Austerity is just a con..

[fletch70]

Isn't it odd that in the EU countries like Germany who are social democrat (ish) by nature insist on the like of Greece following the direction of the world bank and the Washington consensus of liberalise , privatise and reduce the role of the state .

All because The U.S.A contribute most to the world bank and the IMF and therefore in reality control what it does

[fletch70]

Austerity will never work, because although you will see the deficit number reducing, you get into a vicious circle of cutting to deal with issues it creates. If you don't spend money on roads for example you get increased traffic and that means you hit productivity. NHS has seen spending rise insufficient to cover all costs, therefore many Hospitals are in debt, which will need to be dealt with. Councils receive less money e.g care budget cut therefore more older people staying longer in hospital, costing the NHS.

 

Most of the debt has been added by coalition and Tories. When Labour left office in 2010, the debt was about £590 billion and the economy was growing. It now stands at £1600 billion, after the first 3 years of the coalition had very little growth.

 

Had the coaltion made investments straight away in getting houses built and other infrastructure projects started, i think we would be in a much better position. Some cuts would have been needed, but some tax increases would have been needed as well. The Tories decided on mostly spending cuts and some tax reductiions, hoping to see consumer spending increase. But the austerity has caused lower real term wages and consumers have cut back. Therefore business makes less profit and pays less tax.

 

When business profits are being challenged it is not just the business tax that is affected, businesses either reuduces pay or limits pay rises which in turn reduces the income tax revenue , as fixed costs go up there is less money for consumers to spend so less vat paid and reduced business profit, the cycle continues

[fletch70]

That has to be the silliest and most selfish post on the whole forum.

 

I am hurt. I thought I held that honour. I must try harder.

 

In support of BB we should work to live but with capitalism we sre required to live to work, unless we are the bourgeoisie when we can sit on our million a week yatchs and spend 10k on a dinner party when water aid are asking the ordinary people for £3 to stop people dieing

[fletch70]

Sad! person.

No ambition and no interests, other than in himself,

 

Well I for one have an ambition to make the world a more egalitarian place where people all have enough food to eat and enough clean water . How any capitalist can sleep at night is beyond me when they know that they are getting richer on the backs of the workers in, for example China and Bangladesh