On 26 May 2011 at 4:33pm Clifford wrote:
Here's something interesting Vince Cable has said in an interview. It will really annoy Osborne:
'And then we have the deficit, which was the consequence of the bank collapse.'
On 26 May 2011 at 5:09pm Vesbod wrote:
Good ol' Vince, he just loves to upset Cameron and his cronies.
On 26 May 2011 at 8:55pm jrsussex wrote:
The question is "Do we really have a financial crisis in the UK"? I ask as I see yet another 110m of foreign aid is being given for the political and economic development of North Africa and the Middle East. That on top of the news earlier this week that billions more of our money is also being given away in additional aid foreign. If financial matters are so dire in the UK where is this money coming from? Please don't let us discover it is in loans from the world bank, although I will not be surprised if it is.
On 26 May 2011 at 9:18pm Clifford wrote:
Or to put it another way, Are the Conservatives (and their Orange Book friends) distorting the reasons for the crisis to enable them to entirely marketise the welfare state? Phase 1 would be turning the NHS into something resembling privatised rail. (And in case anyone thinks I'm a Labour supporter - it would be continuing Blair's work).
On 26 May 2011 at 10:47pm kevsy wrote:
That coupled with obama's praising of UK's (browns) handling of economic crisis of 2009 economic crisis and his refusal to endorse Cameron's slash and burn approach, oh and the imf bloke saying (shock horror) that the cuts are keeping growth too low and need to be eased off.
It feels like the honeymoon may be drawing neatly to a close.
Is it too late to save the public sector?
On 27 May 2011 at 1:25pm Paul Newman wrote:
I see the brains trust is back in town ....sigh.
Yes the fall off in revenues was the cause of the the deficit which is the kind of thing that happens in markets. Services delivered giant sums to the exchequer for years... its like that its not a tap. Had we acumulated a surplus or not aquired such a large dependent non productive burden we could have withstood the position vastly better. So far so simple .
Had we lived in perpetual high growth low inflation full employment conditions all would have been well .
The sort of person who thinks that was likely is the sort of person who should nice and quiet when we decide how to run the country .
Anyone who thinks we can afford to borrow nore is obviously not looking at our borrowing figures which remain grotesque . Anyone who thinks this can go on forever has not been watching the plot at all . Germany is now looking at saving Greece or saving itself and yet still you people have your heads neatly tucked into your fundements .
My own feeling is that the truth is out there but yet to come home . Governments in Europe are going to have to cut their cloth back to about 30% of GDP , maybe up to 35% and there is damn long way to go. Currently spedning has not been cut at all so attempts to blame our travails on evil Tory prudence are gibberish.
This is a view that Vince Cable endorsed ( minus the end game ) at the weekend , it is ratyer typical that a Lib Dem also says things the innocent may interpret as meaning the opposite
He knows
On 27 May 2011 at 1:44pm Clifford wrote:
Do you think the Labour government overspent Paul?
On 27 May 2011 at 1:58pm Paul Newman wrote:
....or under taxed ...depending on your point of view .. By their own golden rule ( remember that ?) fabulously so .The fact that eventually the Conservative Party , having wailed in ther wilderness for ten years got on board the spending train is a rhetorical not a real point .Obviously they would have spent a lot less and would not have started from ...there .
If you were to mount a serious case it would have to be that the Conservative Party might well have been tempted to let the asset boom go even hotter .
On 27 May 2011 at 3:05pm Clifford wrote:
You're probably right Paul, about the under-taxing in relation to their spending ambitions I mean. And about the Tories trying to escape the wilderness. But there is a long list of charges that can be made against the economic 'genius' Brown. As, no doubt, there will be against Osborne when the reckoning comes.
On 27 May 2011 at 3:09pm MC wrote:
The "Prudent" Chancellor.
Yet another sad joke of a politician
On 27 May 2011 at 3:40pm kevsy wrote:
love you too paul,
while i for one find your detailed pieces on economic theory fascinating, i wonder if anyone else had a view on the politics of Obama and elements of the IMF expressing doubts on the current path being taken by cameron.
That was the point I was making as opposed to looking for a bad a-level economic lesson.
While you may not agree with either group the implications of them starting to turn the screw on Cameron is significant. General and specific opposition may yet be enough to take the rough edges of some of the cuts such as the NHS reforms.
On 27 May 2011 at 5:32pm Paul Newman wrote:
I must have missed anything from the IMF recently, they have been pretty quiet for obvious reasons, and suppportive in the past .Given that our borrowing and defict reduction programme is not working I would expect the IMF to be arguing for greater thrift . I can hardly imagine a less credible economic voice that Obama but he is hardly in a position to be Hawkish .
The voices raised against NHS reform are the Liberal Party whose all white graduate public sector 'proffessional' voters do not like their lives of indolent luxury disturbed.
It tells you all you need to know about the left that they are manning the barricades on behalf of an organisation that redistributes from young to old ,from poor to rich and is specifically ring fenced throwing even greater pressurre on welfare above all , not to say education.
I don`t get it , must be a 1945 thing
On 27 May 2011 at 7:50pm kevsy wrote:
Funny I thought those against the NHS reform went beyond the liberals. I have detected a certain level of nervousness from pretty much anyone who may ever have cause to use it.
On 27 May 2011 at 9:12pm Paul Newman wrote:
I `m sure they are , we all have good reason to be very nervous indeed . I support the principle of the NHS of course ,but when you discuss it I think it has to be in the context of the growing burden it puts on the young caused by the demographic time bomb all parties are aware of.
The status quo was never viable the problem is only more urgent than it might have been
On 27 May 2011 at 9:39pm kevsy wrote:
Complete nonsense, if we accept that we have to adjust to a new spending regieme. Then it is about choices it doesn't mean that all spending needs to be cut for fear of the world ending if every single item of spending isn't slashed.
On 28 May 2011 at 1:14am Paul Newman wrote:
I agree but as well as choices it is about assent and taxation. A smaller and smaller workforce will be financing a large and larger retired and wealthier dependent older generation and the NHS is the means whereby enormous amounts of money are moved from, the young to the richer and older already.
If you want support for the essentials of the NHS to continue that problem must be addressed.
One part of that has to be placing the consumer`s needs unequivocally ahead of the provider and focussing the NHS on providing health not providing employment .
PS
You know what kevsy I increasingly wonder if there has not been enough talking . Frankly , looking at the borrowing figures and the ever rising expenditure (even while we have this silly fantasy chat) I start to think that ,dangerous though it may be, the Unions must simply be taken on and beaten if we are to avoid decades of stagnation.We have a Heath when we need a Thatcher and I `m getting sick of it .
On 28 May 2011 at 7:39am MC wrote:
Funny. I think that banks, financial institutions and large privatised utilities must simply be taken on and beaten if we are to avoid decades of stagnation (not to mention and wealth polarisation).
On 28 May 2011 at 8:14am Clifford wrote:
Paul Newman wrote: 'One part of that has to be placing the consumer`s needs unequivocally ahead of the provider and focussing the NHS on providing health not providing employment .'
These aren't two different species - the consumer is a producer and the producer is a consumer. What this stuff actually means is putting the market first, and the market is private profit. Here's an interesting quote:
'The starting point in understanding the cuts are the changes in the ownership of wealth that have occurred over the last 30 years. The last three decades, under both Tory and Labour governments have seen the richest 10% of the population grab an increasing share of the wealth. Profits have steadily risen while the share of national output taken by wages has steadily declined, shrinking from around 60% in 1980 to 53% in 2007. Between 2000 and 2007, productivity increased at almost twice the rate of real wages. In other words, Britain worked harder, for less â?? and this was during the â??good daysâ?? of the economic boom.'
On 28 May 2011 at 2:47pm Andaxi wrote:
err, Clifford perhaps some of the 'richest have got richer', as you put it, through their own efforts.
Not much effort needed to claim benefits from the working taxpayers methinks!
Eureka!! That's it work harder and gain more! 
As for Vince Cable, he has accepted a lucrative post in Government and shouldn't seek to undermine what the Government are trying to do.
If he has a better way he should make it known and not deride others efforts.