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this post was submitted on 16 Jul 2023
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UK Politics
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General Discussion for politics in the UK.
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Nor should he.
Have you seen the size of the public debt?
A country's debt isn't the same as an individual's, no matter what the Tories like to say about balancing the books and the like. At those rarefied heights it's all a bit more... theoretical.
Things like austerity were less economically driven and far more ideological, it was all about shrinking the state. They always managed to scrounge up some giveaway to the rich.
Suffice it to say, after 10+ years of austerity most people in the country are poorer. The wealthiest people are much more wealthy though, which ends up tipping the scale - yet we still cannot afford to fund basic services properly. Train strikes, bin strikes, NHS strikes; and the only planned solution across the board is to lower our standards.
Starmer won't make things worse than the Tories, but he for sure will take advantage of many of the new loopholes the Tories got away with exploiting.
And, I am sure they'll blame the last administration for as long as possible.
Right wingers rant and rave about wasting money and balancing the books but manage to stack up way more national debt than left wingers. It's just gaslighting. They believe that spending on poor people is a terrible waste of money, but spending on rich people and rich corporations is good because they know how to handle it, having had so much experience of being wealthy already. The poor just spend it. Admittedly that's called growth in the economy, but everyone deserves a tax break, they think, especially those who pay so much tax.
Interesting how nearly 15 years of austerity has done nothing to improve that. Maybe it's time to actually stop cutting taxes instead.
We have spent 15 years with depreciating infer structure education and health. In an attempt to avoid taxing the people making the most money out of our society.
I think you mispelled 'taking' there.
As the saying goes, we must speculate to accumulate.
If only the government had borrowed money to invest in our country when interest rates were low...
Because this train of thought is making things better.
The only way to fix things is to incur so we can actually improve things in the country. That means investing in making us self-sustaining and making it more attractive for doctors and nurses.
I agree but there will be limits on how much additional borrowing and spending markets will be ok with.
It means that spend has to be on the biggest issues and things most likely to help the economy.
I want to say fuck the markets, but that doesn't work out so well. The reality is though, unless we invest heavily in things like health, education, heat pumps, solar panels, wind, artificial intelligence and robotics, then there's no hope for this country. So we really need to be firm and at least give the markets food for thought.
Whose debt? And who is the money owed to?
I didn’t rack this so-called debt up and had no say in the way uk public assets have been handed over to the already excessively rich.
It's weird how shovelling money at rich people who won't spend it makes the economy worse. Just completely inexplicable. So inexplicable that we'll just have to keep doing it until we find out why.