The Chairman Mao resembling, Monarchy hating, threat to Britain, Labour Party thread

[PompeyVillan]

49 minutes ago, Risso said:

That isn't remotely true though, and is just an example of somebody (you) not knowing anything about the subject but thinking it must be true, because nasty Conservatives.

Well, that's that then. 

[Risso]

25 minutes ago, peterms said:

Osborne cut tax staff by 20% from 2010.

Targets were set which resulted in staff chasing small taxdodgers to hit quotas, while bigger and more tricky cases suffered.

The Public Accounts Committee found that accountacncy firms' staff seconded to the Treasury were using the knowledge gained to help clients dodge tax, for profit.

Sanctions are plainly insufficient to deter taxdodging.

I don't think you know what you are talking about here.  Or perhaps you do, and are misrepresenting because you have a financial or other interest in obscuring and defending what taxdodgers are doing.

I do not know what I'm talking about, and I also know what all of the penalties are.  For example, entering into a tax scheme that then falls foul of GAAR, the company would have to pay the originally disputed tax, plus a penalty of 60% of that amount, plus interest.  In addition, the enabler is charged their fee as a penalty.  If you've got an example of KPMG or another firm successfully running a scheme in recent years, let's hear it.

[peterms]

19 minutes ago, Risso said:

I do not know what I'm talking about,

So we are agreed?

[Risso]

Amusing and unintended typo aside, any concrete examples you'd like to furnish us with?

[Sam-AVFC]

Did she really say the last line? Seems like a really odd claim if she did, but I assume it should have been the other way round.

Edited November 14, 2019 by Sam-AVFC

[tonyh29]

I see the old funded by taxing  business line is being used again with free broadband for all

I’m holding out for a free speedboat and 3 free holiday a year funded by the rich before they get my vote though 

[Mic09]

8 minutes ago, tonyh29 said:

I see the old funded by taxing  business line is being used again with free broadband for all

I’m holding out for a free speedboat and 3 free holiday a year funded by the rich before they get my vote though 

I wouldn't hold out for the speedboat, but I'm sure you will get inflation and high unemployment.

Appealing enough? 

[peterms]

 

[peterms]

8 hours ago, Mic09 said:

I wouldn't hold out for the speedboat, but I'm sure you will get inflation and high unemployment.

Appealing enough? 

There's an interesting discussion by David Graeber here about this and other old myths in economics.

Quote

There is a growing feeling, among those who have the responsibility of managing large economies, that the discipline of economics is no longer fit for purpose. It is beginning to look like a science designed to solve problems that no longer exist.

A good example is the obsession with inflation. Economists still teach their students that the primary economic role of government—many would insist, its only really proper economic role—is to guarantee price stability. We must be constantly vigilant over the dangers of inflation. For governments to simply print money is therefore inherently sinful. If, however, inflation is kept at bay through the coordinated action of government and central bankers, the market should find its “natural rate of unemployment,” and investors, taking advantage of clear price signals, should be able to ensure healthy growth. These assumptions came with the monetarism of the 1980s, the idea that government should restrict itself to managing the money supply, and by the 1990s had come to be accepted as such elementary common sense that pretty much all political debate had to set out from a ritual acknowledgment of the perils of government spending. This continues to be the case, despite the fact that, since the 2008 recession, central banks have been printing money frantically in an attempt to create inflation and compel the rich to do something useful with their money, and have been largely unsuccessful in both endeavors.

We now live in a different economic universe than we did before the crash. Falling unemployment no longer drives up wages. Printing money does not cause inflation. Yet the language of public debate, and the wisdom conveyed in economic textbooks, remain almost entirely unchanged...

 

[Mic09]

2 hours ago, peterms said:

There's an interesting discussion by David Graeber here about this and other old myths in economics.

 

It's interesting, but I disagree. At the same time I appreciate I am no economist and I have not read an awful lot of literature on the subject. For me the the role of the government (or the state) is to protect the rights of the citizens, one of which is to exchange money freely - not to guarantee price stability. Usually, once government looks after something, it tends to mess it up. Tories have done so and Im afraid it's very wishful thinking that Corbyn will bring a dream team along to fix the problem. 

It is however clear that many countries which are out and out socialist do struggle with economic problems such as inflation. I am afraid Labour are that type of a party at the minute.

Edited November 15, 2019 by Mic09

[Dr_Pangloss]

David Graeber is an anthropologist not an economist. He really doesn't demonstrate a good reading of NAIRU, inflation and monetary policy instruments. Printing money can cause inflation, to say it 'does not' is idiotic and irresponsible. Key variables include the quantity of money printed and how it is 'injected' into the economy. 

Labour seem to be full of shit it has to be said, they're seemingly promising to nationalise everything that happens to spring to mind, it's down right irresponsible. 

[Dr_Pangloss]

2 minutes ago, Mic09 said:

It's interesting, but I disagree. At the same time I appreciate I am no economist and I have not read an awful lot of literature on the subject. For me the the role of the government is to protect the rights of the citizens, one of which is to exchange money freely - not to guarantee price stability. Usually, once government looks after something, it tends to mess it up. Tories have done so and Im afraid it's very wishful thinking that Corbyn will bring a dream team along to fix the problem. 

It is however clear that many countries which are out and out socialist do struggle with economic problems such as inflation. I am afraid Labour are that type of a party at the minute.

Don't worry, David Graeber isn't an economist either.

[bickster]

Labour Policy appears to be a cereal box from the 70's. There's always a free gift

Free broadband in every box

Even back then it was only 7 year old children that got taken in by this shit, they just nagged their parents and refused to eat anything else

The Labour Party turns your milk chocolatey

 

[ml1dch]

8 minutes ago, bickster said:

Labour Policy appears to be a cereal box from the 70's. There's always a free gift

Free broadband in every box

Even back then it was only 7 year old children that got taken in by this shit, they just nagged their parents and refused to eat anything else

The Labour Party turns your milk chocolatey

 

The story of the Christmas election. 

Man dressed in red with white beard promises free toys to all the children while the adults nervously wonder about how it all gets paid for.

AKA The Santa Clause IV

[peterms]

11 minutes ago, Dr_Pangloss said:

David Graeber is an anthropologist not an economist

If we want to understand how the economics profession has developed over the last 30 years or so, the entrenchment of one approach in university departments and the exclusion of others, the disregard of the history of economic thought, the adherence to models based on fiction and which plainly and unarguably failed to explain the biggest economic issues of our time, then anthropology is a more helpful approach than economics itself.

Graeber's discussion of money creation is a case in point.  Textbooks have long been reproducing explanations of money creation which were simply fantasy, and people who didn't share the accepted view struggled to get articles published, or get positions in university departments.  The publication in 2014 by the BoE of a more accurate description (which economists from 50 or 100 years ago also knew, but which disappeared from sight more recently) was a seminal moment, illustrating that a significant part of what the prevailing orthodoxy was punting was simply false.  The way in which such a false account could have held sway over most of the profession, and then have come to dominate the thinking of policy-makers and have become the dominant framing for any discussion in the media, is fascinating.  But it's more about groupthink and how people select mutually reinforcing views to the exclusion of others, and that's where anthropology, sociology and psychology offer more insight than what economists have had to say.

[Xann]

10 hours ago, Mic09 said:

I wouldn't hold out for the speedboat, but I'm sure you will get inflation and high unemployment.

Appealing enough? 

Much more appealing than food banks, a corporate NHS and the dissolution of the Union.

[StefanAVFC]

There's already high unemployment. Students and those on zero hours contracts are not 'employed'. Regardless of what Tory stattos tell you.

[chrisp65]

36 minutes ago, Mic09 said:

It's interesting, but I disagree. At the same time I appreciate I am no economist and I have not read an awful lot of literature on the subject. For me the the role of the government (or the state) is to protect the rights of the citizens, one of which is to exchange money freely - not to guarantee price stability. Usually, once government looks after something, it tends to mess it up. Tories have done so and Im afraid it's very wishful thinking that Corbyn will bring a dream team along to fix the problem. 

It is however clear that many countries which are out and out socialist do struggle with economic problems such as inflation. I am afraid Labour are that type of a party at the minute.

in 2010 at the worst financial point of the last Labour administration, debt was £1 Trillion, 59.5% of GDP

Nine years of tory austerity and tory financial expertise later, with everything cut, less police, less teaching assistants and the NHS holding on by its fingertips, national debt is now £1.8 Trillion and 85% of GDP.

But there are more millionaires and billionaires now, so there is always an upside.

Ever get the feeling you've been cheated?

[Mic09]

5 minutes ago, StefanAVFC said:

There's already high unemployment. Students and those on zero hours contracts are not 'employed'. Regardless of what Tory stattos tell you.

I worked on a zero hour contract for 3 years. How was that 'unemployment'? 

And why are Tories telling me anything? 

[StefanAVFC]

1 minute ago, Mic09 said:

I worked on a zero hour contract for 3 years. How was that 'unemployment'? 

It's no guarantee of work. How does an employee who works 4 hours one week, and 40 the next counting as an FTE?

Quote

And why are Tories telling me anything? 

They tell the story of record high unemployment whilst setting the criteria of what 'employed' actually means

Edited November 15, 2019 by StefanAVFC