{"id":43347,"date":"2018-10-17T08:25:41","date_gmt":"2018-10-17T07:25:41","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/?p=43347"},"modified":"2018-10-17T08:25:41","modified_gmt":"2018-10-17T07:25:41","slug":"coffee-break-radio","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/2018\/10\/17\/coffee-break-radio\/","title":{"rendered":"Coffee break radio"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\":1vk\">\n<div class=\"btm\"><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"\">\n<div class=\"aHl\">I was called yesterday morning by Talk Radio and asked if I would take part in a discussion on whether or not the IFS were right to suggest that ending austerity and capping tax cuts were incompatible goals. I admit I think Talk Radio pretty much gutter press equivalent radio but agreed to do it,<a href=\"http:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/2018\/10\/16\/tax-rises-bring-them-on-as-we-will-all-be-better-off\/\"> checked the data on where the UK\u00a0 stood in the league tables<\/a> on spending, and when the call came went on air.<\/div>\n<div id=\":1vm\" class=\"ii gt\">\n<div id=\":1vl\" class=\"a3s aXjCH \" tabindex=\"-1\" role=\"gridcell\">This is a YouTube of the studio side of the conversation. As is often the case, I was actually doing a bit of weeding in the garden whilst pursuing my arguments. It is a literal attempt to stay grounded whilst talking to those I do not agree with. I stress, this is not a great listen:<\/div>\n<div tabindex=\"-1\" role=\"gridcell\"><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"Austerity debate | &quot;If anything we should give the government *more* money!&quot;\" width=\"500\" height=\"281\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/_P9gLF-h9yA?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>What is to be learned? The main claims my challenger made are the usual ones:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>The government has no money of its own;<\/li>\n<li>The government cannot make money;<\/li>\n<li>The government wastes money;<\/li>\n<li>No one wants to pay tax.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>More particularly:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>There has been no austerity;<\/li>\n<li>In that case whatever austerity is it has not worked as debt has risen.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Faced with the claim that there has been no austerity you realise you are up against what might best be described as a small world, and decidedly selfish, view of economics. Compound that with a belief that value as created by teachers, health workers, etc., does not \u2018make money\u2019, which as a result appears to be solely equated with profits and wages paid in the private sector, plus a cast iron certainty that government only subtracts value, and you end up with little prospect for sensible debate. And that\u2019s what we got.<\/p>\n<p>What really frustrates me is the arrogance of this type of radio presentation. If you ask someone on for an opinion at least listen to them before disagreeing. I have to say LBC does that now it has got rid of its worst presenters to Talk Radio. You can probably tell that early on I thought of pulling out of this call. That may have been just as useful as carrying on.<\/p>\n<p>I tried to make clear government actually creates all money.<\/p>\n<p>And of course the public sector creates value.<\/p>\n<p>And that this value is not only of worth, but appreciated (as even the presenter conceded before he ranted about aid budgets).<\/p>\n<p>And I tried to stress how business is dependent on good government.<\/p>\n<p>Did it work? I am not at all sure.<\/p>\n<p>Maybe I should have just taken a coffee break instead.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I was called yesterday morning by Talk Radio and asked if I would take part in a discussion on whether or not the IFS were<br \/><a class=\"moretag\" href=\"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/2018\/10\/17\/coffee-break-radio\/\"><em> Read the full article&#8230;<\/em><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[35],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-43347","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-economics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43347","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=43347"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43347\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=43347"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=43347"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=43347"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}