The Hung Like a Donkey General Election December 2019 Thread

[HanoiVillan]

4 minutes ago, Amsterdam_Neil_D said:

Hindsight economics is easy,  if 1 of these economists had predicted the economical collapse

We aren't talking about the financial crisis, we're talking about the prediction that 'expansionary austerity' was a contradiction-in-terms that was doomed to fail.

You aren't comparing like with like; of course it's hard to predict exactly when the top of a bull market will be, if that was easy, no-one would ever go bust playing the stock market. However, the idea that reducing demand in the middle of a financial crisis would hurt economic recovery was basic Keynesian economic theory. It didn't require people to be able to divine the future like Mystic Meg. 

[PompeyVillan]

Just now, bickster said:

Is it in the manifesto then?

No, it is obviously an attempt to wrestle some momentum away from the Conservatives on their manifesto day. I'd say it worked to some extent.

[Amsterdam_Neil_D]

2 minutes ago, bickster said:

Is it in the manifesto then?

No,  I think it's a "Hail Mary" if ever I saw one.

Should be in it though.  

[peterms]

42 minutes ago, welnik said:

I'm doing more and more work for people in their late eighties and early nineties. Do you think that they have paid enough N. I to cover the cost of their pensions?

NI is not a ringfenced pot, it does not take money in and pay it out according to how much has been paid in.  Pensions, health, benefits are paid out of government spending, like everything else.  Whether someone has been lucky enough to be employed in a role well enough paid for their NI contributions to "cover" the cost of their pension is irrelevant; it's a social expenditure, not a personal pot.

42 minutes ago, welnik said:

One of my customers was 93, he retired at 55 on an indexed linked pension. His contribution would have lasted a couple of years. Who has been funding his lifestyle since? 

Are you speaking of an employer's pension?

[welnik]

4 minutes ago, peterms said:

NI is not a ringfenced pot, it does not take money in and pay it out according to how much has been paid in.  Pensions, health, benefits are paid out of government spending, like everything else.  Whether someone has been lucky enough to be employed in a role well enough paid for their NI contributions to "cover" the cost of their pension is irrelevant; it's a social expenditure, not a personal pot.

Are you speaking of an employer's pension?

No, his state pension which he got from 65. So nearly 30 years of state pension that has to be paid for. By who? 

[peterms]

1 minute ago, welnik said:

No, his state pension which he got from 65. So nearly 30 years of state pension that has to be paid for. By who? 

By the government, obviously.  Like healthcare, education, roads, police, wars...

[StefanAVFC]

40% of the population will fall for this shit

 

[welnik]

So because we are living longer this is just something else that is costing more and more. It won't be too long till there are a significant portion of the elderly who have been retired longer than they had been working if they retired at 65! We can't afford to fund that much, so we have to work longer, it's common sense 

[tonyh29]

40 minutes ago, bickster said:

Is it in the manifesto then?

This deosn't half sound like the " we will take care of it" promise that conned gullible students in 2017  

but whats another  £58bn when you have Amazon and Google lining up to pay for it all

[welnik]

2 minutes ago, tonyh29 said:

This deosn't half sound like the " we will take care of it" promise that conned gullible students in 2017  

but whats another  £58bn when you have Amazon and Google lining up to pay for it all

About 6p in the pound! 

[welnik]

3 minutes ago, tonyh29 said:

This deosn't half sound like the " we will take care of it" promise that conned gullible students in 2017  

but whats another  £58bn when you have Amazon and Google lining up to pay for it all

About 8p in the pound! 

[welnik]

Oops, inflation has hit it already! 

[bickster]

7 minutes ago, welnik said:

About 6p in the pound! 

 

Just now, welnik said:

About 8p in the pound! 

Has Brexit induced Hyper-inflation started already?

[NurembergVillan]

24 minutes ago, welnik said:

So because we are living longer this is just something else that is costing more and more. It won't be too long till there are a significant portion of the elderly who have been retired longer than they had been working if they retired at 65! We can't afford to fund that much, so we have to work longer, it's common sense 

I can't imagine we're going to see bus stops full of 110 year olds any time soon, so I'd say that theory might need to be revisited.

[villa4europe]

had a look at my candidates for wyre forest

mark garnier - proper right wing tory boy, voting history would shock a lot of people, definitely nothing like me, also got a slap on the wrist for using expenses to buy gifts from a sex shop, all round not a seemingly nice man, lives in abberley, won the last election by 12k votes

robin lunn - labour, in 2015 he lost the mid Worcestershire vote, in 2017 he lost the Redditch vote, lives in inkberrow which is 45 minutes from kiddy and is now going for wyre forest, not a chance pal 

shazu miah - lib dems, I've met this guy before, he's a solicitor based in the centre of kiddy, he did legal signing of documents for me, runs a shop with his son, really nice guy, lives on my old estate and won a seat in local election in may (if you know comberton and offmore then fran oborski owns that estate politically, he's alongside her) got 26k less votes than garnier in 2017

john davies - green party, lost the franche and habberley local election (6th out of 6 with less than 2% of the vote) lost the MEP election, will lose this election, needs to find a new hobby

we voted for leave, tories will walk it

 

Edited November 25, 2019 by villa4europe

[snowychap]

[snowychap]

 

[lapal_fan]

Just looked at James Morris's voting history (Halesowen & Rowley Regis). 

Proper Tory whip it seems. 

- Against anything to do with raising benefits (including for disabled people).

- For lowering Corporate taxes

- Against anything immigration

- For UK not abiding by EU forest protection laws (And he's the face of "Save Halesowens Green Belt"  )

- For privatising the Post Office back in the day 

- Against gay marriage laws 

- Against Human rights laws 

- For Nukes & anything spending on military 

- Against EU right to remain nationals for those who have spend significant time here

- Against guaranteeing jobs for young people out of work for a long period 

- Against taxing more for people earning over £150k 

- Against more tax to be paid by banks

- Against restricting private patients services paid by the NHS

- Against the Youth-in-Asia 

- For increasing Uni fees

- For Academies 

- Against supporting 16-19 year olds in further education 

He's getting more popular within the constituency as well it seems, from winning by 3,000 votes in 2015 - to 6,000 votes in 2017.

I think the majority of people in the constituency will not benefit from that type of person in charge, where it's one of the poorer constituencies based on income/age etc. 

Very strange. 

[Dr_Pangloss]

1 hour ago, welnik said:

So because we are living longer this is just something else that is costing more and more. It won't be too long till there are a significant portion of the elderly who have been retired longer than they had been working if they retired at 65! We can't afford to fund that much, so we have to work longer, it's common sense 

This is dubious when you really think about it beyond just the numbers. Obviously people are living a lot longer but people obviously become a lot more mentally impaired as they get older, not to mention the dramatically increased risks of alzheimer's, dementia, cancers, generally weaker immune systems making trivial illness far more impacting, greater likelihood of becoming exhausted, bodies deteriorating leading to a greater likelihood of mobility problems.

I not sure what jobs a lot of these people are fit for when it comes to work, especially in the future when a lot of jobs are automated out of existence. 

[HanoiVillan]

1 hour ago, welnik said:

So because we are living longer this is just something else that is costing more and more. It won't be too long till there are a significant portion of the elderly who have been retired longer than they had been working if they retired at 65! We can't afford to fund that much, so we have to work longer, it's common sense 

There appears to be a broad agreement that the retirement age will need to be raised slightly, However, as @Dr_Pangloss says, there are very good reasons why people cannot continue working much beyond the current state retirement age. 

In addition, this isn't really the argument being discussed at this election; the question is whether it was fair for the coalition to raise the retirement age for women further without compensating them, not whether it makes sense to raise the retirement age in principle.

You're correct that pensions and social care are going to take a larger and larger amount of money in the future (though I'm not sure how much life expectancy is rising, if it is at all). However, you know what would help with that problem: some pro-growth macro-economic policies!