General Erection - 12th December 2019

[TheSage]

1 hour ago, philpvfc said:

Think you will find that borrowing is declining after a sharp rise towards the end of the Blair/ Brown era

https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=country+borrowing+through+the+years&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&hl=en-gb&client=safari#imgrc=-n-lW9QgZlHsVM:

You don’t need to borrow as much if you sell off our gold reserve (on the cheap)

The economy was in a right mess by the end of Blair and Brown despite seen a boom period they managed to spend all the money we had, a recession followed which no party can be totally blamed for hence why there was a slow down in the economy, this was in pretty well all western countries.

 

https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=country+borrowing+through+the+years&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&hl=en-gb&client=safari#imgdii=xKzPXOsdwAMh7M:&imgrc=-n-lW9QgZlHsVM:

The problem is when I keep on posting a mountain of factual evidence some of you reply with an odd snippet and think you've won the game. But in reality you have a poor hand and are playing 4s and 5s, while I've got the aces.

Borrowing has just recently come down from what it was 12 months ago but it's still at record levels. Yes, the deficit has come down but the national debt has doubled to close to £2 trillion. That's because Tories always borrow more than Labour. And they've borrowed more because they choked off growth through austerity and flat-lined the economy for ten years. 

And rather than swapping statistics think about what's happened to living standards and wages. Static at best. Barely back to 2006 levels. And yet the debt has doubled and growth collapsed! 

I've posted this three times now but I don't know why I bother. It was a world wide recession that began in the housing and banking sector. It wasn't Labour's fault although I appreciate the right wing narrative on here is to blame them. With hindsight, yes, a tighter fiscal policy would have helped, so too tighter regulations on the banks. But the Tories matched Labour's 2005 spending manifesto and wanted even fewer rules for the banks! So we can place some blame, yes we certainly can, on Labour but not the stupid hysterical and untrue story that it was all their fault and so austerity was a necessity.

Every single economist worth his salt will tell you that you slowly invest in a depression to boost economic growth. Like FDR in the US. You don't choke it off and cut too far, too deeply. But that is what Osborne did and he now admits it was wrong. 

[For Us All]

1 hour ago, Jacko51 said:

Well you need to look harder.  And get to grips with the apostrophe while you're at it.

Sorry Miss.

[Bycarsbill]

26 minutes ago, TheSage said:

The problem is when I keep on posting a mountain of factual evidence some of you reply with an odd snippet and think you've won the game. But in reality you have a poor hand and are playing 4s and 5s, while I've got the aces.

Borrowing has just recently come down from what it was 12 months ago but it's still at record levels. Yes, the deficit has come down but the national debt has doubled to close to £2 trillion. That's because Tories always borrow more than Labour. And they've borrowed more because they choked off growth through austerity and flat-lined the economy for ten years. 

And rather than swapping statistics think about what's happened to living standards and wages. Static at best. Barely back to 2006 levels. And yet the debt has doubled and growth collapsed! 

I've posted this three times now but I don't know why I bother. It was a world wide recession that began in the housing and banking sector. It wasn't Labour's fault although I appreciate the right wing narrative on here is to blame them. With hindsight, yes, a tighter fiscal policy would have helped, so too tighter regulations on the banks. But the Tories matched Labour's 2005 spending manifesto and wanted even fewer rules for the banks! So we can place some blame, yes we certainly can, on Labour but not the stupid hysterical and untrue story that it was all their fault and so austerity was a necessity.

Every single economist worth his salt will tell you that you slowly invest in a depression to boost economic growth. Like FDR in the US. You don't choke it off and cut too far, too deeply. But that is what Osborne did and he now admits it was wrong. 

Fact: borrowing is forecast to hit £50billion this year, yes that is the equivalent of 2.3% of GDP (against a target of 2%) and much higher than I personally would like, but miles less than the near 10% of GDP that the debt interest had reached at the end of Blair/Brown era in 2010!  However, I will concede that government debt interest rates (gilts in other words) are at a lower level than in 2010. Interesting that in Germany, government debt bonds are now paying a negative rate of interest--in other words people are expected to pay for lending the German goverment money!!!

[Regal Beagle]

4 hours ago, TheSage said:

Now that is fake news and complete speculation.

Blimey, going back 50 years is rather silly don't you think? But if doing that means you don't have to defend ten years of Tory cuts and austerity.....

Nationalising the health system was really daft wasn't it?

Providing us all with free schooling and  nationalising education was stupid.

The 45 Labour government also built over 1 million houses and introduced a stream of insurance schemes to attack poverty.

Introducing the minimum wage was barking mad.

Yeh, all these things were completely mad, done nothing for any of us, and ruined our lives. 

I can remember the late 80s and the early nineties? Can you recall Tory management of the economy then? Clearly not? Negative equity for millions. A million lost their homes. Interest rates up x3 in one day. Black Wednesday. Give me a break. All governments achieve successes and all of them run into economic problems. All of them.

As NoF has noted above the economic record of this government is abysmal. The right wing press won't tell you that but it's been a shocking record. Low growth. Today's figures reveal the lowest growth for 7 years. Investment has stagnated. Production flat-lined. Balance of payments deficit awful. Living standards stood still or gone backwards.

The national debt has doubled to £1.8 trillion.

Tories borrow more than Labour - always.

And the biggest threat to our economy is a hard/no deal Brexit. Every economist will tell you that. 

So, again, let's keep pretending that the Tories are wonderful in running the economy and if anyone dares question that faith then we can go back fifty years and quote from the seventies, though Heath was as bad as Callaghan and a Tory PM.

The economy was its best for the last 30 years under Labour and Tony Blair.

 

I

 

"going back 50 years is rather silly"

"the 1945 government..."

 

You are either a genius troll or completely and utterly blind to your own staggering levels of hypocrisy.

[Regal Beagle]

46 minutes ago, TheSage said:

The problem is when I keep on posting a mountain of factual evidence some of you reply with an odd snippet and think you've won the game. But in reality you have a poor hand and are playing 4s and 5s, while I've got the aces.

You are not even making mountains out of molehills Sage!

You are just making them up all together.

[philpvfc]

1 hour ago, TheSage said:

The problem is when I keep on posting a mountain of factual evidence some of you reply with an odd snippet and think you've won the game. But in reality you have a poor hand and are playing 4s and 5s, while I've got the aces.

Borrowing has just recently come down from what it was 12 months ago but it's still at record levels. Yes, the deficit has come down but the national debt has doubled to close to £2 trillion. That's because Tories always borrow more than Labour. And they've borrowed more because they choked off growth through austerity and flat-lined the economy for ten years. 

And rather than swapping statistics think about what's happened to living standards and wages. Static at best. Barely back to 2006 levels. And yet the debt has doubled and growth collapsed! 

I've posted this three times now but I don't know why I bother. It was a world wide recession that began in the housing and banking sector. It wasn't Labour's fault although I appreciate the right wing narrative on here is to blame them. With hindsight, yes, a tighter fiscal policy would have helped, so too tighter regulations on the banks. But the Tories matched Labour's 2005 spending manifesto and wanted even fewer rules for the banks! So we can place some blame, yes we certainly can, on Labour but not the stupid hysterical and untrue story that it was all their fault and so austerity was a necessity.

Every single economist worth his salt will tell you that you slowly invest in a depression to boost economic growth. Like FDR in the US. You don't choke it off and cut too far, too deeply. But that is what Osborne did and he now admits it was wrong. 

You throw opinions across, I show you evidence you are wrong and you say I don’t hold the cards!

i never blamed Labour for the recession and I haven’t seen anyone else on here blaming them. I blame Thatcher for giving the banks too much power and any other PM since for not clamping down on them and I also blame Blair and Brown for not keeping some of their spend for the rainy day which was inevitably going to happen but there are lots of other reasons for the recession and the inevitable austerity. I agree that Osbourne was useless, yes spending had to be cut but taxes should have gone up as well, he did help to reduce the spiralling debt but not enough as you have correctly pointed out.

[For Us All]

1 hour ago, TheSage said:

If you don't know the Labour created the NHS in the forties you need to get out more. Before then people had to pay to see a doctor or went sick or died.

The same with education. It's a national system, countrywide, and the first time we had free secondary schools for all was 45.

The three day week was 74 with Edward Heath. Forgotten that too?

But it gets a bit tedious when the only thing you keep repeating parrot fashion is what went on nearly 50 years ago. 

I can spend ages like you quoting Heath and power cuts, and the three day week and Black Wednesday when millions ended up losing their homes and more in negative equity. That hadn't happened before. Nor the poll tax fiasco. But I see little point in going back 30-40 years to try and make a silly political point that has nothing at all to do with 2019.

The scandal at Stafford was dreadful, agreed. But the deaths of 5,500 people on trolleys in A&E in the last two years is truly appalling, as is the NHS missing all its targets, as is selling our personal data to Amazon, as is criminally under-funding it. As is the shortage of doctors and nurses and health workers and cutbacks to the care system.

Blair spent far more of our GDP on health than any Tory government has done and improved it massively. It didn't miss all its targets then all the time.

Read what the King's Fund says if you want some facts.

https://www.kingsfund.org.uk/sites/default/files/field/field_publication_file/independent-audit-nhs-under-labour-1997–2005-sunday-times-march-2005.pdf

The weight of evidence is against you.

Not in Stafford it isn't under the last Labour goverment.

[Regal Beagle]

There's an estimated 8.5m more people in the UK now than there was in 1997.

 

Do you think that has had an impact at all TheSage?

 

And lets leave the faux "omg look at him blaming all the imigrants" garbage at the door.

 

I've seen you post lists of why the NHS is buckling under pressure and conveniently it fits your political views perfectly. So I would just like to know to what extent you think 8.5m more people in 22 years has had on public services?

[Regal Beagle]

1 hour ago, Nofinikea said:

Well seeing as the unemployment level is at "record lows" it shouldn't have any effect as it should all be paying for itself.

Of course the unemployment figures are manipulated, well they must be otherwise the tax contributions on wages and purchases should more than cover it...

Unless you are saying the extra 8.5M are all making zero contribution?

In which case nothing adds up does it?

Population increase is simply scaling up if the governments employment figures are to be believed.

We dont know anything about those 8.5m though really. 

Is it likely that the majority are lower income workers? Are there some who don't contribute? How many are children? 

This is why we need a sensible national debate on immigration. 

 

Pretending it is not an issue or using it to falsely accuse people of bigotry is not solving anything. 

 

For the record, I think a sensible and diverse immigration policy which focused on skills and worth to our country would be the best bet. Eg - if there is a shortage of nurses, let's open the door to qualified nurses looking to work in that profession. 

[TheSage]

2 hours ago, philpvfc said:

You throw opinions across, I show you evidence you are wrong and you say I don’t hold the cards!

i never blamed Labour for the recession and I haven’t seen anyone else on here blaming them. I blame Thatcher for giving the banks too much power and any other PM since for not clamping down on them and I also blame Blair and Brown for not keeping some of their spend for the rainy day which was inevitably going to happen but there are lots of other reasons for the recession and the inevitable austerity. I agree that Osbourne was useless, yes spending had to be cut but taxes should have gone up as well, he did help to reduce the spiralling debt but not enough as you have correctly pointed out.

You haven't give me any real evidence though, that's the problem.

I agree the deficit has come down as has unemployment (dodgy though the stats are) but all you've shown is that there has been a small reduction in recent figures. And yes there has. But overall since 2010 the national debt has soared. It's over £1.8 trillion. How much evidence do you want?

https://www.ukpublicspending.co.uk/uk_national_debt_analysis

https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/847641/PSF_bulletin_October_2019_HMT.pdf

https://fullfact.org/economy/public-debt/

https://www.economicshelp.org/blog/334/uk-economy/uk-national-debt/

We agree on some things and a lot of your post I'm with you all the way but this myth that the Tory economic record is wonderful and marvellous isn't sustainable. On 90% of the economic data it simply isn't true. Growth has stagnated, Look at today's figures. Investment is not much better. Sterling has wavered on a downward track. But, as I say, forget the arguments over data and take a look at wages and living standards - ground to a shuddering halt for ten years. That's the real measure of economic health, not figures on a page.

Let's just beg to disagree.

[TheSage]

Believe it or not had I voted in 59 I would have voted Macmillan. I then liked Wilson. I went for Thatcher to re-balance things! Yes. But she then went too far. I have voted Liberal and Green and Tory again because the bloke was a brilliant local MP. I voted for Blair three times. So I'm not the revolutionary Castro that you think I am.

However, I do try to examine the facts and don't get swayed by some of the daft propaganda we see and read. Some of you on here have gone crazy at times, comparing Corbyn to Stalin or indeed the Nazis. And telling us all to remember what happened fifty years ago with a selective rendition of history, omitting Heath and his problems and Major and Black Wednesday, and not giving the 45 Labour government much credit either, Bill apart. Nor admitting that Blair's first term was outstandingly successful economically, though of course some of those foundations had been put down by Clarke (but I'm not telling you about that!)

In economic terms every government has successes and failures and Labour does tend to spend more on public services and Tories hold tighter purse strings but as the pendulum swings we often need to reset our priorities in different ways. It is true to say that all governments increase the debt. All of them. Not just Labour. And it's also true that Tories borrow more money. Labour is not without its own faults but it isn't fair and objective to push this narrative that Tories always run the economy well. That's all I'm saying.

 

[philpvfc]

Life expectancy increasing doesn’t help especially as the old tend to use the NHS more. As someone pointed out earlier NHS funding has grown about 3.2% since it started yet inflation has run about 4% in the same time so contributions haven’t kept up with inflation. I don’t like the Tories philosophy of importing doctors and nurses rather than training and developing internally, I think this has contributed partly to the standards dropping. Labour were the first party to use privatisation and it has grown since then, not sure wether that is a good thing or not, most GP’s are privatised now and personally found most the GP’s I have dealt with in the last 20 years or so have been crap, trying to find a good GP is very difficult.

[bycars rob]

Labour seems to be the only party offering some hope for the future and I realise a civilised society has to be paid for. Boris vaguely offering funding for NHS whilst cutting taxes is just hot air.

The tories are not interested in people like us and their vague plan to reform Human rights legislation will only lead to less rights for anyone but the elite, who in every other extreme government have put themselves above the law 

[Howjy04]

33 minutes ago, philpvfc said:

Life expectancy increasing doesn’t help especially as the old tend to use the NHS more. As someone pointed out earlier NHS funding has grown about 3.2% since it started yet inflation has run about 4% in the same time so contributions haven’t kept up with inflation. I don’t like the Tories philosophy of importing doctors and nurses rather than training and developing internally, I think this has contributed partly to the standards dropping. Labour were the first party to use privatisation and it has grown since then, not sure wether that is a good thing or not, most GP’s are privatised now and personally found most the GP’s I have dealt with in the last 20 years or so have been crap, trying to find a good GP is very difficult.

My GP(s) is/are brilliant.Madeley.

[philpvfc]

I grew up in Madeley and the GP’s were really good back then.