UK Politarding Thread

[SuperSic]

Originally Posted by O.A.F.K.1.1

LOOOOOL.

What's your problem?

For what it's worth I wasn't saying that most economists are anti-austerity or on the left, I don't pretend to know what the consensus of the economic community is. Although I do think this claim that "austerity is the consensus view of the economic community" is pretty unsubstantiated.

[Make Them Dig]

Has anyone else been noticing more and more of Blair in the media talking about domestic matters? IMO he should stop trying to play the statesman and stay out of the limelight. He's delusional if he thanks anyone wants him back in politics.

[Doctor Zeus]

I want him back in politics
MWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAA

Spoiler:

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[Doctor Zeus]

Melanie Philips is the nut low.
I think she's worse than Richard Littlejohn.
Both of them need to balls off though

[BAIDS]

all these Olympic flavoured strikes are doing my head in

[Doctor Zeus]

Osborne pretty much gauranteed to either get chucked out or lose the tories any sort of chance of recovery. GG sir.
Any line on next chancellor?

Also... the weather. WHAT IS WRONG WITH ENGLAND?!?

Where's everyone hitting up London tonight?
Gunna be the greatest night of all time imo

[DiegoArmando]

Originally Posted by O.A.F.K.1.1

Austerity is the consensus view of the economic community. Which is why all parties fully support it

Could you provide some links to where you got this information please?

Just because, as I said earlier, I disagree.

[Doctor Zeus]

He can't.

He didn't understand what austerity was

[DiegoArmando]

So are there or are there not academic schools of thought which support the idea of austerity in the current economic climate?

If there are, I would like to read them. Please link here.

What I have been led to believe is that, basically, if no one has money, no one spends money (ground breaking stuff here), so in order for the economy to move in the right direction, the gov have to spend, even if that means borrowing more. In fact, it's times like now they should be borrowing more to invest in the economy.

That seems quite simple to me. I'd like to know why (if) that is not true.

[[Phill]]

What you want is the Austrian school as a leaping off point.

Generally speaking widespread economic thinking is that those countries that struggle with growth and can take on cheap debt should invest, which is fundamentally Keynsian, but when your debt is extremely high as it stands and the cost of borrowing is high, especially when you cant print your own currency which is a problem in the Euro zone, then austerity is the only answer which is Austrian.

Britain was right to take austeric measures when the Tories came into power. Even labour agreed with this, it just wasnt a controversial decision at all. The big question is whether it is worth some investment via debt and there isnt really any consensus on whether this is a good idea or not. The Austrian view is that there hasnt been enough Austerity to remove malinvestment, the Keynsian view is that malinvestment is a myth and that growth of GDP to fuel job growth is the only way out of the economic slump. As with anything the truth is almost certainly somewhere in the middle with a mix of Austeric and Keynsian measures to boost growth in a very focussed way but also offset debt where possible.

[Make Them Dig]

Poll the other day on conservativehome: 0% wanted George Osborne to lead the Tories into the next election. 2% wanted him as leader if Cameron wasn't an option.

[Make Them Dig]

I mean, even Michael Gove was out-polling him pretty spectacularly. That means George is done, right?

I'm only half serious - obviously drawing sweeping conclusions from an internet poll is kinda retarded, but his support seems to have totally collapsed.

[O.A.F.K.1.1]

Originally Posted by Doctor Zeus

He can't.

He didn't understand what austerity was

Perhaps I am unable to see the posts of some posters.

Nice cheap and completely incorrect cheap shot though.

[O.A.F.K.1.1]

Originally Posted by DiegoArmando

So are there or are there not academic schools of thought which support the idea of austerity in the current economic climate?

If there are, I would like to read them. Please link here.

What I have been led to believe is that, basically, if no one has money, no one spends money (ground breaking stuff here), so in order for the economy to move in the right direction, the gov have to spend, even if that means borrowing more. In fact, it's times like now they should be borrowing more to invest in the economy.

That seems quite simple to me. I'd like to know why (if) that is not true.

If you owe X lots of money and the rate you are increasing your debt is increasing 24 Billion a month, you dont want X to charge you more to borrow, especially when any increase in costs would also be passed on private borrowers, which in Britain have the highest debt per capita in the world (an issue Leeds fan keeps dodging due to his vacuum of intellectual honesty.) This is completely ignoring any issues of Mal investment which I will get into later when I have more time.

Borrowing even more (when it is perecieved by lenders that you are at your absolute borrowing limit) increases risk of default, therefore increases risk of borrowing. I actually think in a vacuum that government spending in a recession is a good idea, much better than the horribly inequity of quantitive easing, however its not such a great idea when the fiscal situation is so utterly ****ed up. (Of course we could seize land or legalize drugs.....lol...leeds fan lol)

Its also important to understand that GDP can be a very misleading statistic. Upto the crash we had strong GDP figures, but the economic factors driving that GDP growth (unsustainable credit expansion) were baking economic disaster into the cake. If we could get banks to lend like they were in 2004 again, there would be massive GDP growth tommorrow, should we do that, of course not, because it would just mean a bigger crash. Its important to escape what Will Self calls the fetishisation of GDP were anything that increases GDP is seen as an a priori good. Things that increase GDP can be terrible for the economy in the long term, such as a government borrowing even more just to push string. Thats not to say dont seek to increase GDP, of course, but you must do it sustainably.

[O.A.F.K.1.1]

Also, and this a key key key super important issue.

There are two parts to Keyns, and one part is always ignored. Of course we all know he recommends spending in a recession. Guess what he advises doing in a boooooooooom? Yes of course, saving.

The problem with the whole Keynesian approach, is that Keyns presumes a government has saved up a health war chest during the boom times and has actively been trying to keep the boom from overheating and becoming unsustainable.

The problem is that this is the very opposite of what most western governments were doing during the boom. They were to lax with interest rates and they borrowed far to much money. Given that the saving part is a key part of his whole economic approach, its actually disingenuous for commentators to turn around and say Keynes would recommend spending now, when the key component of that spending has not been achieved.

In truth most Keynesian are half Keynesians. They want to spend during the boom, and they want to spend during the bust. The saving part never seems to get a look in.

If we had a war chest I would be all for spending it now. The problem is that cupboard is utterly and completely bare. (Though we could ring father Christmas and see if he would let us legalize drugs.)