Double Dip Recession, ConDems and sniffling Ed

[gingergenius]

So the news at the moment is very interesting.

In the UK (and also now in Spain) we have the double dip recession. We also have the fallout of the Leveson enquiry and the revelations of the extent to which Murdoch's been fingering British governments since the 80s. We also have the question of Scottish Independence.

In France we have the presidential elections, which have shown a burgeoning support for both far right and far left candidates, and with the current favourite set to impose a 75% income tax on the richest.

As a nice little sideshow, we have the London Mayoral elections (and some other less fun ones in the rest of the country) this week.

Everywhere seems to be igniting into a good old fashioned left vs right economic slagging match.

What's everyone thinking?

 

[TRF_Olyy]

Just as I graduate...yay!

 

[racingmetrofan]

Its the probability of an Iranian-Israeli war that I'm more worried about.

 

[Teh Mite]

Modern Politics - Cameroon thinks he's Blair while Milliband doesn't think at all. Clegg sucks up to anyone he can. Meanwhile every tom dick and harry argues over who can be more centre then the next. The only left and right remaining are the extremist f-wits of BNP or Respect. So full on Nazism or Communism.

Anybody got a plane ticket to anywhere else?

 

[Mrs. Peter Quinn]

Despite all wanting to be in the central ground as Teh Mite is saying, you still see clear-as-day conservative ideology and motivations in everything they do. Tories will be tories, and cash for access only surprised people by how unsurpising it was.

Meanwhile labour politicians watch in disbelief as their leader smashes the ball over the bar from close range despite the political open goals that were pasty-gate(can we please stop adding 'gate' onto the end of everything just becaue it happened!?), cash for acesss and the Fuel row. The only consolation is that the tories stand very little chance to win the next election.

All pretty boring apart from the French presidential election which is quite interesting. As you said Gingergenius, both far left and far right with decent shares of the vote. Marine Le Pen is really awful, and has only got to where she is by calming down her fathers rhetoric.But also the FN have diversified, and although fundamentally still a xenophobic party for people angry about islamification and immigration, they actually now have stances on other things.

Recent political events have only served to remind me how much I hate Cameron May and Osborne. I like Miliband, despite being generally seen as incompetent. Oh, and tomorrow is national 'CC' all your emails to Theresa May day! (http://www.facebook.com/pages/National-cc-all-your-e-mails-to-Theresa-May-Day/155277607840980)

 

[Teh Mite]

Out of interest, what policies does Millicunt have? Can you name one?

 

[Feicarsinn]

Out of interest, what policies does Millicunt have? Can you name one?

Aside from pretending to be Tony Blair?


The fact is no opposition party is going to have very many policies at the mo mo. Basically because they know there's **** all that can be done because no one has an money. They can criticise the government for austerity all they like, but what's the alternative? That's right, there isn't one.

 

[Teh Mite]

Bingo

 

[LittleGuy]

Every rich French citizen must be getting their emigration applications in with a 75% tax rate a possibility, what a ridiculous policy idea, fresh out of "Economics with Winnie the Pooh". Even if they don't leave there will be virtually zero incentive for them to grow their buisnesses or invest in venture capital projects. I've known small companies in Canada that shut down towards the end of the year for weeks at a time or don't take on extra work merely to stay in a lower tax bracket and the rates aren't even close to 75%.

It's one thing to say they aren't paying their share and to raise rates slightly(my province of Ontario raised rates on $500,000 earners by 2% recently) but this is just bad public policy thrown out in order to win votes. How will it help France if it's entrepeneurs leave and go elsewhere.

Have fun with the referendum, been there done that here in Canada with Quebec a couple of times, one before my time in 1980, and one in 1995(which was a razor thin victory for staying in Canada). It looks finally like secession of Quebec is a little on the back burner these days in Canadian politics. Voters in Quebec really left the seperatist party(Bloc Quebecois) for the NDP(Canada's equivalent of Labour) during the last federal election.

 

[lucky number 7]

The Uk and Ireland are the Eu's *****...


Time to start mining the punts again lads and remove ourselves from the united states of europe

 

[psychic duck]

Every rich French citizen must be getting their emigration applications in with a 75% tax rate a possibility

could it effect players signing big deals with Top 14 clubs?

 

[LittleGuy]

could it effect players signing big deals with Top 14 clubs?

Thats actually a very good point and somethign I hadn't thought of, I've known of players in North American sports who are reluctant to sign in Canada due to higher tax rates(even though in some cases they aren't exoribantly higher than the States) if rates are applied to this way to Top 14 import players, we may see many Kiwi's and Saffa's much more reluctant to ply their trade in France.

 

[gingergenius]

Aside from pretending to be Tony Blair?


The fact is no opposition party is going to have very many policies at the mo mo. Basically because they know there's **** all that can be done because no one has an money. They can criticise the government for austerity all they like, but what's the alternative? That's right, there isn't one.

There's a screaming, blatantly obvious alternative, but since British politics is dominated by people with no balls, it will never happen.

1) We waste money having a military and sending them on all sorts of missions around the world which have nothing to do with us. Ok maybe we need a small little army but no need for planes, aircraft carriers...

2) We waste money criminalising, policing (and not taxing) illegal drugs.

3) The biggest waste of money is allowing people to get away with having obscene amounts of money that they don't need. Hollande proposes a 75% top rate income tax; Melenchon proposes 100% tax on all earnings beyond 20x the national average. I prefer the latter.

The fact that the current wankers in government have continued on with point 1, and taken us into Libya, means there's still money available for expeditions like that. The fact that they haven't considered point 2 despite all of the advice from experts etc. means that they're too scared of losing middle England's vote to do it. The fact that they won't suggest 3 must be because they think it's fair that some people can work hard and earn £0000s and others don't earn much at all. Or they're too scared of middle England.

The fact that Labour aren't making any of the right noises about this shows that they're a bunch of useless wankers as well. It shows that having political parties in the UK has stagnated to the point where they represent neither democracy nor progress. Time for a different system.

 

[lucky number 7]

There's a screaming, blatantly obvious alternative, but since British politics is dominated by people with no balls, it will never happen.

1) We waste money having a military and sending them on all sorts of missions around the world which have nothing to do with us. Ok maybe we need a small little army but no need for planes, aircraft carriers...

2) We waste money criminalising, policing (and not taxing) illegal drugs.

3) The biggest waste of money is allowing people to get away with having obscene amounts of money that they don't need. Hollande proposes a 75% top rate income tax; Melenchon proposes 100% tax on all earnings beyond 20x the national average. I prefer the latter.

The fact that the current wankers in government have continued on with point 1, and taken us into Libya, means there's still money available for expeditions like that. The fact that they haven't considered point 2 despite all of the advice from experts etc. means that they're too scared of losing middle England's vote to do it. The fact that they won't suggest 3 must be because they think it's fair that some people can work hard and earn £0000s and others don't earn much at all. Or they're too scared of middle England.

The fact that Labour aren't making any of the right noises about this shows that they're a bunch of useless wankers as well. It shows that having political parties in the UK has stagnated to the point where they represent neither democracy nor progress. Time for a different system.

Great idea if you want to discourage any decent economic growth...

Whats the incentive for people to actually want to go out and make their metric **** tonne of cash..regardless of how much they make they are employing thousands of people in the process.

That's one of the silliest ideas I've ever heard

 

[Teh Mite]

Osbourne isn't doing anything wrong. Fact is that Blair & Brown maxed out the credit cards, re-mortgaged the country and then ran off with the family heirlooms. As usual it's the cycle of:

1. Labour get in
2. Spend spend spend borrow spend borrow spend
3. Country is broke and goes to ****
4. Country as a whole has enough
5. Tories get in
6. cut/Save cut/save cut/save
7. Trade unions get upset
8. Tories achieve nothing while in office as they've spent the whole term fixing the mess Labour created
9. Trade Unions, BBC and red-tops/Guardian oust the Tories
10. Back to point 1.

Leaving a heavy tax on the high earners will only stand to make the high earner go live elsewhere. Global markets etc. mean there's no reason for anyone to remain routed anywhere. Monty Carlo or America will welcome anyone coming to them with a big fat wallet.

In reality, the Poll tax was the best method and it was certainly the most equal. Sadly those of a Guardian persuasion will never understand that as they can't swan off and freeload.

 

[Mrs. Peter Quinn]

Aside from pretending to be Tony Blair?


The fact is no opposition party is going to have very many policies at the mo mo. Basically because they know there's **** all that can be done because no one has an money. They can criticise the government for austerity all they like, but what's the alternative? That's right, there isn't one.

Unfortunately your wrong. There was an alternative at least in the speed and extent of the cuts. ONS statistics(via David Blachflower) show that whereas in the last five quarters (15 months) under labour the economy grew by 3.1%. In the next four quarters under Osborne, the economy shrunk (by 0.1%)
This is as concrete a evidence as you can ask for that the Tories got it wrong, that 'we had to do it to reduce the national deficit' is a crap defence, and that the private sector was never going to be able to soak up all the jobs lost in the public sector.

We needed slower more gradual cuts.

teh Mite, you're right about Miliband he hasn't shown people what he belives in or what he would do. However, I trust him somewhat more than Cameron

 

[Teh Mite]

teh Mite, you're right about Miliband he hasn't shown people what he belives in or what he would do. However, I trust him somewhat more than Cameron

You're entitled to your opinion. I do however think that is foolish. All Milliband wants is to bow to the whims of trade unions and spend money none of us have.

 

[j'nuh]

Unfortunately your wrong. There was an alternative at least in the speed and extent of the cuts. ONS statistics(via David Blachflower) show that whereas in the last five quarters (15 months) under labour the economy grew by 3.1%. In the next four quarters under Osborne, the economy shrunk (by 0.1%)
This is as concrete a evidence as you can ask for that the Tories got it wrong, that 'we had to do it to reduce the national deficit' is a crap defence, and that the private sector was never going to be able to soak up all the jobs lost in the public sector.

We needed slower more gradual cuts.

teh Mite, you're right about Miliband he hasn't shown people what he belives in or what he would do. However, I trust him somewhat more than Cameron

Not sure it's as simple as that though, whether the results of economic policies are evident within months, or even in a couple of years. For example, if tax cuts made businesses easier to open and in the long run led to more jobs, it would still be a while before businesses got set up to take advantage of this. (Setting up a business to the point where it starts hiring a lot of people takes more than a quarter of a year, or even a year.)

 

[Mrs. Peter Quinn]

Not sure it's as simple as that though, whether the results of economic policies are evident within months, or even in a couple of years. For example, if tax cuts made businesses easier to open and in the long run led to more jobs, it would still be a while before businesses got set up to take advantage of this. (Setting up a business to the point where it starts hiring a lot of people takes more than a quarter of a year, or even a year.)

I think it is though. The question can the private sector step in to fill the void left by a retracting public sector applied to existing private sector organisations rather than new start-ups. And the fact is that the Tories are relying on this, whilst doing it worse than labour: in the last five quarters of labour I referred to, private sector jobs increased by 300,000 more than public sector jobs fell. However, in the four/five quarters with Osborne, public sector jobs have fallen by 30,000 more than private sector jobs have risen. It's not a case of giving it time: The Tories themselves expected growth by now and will probably have to change track.

 

[Teh Mite]

There's a hole there because people were employed in the public sector when they never should have been in the first place. Simple fact is there are too many people and not enough SUSTAINABLE jobs. Bullshit economics generated by messers Brown and Darling cannot pretend their "Miracle Economy" did anything like grow. They took the shackles off the banks and actively encouraged the entire country to spend more then they could ever afford to pay back. Borrow, spend, borrow, spend, hope someone else will pay it back.

Fact is, people don't have as much money as they were lead to believe. This is your lot now, it's never going to get any better.