Leftwing Economics

[mrsonde]

Here's the distinction between leftwing and conservative economics in a nutshell, expressed by Corbyn's chief tubthumper, Ann Pettifor, in a short debate about NHS funding yesterday:

www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b0b4f1fn/daily-politics-24052018#

www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b0b4f1fn/daily-politics-24052018#

The relevant sections are a run-up at 09:15 to 12:40, with the meat of her philosophy at 15:00 to 15:45. If you mistakenly suppose she might have merely made a slip of the tongue, and she glosses these errors in her more considered view, I can assure you, from an open-jawed reading of her The Production of Money, that this is what she genuinely believes.

Here's her argument, for those paranoid enough not to want to sign in to the State data-collection service. The Government does not pay for the NHS by tax revenues (or anything else, presumably.) On the contrary, it pays for it by borrowing money on the international bond market, at these days quite low interest rates. Now, because this money is then spent on employing people - it's a "people business", like, presumably, every other form of government expenditure - it therefore almost miraculously (this is "the wonderful thing about it") pays for itself! Because all these people - doctors, nurses, cleaners, etc. - pay taxes, thus "helping" to pay for the initial investment. Now, at this point she slips in the magic bullet, a thoroughly discredited notion called the "multiplier" - by which she means all these people spend their wages on groceries, houses, cars, etc. helping keep other people in work, who thereby pay more taxes, and thus these tax revenues grow and grow, like compound interest.

She really believes this great myth of leftwing economics - one that in good times infects even conservatism. Its basic schoolchild error in arithmetic is easy to point out, yet I think the last person to effectively do so was Nigel Lawson under Thatcher. Or, I suppose you could say, the Soviet Union, Zimbabwe, or Venezuela. At any rate, the Tories or even more sensible people, assuming this basic intellectual argument about where wealth comes from was won in the Thatcher years, have allowed Labour - especially the new red variety - the Greens, the LibDems etc. to repetitively roll this old chestnut out, without as far as I've heard any response at all. If someone doesn't start doing so soon we'll be back to days of effective backruptcy, runaway stagflation, and - I would confidently imagine, given the absence of any alternative like Thatcherism - the real prospect of a right-wing military coup.

[mrsonde]

Even the usually reliably disagreeable lefty wimmin on this board are too gobsmacked at the sheer stupidity of it.

[aquacultured]

 Give them a break, like you typically have for days or weeks on end. 

[mrsonde]

Well, they're plummeting in the polls, without any discernible intellectual opposition, merely by their own self-evident incompetence, so I suppose I might.

[aquacultured]

(I was talking about giving your wimmin a break.)

[mrsonde]

May 26, 2018 14:15:03 GMT 1 aquacultured said:

(I was talking about giving your wimmin a break.)

Huh? Why? She's mowing the lawn. If I do, I might have to do it. Like the Greens, best to leave them to their own folly, I think.

[fascinating]

May 25, 2018 6:30:52 GMT 1 mrsonde said:

Here's the distinction between leftwing and conservative economics in a nutshell, expressed by Corbyn's chief tubthumper, Ann Pettifor, in a short debate about NHS funding yesterday:

www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b0b4f1fn/daily-politics-24052018#

www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b0b4f1fn/daily-politics-24052018#

The relevant sections are a run-up at 09:15 to 12:40, with the meat of her philosophy at 15:00 to 15:45. If you mistakenly suppose she might have merely made a slip of the tongue, and she glosses these errors in her more considered view, I can assure you, from an open-jawed reading of her The Production of Money, that this is what she genuinely believes.

Here's her argument, for those paranoid enough not to want to sign in to the State data-collection service. The Government does not pay for the NHS by tax revenues (or anything else, presumably.) On the contrary, it pays for it by borrowing money on the international bond market, at these days quite low interest rates. Now, because this money is then spent on employing people - it's a "people business", like, presumably, every other form of government expenditure - it therefore almost miraculously (this is "the wonderful thing about it") pays for itself! Because all these people - doctors, nurses, cleaners, etc. - pay taxes, thus "helping" to pay for the initial investment. Now, at this point she slips in the magic bullet, a thoroughly discredited notion called the "multiplier" - by which she means all these people spend their wages on groceries, houses, cars, etc. helping keep other people in work, who thereby pay more taxes, and thus these tax revenues grow and grow, like compound interest.

She really believes this great myth of leftwing economics - one that in good times infects even conservatism. Its basic schoolchild error in arithmetic is easy to point out, yet I think the last person to effectively do so was Nigel Lawson under Thatcher. Or, I suppose you could say, the Soviet Union, Zimbabwe, or Venezuela. At any rate, the Tories or even more sensible people, assuming this basic intellectual argument about where wealth comes from was won in the Thatcher years, have allowed Labour - especially the new red variety - the Greens, the LibDems etc. to repetitively roll this old chestnut out, without as far as I've heard any response at all. If someone doesn't start doing so soon we'll be back to days of effective backruptcy, runaway stagflation, and - I would confidently imagine, given the absence of any alternative like Thatcherism - the real prospect of a right-wing military coup.

I can't agree with Pettifor, but her CLAIMS are not as loopy as suggesting taxing CHAPS transactions will eliminate the deficit.

[mrsonde]

May 31, 2018 21:18:56 GMT 1 fascinating said:

May 25, 2018 6:30:52 GMT 1 mrsonde said:

Here's the distinction between leftwing and conservative economics in a nutshell, expressed by Corbyn's chief tubthumper, Ann Pettifor, in a short debate about NHS funding yesterday:

www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b0b4f1fn/daily-politics-24052018#

www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b0b4f1fn/daily-politics-24052018#

The relevant sections are a run-up at 09:15 to 12:40, with the meat of her philosophy at 15:00 to 15:45. If you mistakenly suppose she might have merely made a slip of the tongue, and she glosses these errors in her more considered view, I can assure you, from an open-jawed reading of her The Production of Money, that this is what she genuinely believes.

Here's her argument, for those paranoid enough not to want to sign in to the State data-collection service. The Government does not pay for the NHS by tax revenues (or anything else, presumably.) On the contrary, it pays for it by borrowing money on the international bond market, at these days quite low interest rates. Now, because this money is then spent on employing people - it's a "people business", like, presumably, every other form of government expenditure - it therefore almost miraculously (this is "the wonderful thing about it") pays for itself! Because all these people - doctors, nurses, cleaners, etc. - pay taxes, thus "helping" to pay for the initial investment. Now, at this point she slips in the magic bullet, a thoroughly discredited notion called the "multiplier" - by which she means all these people spend their wages on groceries, houses, cars, etc. helping keep other people in work, who thereby pay more taxes, and thus these tax revenues grow and grow, like compound interest.

She really believes this great myth of leftwing economics - one that in good times infects even conservatism. Its basic schoolchild error in arithmetic is easy to point out, yet I think the last person to effectively do so was Nigel Lawson under Thatcher. Or, I suppose you could say, the Soviet Union, Zimbabwe, or Venezuela. At any rate, the Tories or even more sensible people, assuming this basic intellectual argument about where wealth comes from was won in the Thatcher years, have allowed Labour - especially the new red variety - the Greens, the LibDems etc. to repetitively roll this old chestnut out, without as far as I've heard any response at all. If someone doesn't start doing so soon we'll be back to days of effective backruptcy, runaway stagflation, and - I would confidently imagine, given the absence of any alternative like Thatcherism - the real prospect of a right-wing military coup.

I can't agree with Pettifor, but her CLAIMS are not as loopy as suggesting taxing CHAPS transactions will eliminate the deficit.

Her CLAIMS (why do you do this? Is it a form of Tourette's?) are much worse than loopy. They're false for a start; she knows they're false; she doesn't care, because her interest is not understanding and communicating economics, but in advancing a political agenda; she is happy to advance this agenda by persuading people to follow it by telling these falsehoods; and worse of all, she believes none of this matters, because the end justifies these despicable means. The fact that her intended end would be disastrous for millions of people, most of all for the poor and vulnerable people she claims to be most interested in defending, is something that she merely hopes, against all past evidence, might not be true if she gets her way.

As for my CLAIM - in what way do you disagree with it? You were totally incapable of giving a single reason for your habitual knee-jerk reaction two or three years ago - other than the fact that at the time you didn't understand what the word "transactions" meant. Maybe you've had time to get a glimmer of a reasonable idea why by now?

Leaving aside that my full CLAIM was a "tax" on all transactions, not just CHAPS, covering all revenues, I'm happy to consider your formulation. In 2017 CHAPS transactions in this country amounted to just over £84 trillion. Trillions more in foreign transactions and in vehicles like BACS, but £84 trillions is a pretty good start to begin with. The deficit in that year was about £52 billion. So to eliminate the deficit would require a tax on CHAPS of less than 0.1%. What's "loopy" about that?

[fascinating]

I'm travelling and using someone's tablet I borrowed, which is a bit of battle to use because of its odd predictive text (progenitor A May agree). After a couple of failed attempts to put "CLAIMS" in lower case I thought "who would complain about that anyway?"
Re the transactions tax, forget about my opinion of it, can you point to anybody who has expressed agreement of it?

[mrsonde]

Jun 1, 2018 19:32:39 GMT 1 fascinating said:

I'm travelling and using someone's tablet I borrowed, which is a bit of battle to use because of its odd predictive text (progenitor A May agree). After a couple of failed attempts to put "CLAIMS" in lower case I thought "who would complain about that anyway?"
Re the transactions tax, forget about my opinion of it, can you point to anybody who has expressed agreement of it?

What's that got to do with anything?

I take it you can't think of a single reason for your (insulting, as per usual) disagreement, then?

[alancalverd]

I suspect said tablet was borrowed from a patent attorney.

[fascinating]

Jun 2, 2018 12:33:53 GMT 1 mrsonde said:

Jun 1, 2018 19:32:39 GMT 1 fascinating said:

I'm travelling and using someone's tablet I borrowed, which is a bit of battle to use because of its odd predictive text (progenitor A May agree). After a couple of failed attempts to put "CLAIMS" in lower case I thought "who would complain about that anyway?"
Re the transactions tax, forget about my opinion of it, can you point to anybody who has expressed agreement of it?

What's that got to do with anything?

I take it you can't think of a single reason for your (insulting, as per usual) disagreement, then?

I take it you can't point to anyone who has expressed agreement for your scheme then. It's been said that if you invent a reliable mousetrap, the world will beat a path to your door. You have come up with a scheme that supposedly will make available tens of billions and I reckon that, if it had any merit, there would be plenty of people showing great interest in the idea.

Just look at the discussion we had before to find my reasons for disagreement. You can stop whining about non-existent insults. We can read your insults in this discussion about "usually reliably disagreeable lefty wimmin on this board" (whoever they are) and inferring that I might have Tourette's simply because of a word appearing in capitals.

[mrsonde]

Jun 2, 2018 15:01:16 GMT 1 fascinating said:

Jun 2, 2018 12:33:53 GMT 1 mrsonde said:

What's that got to do with anything?

I take it you can't think of a single reason for your (insulting, as per usual) disagreement, then?

I take it you can't point to anyone who has expressed agreement for your scheme then.

I repeat: what has that got to do with the question - or anything else? All your thinking may be second or third-hand, but mine is deliberately quite the opposite.

It's been said that if you invent a reliable mousetrap, the world will beat a path to your door. You have come up with a scheme that supposedly will make available tens of billions and I reckon that, if it had any merit, there would be plenty of people showing great interest in the idea.

The scheme I've come up with would make available more than a couple of trillion, actually, as I showed a few years ago - again, without any rational response from you other than your usual insults, and this totally irrelevant objection. I have no interest whatsoever in anyone beating a path to my door, thanks, let alone the world. As I told you, I'm far too busy for such distractions, doing far more important things. As for others interests - that's their business, not mine. As I said, anyone's welcome to run where they like with the idea. But I'd give you or anyone else a simple disinterested warning: for this scheme to ever get enacted will require the complete collapse of the current banking system. It's inevitably going to happen sooner or later, but until it does the vested interests in the current system, where governments of both hues tax labour and genuine wealth creation, buy votes by inducing welfare slavery, reduce National Debt by fuelling inflation, bankers earn money through issuing debt, and the rich grow wealthier by inflating property and land bubbles, are simply too powerful to countenance such a scheme to ever begin, even in a modest way.

Just look at the discussion we had before to find my reasons for disagreement.

And? Found one yet? No. Nevertheless, you felt somehow justified in insulting me merely on the basis that you disagreed, even though you're quite unable to say why.

You can stop whining about non-existent insults.

Being called loopy and a liar are fairly insulting, in anyone's book.

We can read your insults in this discussion about "usually reliably disagreeable lefty wimmin on this board" (whoever they are)

You and Jean. You are reliably disagreeable. It's a fact. You might find it an insult, but all the facts about you are insults.

and inferring that I might have Tourette's simply because of a word appearing in capitals.

A word?! It's a regular habit, and don't try this BULLSHIT that it isn't.

[fascinating]

I repeat: what has that got to do with the question - or anything else?

The next couple of sentences tell you.

And? Found one yet?

Oh yes.

Being called loopy and a liar are fairly insulting, in anyone's book.

I didn't say that, so stop your whining over non-existent insults. Tell you what, if you genuinely think that I have insulted you, feel free to go to the proboards moderators (if there are any) and tell them what you find so insulting. Let them judge on the matter.

You are reliably disagreeable. It's a fact. You might find it an insult, but all the facts about you are insults.

If you mean "disagreeable" in the sense that of able to disagree, then in fact every one of us on this board do sometimes disagree, and on that definition all of us are disagreeable.

A word?! It's a regular habit, and don't try this BULLSHIT that it isn't.

You would never be disagreeable would you?

[jean]

Jun 3, 2018 14:41:43 GMT 1 mrsonde said:

You and Jean. You are reliably disagreeable. It's a fact. You might find it an insult, but all the facts about you are insults.

What a fantastic way of giving yourself permission to insult as much as you like with complete impunity!