Re: UK election results thread
 

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Re: UK election results thread
 

You are looking at the same set of stats aren't you? The national debt has nearly doubled under the Tories and has increased by more than what the national debt was before GFC. Ah, I know, blame Blair, blame the GFC..

Arguing with a staunch conservative is like and I won't continue to:

http://i1355.photobucket.com/albums/...pshub9xttw.jpg

Re: UK election results thread
 

I don't think I can explain it to you any clearer. Lets try it for the last time.

1. The banking crisis happened on Labours watch. A little regulation could have helped here.

2. In order to stop banks collapsing the tax payer does things like buy banks out etc. Figures in the billions. This adds to the debt Tony and co created but there is no choice. Banks need to be saved

3. Once these payments have been made you can started reducing the debt as we see in the trajectory of those graphs you posted. Note the curve. Debt just doesn't disappear. It needs to happen over time. The debt is no longer increasing exponentially. Well done to Dave and co.

Read all about where the debt came from here.

http://www.theguardian.com/news/datablog/2011/nov/12/bank-bailouts-uk-credit-crunch

Re: UK election results thread
 

Err, Beoz, you aren't making a lot of sense, you know that? Taking your points in order:

1. Whilst I agree that more banking regulation (and other financial organisations as well) is urgently needed; it disingenuous to say the Labour should have been doing more, when less regulation is a central plank of the far right ideology. You are essentially arguing for Labour to be more left wing whilst admitting that a far right administration would have been worse ...
2. Whilst stopping the banks from collapsing as a result of their own fraud was needed, there was no need to do it on the public purse and shield those responsible. Instead it should have resulted in both jailing the worst offenders, curtailing all bonuses, reclaiming the previous bonuses earned off the back of that fraud, and taking a percentage of the banks equal to the sum of the support provided. In short the cost should have fallen fairly on the backs of the banks and financiers that created the sorry mess - not the tax payer.
3. The key thing is the GFC was in 2007/8 - yet we can see that the majority of the debt was in later years, http://i1355.photobucket.com/albums/...pswk1ax338.png
   specifically those associated with tory misrule. As others have pointed out, austerity has to bear a significant part of the blame for this. As Paul Krugman pointed out, cutting the economy just prolongs the agony, and the longest recession in 50 years can very fairly be laid squarely at the feet of the tory party. It should have be laid on the backs of the bankers.

In short, Labour and Labor can be said to have successfully addressed the GFC (and got the plaudits at the time). Where they failed was in not moving fast or far enough to lay the blame and the cost where it should have laid, and allowing the far right the opportunity to try to redefine reality (as you have been trying to do) and use it as an excuse (shock doctrine) to cut services and enrich their paymasters. The big problem has been one of far right opportunism and backhanders to further enrich the 1% off the back of the collapse they created.

It's no shock that the super rich are the only group to have done better over this time period...

Re: UK election results thread
 

Come on Garry. You know this isn't about left and right wing or whether bankers should be jailed or not. That just deflects the fact that Labour has a history of creating havoc and Conservatives clean it up.

I prefer this graph anyway.

http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Kingdom_national_debt

Wow what happen since 2002 then what happen again between 2007 to 2010. We all know what happen in the 90's. A recession but look how well it was managed after.

Re: UK election results thread
 

You are really still seriously suggesting that Labour caused or could have prevented the GFC aren't you ('happened on Labour's watch')? :rofl:Pray tell how Labour (or any UK government) could have prevented the collapse of Lehmann Brothers and the profligacy of American bankers?

The national debt has grown £0.6 trillion since Cameron came to power and the total was of this order before he came to power i.e. the Conservatives have added to the National Debt in 5 years what governments over many hundreds of years accumulated. This from the budget deficit reducing/national debt reducing party. (anticipates we need another 5 years to clean up the mess we inherited) :rofl:

Re: UK election results thread
 

No, the demarcation is between the far right destroying things, and the not any more left wing, creating stuff.

That's the basis of the problem - the far right really don't want to, or know how to, build anything. Too difficult, too taxing. They create the wasteland and hope something will spring up. Problem is, it's usually weeds.

After all, if you really want the genesis of the UK GFC problems, it was grown in the unconstrained and unregulated city of Maggie and Ronnie; built as she destroyed manufacturing, etc. and he blew out the debt.

The reality is the far right creates havoc, and the lite right try to patch it up afterwards.

Re: UK election results thread
 

I see no evidence of the far left creating things and importantly keeping a managed lid on things any more than the central right do. :). But please, throw me the evidence, I'm happy to be persuaded otherwise.

And take Maggie as you will. If you call deregulating the financial industry so ordinary Britons can take advantage of shares and mortgages which help to bust wide open the union movement, well awesome, but that's probably for another thread.

Re: UK election results thread
 

Are you really trying to push that one? You know it's not true; you know the left is responsible for the NHS, the welfare state .... hell you know that Labor is responsible for the NBN, that Tone is currently trying to destroy to help out Murdoch.

The question is rather, can you think of anything that the far right have created? Other than destruction that is?

I can't.

Maggie deregulated the city, which led directly to the mess of the GFC and the bailout of the banks, and thus the deficit you decry. After all, isn't Australia supposed to have 'done it right' because they didn't deregulate the banks as much? Place the blame where its based - it's not Labour; it's Maggie.

'Ordinary Britons' were taken advantage of by selling them things they already owned as a prelude to raise prices via rentseeking on utilities. The only times that's actually worked is when heavy regulation has persisted. When they actually let them do as they liked, people died and it had to be effectively renationalised (British Rail).

Face it, the 'free' market, or as its better known, unrestrained greed, has it's place. But for most of the time it's a poor fit to what a country can flourish under.

Re: UK election results thread
 

How any govt could have sorted Lehmann Bros is your story, not mine - over to you. The fact remains the Financial Crisis occurred on Labours watch, and there were other countries in the world who managed to avoid it partly through regulation. Labour had a good 10 years at the helm by the time the financial crisis occurred - it wasn't like they were novices. Those loans are on going. Its not like they threw the money at the banks at the time. They are borrowing over time. Something the government of the last 5 years has to manage.

Yes we can all massage the figures to suit our agenda.

In the last 5 years the Public Net Debt rose 355bn. In the preceding 5 years from 2005 - 2010 it rose 508bn. Ouch.

The Public Net Debt as a percentage of GDP rose from 35% in 2005 to 64% in 2010. From 2010 it has risen to 74%. again ouch, especially ouch when you aren't dealing with a financial crisis.

Re: UK election results thread
 

Well should I start with eliminating Labor’s $96 billon government debt - by 2007 Australia was saving $8.8 billion a year in interest payments;

Shall I carry on?


Well Briton was spiraling into an oblivion at the time 25 years ago. Where would Briton be today without her actions? You see the left focus a particular groups, where the right manages the country as a whole - you know, your beloved trickle down effect :). At the time this suited. It didn't suit 15 years later and needed to be changed. It's changed now. :)

Re: UK election results thread
 

I'll take that as a "no, I can't think of one thing a far right government has built"

Better off? With a manufacturing sector?

http://www.sherv.net/cm/emo/happy/ro...y-emoticon.gifhttp://i.imgur.com/O1Eva1o.gif

Re: UK election results thread
 

You still flogging that old manufacturing dead horse? :)

Re: UK election results thread
 

Oh my, you live in a beautiful spot. I don't immediately recognise it, it's been many years since I visited anywhere in the SW other than Dumfries. Guessing, because of the water, if Dumfries, I'd say somewhere along the Glencaple or Bankend roads. However, I tend to feel that it is in the Stewartry. Maybe above Rockcliff or Kippford, or farther along near Kirkcudbright or Gatehouse.
That's the best I've got so please put me out of my misery!

Re: UK election results thread
 

You still not realising that to have a viable economy you have to be selling something, and not importing everything?

And Shorten seemed to be talking sense in his budget reply - so needless to say it didn't get much coverage....

Australian opposition floats startups-and-STEM stimulus plan • The Register

STEM and startup support - now there's an idea....