Good Morrrrrrrning Economic Plan!

[Hypognosis]

Since nobody was able to answer my previous question, we all had to wait for the 'product launch', which was today and all this week, apparently. Anyway, here it is.

https://www.conservatives.com/plan.aspx

The bullet points are just a repeat of the rhetoric of recent months. I'll read the detail pages if the thread generates any interest. (Which is more than my bank can manage, at the moment. (boom! boom!)

Of great curiosity to me is that they mention tax cuts (for businesses) *and* creation of jobs. They mean -private sector jobs-, of course. What part of trousering a tax cut do they not inderstand?

Or do they mean job creation in the yacht industry?

[Hypognosis]

@Gromit

Thanks for the cut'n'paste. Some websites don't like large scale lifting of text, hence I avoided doing it myself.

When we finished paying USA for WWII, under Gordon Brown (in 2006*) I must have got the mistaken idea that the whole UK debt had been paid off. Hence, when the UK debt ("Labour's fault", say Tories) first began to loom in the headlines, I couldn't work out how Gordo had gone from "Prudence" to "spendthrift", in such a short timespan.

Or was that the bank bailouts?

*
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anglo-American_loan

[Hypognosis]

And now, a planned "straightjacketed chancellor" law (your news headlines may vary), promised by the shiny-foreheaded NHS promise guy.

[Gromit]

Hypognosis

We famously took 60 years to repay the Americans for loans for our WWII effort.

The national debt is added to yearly because most Governments budget to spend more than they earn from taxes. The difference, they have to borrow.
Margaret Thatcher's Governments never balanced the books, always running a deficit. John Major managed to balance the books for two years, and Brown as Chancellor managed to make a surplus (generating more than we spend) for 4 years. Osborne has never delivered a balanced budget.

[Hypognosis]

What eats me is that there are about 25,000 people in each constituency who work so hard that they make the other 25,000 people sufficiently rich as to want/need to vote Tory.

Wouldn't it be terrible if they all downed tools and went on a self-sufficiency trip for a year or two?


Ah, the men in white coats are here. Gotta dash…

[Svejk]

Gromit Svejk,

I wrote // the Government have doubled our National Debt, adding £750,000billion in 5 years. //

Might help you if I write it out in figures.

£750,000,000,000 when Osborne became Chancellor.
£1,500,000,000,000 our Bational Debt now.
12:22 Mon 27th Apr 2015


mikey4444 Gromit...you are in danger here of confusing people, with facts !
12:25 Mon 27th Apr 2015

Still no acknowledgement, from either of you, that I was right and you were wrong.

[Gromit]

Apologies Svejk,

It should have read -
" the Government have doubled our National Debt, adding £750,000million in 5 years. "

Whatever the big number is, Osborne has doubled it.

[Svejk]

No problem. ;o)

[Hypognosis]

I still love the way that it is always conveniently glossed over to whom our national debt is owed.

Somebody, somewhere, is getting well and truly minted thanks to this country's profligacy.

Needless to say, debt is a justifiable strategy if you invest the funds in something, hitherto unaffordable, which enhances your earnings potential in such a way that it pays for itself rapidly (and the interest) whereas saving first would have meant such a delay that your working lifespan will run out before you can reap anywhere near similar levels of profits.

Somehow I don't think UK's borrowing is being spent on tooling up to boost our GDP and, as observed numerous times on Dragon's Den, if a business wants a loan to pay salaries or running costs then it's a goner.

[Hypognosis]

All's quiet on the plan front.

As you were.

[vetuste_ennemi]

"Gromit...you are in danger here of confusing people, with facts "
Are either interlocutor or addressee capable of distinguishing among: "facts"; "fictions/factions", ignorant prejudices; predispositions to rant, or random disorders of the brain?
Carers in the community (yes, you know who you are) please step forward to assist.
Serious point: does anybody on this thread (I exclude myself totally, I I only observer the debate) understand economics sufficiently to comment on when, and why we might want to (or should) should run deficits? And when we shouldn't? Heard of Keynes (Camp1)? Heard of Friedman (Camp2)?

[vetuste_ennemi]

My apologies for a slightly garbled thread. I hope my intentions (generous or otherwise) were clear.

[Gromit]

Government investment has crashed serverely over the past 5 years which is telling. When the economic situation is still perilous (UK growth is stalling and is close to stagnant again), then the country should borrow to stimulate the economy on projects that will be of benefit in the future. Improved infrastructure projects, road, rail, power stations etc should be undertaken now.
The Conservatives promised such in their election manifesto, so let's see if they deliver.
When the economy is growing again and tax receipts improve, then we should think about budgeting for no deficit and even making a surplus. Trying to do that now by just cuts rather than growth will cause a great deal of harm.

[vetuste_ennemi]

Gromit, you're a Keynesian. Deficit spending in his terms is doing useful things on borrowed money to increase current economic activity while producing long-term assets. I buy that. Better than Miliband who would be doing USELESS things on borrowed money with no future payola (that's code for Mikey444 and feeding scroungers).
Confusing for me. But we (that means NORMAL people) have a lot of real capital in this. My own emotional investment is my step-kids and their offspring who will be the beneficiaries (or victims) of political decisions (or other geo-political circumstances) made in the next few years and long after I'm dead.

[Hypognosis]

@vetuste_ennemi

To those not versed in economics, the word "Keynes" is a token devoid of meaning. I can see its use as a way economists can shut laypersons out of a conversation, as all jargon does and even those not qualified as economists can put on a show of being well read.

So, can anyone describe up Keynesianism in a nutshell?