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What is fairness in terms of government spending cuts?

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waltur
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22 Oct 2010, 3:51 pm

Macbeth wrote:
Here is another ridiculous cut. The Navy just towed our first class brand new hunter killer submarine off a sand-bank with a tug they want to cut. Genius.


don't be so hard on yourself, england, we all crash really expensive stuff into stuff from time to time.


that's pretty awesome if the tugger is slated to be cut, though.

it's almost as if the governments of the world have become enraged at all the jokes being told about them and have decided to outfunny the funnymen.


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22 Oct 2010, 5:19 pm

waltur wrote:
Macbeth wrote:
Here is another ridiculous cut. The Navy just towed our first class brand new hunter killer submarine off a sand-bank with a tug they want to cut. Genius.


don't be so hard on yourself, england, we all crash really expensive stuff into stuff from time to time.


that's pretty awesome if the tugger is slated to be cut, though.

it's almost as if the governments of the world have become enraged at all the jokes being told about them and have decided to outfunny the funnymen.


Of course its a double-edge sword, because they just found the first job to cut. The dumb-ass who ran a multi-billion pound nuclear deterrent into a sand bank.


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marshall
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23 Oct 2010, 3:48 am

waltur wrote:
number5 wrote:
marshall wrote:
The way to lower the unemployment rate is to stop enabling the unemployed by giving them handouts.


This is the platform of the guy running for governor of my state (PA). He's ahead in the polls. :x




obviously the problem is all those damnably unemployed people refusing to take all those excess jobs in PA. ....oh wait, i think i need to hit myself in the face with a shovel a few more times before that makes sense.


No. The unemployed are just lazy. Just because there aren't enough paying jobs doesn't mean you wont be able to find some work to do for free. There ya go. Problem solved. :P

What? You think you're too good for that?



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23 Oct 2010, 4:26 am

marshall wrote:

No. The unemployed are just lazy. Just because there aren't enough paying jobs doesn't mean you wont be able to find some work to do for free. There ya go. Problem solved. :P

What? You think you're too good for that?


We have a similar concept over here, called, The Big Society. A lot of people who are unemployed are already doing stuff for free, to improve their job prospects. Our government want to make a policy of that.



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23 Oct 2010, 6:17 am

puddingmouse wrote:
marshall wrote:

No. The unemployed are just lazy. Just because there aren't enough paying jobs doesn't mean you wont be able to find some work to do for free. There ya go. Problem solved. :P

What? You think you're too good for that?


We have a similar concept over here, called, The Big Society. A lot of people who are unemployed are already doing stuff for free, to improve their job prospects. Our government want to make a policy of that.


This runs the risk of becoming indentured servitude. People on benefits who are forced to work for those benefits have none of the rights of the employed. They lack access to a union and (like those on New Deal in the past) have little or no recourse to any complaint against their "employer", as they lack any recourse to complain when dealing with the DWP. The DWP already claim an almost papal infallibility regarding decisions, and this will be no different.


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marshall
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23 Oct 2010, 1:24 pm

Macbeth wrote:
puddingmouse wrote:
marshall wrote:

No. The unemployed are just lazy. Just because there aren't enough paying jobs doesn't mean you wont be able to find some work to do for free. There ya go. Problem solved. :P

What? You think you're too good for that?


We have a similar concept over here, called, The Big Society. A lot of people who are unemployed are already doing stuff for free, to improve their job prospects. Our government want to make a policy of that.


This runs the risk of becoming indentured servitude. People on benefits who are forced to work for those benefits have none of the rights of the employed. They lack access to a union and (like those on New Deal in the past) have little or no recourse to any complaint against their "employer", as they lack any recourse to complain when dealing with the DWP. The DWP already claim an almost papal infallibility regarding decisions, and this will be no different.


I was joking of course, but WWII basically forced the government make a large segment of the population work for free. If forced conscription of people to fight a war can jump start the entire global economy then so could forced conscription to build infrastructure. The only difference is people wouldn't be getting killed. Not that I'd really support this kind of anti-libertarian "solution". I'm just saying it would work.

Government spending cuts OTOH do absolutely nothing in terms of jobs. No matter how much dept a nation is in, it can only make matters worse.



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23 Oct 2010, 3:28 pm

As it's scientifically proven that the way to reduce deficit is to increase government spending, then there's no choice but to have zero government spending cuts, and instead to increase government spending if indeed deficit reduction is the goal.



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23 Oct 2010, 4:39 pm

xenon13 wrote:
As it's scientifically proven that the way to reduce deficit is to increase government spending, then there's no choice but to have zero government spending cuts, and instead to increase government spending if indeed deficit reduction is the goal.


Is this sensible spending on valuable resources that are vital to the continued governance of the nation, or the "buy any old s**t at any price we feel like just to use up the budget spending" ?

Is it "employ enough midwives to make sure that women do not have to give birth alone in a corridor" spending? or is it "Buy a fleet of helicopters at premium price but fail to buy the flight software so they don't work" spending?

Maybe its the "Spend plenty on the transport infrastructure so our trains run efficiently and with enough spaces for all the commuters" spending? As opposed to the "Give greedy f*****s 50k pay-offs for THREE MONTHS work whilst complaining that council tax MUST go up to pay for less bin collections" kind of spending?

It might be "proven" that government spending is the saviour of the economy, but somehow I doubt very much that such a scientific solution includes the wholesale waste that Labour seemed to think passed for "spending",

Sadly, a great amount of the "cutting" going on is not actually cutting so much as recalculating the stupid financial activities of that one-eyed scots pillock and his grinning devil-goblin predecessor.


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23 Oct 2010, 5:24 pm

Macbeth wrote:
It might be "proven" that government spending is the saviour of the economy, but somehow I doubt very much that such a scientific solution includes the wholesale waste that Labour seemed to think passed for "spending",

Sadly, a great amount of the "cutting" going on is not actually cutting so much as recalculating the stupid financial activities of that one-eyed scots pillock and his grinning devil-goblin predecessor.


That's one of the reasons the Labour party lost power. Their economic theories were sound in theory, but they put them into practice in an irresponsible way.

I do think there is room to cut waste. Cutting the fat only accounts for a small amount of the deficit, however. Plus, like I said, the Conservatives are ideologically motivated to not just reduce inefficiency, but to shrink the state, as well.

I think the economy will recover slowly, but the British public will lose a lot of welfare - more than I think they have to. Everything will be very under-invested in, like it was in the early 90s, and there will be a lot more relative poverty.



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23 Oct 2010, 5:52 pm

puddingmouse wrote:
Macbeth wrote:
It might be "proven" that government spending is the saviour of the economy, but somehow I doubt very much that such a scientific solution includes the wholesale waste that Labour seemed to think passed for "spending",

Sadly, a great amount of the "cutting" going on is not actually cutting so much as recalculating the stupid financial activities of that one-eyed scots pillock and his grinning devil-goblin predecessor.


That's one of the reasons the Labour party lost power. Their economic theories were sound in theory, but they put them into practice in an irresponsible way.

I do think there is room to cut waste. Cutting the fat only accounts for a small amount of the deficit, however. Plus, like I said, the Conservatives are ideologically motivated to not just reduce inefficiency, but to shrink the state, as well.

I think the economy will recover slowly, but the British public will lose a lot of welfare - more than I think they have to. Everything will be very under-invested in, like it was in the early 90s, and there will be a lot more relative poverty.

I don't really think any of the existing economic theories are completely valid. Neither government spending for the sake of spending nor "shrinking the state" while giving out large tax cuts truly helps create jobs on a large scale. Overall though, I tend to see the latter as more harmful to the health of the economy than the former.



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23 Oct 2010, 5:55 pm

marshall wrote:

I don't really think any of the existing economic theories are completely valid. Neither government spending for the sake of spending nor "shrinking the state" while giving out large tax cuts truly helps create jobs on a large scale. Overall though, I tend to see the latter as more harmful to the health of the economy than the former.


True, I should have said 'sounder'. Economic health is more elusive than physical health. There is always something wrong with the system.



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23 Oct 2010, 10:56 pm

Debt to GDP ratio was lower through most of the Labour period than it was in the previous Conservative period. What changed things was the bank bailouts and the fallout from the financial crisis that caused a sharp drop in tax revenue and increase in social safety net expenditures. These things caused the sharp rise in the deficit. As the economy slowly recovered, these things improved. Tax revenue increased and social expenditure decreased. Now, that improvement has stopped as the Conservatives have spooked the economy back towards inevitable recession.

This idea that Labour spent in an unsustainable way is wrong. The finances were very well in hand until the crisis unprecedented since the 1930s. Even so the finances were such that debt to GDP was a fraction of what it was say in the 1950s and this debt increase could be absorbed easily. Why Japan right now has 200% debt to GDP ratio and it is not collapsing over there as the doomsayers claim.

Labour can be blamed for one thing and one thing only - light touch regulation and its acceptance of the Thatcherite paradigm which could only cause instability in due course. Neoliberalism is essentially a new form of Calvin Coolidgism of the sort that triggered the Great Depression - a system of bubbles. An Old Labour government would have better protected Britain from economic crisis and the debt spike that it caused.



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24 Oct 2010, 7:20 am

xenon13 wrote:
Debt to GDP ratio was lower through most of the Labour period than it was in the previous Conservative period. What changed things was the bank bailouts and the fallout from the financial crisis that caused a sharp drop in tax revenue and increase in social safety net expenditures. These things caused the sharp rise in the deficit. As the economy slowly recovered, these things improved. Tax revenue increased and social expenditure decreased. Now, that improvement has stopped as the Conservatives have spooked the economy back towards inevitable recession.

This idea that Labour spent in an unsustainable way is wrong. The finances were very well in hand until the crisis unprecedented since the 1930s. Even so the finances were such that debt to GDP was a fraction of what it was say in the 1950s and this debt increase could be absorbed easily. Why Japan right now has 200% debt to GDP ratio and it is not collapsing over there as the doomsayers claim.

Labour can be blamed for one thing and one thing only - light touch regulation and its acceptance of the Thatcherite paradigm which could only cause instability in due course. Neoliberalism is essentially a new form of Calvin Coolidgism of the sort that triggered the Great Depression - a system of bubbles. An Old Labour government would have better protected Britain from economic crisis and the debt spike that it caused.


Buying a load of s**t nobody wants or needs is not "sustainable." The Millenium dome for example was a MASSIVE waste of cash which only started to make money when it moved out of government hands. Labour created a situation where only an idiot would want to move from benefits to work, because the jump between one and the other was so vast. It would be financial suicide to do so. Currently there are lists, reams and reams of them, of random shopping by governmental departments, most of it costing way more than it ever should have done. Selling off our entire gold reserve for magic beans was also NOT a sensible financial move. The amount of money wasted on illegal wars and ridiculous occupation campaigns is phenomenal, and the MOD have been buying random toss nobody needs for years whilst neglecting to buy materials everybody else in the world has access to. None of this was "sustainable." Most of it isn't even "sensible".


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24 Oct 2010, 1:56 pm

The Millenium Dome is a mere bagatelle. In the general scheme of things, it amounts to NADA. This does not ruin a country financially. Why, shouldn't Cameron cancel the 2012 Olympics then? Why not bring back rationing as Nicolae Ceausescu did. He's what you call a cautionary tale about obsession with the national debt and learned the hard way the pitfalls of that.



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24 Oct 2010, 4:21 pm

xenon13 wrote:
The Millenium Dome is a mere bagatelle. In the general scheme of things, it amounts to NADA. This does not ruin a country financially. Why, shouldn't Cameron cancel the 2012 Olympics then? Why not bring back rationing as Nicolae Ceausescu did. He's what you call a cautionary tale about obsession with the national debt and learned the hard way the pitfalls of that.


Cancel? No. But we have run "Olympics" before now just after fighting a global war, managed to do it quite well, and not spend an absolute crap-load on sporting venues and "villages" on bombsites. We could easily be spending a whole lot less money. It cost thousands just to design the LOGO, and it's f*****g s**t. They could have got some kids to do one as a school project for NOTHING and it would have been better.

The dome is merely another example of the mindset that ALL spending is good merely because it is spending. This is simply not the case. Spend money, by all means, but don't WASTE it on rubbish.


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24 Oct 2010, 4:22 pm

xenon13 wrote:
As it's scientifically proven that the way to reduce deficit is to increase government spending, then there's no choice but to have zero government spending cuts, and instead to increase government spending if indeed deficit reduction is the goal.


Link me to your source. Somehow I doubt it's "scientifically proven" that the way for a government to get out of debt is to build up more debt.