should not get so hung up on it. (Nor try to grow it on trees.)

The important question is where does the wealth come from? From the primary industries of mining, farming, fishing and forestry and the secondary value adding industries of manufacturing. But most of all from the sources of energy, the sweat of the workers and from oil, coal, gas, wind, hydro, nuclear... etc.

The 'debt problem' is an artificial construct. Peak oil is real. Lets deal with reality and not be side-tracked or hood-winked by the machinations of the politicians.

[clv101]

The 'debt problem' is an artificial construct. Peak oil is real. Lets deal with reality and not be side-tracked or hood-winked by the machinations of the politicians.

Perhaps there's some truth in it at a global level but certainly not at a household level, or at the national level. The debt of an individual household can be very real with devastating consequences - so too the debt of a nation.

[woodpecker]

The 'debt problem' is an artificial construct.

Tell that to the Greek government.

[lurker]

The money comes from the government that issues it and from the banks that multiply it by fractional banking. It's not real - just a way of smoothing the workings of commerce. We should not get so hung up on it. (Nor try to grow it on trees.)

The important question is where does the wealth come from? From the primary industries of mining, farming, fishing and forestry and the secondary value adding industries of manufacturing. But most of all from the sources of energy, the sweat of the workers and from oil, coal, gas, wind, hydro, nuclear... etc.

The 'debt problem' is an artificial construct. Peak oil is real. Lets deal with reality and not be side-tracked or hood-winked by the machinations of the politicians.

+1

[Totally_Baffled]

The 'debt problem' is an artificial construct. Peak oil is real. Lets deal with reality and not be side-tracked or hood-winked by the machinations of the politicians.

Perhaps there's some truth in it at a global level but certainly not at a household level, or at the national level. The debt of an individual household can be very real with devastating consequences - so too the debt of a nation.

+1

[2 As and a B]

The money comes from the government that issues it and from the banks that multiply it by fractional banking. It's not real - just a way of smoothing the workings of commerce.

And I think that summarises perfectly why Labour invariably overspend the taxpayers' hard-earned money and screw up the economy - they just don't know what money is, where it comes from and how it works! La-la La-la La-la Never-never

[biffvernon]

The 'debt problem' is an artificial construct. Peak oil is real. Lets deal with reality and not be side-tracked or hood-winked by the machinations of the politicians.

Perhaps there's some truth in it at a global level but certainly not at a household level, or at the national level. The debt of an individual household can be very real with devastating consequences - so too the debt of a nation.

Yes that is all too true. Dividing the world up into nation states was never a smart idea. And more cooperation between households would increase gross global happiness no end.

[kenneal - lagger]

The 'debt problem' is an artificial construct. Peak oil is real. Lets deal with reality and not be side-tracked or hood-winked by the machinations of the politicians.

Perhaps there's some truth in it at a global level but certainly not at a household level, or at the national level. The debt of an individual household can be very real with devastating consequences - so too the debt of a nation.

Yes that is all too true. Dividing the world up into nation states was never a smart idea. And more cooperation between households would increase gross global happiness no end.

OOO! Family spats!! Nasty!!