Who are you voting for?

Who?

  • Labour

    Votes: 7 15.6%

  • Tory

    Votes: 4 8.9%

  • Lib Dem

    Votes: 21 46.7%

  • Other

    Votes: 4 8.9%

  • No-one

    Votes: 9 20.0%
  • Total voters
    45
Mr. Tea

Mr. Tea

Let's Talk About Ceps
Yeah, it kind of made me warm to Brown, almost. Well, warm to the idea of warming to him, anyway.

Quite apart from the idiotic nature of the woman's question, hasn't there been a net outflux of East Europeans from this country over the last 18 months or so?
 
W

Webstarr

Well-known member
Mr. Tea said:
Yeah, it kind of made me warm to Brown, almost. Well, warm to the idea of warming to him, anyway.

Quite apart from the idiotic nature of the woman's question, hasn't there been a net outflux of East Europeans from this country over the last 18 months or so?
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I believe so, also there is the lowest number of asylum seekers this year for quite a few years. Funny how no one has mentioned this yet in the immigration debate...
 
M

mrfaucet

The Ideas Train
vimothy said:
I just mean that everyone thinks we now have to have austerity measures to return the public finances to "health", i.e. that the economy is some kind of morality tale where if you "live beyond your means" you have to suffer the consequences--this is basically a varient of liquidationism circa 1929, and it seems to be the guiding philosophy of all three parties. Of course, it's nuts. What purpose does it serve to fire people from the public sector? You don't save money by foregoing output--it's totally fallacious pre-Keynesian pre-rational supersition.

But the newspapers have everybody in such a blind funk that large sections of the population are effectively calling for their own impoverishment / deflation. Up is down. Left is right. For example, today I noticed an NPR blog post calling for donations to pay down the national debt. It's ass backwards--the national debt is an asset, not a liabiltiy, so here is a public radio station trying to decrease the macro level / sectoral financial "equity" of the American people, and thinking that they're serving some kind of public purpose by doing it!
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Vim could you recommend some articles on this?
 
vimothy

vimothy

yurp
C

crackerjack

Well-known member
Quote Originally Posted by vimothy View Post
But the newspapers have everybody in such a blind funk that large sections of the population are effectively calling for their own impoverishment / deflation. Up is down. Left is right. For example, today I noticed an NPR blog post calling for donations to pay down the national debt. It's ass backwards--the national debt is an asset, not a liabiltiy, so here is a public radio station trying to decrease the macro level / sectoral financial "equity" of the American people, and thinking that they're serving some kind of public purpose by doing it!
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I don't get that bit. I mean, obviously I agree with your Keynesian politics and am delighted to see you turning into Will Hutton, but how is a debt an asset?

btw, see this? Not just the papers...although I do wonder how the finances will look if/when we privatise the banks for a big fat profit
 
vimothy

vimothy

yurp
crackerjack said:
I don't get that bit. I mean, obviously I agree with your Keynesian politics and am delighted to see you turning into Will Hutton, but how is a debt an asset?
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*Commits seppuku*

Er, but anyway, that's just what it is. Debt is an asset of the lender (saver) and a liability of the borrower (dissaver). Government liabilities are assets of the household, corporate and foreign sectors. Financial assets, i.e. future cash-flow promises by the government to the non-government (largest holders are pension funds--which is fitting in that govt debt is effectively an annuity), are a form of (financial) saving by the non-government sector. So my savings (£100, in a treasury note) are my asset (savings), and the governments's liability (borrowings).

When the government borrows to spend (i.e. deficit or net spend), then, it does two things: spends, and borrows. Spends, raising aggregate income (or demand or whatever you want to call it); and borrows, raising net saving. On the national income accounts, this is shown by (something like) the identity: flow of household saving + flow of corporate saving net of investment = flow of government deficit (but more complicated and inc. foreign sector). More deficit = more net saving. National debt = cumulative stock of net savings.

Net as in the sense of net of liabilities within the private (households and business) sector. Govt debt is an "outsider asset". It's like a buffer stock of balance sheet financial "equity" or "ownership interest" for the private sector (financial assets minus liabilities > 0, i.e. net worth). In a crisis, everyone is trying maximise this gap, reduce spending and increase saving, and so by doing it at the same time, causing a recession. People hoard want to liquidity (govt debt, the more liquid the better), so the government should just man up and provide as much debt (i.e. private savings, i.e. govt net spending) as required.

btw, see this? Not just the papers...although I do wonder how the finances will look if/when we privatise the banks for a big fat profit
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King says a lot of stuff I don't agree with. Posen seems most sensible of MPC. King is suggesting choosing paper gains for real costs in terms of lost output is inevitable. Definitely suboptimal.

Not impressed at all with the fact that we might make a profit on the banks. That just means we've managed to reflate the system and turn the clock back to 2007 in no time! Lots of blogs think this is proof that the govt is doing something right. Maybe it is but I don't think it's this. Looks like we're in for some crazy ass times in the financial sector again, anyway. Maybe come back for another look at the value of this paper in 12 months...
 
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hucks

hucks

Your Message Here
oooof Labour

Last night's debate was utterly dismal - bashing foreigners and dole scroungers, promising infinte cuts and not saying what they were. Fuckers.

So, the best hope is for a hung parliament and a subsequent change to the voting system, for its own sake, really, not that it would by itself solve any of the above.
 
Tentative Andy

Tentative Andy

I'm in the Meal Deal
hucks said:
oooof Labour
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Hmmm, looks like Cracker's nightmare will come true based on that.
Actually, I wonder which would be worse - the Tories and Libs in a power-sharing coalition (but with the Tories the majority party obv), or the Tories in outright power with the Lib-Dems as a much stronger opposition party than before, to the stage of being close to complimentary with Labour?
Honest question, I'm really not sure, other than feeling it'll pretty bloody awful either way. If this figures are any way accurate it looks like it's got to be one of the two though, unless there's a sudden, massive crumbling of the Lib-Dem support, with most of the prospective voters going back to Labour.


Anyway, been looking at my local constituency more (I'm a new resident here): Glasgow Central has a fairly substantial Labour majority, with the Lib-Dems just ahead of SNP for second place based on last time. Tories are way, way behind here, hardly much more support last time than the Greens and the SSP. Mohammed Sarwar is stepping down as the MP this time though, not sure how that will effect things; think he was reasonably popular despite vague rumours of corruption at times.
All of this leaves me totally unsure about which way to vote, or even if my vote will have any effect no matter which way I cast it. Ho-hum.
 
C

crackerjack

Well-known member
Tentative Andy said:
Hmmm, looks like Cracker's nightmare will come true based on that.
Actually, I wonder which would be worse - the Tories and Libs in a power-sharing coalition (but with the Tories the majority party obv), or the Tories in outright power with the Lib-Dems as a much stronger opposition party than before, to the stage of being close to complimentary with Labour?
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Has to be the latter - though I fear the Tories are heading for an outright majority. The Lib Dem rank and file is pretty leftish, and would have to act as some sort of brake on Clegg's Tory instincts in coaltion. They would quite reasonably insist on electoral reform as their minimum price, too.

Labour need a spell in opposition to work out what they're about in 21st century. It's what happens in the meantime that worries me
 
C

crackerjack

Well-known member
craner said:
I don't see a coalition government forming, let alone lasting 6 months.
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So what happens if the Tories fall short, even with Unionist support, of the magic number?

Minority govt, emergency budget voted down, blame the naysayers and call a 2nd election.....?

Coalition seems logical enough, but we've got so little experience of it happening here, maybe the continental model just doesn't apply. Big parties are so entrenched. There are always these backstage whispers about electoral reform, that no matter what the leaders say, the parties won't hack it.
 
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