Re: Osborne Anounces Another £140 Billion Bank Bailout : Mon Jun 25, 2012 8:37 am  

McLaren_Field wrote:

I'm constantly amazed that no Tory Government has ever suggested that anyone who spends their own money on education (via private schools) or on health (via private health providers) should have a corresponding discount on their NIS contributions.

Its just so blindingly obvious to follow the political dogma to its natural conclusion that I don't understand why its never been suggested - or has it ?

I seem to remember the Tories suggesting that private health treatment should have been subsidised by 50% by the NHS a few years ago when they were in opposition, I can't remember if it was the Quiet Man, the 14-pint-er, or the one who won't answer the question though.

Re: Osborne Anounces Another £140 Billion Bank Bailout : Mon Jun 25, 2012 9:08 am  

McLaren_Field wrote: I'm constantly amazed that no Tory Government has ever suggested that anyone who spends their own money on education (via private schools) or on health (via private health providers) should have a corresponding discount on their NIS contributions. Its just so blindingly obvious to follow the political dogma to its natural conclusion that I don't understand why its never been suggested - or has it ? By the way, if any of you are feeling in any way sorry for Cameron's alma mater, you can help them out ... http://www.etoncollege.com/waysofgiving.aspx

McLaren_Field wrote: I'm constantly amazed that no Tory Government has ever suggested that anyone who spends their own money on education (via private schools) or on health (via private health providers) should have a corresponding discount on their NIS contributions. Its just so blindingly obvious to follow the political dogma to its natural conclusion that I don't understand why its never been suggested - or has it ? By the way, if any of you are feeling in any way sorry for Cameron's alma mater, you can help them out ... http://www.etoncollege.com/waysofgiving.aspx

Re: Osborne Anounces Another £140 Billion Bank Bailout : Mon Jun 25, 2012 9:36 am  

McLaren_Field wrote:

Investment in social housing would certainly stimulate a building trade that is currently on its knees, a trade that employs many low skilled easily-unemployed people (as well as skilled labour of course) so in that respect it would make a difference and anything that gets people into work with money in their pockets will stimulate growth.

There may be some short term benefit to construction sector, but special pleading for construction sector aside, for a long list of reasons I don't think it would deliver the sustained economic growth the country really needs. If Government is going to take risk and expand deficit spending to pursue economic growth it needs to be something more structural that only Government can do and there's no reason why that wouldn't be a boost to construction sector in short term too.

McLaren_Field wrote:

On the other hand the concept of a Conservative government encouraging an increase in the social housing stock is bizarre, particulalry with the news today that the latest kite to be flown is to remove housing benefit from the under 25s, the very people on the bottom rung of the ladder that social housing is designed for.

I don't think this will happen, it's just hot air, although I do wonder if it is a smokescreen for something else, that's how these things usually work.

Re: Osborne Anounces Another £140 Billion Bank Bailout : Mon Jun 25, 2012 9:51 am  

El Barbudo wrote: By the way, if any of you are feeling in any way sorry for Cameron's alma mater, you can help them out ... http://www.etoncollege.com/waysofgiving.aspx What a bunch of t0ssers. How that is allowed charitable status I'll never know. On a slightly related note, it made me laugh on the outside and cry a little on the inside when I was watching coverage of Trooping the Colour and they did interviews with some of the officers of the Coldstream Guards. Every single one was a Julian or a Rory and usually with a double barrelled surname (& not in the Jones-Buchanan sense of the double barrelled name!) and every single one had gone to very expensive private school. They also did a short bit at Sandhurst and again, every officer cadet interviewed was from private school. A friend of mine is in the Grenadiers, and he'd mentioned before the poshness of the officers but it was still very depressing to see that in reality sod all has changed in the Army.

El Barbudo wrote: By the way, if any of you are feeling in any way sorry for Cameron's alma mater, you can help them out ... http://www.etoncollege.com/waysofgiving.aspx What a bunch of t0ssers. How that is allowed charitable status I'll never know. On a slightly related note, it made me laugh on the outside and cry a little on the inside when I was watching coverage of Trooping the Colour and they did interviews with some of the officers of the Coldstream Guards. Every single one was a Julian or a Rory and usually with a double barrelled surname (& not in the Jones-Buchanan sense of the double barrelled name!) and every single one had gone to very expensive private school. They also did a short bit at Sandhurst and again, every officer cadet interviewed was from private school. A friend of mine is in the Grenadiers, and he'd mentioned before the poshness of the officers but it was still very depressing to see that in reality sod all has changed in the Army.

Re: Osborne Anounces Another £140 Billion Bank Bailout : Mon Jun 25, 2012 11:16 am  

Him wrote:

What a bunch of t0ssers. How that is allowed charitable status I'll never know.

Because they end up as the people who decide who gets charitable status. If it was you or me then things might be different, but it 'aint.

[DaveO]

Re: Osborne Anounces Another £140 Billion Bank Bailout : Mon Jun 25, 2012 1:17 pm  

SBR wrote:

At a completely different point in the economic cycle. At the end of a long, sustained, boom period.

You are completely wrong here. The only reason the boom period ended was due to the banking crisis. Darling was already setting out plans to cut public spending while the economy was still going to be booming and so would have done what you wanted. There were no economic indicators the economy was going to contract in some sort of traditional cyclic manner either. The banking crisis came right out of left field. It is only with hindsight that you can level the charge you do and without the banking crises there would not have been a problem with the level of spending as was or what was planned.

Before the banking crisis the Tories were also saying they would match the level of spending Labour were predicting anyway where they to win the election which some people seem to conveniently forget.

The real problem is that there wasn't sufficient regulation of the banks to prevent the banking crises but it would be rank hypocrisy for anyone with a right wing bent to their politics to blame Labour for that as they would have been opposed to any such regulation in the first place. This is another charge that can only be levied with hindsight but given the Tories deregulated the banking industry in the first place and Cameron was even calling for LESS regulation literally a matter of weeks before the whole thing kicked off its just right wing propaganda to try and pin the blame elsewhere as if they had been forewarning everyone of impending doom. They weren't. They wanted even more of the same.

Re: Osborne Anounces Another £140 Billion Bank Bailout : Mon Jun 25, 2012 1:47 pm  

DaveO wrote:

You are completely wrong here. The only reason the boom period ended was due to the banking crisis. Darling was already setting out plans to cut public spending while the economy was still going to be booming and so would have done what you wanted...

And it's a myth that Labour's public spending was at massive, record levels. It was, as Prof Colin Talbot of Manchester University points out, a convenient myth for Labour – and one they did nothing to contradict – but it was a myth.

Re: Osborne Anounces Another £140 Billion Bank Bailout : Mon Jun 25, 2012 9:08 pm  

DaveO wrote:

You are completely wrong here. The only reason the boom period ended was due to the banking crisis. Darling was already setting out plans to cut public spending while the economy was still going to be booming and so would have done what you wanted. There were no economic indicators the economy was going to contract in some sort of traditional cyclic manner either. The banking crisis came right out of left field. It is only with hindsight that you can level the charge you do and without the banking crises there would not have been a problem with the level of spending as was or what was planned.

That they couldn't see the bust coming is not an excuse for their overspending. Without the banking crisis the bust still would have happened. Maybe later, possibly sooner - people seem to ignore the contribution the banking sector made to sustaining the boom we all enjoyed. Of course part of what the banks were doing was just as unsustainable as part of what the government was doing.

Re: Osborne Anounces Another £140 Billion Bank Bailout : Mon Jun 25, 2012 9:17 pm  

Mintball wrote:

And it's a myth that Labour's public spending was at massive, record levels.

Out of interest is anyone, other than you, propagating this myth? It just I've not heard it anywhere else.

Re: Osborne Anounces Another £140 Billion Bank Bailout : Mon Jun 25, 2012 9:23 pm  

SBR wrote:

That they couldn't see the bust coming is not an excuse for their overspending. Without the banking crisis the bust still would have happened. Maybe later, possibly sooner - people seem to ignore the contribution the banking sector made to sustaining the boom we all enjoyed. Of course part of what the banks were doing was just as unsustainable as part of what the government was doing.

Rubbish. Both spending and debt were easily sustainable prior to the banking crisis and would have remained sustainable without the banking crisis as evidenced by the HM Treasury statistics that show the public spending and public sector debt as a % of GDP were generally no higher under Labour than they were under the Tories.
Labour should have regulated the banks, so should every other nation, something which is conveniently forgotten by the "it's all Labours fault" brigade. If its all Labours fault, why has the same thing happened across the world?