The Spending Review (tackling the Socialists debt mountain)

[Dibden Purlieu Saint]

As someone interviewed on TV so eloquently put it:

 

"The bankers caused this mess but the children and the poor will pay for it"

 

To be children only spend their money on sweets, football stickers and posters of Zac Efron. Maybe this way they can spend their money more responsibly.

[Dibden Purlieu Saint]

An Eminent professor along with a civil service study concluded that 6 million people in this county own FOUR THOUSAND EIGHT HUNDRED BILLION POUNDS of the nations wealth.

 

Let them pay the deficit.

 

That's a big county.

[Thedelldays]

Nick - the recession is global, caused by a global banking crisis.

 

All countries with developed economies spend on hospitals and schools. They may do it in different ways but they all do it. All countries have deficits. It's the way of the world, living on credit, and we're so far down that road now that the worldwide economies would collapse if every country tried to be 'in the black'.

 

My point was this. If all countries were as stringent with their deficit reduction plans, they'd have no money to spend on things like buying things from us, like aeroplanes for example. We rely on exports to keep our business economy going - if we can't export because other governments and their people don't have money to spend then our businesses won't be able to grow.

 

Sweden has one of the lowest deficits in the EU but has a much larger public sector than do we

 

http://www.businessweek.com/news/2010-08-16/sweden-election-pledges-soar-amid-smallest-eu-deficit.html

do sweden pay "aid" to china and russia.?

[Verbal]

This is a (forgive me) simplistic approach. We all need food and other basic necessities. We don't need gender-reach consultants. We don't need designed obsolescence in mobile phones and computer operating systems. Why do we need increased business? What has changed in the world since the 1950s, 1960s ? Only that young mothers are forced out to work and put their children into day care.

 

Well done. You've just disinvented capitalism.

[Dibden Purlieu Saint]

Well done. You've just disinvented capitalism.

 

Post of the day. ****ing funny.

[AndyNorthernSaints]

An anagram for you ... it's a popular phrase heard all round Britain today.

 

5 words

 

' A Bounciest Surgeon Ogre'

 

any answers?

[bridge too far]

do sweden pay "aid" to china and russia.?

 

In my never-ending quest to satisfy your curiousity, I have googled extensively. I can't, however, find a breakdown of who they give their extensive foreign aid to. So sorry, I don't know.

 

I do know, from the following, that they are highly taxed but have great benefits, and that the proportion of their GDP given to overseas aid knocks the US, for example, into a ****ed hat (about half-way down the link)

 

http://www.fsmitha.com/world/sweden.html

[Thedelldays]

but in sweden...was there.......

 

Airline strikes

Fire Fighter Strikes

Tube strikes

record youth unemployment

total underfunding in parts of the UK

massive rises in sickness benefits

massive rises in immigration

unemployment upto 40% in areas of the country...??

 

(all of which happened during labours 13 years)

 

cue the blame being shifted to maggie...

 

what do we give Europe..? £45m a day..? (guess here)...do sweden give as much as us..?

[bridge too far]

I suggest you read the WHOLE article TDD - Sweden has one of the highest immigration levels in Europe.

[Thedelldays]

I suggest you read the WHOLE article TDD - Sweden has one of the highest immigration levels in Europe.

 

I would guess they have the space and not facing over crowding in their major cities..

 

what is the ppoulation of sweden..?..is it over 60m...?

 

edit..sweden has a population of 9m....NINE MILLION PEOPLE....that is pretty similar to greater london

Edited 20 October, 2010 by Thedelldays

[bridge too far]

I would guess they have the space and not facing over crowding in their major cities..

 

what is the ppoulation of sweden..?..is it over 60m...?

 

edit..sweden has a population of 9m....NINE MILLION PEOPLE....that is pretty similar to greater london

 

Ah - so you still haven't read the link

 

Remember that a lot of Sweden is not conducive to housing - mountains and all that.

 

Oh you have now read the link - sorry. The latest info available for the UK follows the 2001 census and according to the ONS the density is 244 per square kilometre compared with Sweden's 22. But, as I've just said, a lot of Sweden is uninhabitable.

 

If a population is of a certain size it needs an income of a relative size to pay for benefits of the same relative size.

Edited 20 October, 2010 by bridge too far

[buctootim]

Remember that a lot of Sweden is not conducive to housing - mountains and all that.

 

But, as I've just said, a lot of Sweden is uninhabitable.

 

Jeez thats total tosh. Have you even been there? Sweden is mostly flat, few mountains except in far North.

Edited 20 October, 2010 by buctootim

[The Cat]

Interesting article here on Sweden and it's immigration policies.

 

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/sep/18/swedish-elections-far-right

[Johnny Bognor]

Another thing that intrigues me is this. If all the 'developed' countries adopt a similar harsh deficit reduction, where on earth will the increased business come from?

 

Through innovation, creativity and entrepreneurship. The public sector does not create wealth, it merely recycles wealth from taxes taken from the private sector.

 

 

As someone interviewed on TV so eloquently put it:

 

"The bankers caused this mess but the children and the poor will pay for it"

 

You're right BTF. The bankers hired an extra 500,000 pubic sector workers over the last 6 years, the bankers sold off our gold reserves at rock bottom prices and the bankers increased public debt before the recession / credit crunch started. I wouldn't dream of blaming anyone else.

Edited 20 October, 2010 by Johnny Bognor

[st alex]

I would guess they have the space and not facing over crowding in their major cities..

 

what is the ppoulation of sweden..?..is it over 60m...?

 

edit..sweden has a population of 9m....NINE MILLION PEOPLE....that is pretty similar to greater london

 

Irrelevant really what the popluation of Sweden is, or how sparsely populated it is. Similarly with Ireland, which also has one major city, a couple of smaller ones and then just towns and villages spread all over the place, I believe it is actually a disadvantage. Having lived in Ireland and visited Sweden, surely its more beneficial to have high concentration of people living in cities and being within easy reach of jobs, transport links and cultural facilities. The best quality of life and I enjoyed was while living in Hong Kong (on a pretty tiny budget as I was a student). But Hong Kong has by far a higher population density than possibly any other country in the world, as well as one of the strongest economies, public transport was great...etc etc (still by no means perfect as the wealth gap is quite large)- but on the right track.

[benjii]

Predictably, the overblown and irresponsible hype has been far worse than the reality.

[Jonnyboy]

but in sweden...was there.......

 

Airline strikes

Fire Fighter Strikes

Tube strikes

record youth unemployment

total underfunding in parts of the UK

massive rises in sickness benefits

massive rises in immigration

unemployment upto 40% in areas of the country...??

 

(all of which happened during labours 13 years)

 

cue the blame being shifted to maggie...

 

what do we give Europe..? £45m a day..? (guess here)...do sweden give as much as us..?

 

yawn, how come you are a full member again

[scotty]

Predictably, the overblown and irresponsible hype has been far worse than the reality.

 

aha, another bite, thats what they wanted you to think mate......politicians always overblow the catastrophic doomladen scenario that they are about to unleash on us, then when they tell us what they are actually going to do it doesnt seem so bad after all. Chapter 5, Sir Humphrey Appleby's pocket guide to politics volume 1.

[Fuengirola Saint]

I reckon i have found the solution to cutting the deficit A 2 per cent Wealth

Tax on the richest 10 per

cent of the population would

raise £78 billion in just one

year —almost the equivalent

of the CSR measures (£83

billion) over four years.

* A one-off 20 per cent

windfall tax on the super-

profits of banking, energy,

retail, arms and drug

monopolies this year would

raise £16 billion.

* Closing the tax havens

under British jurisdiction and

clamping down on tax

dodgers would bring in

around £70 billion each

year.

* A 'Robin Hood' tax on City

transactions would raise £30

billion a year.

not bad eh?

[st alex]

I reckon i have found the solution to cutting the deficit A 2 per cent Wealth

Tax on the richest 10 per

cent of the population would

raise £78 billion in just one

year —almost the equivalent

of the CSR measures (£83

billion) over four years.

* A one-off 20 per cent

windfall tax on the super-

profits of banking, energy,

retail, arms and drug

monopolies this year would

raise £16 billion.

* Closing the tax havens

under British jurisdiction and

clamping down on tax

dodgers would bring in

around £70 billion each

year.

* A 'Robin Hood' tax on City

transactions would raise £30

billion a year.

not bad eh?

 

Simple as it seems, that would in theory work. However there is a Tory Government now, made up of a cabinate of millionaires, they're not interested in building a fair society, but in protecting their wealth. They're not where they are so that their off shore accounts, dividend payments and inheritance can be taxed at a higher rate.

 

Did you by any chance watch Dispatches yestreday (How to Tax the Rich).

[1976_Child]

nothing matters until the government - of which ever stripe - understands that perpetual exponential growth on a finite planet with finite resources is not possible.

 

We have a fictional monetary system, built upon facile assumptions of what the material world can produce. Trillions upon trillions of dollars/pounds/euros/yen/etc of commitments and future promises pulling forward natural resources which simply won't be there.

 

The 21st century will be very different from the 20th. As much so as the 20th was to the 19th. We have very real new challenges in this century. We can and will survive, that is what humans do. But the status-quo - the narcissistic consumption - will not do. Our monetary system will re-align with the true wealth of the world, that is the material wealth.

 

We have time to gather political consensus to ensure that real scientific endeavor is funded, but it must be a collective political agreement that true progress is not made by raping the planet for all its material and mineral wealth, and using its natural commons for dumping waste, all in the name of Economic Growth. Rather true progress is first understanding that we all have an inalienable right to basic necessities such as a warm place to sleep, a full belly once a day, access to clean water and access to knowledge and learning. After these have been met there is nothing to be garnered by wallowing around in our own human-made self pity and self indulgence. Then the next hurdle must present itself. And that hurdle must be for Man-kind to continue exploring. We must turn away from this imbecilic economic model of consumption-for-consumption's-sake and once more cast our eyes to the Heavans and beyond. We have the whit, we have the brains and mercifully we still have the natural resources and natural commons to allow us to continue the Human Quest. But time is running out.

Edited 21 October, 2010 by 1976_Child

[teamsaint]

nothing matters until the government - of which ever stripe - understands that perpetual exponential growth on a finite planet with finite resources is not possible.

 

We have a fictional monetary system, built upon facile assumptions of what the material world can produce. Trillions upon trillions of dollars/pounds/euros/yen/etc of commitments and future promises pulling forward natural resources which simply won't be there.

 

The 21st century will be very different from the 20th. As much so as the 20th was to the 19th. We have very real new challenges in this century. We can and will survive, that is what humans do. But the status-quo - the narcissistic consumption - will not do. Our monetary system will re-align with the true wealth of the world, that is the material wealth.

 

We have time to gather political consensus to ensure that real scientific endeavor is funded, but it must be a collective political agreement that true progress is not made by raping the planet for all its material and mineral wealth, and using its natural commons for dumping waste, all in the name of Economic Growth. Rather true progress is first understanding that we all have an inalienable right to basic necessities such as a warm place to sleep, a full belly once a day, access to clean water and access to knowledge and learning. After these have been met there is nothing to be garnered by wallowing around in our own human-made self pity and self indulgence. Then the next hurdle must present itself. And that hurdle must be for Man-kind to continue exploring. We must turn away from this imbecilic economic model of consumption-for-consumption's-sake and once more cast our eyes to the Heavans and beyond. We have the whit, we have the brains and mercifully we still have the natural resources and natural commons to allow us to continue the Human Quest. But time is running out.

 

quite. its more than possible to house, feed and provide a decent standard of living for everybody without stripping the planet of all its resources.

 

UK per Capita GDP is around £35000. if you allow 40% for govt spending that still leaves £20k PER PERSON.......but as this wealth/income is distributed the way the rich want,(top 10 % have over 30% of the income) it means that many people are scrabbling around or working stupid hours just to live.

[Verbal]

Through innovation, creativity and entrepreneurship. The public sector does not create wealth, it merely recycles wealth from taxes taken from the private sector.

 

 

 

 

You're right BTF. The bankers hired an extra 500,000 pubic sector workers over the last 6 years, the bankers sold off our gold reserves at rock bottom prices and the bankers increased public debt before the recession / credit crunch started. I wouldn't dream of blaming anyone else.

 

All but £32bn of the £160bn deficit was caused by the financial crisis and its consequences.

 

And I think anyone in a university would be amused by your first sentence.

[dune]

I reckon i have found the solution to cutting the deficit A 2 per cent Wealth

Tax on the richest 10 per

cent of the population would

raise £78 billion in just one

year —almost the equivalent

of the CSR measures (£83

billion) over four years.

* A one-off 20 per cent

windfall tax on the super-

profits of banking, energy,

retail, arms and drug

monopolies this year would

raise £16 billion.

* Closing the tax havens

under British jurisdiction and

clamping down on tax

dodgers would bring in

around £70 billion each

year.

* A 'Robin Hood' tax on City

transactions would raise £30

billion a year.

not bad eh?

 

I never realised we had so many Marxists in our fanbase.

[badgerx16]

I never realised we had so many Marxists in our fanbase.

We are needed to balance out the fascists.

[trousers]

All but £32bn of the £160bn deficit was caused by the financial crisis and its consequences.

 

 

Which makes it even more incredible why bottler Brown stood by and let it unfold before his very eyes.....

[trousers]

Anyway, is anyone keeping the score on this thread in my absence? It looks fairly even in the usual "my quote is better than your quote ner ner ner ner ner" exchanges

[dune]

We are needed to balance out the fascists.

 

Very amusing....

 

The problem with the Marxist approach is that it penalises savers. Take the Robin Hood tax on city transactions - every working person with a pension is penalised. I think the coalition have got it right in trying to keep taxes down for working people and going after the slobs that see a life on benefits as a career choice.

[Johnny Bognor]

All but £32bn of the £160bn deficit was caused by the financial crisis and its consequences.

 

And I think anyone in a university would be amused by your first sentence.

 

National debt rose from £300bn (approx) to £500bn (approx) before 2007 (when the crisis started to unfold). Someone borrowed (you'd never guess who) £200bn at a time when we should have been putting money by.

 

Defecits have been recorded since 2002 and so that cannot possibly be the all fault of the bankers

http://www.statistics.gov.uk/cci/nugget.asp?id=206

 

The OECD, for example, thought that the UK's structural budget deficit (i.e related to government spending, not bankers) was 7.2% of GDP. This is equivalent to £100bn, so I think you have it the wrong way round (i.e £100bn caused by the Labour Government and their voters, £60bn caused by the recession). If the bankers have to pay for their share, then Labour and their voters should pay for their share as we are all in this together. Me, I am neither a banker or a Labour voter, yet I am paying my fair share.

Edited 21 October, 2010 by Johnny Bognor

[Thedelldays]

i am astonished that we give the EU around £45m per day to be part of the club....WHAT THE FUK..? £9bn per year....what a disgrace

 

and the faceless tossers have voted to up their spending by 6%...neaning we have to contribute more

Edited 21 October, 2010 by Thedelldays

[Thedelldays]

yawn, how come you are a full member again

 

 

yawn as much as you like...they are cold hard facts

[saintsdan]

An anagram for you ... it's a popular phrase heard all round Britain today.

 

5 words

 

' A Bounciest Surgeon Ogre'

 

any answers?

 

You've miss spelt Osborne

[tony13579]

I heard on BBC thismorning that 57% of people in Dorchester work in the public sector.. 57%.... shut the sponging place down.

Any town where there are more public sector jobs than private needs closing.

[trousers]

You've miss spelt Osborne

 

The price one pays for being a Guardian reader I guess....

[trousers]

Putting yesterday's "cuts" (aka re-balance of public spending vs GDP) into perspective.....

 

[Whitey Grandad]

Who do they pay that to ? Other banks and international monetary agencies. HM Treasury spent over £109Bn in keeping them running in the 2008-2009 financial year, what with buying shares, making loans, and guaranteeing insurance on bad debts, etc. They should shoulder the burden of the interest on that amount, it comes to nearly 20% of the total Government spend.

They pay it to the Treasury, if they borrow it. We provided a draw-down facility which restored confidence in their ability to continue trading, but at a very high price. We also took a large slice of equity in them. One bank (whose name escapes me) chose to borrow from the Middle East instead of paying these high rates. The money that we have allocated has not been lost. We 'own' a couple of major banks which are enormous money-making machines and as soon as the share prices rise a little bit more we can cash in bigtime.

[Whitey Grandad]

An Eminent professor along with a civil service study concluded that 6 million people in this county own FOUR THOUSAND EIGHT HUNDRED BILLION POUNDS of the nations wealth.

 

Let them pay the deficit.

 

Interesting thought, but they didn't borrow the money so why should they pay off the debt?

[Whitey Grandad]

i am astonished that we give the EU around £45m per day to be part of the club....WHAT THE FUK..? £9bn per year....what a disgrace

 

and the faceless tossers have voted to up their spending by 6%...neaning we have to contribute more

 

We get a lot of it back, but by no means all of it.

[trousers]

One bank (whose name escapes me) chose to borrow from the Middle East instead of paying these high rates.

 

Barclays

[Whitey Grandad]

I reckon i have found the solution to cutting the deficit A 2 per cent Wealth

Tax on the richest 10 per

cent of the population would

raise £78 billion in just one

year —almost the equivalent

of the CSR measures (£83

billion) over four years.

* A one-off 20 per cent

windfall tax on the super-

profits of banking, energy,

retail, arms and drug

monopolies this year would

raise £16 billion.

* Closing the tax havens

under British jurisdiction and

clamping down on tax

dodgers would bring in

around £70 billion each

year.

* A 'Robin Hood' tax on City

transactions would raise £30

billion a year.

not bad eh?

 

I think you'll find that very few of these would stay around and pay the taxes and we would end up with even less than we get now. The trick is to set the levels so that we maximise our revenue from these sources.

[Whitey Grandad]

Barclays

 

Thanks, that's what I thought but I wasn't sure.

[trousers]

Putting yesterday's "cuts" (aka re-balance of public spending vs GDP) into perspective.....

 

 

Interesting, perhaps, to note that Thatcher stuck to 'average' public spending rises in her first half of her reign.

[trousers]

Genuine Question: How many UK 'shop floor' jobs are reliant on bankers receiving and then spending their large bonuses in the UK?

[badgerx16]

I heard on BBC thismorning that 57% of people in Dorchester work in the public sector.. 57%.... shut the sponging place down.

Any town where there are more public sector jobs than private needs closing.

Dorset County Council are the largest employer by far, and I suspect the NHS, Police, West Dorset District Council etc will employ quite a few out the population of just over 16,000.

Edited 21 October, 2010 by badgerx16

[badgerx16]

Genuine Question: How many UK 'shop floor' jobs are reliant on bankers receiving and then spending their large bonuses in the UK?

Nowhere near as many as are dependent on the lowest quartile ( by income ) spending theirs.

[Thedelldays]

We get a lot of it back, but by no means all of it.

 

a lot meaning how much..?

[trousers]

Nowhere near as many as are dependent on the lowest quartile ( by income ) spending theirs.

 

I wasn't looking for a comparison with anything else. Just an absolute figure to answer the question posed.

 

Perhaps I should ask it another way: "How many people would lose their jobs if no banker received a 6 figure or greater bonus?"

 

Just a rough calculation will suffice. 1? 100? 10,000? 100,000?

 

Thanks.

[buctootim]

Dorset County Council are the largest employer by far, and I suspect the NHS, Police, West Dorset District Council etc will employ quite a few out the population of just over 16,000.

 

Hardly abnormal though is it? Its the county town of Dorset. A small town with the County Council HQ, Police HQ and the county hospital - all covering about 700,000 million people. It will be the same in Lewes in Sussex. Should be more worried about the cities up north and in Scotland where over 40% of a population of 1 million work for public services and another 20% are unemployed.

Edited 21 October, 2010 by buctootim

[iansums]

The thing I don't get with the tax system is why it has to be so complicated. What is the point of NI? Why not simply combine this with income tax and for that matter instead of council tax have a local income tax, less admin costs. What is the point in taxing people only to give the money back in the form of tax credits, child allowance etc. There is too much money given back to people who don't need it, at least cutting child benefit has addressed that to a certain extent, and yes that will hit me but I regard it as fair. I saw one article that said for the winter fuel payment for pensioners only 10% of payments went to pensioners in real need, what a waste of money.

[badgerx16]

I wasn't looking for a comparison with anything else. Just an absolute figure to answer the question posed.

 

Perhaps I should ask it another way: "How many people would lose their jobs if no banker received a 6 figure or greater bonus?"

 

Just a rough calculation will suffice. 1? 100? 10,000? 100,000?

 

Thanks.

 

Probably nowhere near the figure you would like it to be to support your argument. A few less luxury kitchen salesmen & Porsche dealers, maybe one 3 Michelin starred restaurant closes. Most of these bonuses would be either spent abroad when they go on their holidays to exotic and exclusive destinations, or squirreled away in Monagesque mansions and off shore bank accounts.