Politics

[Gemmill 35895]

Osborne giving a speech to business leaders today, painting a really bleak view of the risks to the UK economy from overseas and concluding that it was therefore essential that he plough ahead with austerity measures tout de suite. Those gathered in the room benefitting from the latest reductions in Corporation and inheritance tax and were no doubt nodding their heads vigorously.

[Rayvin 4972]

I'm not gonna quote it due to length but that post by HF was a superb contribution. Extremely well argued.

[Gemmill 35895]

George Osborne's psychiatrist brother has been struck off the medical register today, after a tribunal ruled he had a relationship with a vulnerable patient and "showed a blatant disregard for the fundamental tenets of the medical profession."

 

Mr and Mrs Osborne have raised a right pair of cunts.

[Alex 30915]

Funny how shit never seems to stick though. Milliband was fucking castigated for his 'Father who hated Britain' or whatever in Mail (even though the journalist's father was a fucking theatre correspondent or something like when Milliband's dad was fighting during WW2). Imagine if this was Corbin's brother, for example.

[ewerk 26960]

[ewerk 26960]

What a terribly ugly man.

[Gemmill 35895]

Aye that must have been one seriously vulnerable patient.

[Gemmill 35895]

Looks like what would happen if you slammed George Osborne and Paul Merton's heads together repeatedly.

[The Fish 9287]

 

Honestly thought he had an shiny stud in his left ear.

[Meenzer 14166]

http://www.theguardian.com/society/2016/feb/13/under-35s-in-the-uk-face-becoming-permanent-renters-warns-thinktank

[Alex 30915]

That's insane

[Gemmill 35895]

PwC did a report recently called Generation Rent that reckoned that by 2020 it will take people until 40 to be able to save up enough of a deposit to become a first time buyer.

 

The older of us on here are probably the last generation for which home ownership is a reasonably achievable prospect.

[Meenzer 14166]

PwC did a report recently called Generation Rent that reckoned that by 2020 it will take people until 40 to be able to save up enough of a deposit to become a first time buyer.

 

The older of us on here are probably the last generation for which home ownership is a reasonably achievable prospect.

 

The main reason we're leaving London in a couple of years is the knowledge that I need to be "on the ladder" (urgh) by 40, otherwise the system won't work for us at all. I'm grateful to be in a position where a two-salary household means we can actually afford to own somewhere sensible (that isn't in the south), but in the wider sense it's hugely depressing that I even need to feel like that's some kind of victory.

[NJS 4023]

There would probably be a lot of votes in a mass house building programme for properly affordable homes but they would lose an equal number of votes from selfish "asset holders" who don't even give a shit about their kids' prospects of a home.

[Gemmill 35895]

Britain's output per hour was 18% below the average for the rest of the G7 in 2814, according to figures released today. The biggest productivity gap so ce records began. Well played, George.

Edited February 18, 2016 by Gemmill

[Gemmill 35895]

http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2016/feb/23/tony-blair-bernie-sanders-jeremy-corbyn

 

Blair sounding a lot like Renton here.

[ChezGiven 0]

Not sure we'll see Renton there but some of you fairies might enjoy this.

 

http://www.avfestival.co.uk/programme/2016?category=all

[Gemmill 35895]

Osborne warns of fresh spending cuts in the next budget, as it's revealed that FTSE 100 companies are paying 25% less tax than they were in 2010.

[Dr Gloom 20214]

all part of the grand plan

[Howmanheyman 27727]

Osborne warns of fresh spending cuts in the next budget, as it's revealed that FTSE 100 companies are paying 25% less tax than they were in 2010.

All in it together.

[Dr Gloom 20214]

Martin Wolf magisterial as always

 

Osborne’s desire to further cut spending makes little sense

Ignoring what is happening in the private sector could increase the risks to the economy

George Osborne wants to burnish his image as an iron chancellor of the exchequer. He has already committed to achieving a fiscal surplus by 2019-20. He now suggests that further tightening of fiscal policy may be needed in response to the “storm clouds” he identified when in Shanghai last week. Mr Osborne may be preparing for bad news in his Budget on March 16. The question is whether his plan makes sense. The answer is no.

 

The fiscal objective is itself questionable. The aim is to achieve an overall surplus, unless growth drops below 1 per cent. This is to offer respite in the event of a recession. Just compare what the government would do if a deficit opened up while the economy grew 1.1 per cent for three years (namely, tighten policy), with what it would do if it grew 3 per cent, 0.9 per cent and then 2 per cent (not tighten at all in the second year).

 

Why should an overall fiscal surplus be important, anyway? The answer is that it is a quicker way to lower the ratio of debt to gross domestic product. But that would only be true if achieving the surplus did not itself slow the growth of GDP.

 

As the Institute for Fiscal Studies notes in its Green Budget, “running a surplus is not necessary to bring debt down as a share of national income”. Moreover, if the government is in a position to invest by borrowing at low real interest rates, as now, it makes sense to do so. The government must worry about its balance sheet, not just its debt.

 

Yet the absurdity of the target is brought out better still by the comments Mr Osborne made last week. He said, first, “this country can only afford what it can afford”; second, “the economy is smaller than we thought”; third, the UK must tighten further, to ensure “economic security”; and, finally, “the last time we didn’t [live within our means] we were right in the front rank of nations facing economic crisis”. This is bad history and worse economics.

It is a myth that the UK’s crisis was due to a failure of the government to live within its means. The truth is the opposite. The government did not have a fiscal crisis. The country had a financial crisis whose economic results were cushioned by the government’s deficits.

 

Again, it is not true that running a fiscal surplus year after year is either necessary or sufficient to achieve “economic security”. It is more important to create a robust financial sector. Yet pressure from the Treasury today seems to be to relax constraints. That may well be far riskier for the UK economy in the long run than modest fiscal deficits.

 

It is, above all, not true that the government should respond to a (possibly) temporary slowdown, particularly one due to external factors, with a permanent fiscal tightening. Nothing happening in the past few months should reshape our view of output years hence. The economy might be smaller today than we expected. But that does not mean it will also be smaller in 2019-20.

 

Moreover, Mr Osborne constantly and presumably deliberately elides the country with the government. The country as a whole runs a current account deficit of about 5 per cent of GDP. In aggregate, then, it surely “lives beyond its means”. It will continue to do so, whatever Mr Osborne does about fiscal policy. The chancellor does not care about this. What matters to him is just what the government does.

Yet, by ignoring what is happening in the private sector, Mr Osborne might even be increasing the risks to the economy. By tightening fiscal policy, he puts more pressure, other things being equal, on monetary policy. Monetary policy works by encouraging lending and raising asset prices yet higher. It is quite easy to imagine that the latter effects would worsen the “security” of the economy by more than a slightly larger fiscal deficit.

In brief, the elision of the country with its government is not just a rhetorical trick, but an analytical mistake. It rules out, by definition, the possibility that a tighter fiscal policy might destabilise the economy, once the full consequences, including the monetary consequences, are taken into account.

Finally, the statement that “this country” (by which the chancellor means the government) “can only afford what it can afford” is quite as circular as it seems to be. What the government can afford is precisely what is up for debate. At present it can afford to borrow a great deal, because it is so cheap.

One can see two ways of understanding the chancellor’s words. The first is that he seeks an excuse to cut spending further. The other is that he is now hoist by his own petard. Having committed to a fiscal outcome by a given date, he is (for now, at least) prepared to do whatever it takes to achieve it. “Never give a date and a number” is sage advice. Mr Osborne should have remembered it.

[The Fish 9287]

 

Bit concerning, no?

[ewerk 26960]

[ewerk 26960]

Generous George is reducing corporation tax and capital gains tax. A real victory there for the working man.

[Gemmill 35895]

Aye he's a real piece of work, that cunt. And yet the spackers will probably vote him in as PM next time around.