I watched the Tory Party hustings on Channel 4 last night. I am not going to offer much comment. Instead I will simply note that time after time the candidates made spending promises but gave no hint as to how they were going to necessarily reclaim the money that they would spend from the economy to prevent inflation arising - which at the level they were promising without tax rises it undoubtedly would. That lack of reality was overwhelming.
Without exceptions these candidates were all in cloud-cuckoo land. No wonder people are fed up with politics and politicians.
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Am I winning my point here today
Politicians are the problem, not the solution!
No you’re not
We need politicians
But not the ones we have
Yep!
That is the long, short and tall of it Richard.
What I find really interesting is that people who say they have had enough of politicians fall yet again for personalities who are not much more different (and sometimes far worse) than those they initially turn away from.
The best thing – the only thing – a modern citizen can do is to educate themselves and dig deeper to get closer to the truths (notice the plural) and find places like this.
My advice to the likes of Peter is do not follow the people – follow and get to understand the ideas they espouse first.
Last night I had to watch some thick TV hack on Newsnight giving vent to the same old lies about tax from people like Liz Truss and Mervyn King. Where were you? Or one of the tax campaigning bodies? No where.
No balance, no debate – just a constant, continuous induction into Neo-liberal bullshit.
It does not have to be this way.
We are never invited
And for the record, I was in parliament – at a Fair Tax Mark event
Where I will be again much of today, only today is meetings followed by a Green New Deal event
I agree with you Peter Dawe. Over the last forty years, party politics has been thoroughly hijacked by vested interests to the extent that it is literally destroying the planet. Although the Labour Party and Jeremy Corbyn give us some hope of breaking out of this, the distorted world view prompted by vested interests has become so ingrained that the turning the supertanker may be too difficult for them. I believe, like Extinction Rebellion, that we need to cut out the middle-men and transition from party politics to participatory democracy in the form of randomly elected Citizen’s Assemblies.
Which will become deeply political…
I have no problem with much wider consultation, greater localism and real devolution, but a society only functions with a central government and a macroeconomic authority and we need a democratic process to control them
The problem is not the parties as such – although the two leading o0nes have been corrupted. The problem is the system that perpetuates those two
If you are suggesting, Richard, that Proportional Representation would solve Britain’s political crisis, my experience from living in Sweden is that seven of the eight Swedish parties (including the Social Democrats and the Greens) are just as hijacked by vested interests, and the only real party of the left (with around 9 per cent of the vote if I remember correctly) is deeply distrusted by all other parties and has never been accepted in a coalition. At least Corbyn is in with a chance. The left in Sweden has no chance.
Maybe the left would not have a chance here either – and right now it would not
But at least it would be fairer
Hang on.
On this blog you have repeatedly said we should spend huge amounts of MMT’d new money on a Green New Deal. £50bn a year.
When quizzed by people how much inflation this would cause, and therefore how much taxes would have to rise to stop it, you have said inflation wouldn’t rise so taxes wouldn’t have to rise either.
But now Tory spending commitments would cause inflation, and require tax rises?
So is it one set of economics for Tories and another for MMTers like yourself?
No
a) Because I have also argued that the Green New Deal should collect more tax – albeit from the shadow economy
and
b) I am largely asking for investment which has much higher multiplier effects
So, no conflict at all
I recognise the issues and they are not
The “multiplier” is a classic term to hide behind. Basically you state that you are a “better” investor than somebody else using the States money. But what evidence? It is all conjecture..
The evidence that investment has higher multipliers than revenue spend is very well known
a) Collecting more tax from the shadow economy has nothing to do with the GND. You could do that without a GND. So this is pure nonsense.
b) Not all investment has a higher multiplier effect. In fact, plenty of government investment has been shown to have a negative multiplier.
That said, how does Tory investment plans lead to a lower multiplier than your investment plans?
Do you have any data or evidence for this, or is it just your opinion? Which let’s face it, is worthless.
I get the feeling that even if the Tories pressed ahead with a GND exactly the way you are saying it should happen, you would still find a reason to criticize it because you hate the Tory party, and nobody will have bothered to give you any recognition/job/medal/peerage for it.
Actually, the GND has always been about social justice and beating tax abuse has long been a part of that, so with respect, you’re wrong
And on multipliers your claims are simply not true so I cannot be bothered to engage on them
The evidence on investment and revenue multipliers is well documented – just szearch it
But for the record when the Tories asked me to serve on a Treasury committee I did. I am completely open minded in other words. It is a shame you are not.
Social justice and tax reform are all well and good in their own right, but the GND can’t claim them as it’s own – so has nothing to do with the economics of this situation.
“And on multipliers your claims are simply not true so I cannot be bothered to engage on them”
Really? What evidence of this do you have? Because I have papers here from the IMF and ECB saying that government spending provides a short term boost to an economy in recession, but after that causes a NEGATIVE effect on the economy.
https://www.ecb.europa.eu/pub/pdf/scpwps/ecbwp1267.pdf?5ed52b5ab649fecb6236f72c090252f3
https://www.imf.org/external/pubs/ft/tnm/2014/tnm1404.pdf
The IMF paper you should page 8.
Given we aren’t in a recession, all the evidence says that all your extra spending won’t cause an increase in GDP – and in fact will likely cause the opposite.
But again, in your world GND spend = good, Tory spending = bad.
The last thing that could be said about you is that you are open minded. Saying you served on a treasury select committee hardly makes you politically neutral. It is also well known that you are simply never wrong, and then when people point out you are you talk utter rubbish, insult them, claim you are right then block them.
Well if you can call ncoufe that Tom the IMF paper I am nit sure what point there is in having a debate
I wonder why you think the IMF, OECD and others urge investment now given your conclusions?
Could it be you are wrong?
Did any of the candidates commit to taking the new policy plans (manifesto) to the Country?
If not, why not?
I watched for half an hour, and then decided that I was not going to waste any more time.
What really struck me was The Guardian Guide Pick of the day preview. I find it hard to believe that I was reading about our politicians competing to be our new PM. Remember this was fact, not comedy, not a preview of Spitting Image. I could not disagree with a single word of it. Frightening.
That the UK is bound for hell in a hand-assisted vehicle, there is little doubt. All that remains is to discover which of these escapees from Pandora’s box will taxi us there; a more wretched collection of dissemblers, idiots, narcissists and people who have mistakenly taken drugs is difficult to imagine under one studio roof, but here we are. An asbestos-clad Krishnan Guru-Murthy meets the contenders before an audience drawn from across this broken isle. God actually help us.
This was written by one of the previewers, AJC – Ali Catterall
It seems strange that the prime minister will be chosen by an unrepresentative group of people – perhaps members of political parties should not be allowed to choose the leader of their party when it is in government. At least if the MPs alone chose the leader in this circumstance they would have a democratic mandate to do so.
Two questions that were not asked but should have been:
1. You are all agreed that the number of countries in which I as a UK citizen have the right to travel freely, live and work should be reduced by approx. 96.5%. The greatest single diminution in my rights and freedoms in my 61 long years. Please outline what further attacks on my rights and freedoms you plan to implement.
2. Climate change is happening now and is getting worse. There is already too much CO2 in the atmosphere. Your strategy for dealing with this is to spend the next thirty years adding to the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere. Are you proud of this strategy?