 Government owes itself money! But in theory the Government pays out for university tuition fees and maintenance costs and is owed it back – in practice they sell off the debt and in any case don’t get much of it back. We watched as Osborne converted a lot of state debt to individual debt. Easier to default?
What happens when a lot of people owe a lot of money secured upon assets that suddenly shrink in value? Banks stop lending (because actually, they suddenly owe more than they own). What happens if Government commitments to spend are higher than their ability to raise money? Depends. If they can print money, not much except its value might well fall.
But the point of the post was – if the UK Government owes its citizens a lot of money, and its citizens owe its government a lot of money – what’s the UK’s situation?
Austerity being necessary for UK but in the EU countries it was the cold hand of EU forcing austeirty on Greece and the rest.
This is why I think people are absolutely mad. In the US they went for straight forward keynesian spending it meant that they basically went for debt forgiveness for the banks and their auto industries. In the EU we basically bailed out the banks.
I believe the real problem has been that we have not reconciled what to do economically.
The idea that Austeirty was good and now it is not is basically just about sentiment and nmot about economics since the economics has not changed we still have the debt and still have a deficit we do not even meet the counter cyclic argument of being in surplus after nearly 10 years from the GFC.
In terms of Unions the reason that Unions had power was strictly two fold. National markets and no globalism and a push for full employment. International trade is the very thing that lowers wages for unskilled and semi skilled in the developed countries and there is no answer to that other than either protecting these worker with some from of subsidies since in the UK especially there are just too many to these types of jobs being created. The reason that Tube drivers get a good pay is that they are organised and will strike and indeed the market can take the fact that they can have an average wage of £50K (that is market forces for you). The reason we do not pay nurses more is that they don’t strike and the government is more than prepared t have less nurses since they have done everything to put hurdles in their place to make more nurses.
The issue of that we are seeing across the developed world are not going to be won because of Free trade and deregulation since it is free trade and deregulation that got us here in the first place. May argument about the market knows best is basically the premier league argument that the winning team is ones whom can gather the most resources rather than anything to do with competition since capital gathers to the sure fire winner. it is why we have Google, Microsoft and Apple.
We also forget the drivers in all this. Apple does not create much of its own technology. indeed it windowing system was based on smalltalk which was a system developed by Darpa and Xerox many of the feature when you read their patents are the obvious step advances it is a collator of features. It is why their current CEO came not from the ‘creative’ side but logistics and supply chain because that is the game.
innovation is basically subsidied, Markets exploit those subsidies and those freebies to make money and the hopeful side effect for everyone is jobs. With rising automation and a lack of transnational controls I do not see anything that you really want happening. basically you are saying you a rule book for the world similar to the EUs but we have just left the EU that provided the best rule book that we have ever had to go back to WTO plus.
The conservatives would not run a party for the workers because that would mean hitting their constituents hard. it would mean tax rises on wealth such that moves invesment from safer property to less safe innovation it would mean a chnage from the market knows best to basically the South Korean approach and deciding what to do an doing it (very much not free Market).
We lost manufacturing because we chose to lose manufacturing we did finance because we chose to, we are leaving the EU because we chose to now the problem is that blaming someone else for our decisions seems to be a british artform. In order to build driverless lorries you would need a market to sell it into and infrastructure of investment in new ideas and high tech. That is something we have chosen not to do as individuals and as a country and indeed to win in this market we will have to either buy it in or invent it presently we are in no mans land because we believe that we actually knw what we want to do yet we do not.
I believe Labour wanted the election because it would end the sniping across the board and would help get everything in motion for them. Did they believe they would get 40% of the vote? No they believed they would get 35% which they would feel was a good base.
They also thought their manifesto would be good so allowing them to win some seats.
The Tories basic approach was not to give away anything. cameron had basically tied their hands on the economy they just could not raise any meaningful taxes and therefore they were stuffed with a 20%+ lead they felt they could get away with one or two unpopular policies a non commitment on tax, dementia tax and that would allow the a real win come parliament, think about it a majority that would allow them to do what was in their manifesto. It is why there was not talk of the JAMs at all.
From a EU perspective I am not sure what uber brexiteers would have done because they would have won seats from Labour and mainly from strongly leave areas so again keeping those seat may have meant actually more uber brexiteers as a proportion of the total.
basically Corbyn had not to lose in the election if he lost he would still be where he was the day before the election, at best and if he did well he kills the opposition within his party. If he won then that was going to be a bonus.
Good Morning all from a sunny Bournemouth, and on a day off too for this tired teacher.
I think people assume too easily that the Tory Party will call the GE before 2022. The Party has a remarkable record in election winning.
The “good deal/bad deal” question is ludicrous as it supposes an objective view and understanding of the latter that simply does not exist. I expect my “bad” deal is not the same as Rees Mogg’s for example.
Too many polling questions are abstract and pointless; and they they therefore muddle rather than clarify where we are on many topics.
“I thought that every company in every state across the world had “access” to it – in the sense that if they had the possibility of selling their product in the EU, as long as it was defined by the EU as something they were willing to import, and that it met any tariff/quota arrangements.
I think the Brexiters who get excited about the wonders of a “no deal” and the ease of WTO terms don’t fully understand what underpins trade in those circumstances. As I understand it, the EU has over a hundred trade related agreements with the USA, over 60 with China, and 80 or so with Australia covering issues such as conformity assessment and customs arrangements.No doubt we will be told that there will be no problems with putting such arrangements in place but I wonder if Brexiters see those as part of a “no deal” outcome.
There’s no doubt been a change of attitude in Washington but all I wanted was a bit of perspective and thankfully, unlike the press we seem to have it here.
I think the Government should bee playing this down rather than reacting to it for the sake of the media, but then it’s a week before Conference so they are probably twitchy about PR.
The idea as stated in one paper that we could cancel orders for chinooks or surveillance aircraft is just daft. If we need a heavy lift helicopter their are only really three we can go for, the Chinook, the Sea stallion or the Halo.
Two are American one Russian, One we have, the other is from American just like the first and the Russian one isn’t an option so our so called threat is really cutting off our nose to spite our face.
What next; refuse to buy the only plane that can fly from our new Aircraft Carriers. 
I am not so much concerned about the trade implications of this as about what it says about Mays leadership and Government.
The seem to be reacting and responding rather than setting the pace and more caught up in internal arguments than the jib at hand.
In a way that goes back to the election issue.
I think the result did surprise people but not because the polls didn’t’t pick up on a change in mood and a ground swell towards Labour.
I don’t think people assume the Tories will call an early election. However no minority government has lasted more than a couple of years since the modern party system emerged in the mid nineteenth century, even with formal C&S in place. So the “it’ll be different this time” position is that this one will.
it might well be of course. So far the Parliamentary discipline has been impressive and in marked contrast to Labour. But the noises off remain fractious.
On trade wars – my understanding (could be wrong) is that the 219% tariff penalty has been imposed by a government department, so therefore a branch of government controlled by Trump. This has to be confirmed by a board with an independent function, so less influenced by the president. To