Jump to content

Br-ex-ilection 2019


coldel

Recommended Posts

2 minutes ago, Adrian@TORQEN said:

Have we covered this letter in this thread yet? 

 

======

Economists’ letter to the Financial Times


25 November 2019


The UK economy needs reform. For too long it has prioritised consumption over investment,
short-term financial returns over long-term innovation, rising asset values over rising wages,
and deficit reduction over the quality of public services. The results are now plain. We have
had ten years of near zero productivity growth. Corporate investment has stagnated. Average
earnings are still lower than in 2008. A gulf has arisen between London and the South East
and the rest of the country. And public services are under intolerable strain - which the
economic costs of a hard Brexit would only make worse. We now moreover face the urgent
imperative of acting on the climate and environmental crisis.


Given private sector reluctance, what the UK economy needs is a serious injection of public
investment, which can in turn leverage private finance attracted by the expectation of higher
demand. Such investment needs to be directed into the large-scale and rapid decarbonisation

of energy, transport, housing, industry and farming; the support of innovation- and export-
oriented businesses; and public services. It is clear that this will require an active and green

industrial strategy, aimed at improving productivity and spreading investment across the
country. Experience elsewhere (not least in Germany) suggests a National Investment Bank
would greatly help. With long-term real interest rates now negative, it makes basic economic
sense for the government to borrow for this, spreading the cost over the generations who will
benefit from the assets. As the IMF has acknowledged, when interest payments are low and
investment raises economic growth, public debt is sustainable.


At the same time, we need a serious attempt to raise wages and productivity. A higher
minimum wage can help do this, alongside tighter regulation of the worst practices in the gig
economy. Bringing workers onto company boards and giving them a stake in their companies,
as most European countries do in some form, will also help. The UK’s outlier rate of
corporation tax can clearly be raised, not least for the highly profitable digital companies.
As economists, and people who work in various fields of economic policy, we have looked
closely at the economic prospectuses of the political parties. It seems clear to us that the
Labour Party has not only understood the deep problems we face, but has devised serious
proposals for dealing with them. We believe it deserves to form the next government.


Yours
David G. Blanchflower
Bruce V. Rauner Professor of Economics, Dartmouth College; Professor of Economics.
University of Stirling; former member of the Bank of England Monetary Policy Committee
Victoria Chick
Emeritus Professor of Economics, University College London
Lord Meghnad Desai
Emeritus Professor of Economics, London School of Economics and Political Science

 

=========

 

Full letter here:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1YD3R8a7Qi6t9MwSVHiuQ_b7lMmw5GhRO/view

 

To be fair pretty much all the economists listed are left leaning and were in effect canvased to support Labour, not to give an objective assessment of the manifesto. To use this as a piece of evidence to show that the manifesto costings are sound are in effect being asked to mark your own homework and therefore unreliable.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

17 hours ago, ATTAK Z said:

For anyone who is about to vote for their Labour candidate tomorow I would ask:

 

Would you be happy with the following starting Friday 13th November ?

 

1) Diane Abbott as Home Secretary

2) Angela Raynor as Secretary of State for Education

3) John McDonnell as Chancellor of the Exchequer

 

 

Definitely not mate

Link to comment
Share on other sites

17 hours ago, coldel said:

Diane Abbot is one that is definitely stealing a living, astonishing that someone so error prone continues to be in such a senior role.

Can’t tell if this is ironic or not, given, you know, things like Chris Grayling buying ferry time from people with no ferries, or even the trump card...

 

FFC0AC21-2470-454C-A6AD-E18D985BED49.jpeg


A man who is so bad at making mistakes it regularly costs him his job

 

:lol: :lol: :lol: 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

30 minutes ago, SuperStu said:

Can’t tell if this is ironic or not, given, you know, things like Chris Grayling buying ferry time from people with no ferries, or even the trump card...

 

FFC0AC21-2470-454C-A6AD-E18D985BED49.jpeg


A man who is so bad at making mistakes it regularly costs him his job

 

:lol: :lol: :lol: 

Surely a journalist can't be that bad they are sacked for publishing lies? No. Wait. 

 

Ah well, I look forward to 5 years of being led by a man who got away with posting £350m a week for our NHS on a bus. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

1 hour ago, SuperStu said:

Can’t tell if this is ironic or not, given, you know, things like Chris Grayling buying ferry time from people with no ferries, or even the trump card...

 

FFC0AC21-2470-454C-A6AD-E18D985BED49.jpeg


A man who is so bad at making mistakes it regularly costs him his job

 

:lol: :lol: :lol: 

No I meant it when I said she was stealing a living, you have to have red tinted glasses on to think otherwise, and no point attacking the Tories as a response, I think half of them are doing the same too! None of the above takes away from the fact that she is a liability and incompetent, and possibly could be Home Secretary which is terrifying. 

 

I haven't seen such a poor Tory Labour option in living memory, I really cannot remember it being such a circus full of clowns to the left and jokers to the right...

Edited by coldel
Link to comment
Share on other sites

2 hours ago, coldel said:

No I meant it when I said she was stealing a living, you have to have red tinted glasses on to think otherwise, and no point attacking the Tories as a response, I think half of them are doing the same too! None of the above takes away from the fact that she is a liability and incompetent, and possibly could be Home Secretary which is terrifying. 

 

I haven't seen such a poor Tory Labour option in living memory, I really cannot remember it being such a circus full of clowns to the left and jokers to the right...

I have no love for her at all, but if we’re going to start assessing MPs (on any side) by their competence, there’s not many that would cut the mustard. She’s only got her constituents to satisfy and, for reasons unknown, they keep her in a job. Ministers on the other hand, the likes of Grayling, are not only ‘stealing a living’ as you rightly point out, but are much worse than that, he actively wasted MILLIONS from the coffers. Which makes Abbott’s wasted salary seem like very small potatoes indeed.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

35 minutes ago, Adrian@TORQEN said:

You're actually reading that website? :surrender:

 

2019-12-12_11-50-02.jpeg

Wtf, websites like this exist? And people actually read them and take them seriously? :wacko:

 

What the hell happened to people in this country? Since when did we all become Texans, screaming about Russia, communism and Marxism? 

Talk about brainwashing lol

Link to comment
Share on other sites

11 minutes ago, SuperStu said:

I have no love for her at all, but if we’re going to start assessing MPs (on any side) by their competence, there’s not many that would cut the mustard. She’s only got her constituents to satisfy and, for reasons unknown, they keep her in a job. Ministers on the other hand, the likes of Grayling, are not only ‘stealing a living’ as you rightly point out, but are much worse than that, he actively wasted MILLIONS from the coffers. Which makes Abbott’s wasted salary seem like very small potatoes indeed.

I think DA is beyond most MP's though, so far down the competency list, and I wouldn't care if she wasn't a potential Home Secretary. There are a lot of competent MP's but for some reason they do not get the limelight they deserve. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

22 hours ago, ATTAK Z said:

1) Diane Abbott as Home Secretary

 

The incumbent Home Secretary was forced to resign from a few years ago after having secret meeting with the Israelis. 

Once again, you might like Diane Abbot but the alternative is even worse. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

7 minutes ago, coldel said:

Diane Abbotts shoe image is doing the rounds, even made it onto the Daily Fail. Have to say up close it doesn't look photoshopped, if it is it's a pretty good effort :lol: 

 

It's legit because the MP who posted it is herself in Labour too, either that or it's an insider stitch up conspiracy theory eh? :lol:

 

https://twitter.com/Meg_HillierMP/status/1205063539100209154?s=20

Link to comment
Share on other sites

29 minutes ago, Sargara said:

 

It's legit because the MP who posted it is herself in Labour too, either that or it's an insider stitch up conspiracy theory eh? :lol:

 

https://twitter.com/Meg_HillierMP/status/1205063539100209154?s=20

Ho - Lee - Sheet :doh:

 

Tweet has now been deleted, a beautiful fail :lol:

Edited by coldel
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Well there we have it, no surprise that Tories steamrollered it as dithering Corbyn was never going to be any sort of viable alternative that enough people could get behind. It seems its ok to have a racist misogynist xenophobe in charge in politics nowadays, all you need to do is shout 'get brexit done' and you are over the line!

Link to comment
Share on other sites

On 08/12/2019 at 16:09, Sargara said:

 

I'm not a Conservative fan by any stretch but I don't really have a choice. I voted for Brexit and the only party that's honouring it that's standing in my area are the Conservatives. My other choices are Libdem, Labour or Greens. I suspect many other areas will be the same as me and that is why we will see another Tory majority because the LD and SNP will eat into Labours votes.

 

Well I nailed it with this post, apart from the LD bit. Should have put some money on it!

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Lets see how it pans out when the WA is done early next year then have to face into what comes next, I really don't think people who voted took any time to read about all the other stuff that they need to deal with over the next 5 years.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.

Guest
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.

×
×
  • Create New...