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Post by gulfofaden on Nov 2, 2022 5:37:58 GMT
Lucky you. The Annual Allowance wouldn't affect that many, especially those who were relying on state support. Most of those examples you gave don't apply to the majority of people. Believe me, there are plenty who suffered with the reductions in services and public sector pay hardly moved, particularly in real terms. He’s completely detached from the real world but too far up his own arse to realise it . Off he’ll pop to to foreign lands to save himself a few pounds / euros because the party and Brexit he voted for has f**ked the country. Good luck to him 🙄 Grown ups are talking now Yatton. You might want to take your colouring books and your ladybird big book of James O’Brien one-liners and come back when you’re tired. |
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Post by yattongas on Nov 2, 2022 6:04:31 GMT
He’s completely detached from the real world but too far up his own arse to realise it . Off he’ll pop to to foreign lands to save himself a few pounds / euros because the party and Brexit he voted for has f**ked the country. Good luck to him 🙄 Grown ups are talking now Yatton. You might want to take your colouring books and your ladybird big book of James O’Brien one-liners and come back when you’re tired. Cutting 😂 |
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Post by warehamgas on Nov 2, 2022 9:01:32 GMT
I used “austerity” because most people understand it was the period following the 08 crash and if you didn’t notice the impact it had then you were fortunate. In two jobs in education during that time I changed from a headteacher to a headteacher/social worker dealing with the problems it produced, yet my job never changed! I guess we all see any period in terms of our own experiences that we had during it, good or bad. If you were fortunate to have been largely unaffected by it or you see it in terms of a paper exercise all about numbers then you will have a different view from those who saw the impact on children, families and people and spent many years very close to the impact of “austerity.” And as I’ve said many times on here, it’s always the children, people and families on the lowest incomes or those who are the wrong side of the benefits thresholds who suffer. And boy, in austerity many suffered. It has to be a paper exercise because that’s the reality of it. It can’t be discussed in any other terms because at the end of the day, you have to balance the books - or at least try to. Point being that we both borrowed and increased taxes throughout that period. Lots of people lost their jobs and businesses. People were laid off and unemployment I think peaked at about 6%ish. To have ensure the public sector emerged unscathed, there was only one way to do it. There was only one alternative to austerity, and this would have been to have raised taxes sharply or borrowed more. Borrowing is just kicking it down the road, because one day taxes need to be raised to pay for the borrowing, so borrowing is merely a proxy for tax - deferred tax. Had we done the above, all it would have achieved is shovelling the misery entirely from the public to the private sector, which would have been abhorrently selfish. This is why is has to be a paper exercise and not about anecdotal stories of woe. For every story, there’s another one. For every PS employee with no real terms pay rise, there’s a car home worker getting a tax rise to pay for the pay rise, should it occur. The point being, calling a period of tax rises and higher borrowing to support the public sector’s survival austerity is strange, it’s essentially saying taxes were raised but they weren’t taxed hard enough, with no regard to the misery and poverty those tax rises would have caused others. Unfortunately, life is made up of individual stories which all combine to make history. To dismiss all the suffering that you didn’t see because you saw it as a ‘paper exercise’ becomes a caricature. Rather like Liz Truss, she saw it as a paper exercise, if we do a + b it will give us c. Instead she found it wouldn’t give us c until later in the day but it certainly gave us something else. UTG! |
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Post by gulfofaden on Nov 2, 2022 11:03:21 GMT
It has to be a paper exercise because that’s the reality of it. It can’t be discussed in any other terms because at the end of the day, you have to balance the books - or at least try to. Point being that we both borrowed and increased taxes throughout that period. Lots of people lost their jobs and businesses. People were laid off and unemployment I think peaked at about 6%ish. To have ensure the public sector emerged unscathed, there was only one way to do it. There was only one alternative to austerity, and this would have been to have raised taxes sharply or borrowed more. Borrowing is just kicking it down the road, because one day taxes need to be raised to pay for the borrowing, so borrowing is merely a proxy for tax - deferred tax. Had we done the above, all it would have achieved is shovelling the misery entirely from the public to the private sector, which would have been abhorrently selfish. This is why is has to be a paper exercise and not about anecdotal stories of woe. For every story, there’s another one. For every PS employee with no real terms pay rise, there’s a car home worker getting a tax rise to pay for the pay rise, should it occur. The point being, calling a period of tax rises and higher borrowing to support the public sector’s survival austerity is strange, it’s essentially saying taxes were raised but they weren’t taxed hard enough, with no regard to the misery and poverty those tax rises would have caused others. Unfortunately, life is made up of individual stories which all combine to make history. To dismiss all the suffering that you didn’t see because you saw it as a ‘paper exercise’ becomes a caricature. Rather like Liz Truss, she saw it as a paper exercise, if we do a + b it will give us c. Instead she found it wouldn’t give us c until later in the day but it certainly gave us something else. UTG! So your solution would have been to rectify this? How would you have stopped it? What should they have done? Liz truss didn’t get the memo about unfunded spending. Liz truss wanted to spend, the markets disagreed. If she had funded the tax giveaway by cuts to services, none of it would have happened. Just need to be clear about what happened as a lot of uneducated journalists have been spinning tax cuts as supposedly anti-growth when it was the fact they weren’t funded. We spend £400BN in covid and that was £40bn net |
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Post by baggins on Nov 2, 2022 13:55:55 GMT
Unfortunately, life is made up of individual stories which all combine to make history. To dismiss all the suffering that you didn’t see because you saw it as a ‘paper exercise’ becomes a caricature. Rather like Liz Truss, she saw it as a paper exercise, if we do a + b it will give us c. Instead she found it wouldn’t give us c until later in the day but it certainly gave us something else. UTG! So your solution would have been to rectify this? How would you have stopped it? What should they have done? Liz truss didn’t get the memo about unfunded spending. Liz truss wanted to spend, the markets disagreed. If she had funded the tax giveaway by cuts to services, none of it would have happened. Just need to be clear about what happened as a lot of uneducated journalists have been spinning tax cuts as supposedly anti-growth when it was the fact they weren’t funded. We spend £400BN in covid and that was £40bn net £38bn wasted on Track & Trace, £4bn on ppi that didn't work now sitting in crates outside Kent waiting on disposale, God knows how much else given to Mates on the Tory take. |
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Post by eric on Nov 2, 2022 15:04:38 GMT
So your solution would have been to rectify this? How would you have stopped it? What should they have done? Liz truss didn’t get the memo about unfunded spending. Liz truss wanted to spend, the markets disagreed. If she had funded the tax giveaway by cuts to services, none of it would have happened. Just need to be clear about what happened as a lot of uneducated journalists have been spinning tax cuts as supposedly anti-growth when it was the fact they weren’t funded. We spend £400BN in covid and that was £40bn net £38bn wasted on Track & Trace, £4bn on ppi that didn't work now sitting in crates outside Kent waiting on disposale, God knows how much else given to Mates on the Tory take. Why have you left TEST out of ‘Test, Track and Trace’? I’m guessing you’d have used one of the unlimited free testing kits during the pandemic when other countries were charging? Were those testing kits you, family and friends have benefited from been a “waste”? I don’t know whether the £38m you quote is correct or how it is split between testing, tracking and tracing but you may know? Were you also among those shouting from the rooftops at the government just to get the PPE in regardless of where it was from and how much it cost when it looked like there was a possibility we could run out? Would you have found it acceptable at the time for there have been delays on PPE purchases whilst quality control assessments were undertaken? |
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Post by fintanstack on Nov 2, 2022 15:07:48 GMT
Lucky you. The Annual Allowance wouldn't affect that many, especially those who were relying on state support. Most of those examples you gave don't apply to the majority of people. Believe me, there are plenty who suffered with the reductions in services and public sector pay hardly moved, particularly in real terms. None of these affected me at the time, I was extremely poorly off at that time, and whilst I didn’t lose my job, my earnings dropped hugely for about 3 years. I’m talking like 50% lower. My job is linked to sales/new work so there’s no real terms pay rises; don’t like it, tough, that’s the reality. If I had been less risk tolerant, I would have chosen a job in the public sector where pay is lower - yet I would never face 50% fluctuations in earnings. Imagine if at that time, middle to senior civil servants had their pay cut by 50%….the outrage. That’s the reality a lot of us had in the private sector, so when they were considering strikes beside their pay award wasn’t in line with inflation, it does seem unconnected with the real world. If the receipts aren’t there, where’s the money? A fifty percent pay cut of how much though? Context is important. A premier league footballer could easily live more than comfortably on half their salary. A health care assistant could not. I understand that no one would be happy taking that big a pay cut, but some people earn four or five times the salary of a nurse or a teacher. |
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Post by yattongas on Nov 2, 2022 15:13:46 GMT
UK national debt has more than doubled from 1 Trillion to over 2 Trillion since 2010 ( Tories take power 🙄) .
All public services have been absolutely decimated. Spend more to get far far less !
. Yet still the right wing voting loons have the brass neck to say the left are wasteful and can’t be trusted with the economy.
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Post by baggins on Nov 2, 2022 16:03:41 GMT
£38bn wasted on Track & Trace, £4bn on ppi that didn't work now sitting in crates outside Kent waiting on disposale, God knows how much else given to Mates on the Tory take. Why have you left TEST out of ‘Test, Track and Trace’? I’m guessing you’d have used one of the unlimited free testing kits during the pandemic when other countries were charging? Were those testing kits you, family and friends have benefited from been a “waste”? I don’t know whether the £38m you quote is correct or how it is split between testing, tracking and tracing but you may know? Were you also among those shouting from the rooftops at the government just to get the PPE in regardless of where it was from and how much it cost when it looked like there was a possibility we could run out? Would you have found it acceptable at the time for there have been delays on PPE purchases whilst quality control assessments were undertaken? I had to pay for all of my Covid test kits, and I left Test out of the Track and Trace because it wasn't ever included in the Govt app we were all forced to download to gain entry into public places, that didn't work, and cost the tax payer £38 BILLION, not MILLION! I also didn't shout anything from rooftops regarding PPE but knowing more than a handful of Nurses (that we all clapped every Thursday) who were constantly given below standard masks to protect them against the virus, I would suggest you take your views and shovel it. |
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Post by aghast on Nov 2, 2022 17:07:19 GMT
UK national debt has more than doubled from 1 Trillion to over 2 Trillion since 2010 ( Tories take power 🙄) . All public services have been absolutely decimated. Spend more to get far far less ! . Yet still the right wing voting loons have the brass neck to say the left are wasteful and can’t be trusted with the economy. It's not the right wing voting loons who get the Tories into power. They've always been there and only ever vote one way. It's the disaffected Labour voters and the mysterious flip-flopping floating voters who do the damage. Hopefully not next time though. |
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Post by eric on Nov 2, 2022 19:00:57 GMT
Why have you left TEST out of ‘Test, Track and Trace’? I’m guessing you’d have used one of the unlimited free testing kits during the pandemic when other countries were charging? Were those testing kits you, family and friends have benefited from been a “waste”? I don’t know whether the £38m you quote is correct or how it is split between testing, tracking and tracing but you may know? Were you also among those shouting from the rooftops at the government just to get the PPE in regardless of where it was from and how much it cost when it looked like there was a possibility we could run out? Would you have found it acceptable at the time for there have been delays on PPE purchases whilst quality control assessments were undertaken? I had to pay for all of my Covid test kits, and I left Test out of the Track and Trace because it wasn't ever included in the Govt app we were all forced to download to gain entry into public places, that didn't work, and cost the tax payer £38 BILLION, not MILLION! I also didn't shout anything from rooftops regarding PPE but knowing more than a handful of Nurses (that we all clapped every Thursday) who were constantly given below standard masks to protect them against the virus, I would suggest you take your views and shovel it. How much of the £38bn was purely the track and trace element? Surely that is the figure you should be quoting as “waste”. Whatever was spent testing people can’t be considered a waste of money if it reduced spread and saved thousands of lives. |
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Post by yattongas on Nov 2, 2022 19:24:30 GMT
I had to pay for all of my Covid test kits, and I left Test out of the Track and Trace because it wasn't ever included in the Govt app we were all forced to download to gain entry into public places, that didn't work, and cost the tax payer £38 BILLION, not MILLION! I also didn't shout anything from rooftops regarding PPE but knowing more than a handful of Nurses (that we all clapped every Thursday) who were constantly given below standard masks to protect them against the virus, I would suggest you take your views and shovel it. How much of the £38bn was purely the track and trace element? Surely that is the figure you should be quoting as “waste”. Whatever was spent testing people can’t be considered a waste of money if it reduced spread and saved thousands of lives. Reminder… we had one of the worst death rates in Europe but spent / wasted more money on a failed track & trace system. Think Germany set up a system for a tenth of the price and did better on the death rates . Anyway ….. old news now time to move on . How about we talk about all the millions £££ wasted on the failed Rwanda scheme ? |
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Post by eric on Nov 2, 2022 19:31:23 GMT
How much of the £38bn was purely the track and trace element? Surely that is the figure you should be quoting as “waste”. Whatever was spent testing people can’t be considered a waste of money if it reduced spread and saved thousands of lives. Reminder… we had one of the worst death rates in Europe but spent / wasted more money on a failed track & trace system. Think Germany set up a system for a tenth of the price and did better on the death rates . Anyway ….. old news now time to move on . How about we talk about all the millions £££ wasted on the failed Rwanda scheme ? You’re right it is old news and I didn’t bring it up. Obviously the track and trace element wasn’t the success everyone would have hoped for but the testing side (which I would guess took up the biggest slice of that overall cost) was successful, saved thousand’s of lives and shouldn’t lazily be factored in as ‘waste’. |
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Post by warehamgas on Nov 2, 2022 22:18:58 GMT
Unfortunately, life is made up of individual stories which all combine to make history. To dismiss all the suffering that you didn’t see because you saw it as a ‘paper exercise’ becomes a caricature. Rather like Liz Truss, she saw it as a paper exercise, if we do a + b it will give us c. Instead she found it wouldn’t give us c until later in the day but it certainly gave us something else. UTG! So your solution would have been to rectify this? How would you have stopped it? What should they have done? Liz truss didn’t get the memo about unfunded spending. Liz truss wanted to spend, the markets disagreed. If she had funded the tax giveaway by cuts to services, none of it would have happened. Just need to be clear about what happened as a lot of uneducated journalists have been spinning tax cuts as supposedly anti-growth when it was the fact they weren’t funded. We spend £400BN in covid and that was £40bn net The point I’ve been making (or trying to) is that government implements policies which, I think, always have a human element. People are affected for good or for bad. And I think that those who are affected are usually those who are at the bottom of the income scale or who fall just outside the benefits thresholds. That group is certainly the most vulnerable when cuts, public services or benefits are under threat. You said it was always a paper exercise and not “about anecdotal stories of woe.” I disagree and think opinions are far more nuanced than that and are based on what you’ve seen, heard about or experienced. You disagreed, fair enough. I used Liz Truss as a prime example of government policy causing unintended consequences which families with mortgages will now pay for over a number of years. What would I have done? Not produce that mini-budget would have been a first step to avoiding the current crisis and not appoint a Chancellor who had no grasp on the world-wide economics he was hoping to avoid. She was warned by Sunak and his forecast of what would happen if she did what she did has come scarily true with the impact on normal families. Now I would say that can’t be right and as you said at the beginning you’ve planned your bolthole in readiness. So I presume you’re not entirely happy either but have the means to “escape.” Most haven’t. You questioned the word ‘austerity’, fair enough you can call it what you want I just used that term knowing that people and yourself would know what I meant by it. No worries what you want to call it. Whatever, we are referring to the same period. Your analogy about the PS sector and the private sector and their inter-dependence I can agree with and during that period what was done was perhaps inevitable. And of course you can never kick stuff into the long grass, it has to be addressed which the government tried to do. My point being that whereas you were able to see it as a “paper exercise”, my experience was different insofar as I saw a more human impact on the most vulnerable. Good to have a sensible conversation about it. 👍 |
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Post by gulfofaden on Nov 3, 2022 4:13:33 GMT
Reminder… we had one of the worst death rates in Europe but spent / wasted more money on a failed track & trace system. Think Germany set up a system for a tenth of the price and did better on the death rates . Anyway ….. old news now time to move on . How about we talk about all the millions £££ wasted on the failed Rwanda scheme ? You’re right it is old news and I didn’t bring it up. Obviously the track and trace element wasn’t the success everyone would have hoped for but the testing side (which I would guess took up the biggest slice of that overall cost) was successful, saved thousand’s of lives and shouldn’t lazily be factored in as ‘waste’. Who actually believes that government ie Boris and co, were writing policy on covid? The entire polio was written by “experts” in the health service, essentially. People give politicians way too much credit for what are essentially the products of the civil service. |
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Post by fintanstack on Nov 3, 2022 5:09:36 GMT
You’re right it is old news and I didn’t bring it up. Obviously the track and trace element wasn’t the success everyone would have hoped for but the testing side (which I would guess took up the biggest slice of that overall cost) was successful, saved thousand’s of lives and shouldn’t lazily be factored in as ‘waste’. Who actually believes that government ie Boris and co, were writing policy on covid? The entire polio was written by “experts” in the health service, essentially. People give politicians way too much credit for what are essentially the products of the civil service. You betray your ignorance if you think this Tory government are products or puppets of the civil service. They serve lobby groups, ex employers, current employers, future employers, party doners and their own self interests. Only after that would they consider listening to experts or the civil service. Then a long way down, voters. Labour will be no better. Politicians think they know better than the people they are supposed to represent. |
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Post by gulfofaden on Nov 3, 2022 6:05:25 GMT
Who actually believes that government ie Boris and co, were writing policy on covid? The entire polio was written by “experts” in the health service, essentially. People give politicians way too much credit for what are essentially the products of the civil service. You betray your ignorance if you think this Tory government are products or puppets of the civil service. They serve lobby groups, ex employers, current employers, future employers, party doners and their own self interests. Only after that would they consider listening to experts or the civil service. Then a long way down, voters. Labour will be no better. Politicians think they know better than the people they are supposed to represent. OK, in terms of who they serve you’re right. In terms of Covid, I do not believe the government were creating public health policy. This was created by NGOs and Boris and Matt read it off a teleprompter. This is why I didn’t care about the parties, for labour or Tory. The majority of people didn’t comply with the rules. |
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Post by stuart1974 on Nov 3, 2022 8:39:45 GMT
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Post by oldie on Nov 3, 2022 11:58:14 GMT
So your solution would have been to rectify this? How would you have stopped it? What should they have done? Liz truss didn’t get the memo about unfunded spending. Liz truss wanted to spend, the markets disagreed. If she had funded the tax giveaway by cuts to services, none of it would have happened. Just need to be clear about what happened as a lot of uneducated journalists have been spinning tax cuts as supposedly anti-growth when it was the fact they weren’t funded. We spend £400BN in covid and that was £40bn net The point I’ve been making (or trying to) is that government implements policies which, I think, always have a human element. People are affected for good or for bad. And I think that those who are affected are usually those who are at the bottom of the income scale or who fall just outside the benefits thresholds. That group is certainly the most vulnerable when cuts, public services or benefits are under threat. You said it was always a paper exercise and not “about anecdotal stories of woe.” I disagree and think opinions are far more nuanced than that and are based on what you’ve seen, heard about or experienced. You disagreed, fair enough. I used Liz Truss as a prime example of government policy causing unintended consequences which families with mortgages will now pay for over a number of years. What would I have done? Not produce that mini-budget would have been a first step to avoiding the current crisis and not appoint a Chancellor who had no grasp on the world-wide economics he was hoping to avoid. She was warned by Sunak and his forecast of what would happen if she did what she did has come scarily true with the impact on normal families. Now I would say that can’t be right and as you said at the beginning you’ve planned your bolthole in readiness. So I presume you’re not entirely happy either but have the means to “escape.” Most haven’t. You questioned the word ‘austerity’, fair enough you can call it what you want I just used that term knowing that people and yourself would know what I meant by it. No worries what you want to call it. Whatever, we are referring to the same period. Your analogy about the PS sector and the private sector and their inter-dependence I can agree with and during that period what was done was perhaps inevitable. And of course you can never kick stuff into the long grass, it has to be addressed which the government tried to do. My point being that whereas you were able to see it as a “paper exercise”, my experience was different insofar as I saw a more human impact on the most vulnerable. Good to have a sensible conversation about it. 👍 The 2010 decisions on public spending and taxation were predicated upon ideology, not what was in the best interests of the population of the UK. Earlier in this thread GoA states that VAT was raised in response to the PSBR. That's a misrepresentation. The Tories raised VAT back to 20% after Labour had lowered to 15%. They, Labour, did so as a classic Keynesian response to a collapse in private sector demand (brought on by a liquidity crisis and subsequent recession). Much the same response as Sunak invoked in response to the impact of Covid. Which is exactly why he is hated by the ultras in the Tory ranks like Rees-Mogg. Their mantra was debt. However, much like GoA's reasoning, this was simplistic. The management of debt is more about it's % to GDP rather than the absolute amount. Debt becomes increasingly manageable if GDP grows. By cutting public expenditure demand in the economy is suppressed, particularly at time when private sector demand is below trend. As a direct result debt as a % of GDP went from 49% to 85%. Then finally, as growth started to eat into that debt ratio Covid hit which, unlike the financial crisis of 2008/09, we did not have the elasticity in debt ratios to absorb comfortably. Which has now come home to roost. Add in the disaster of Brexit on our economy and the future looks bleak for the young people of the UK. In terms of escaping abroad to earn and keep post tax I, and my family, would be deeply hypocritical if we criticised him. But where we were, or are, we accepted that our gain was in no small part paid for by the local populations, either horrifically low wages and/or social and political oppression. |
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Post by stuart1974 on Nov 3, 2022 12:03:50 GMT
Ouch!
"The Bank of England has unveiled the biggest interest hike for 30 years as it seeks to tame double-digit inflation.
The rate rose by 0.75 percentage points to a fresh 14-year high of 3%."
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