Was thinking a little more about Putin 'going nuclear'. Obviously if he drops an 800kt therminuclear warhead and wipes out Kyiv then he can and we can expect a nuclear response and a very frightening time. So, going nuclear initially would likely involve something like a 1kt tipped artillery airburst over an advancing force. The question is how to respond to that, bearing in mind we can't allow normalisation of nuclear ordinance on the battlefield. And how to respond without escalating to a general nuclear exchange. Really quite grim.
Freedman and others have been pointing out that is no obvious military way to use a battlefield nuke in the current war that actually has any benefit (other than fear factor). There aren't advancing forces in large close quartered numbers in the way I think you may mean.
And there is considerable risk to his own troops e.g. wind direction suddenly changes after the strike. Not that he cares I guess.
Personally, I have thought through out this war that Putin would eventually use tactical nukes and I had a hazy prediction of late summer in my head.
Very much hope I am wrong.
Yes, I was trying to remember the simulations from when I was more active in board wargaming, and my recollection was that tactical nuclear weapons weren't really expected to change as much as one might expect. The main impact would perhaps be psychological - it would strengthen the case for saying that Putin was actually mad, and raise the question of what he'd do next. One reason that the West has not gone all out with direct intervention like a no-fly zone may be to keep that back for such eventualities.
Russian media apparantly going with 'protestors will be drafted'
Drafting people who really, really don't want to fight must be part of Putin's "genius" that I am never going to understand. Of course we ought to consider the alternative possibility that Putin has gone completely round the twist.
Or he has no other alternative. His "regular" army is bled dry and needs to be rested and reformed for next spring's offensives. Commentators seem to think his plan is to use the conscripted reserves to hold defensive positions through winter. Although if they need three months training to get back to speed the winter will be half over.
Anne Appleblaum in Atlantic saying today that there is no doubt something happened in Kremlin last night such that he pulled the 8pm scheduled national TV appearance and had to do it in the morning.
Was thinking a little more about Putin 'going nuclear'. Obviously if he drops an 800kt therminuclear warhead and wipes out Kyiv then he can and we can expect a nuclear response and a very frightening time. So, going nuclear initially would likely involve something like a 1kt tipped artillery airburst over an advancing force. The question is how to respond to that, bearing in mind we can't allow normalisation of nuclear ordinance on the battlefield. And how to respond without escalating to a general nuclear exchange. Really quite grim.
Freedman and others have been pointing out that is no obvious military way to use a battlefield nuke in the current war that actually has any benefit (other than fear factor). There aren't advancing forces in large close quartered numbers in the way I think you may mean.
And there is considerable risk to his own troops e.g. wind direction suddenly changes after the strike. Not that he cares I guess.
Personally, I have thought through out this war that Putin would eventually use tactical nukes and I had a hazy prediction of late summer in my head.
Is an interesting demo of actually how you’d use a to nuke on a battlefield. Compete with a real, live nuke going off.
At 1kt yield, the majority of energy given off will be prompt radiation. Lethal dose for a few hundred yards. Outside that it’s just a biggish bang.
Great if you can catch a tank battalion in that radius. Otherwise you kill an Hangul of vehicles and a company of troops to become an international pariah.
But how ridiculous claiming that reversing tax rises so t hat tax is back at levels they were at the last election is going against the manifesto. Erm, what was it the manifesto said about tax last time?
Wanting people on low and middle incomes to keep more of their money does not remotely go against the manifesto.
How ridiculous is saying “ We find that planned tax cuts with stalling economic growth would leave debt on an unsustainable path”?
What is unsustainable debt?
As one of PBs most astute right wing thinkers Bart, is borrowing on this scale today certain going to mean higher taxes in future?
Its utterly ridiculous, the IFS is a joke with that statement.
No it won't mean higher taxes in the future. More growth from lower taxes means more revenues in the future, because the economy has grown and there's more revenues from that.
Plus as I alluded to before, inflation is actually our friend not our foe when it comes to debt to GDP when debt is running at 100% of GDP. Yes we have a deficit, but our debt is being deflated by 9.8% per annum as it stands. Nobody wants to say that out loud at the moment, because everyone is too shit scared of the past to admit the simple truth that there are upsides to having inflation and deflating debt is one of them. Nobody wants to admit that actually a bit of inflation is good for the Treasury, because its the dirty little secret.
Barty, it is economics 101 and with the amound of index linking of debt and other non-debt obligations (triple lock) it is much less true than it was.
If you read the statement a bit more carefully it agrees with you that More growth from lower taxes means more revenues in the future, it just thinks that more growth is not a probable consequence of lower taxes. Do you think it's inevitable?
But that's the point I'm making, the index linking is being quoted to say "woah £8.2bn of debt payments, how horrendous" but nobody stops to say "oh but we had £15bn of debt deflation" because it's uncomfortable.
Uncomfortable truths are still truths.
Edit: And yes I disagree with the IFS. I absolutely think lower taxes will mean more growth in the future. Not inevitable but very probable.
When is the future though? I can't see any imminent prospect of above trend growth with the world situation.
To be honest any growth whatsoever, even miniscule growth, while we have high inflation is good enough.
Debt to GDP goes up with relation to the deficit, but goes down with relation to inflation and growth. If the deficit is high and inflation + growth is low, then debt to GDP spirals. If the deficit is low and inflation + growth is high, then debt to GDP falls.
In 1947 after WWII our debt to GDP was 251.8% of GDP. In the following years we almost always ran a deficit, but by 1974 our debt to GDP had fallen to a far healthier 45.2% of GDP.
How did it fall from 251.8% to 45.2%, while we normally had deficits? Because we had some growth and some inflation and that outstripped our deficits.
Now we're high debt to GDP, quite frankly having inflation is a good thing to fix our problems, but nobody will admit that.
A lot of our inflation is imported though, and imported inflation has no direct effect on nominal GDP. Also, we now have high levels of index linked debt, so inflation directly affects our debt servicing costs. And we have an independent central bank which will raise rates in response to higher inflation, also raising debt servicing costs and slowing the economy. While nominal GDP growth may well be positive (which is why it is okay to run a fiscal deficit, even under a Labour government) the idea that high inflation is going to fix everything - especially the kind of inflation we have now - is naive.
If inflation solved economic problems, Britain would have been in great form by 1980.
Debt to GDP had collapsed from 250% of GDP to 40% of it in a little over a generation.
You tell me, was that great form or not?
Inflation brings its own problems, but that doesn't mean it can't address other problems. One fire can fight another fire.
So you are saying that Thatcher inherited a golden economic legacy?
Russian media apparantly going with 'protestors will be drafted'
Drafting people who really, really don't want to fight must be part of Putin's "genius" that I am never going to understand. Of course we ought to consider the alternative possibility that Putin has gone completely round the twist.
Week ago @tassagency_en reported we weren't gonna mobilize.
The hard part about doing propaganda is that the past changes so quickly you have no idea what will happen yesterday.
“UK has no gas supply issues. And even if we lifted the fracking moratorium tomorrow, it would take up to a decade to extract sufficient volumes – and it would come at a high cost for communities and our precious countryside.”
1/8. Putin’s speech demonstrates that Russia is losing. Given casualties and desertions, Putin wants bodies in occupied Ukraine to defend against Ukrainian counter-offensives. That’s pretty much it.
@Richard_Nabavi - John Redwood's Diary has him listing some 'EU red tape' he wants to go. I'd be interested to read whether you think any of these is valid.
Good challenge, here goes:
The Business Secretary could abolish the droit du suite and VAT impositions the EU used to divert part of the global art market from London to New York.Maybe they thought it would help Paris but it just made the whole EU less competitive.
Yes, some merit to that.
He could lower costs of buying a home by removing anti money laundering checks from any U.K. citizen buying and selling their main home and using a U.K. regulated bank.
That one's raving bonkers. Quite apart from the fact that we're not exactly suffering from too little money laundering in the UK, has he not heard of the anti-money-laundering reach of the US?
He could make energy certificates for homes a matter of choice for buyers and sellers
Possibly some merit to this, although they really aren't very onerous (or useful, for that matter). But again, we're not exactly suffering from excessively good home insulation, are we?
He could work with Defra to use farm grants to promote growing more food here and to foster investment in more glasshouses and new farming techniques instead of subsidising wilding policies, and relying on more imports from the EU.
Already being done, but the lack of suitable labour from the EU is the biggest problem in farming.
He could simplify the expensive bureaucracy created by the EU data protection legislation.
No go on that one: GPDR is a global standard and conforming with it is indispensable for British businesses, who otherwise would get totally tangled up in complexity because of cross-border data transfers. The last thing business wants is yet another variation of standards.
He could repeal the EU Ports Regulation which was widely opposed by our ports when it was introduced. It gets in the way of port investment and expansion.
I don't know too much about the subject, but I think there might be some minor merit in this.
He could repeal the railway rules which require the separation of track ownership from train ownership. Integrated ownership of routes by private companies should be an option.
A rule introduced by the UK! I don;t see any appetite for this.
He with the Treasury should allow more people self employed tax status, removing the penal elements of IR 35.
Nothing to do with the EU, of course, but, yes, IR35 could and should be reformed. It needs to be done as part of a wider reform of tax so that there is not such a huge incentive to divert income away from PAYE.
He should repeal the on line digital tax.
On the contrary, this is a good Tory measure of levelling the playing field (a bit).
Overall, though, the list is small beer, isn't it?
Thanks for your thoughts - as always, nicely done.
I can't really agree with you regarding the train and track ownership - the UK may have introduced this rule (along with the stupid rule about not feeding chickens leftover food), but it was adopted and enforced at a European level. This principle arguably wrecked the UK's rail privatisation, and I can't see any reason for keeping it as a rule.
I don't disagree that the list is not an earth-shattering one, but even 'small beer' is something.
A £100bn deficit at a time when debt is being deflated by £200bn cuts debt to GDP, it doesn't increase it. Debt financing is going up because of inflation, but debt deflation is happening because of inflation too, and that has been omitted from the IFS report, even while counting the debt servicing costs. Idiots. 🤦♂️
“I want to place on record my complete and absolute opposition to exploratory drilling, which may lead to fracking, in the North East Derbyshire constituency and particularly at this particular site near Marsh Lane”
Russian media apparantly going with 'protestors will be drafted'
Drafting people who really, really don't want to fight must be part of Putin's "genius" that I am never going to understand. Of course we ought to consider the alternative possibility that Putin has gone completely round the twist.
More likely to be drafted into labor brigades or neo-GULAG than sent into combat.
Though old-school Red Army punishment battalions MIGHT be an option, for clearing minefields & suchlike?
This is really more about feeding some red meat to pro-war (or at least pro-Putin) Russkis (and somewhat about stifling dissent) than it is a serious military proposal.
Was thinking here, of threats to draft protesters.
A broader draft would clearly include many anti-war types. But plenty of them, and others not entirely gung-ho for a go at the Ukrainians, would be (relatively) happy to end up in the logistics chain or in other non-combat jobs.
Which by definition (or rather in theory) would help in process of combing out personnel (current & new soldiers) from support roles and sending them to the front.
“I want to place on record my complete and absolute opposition to exploratory drilling, which may lead to fracking, in the North East Derbyshire constituency and particularly at this particular site near Marsh Lane”
You very kindly gave us a link to all the quotes, so please don't feel that you need to copy and paste each one as a separate post. Thanks.
The current Council leader basically wants to absorb all the districts and boroughs and, just like Cornwall, have a single unitary council for about 1.2 million people.
The alternative solution, favoured by the Districts and Boroughs, is to create three local authorities on the ground - each with about 400,000 people.
Neither option is cost free or problem free.
Blimey, you're somewhat out of date. Tim has made it abundantly clear that unitisation is now off SCC's agenda and we will have to make the best of the current two tier arrangements.
Given the almost glacial relations between the County and some of the Districts/Boroughs that's no surprise. I see for example Guildford and Waverley are looking at sharing a CEO and potentially office space.
We're already sharing a CEO and senior officers, though shari ng office space doesn't seem likely any time soon. In general I think we'll see gradual resource-sharing where appropriate, and that probably does make more sense than any big bang solution.
Yes, the sensible solution for Surrey would be 3 unitaries North, East and West. The main decision would be whether to put Epsom and Ewell with the East authority or the North one (taking some land back from Kingston)
But how ridiculous claiming that reversing tax rises so t hat tax is back at levels they were at the last election is going against the manifesto. Erm, what was it the manifesto said about tax last time?
Wanting people on low and middle incomes to keep more of their money does not remotely go against the manifesto.
How ridiculous is saying “ We find that planned tax cuts with stalling economic growth would leave debt on an unsustainable path”?
What is unsustainable debt?
As one of PBs most astute right wing thinkers Bart, is borrowing on this scale today certain going to mean higher taxes in future?
Its utterly ridiculous, the IFS is a joke with that statement.
No it won't mean higher taxes in the future. More growth from lower taxes means more revenues in the future, because the economy has grown and there's more revenues from that.
Plus as I alluded to before, inflation is actually our friend not our foe when it comes to debt to GDP when debt is running at 100% of GDP. Yes we have a deficit, but our debt is being deflated by 9.8% per annum as it stands. Nobody wants to say that out loud at the moment, because everyone is too shit scared of the past to admit the simple truth that there are upsides to having inflation and deflating debt is one of them. Nobody wants to admit that actually a bit of inflation is good for the Treasury, because its the dirty little secret.
Barty, it is economics 101 and with the amound of index linking of debt and other non-debt obligations (triple lock) it is much less true than it was.
If you read the statement a bit more carefully it agrees with you that More growth from lower taxes means more revenues in the future, it just thinks that more growth is not a probable consequence of lower taxes. Do you think it's inevitable?
But that's the point I'm making, the index linking is being quoted to say "woah £8.2bn of debt payments, how horrendous" but nobody stops to say "oh but we had £15bn of debt deflation" because it's uncomfortable.
Uncomfortable truths are still truths.
Edit: And yes I disagree with the IFS. I absolutely think lower taxes will mean more growth in the future. Not inevitable but very probable.
When is the future though? I can't see any imminent prospect of above trend growth with the world situation.
To be honest any growth whatsoever, even miniscule growth, while we have high inflation is good enough.
Debt to GDP goes up with relation to the deficit, but goes down with relation to inflation and growth. If the deficit is high and inflation + growth is low, then debt to GDP spirals. If the deficit is low and inflation + growth is high, then debt to GDP falls.
In 1947 after WWII our debt to GDP was 251.8% of GDP. In the following years we almost always ran a deficit, but by 1974 our debt to GDP had fallen to a far healthier 45.2% of GDP.
How did it fall from 251.8% to 45.2%, while we normally had deficits? Because we had some growth and some inflation and that outstripped our deficits.
Now we're high debt to GDP, quite frankly having inflation is a good thing to fix our problems, but nobody will admit that.
A lot of our inflation is imported though, and imported inflation has no direct effect on nominal GDP. Also, we now have high levels of index linked debt, so inflation directly affects our debt servicing costs. And we have an independent central bank which will raise rates in response to higher inflation, also raising debt servicing costs and slowing the economy. While nominal GDP growth may well be positive (which is why it is okay to run a fiscal deficit, even under a Labour government) the idea that high inflation is going to fix everything - especially the kind of inflation we have now - is naive.
If inflation solved economic problems, Britain would have been in great form by 1980.
Debt to GDP had collapsed from 250% of GDP to 40% of it in a little over a generation.
You tell me, was that great form or not?
Inflation brings its own problems, but that doesn't mean it can't address other problems. One fire can fight another fire.
So you are saying that Thatcher inherited a golden economic legacy?
An unusual position for a Tory to take!
The fall in debt to GDP happened from 1947 to 1974 as I said earlier. From 1974 to 1979 it started going back up again, which was then reversed consequently under the Tories. It was never again as high as it was in 1979 until Gordon Brown got it back up there with his mismanagement of the economy.
In the five years before the recession at the start of the 90s, debt to GDP had fallen by 16%. It then rose for a few years, as tends to happen over a cycle when there's a recession, but it rose to a lower peak than it had been.
In the five years before the GFC, debt to GDP had increased by 7%. Unprecedented and incredible to increase debt to GDP before a recession, and meant we were extremely vulnerable to it getting smashed out of control when it happened, Gordon Brown reversing in one swoop sixty years of debt management.
I suspect Truss will survive unless the local elections next year are terrible and polls suggest a Labour majority not just a hung parliament. If anything the polls show her main bounce is to win back some voters Boris lost to the LDs even if she has not managed to regain voters lost to Labour
But how ridiculous claiming that reversing tax rises so t hat tax is back at levels they were at the last election is going against the manifesto. Erm, what was it the manifesto said about tax last time?
Wanting people on low and middle incomes to keep more of their money does not remotely go against the manifesto.
How ridiculous is saying “ We find that planned tax cuts with stalling economic growth would leave debt on an unsustainable path”?
What is unsustainable debt?
As one of PBs most astute right wing thinkers Bart, is borrowing on this scale today certain going to mean higher taxes in future?
Its utterly ridiculous, the IFS is a joke with that statement.
No it won't mean higher taxes in the future. More growth from lower taxes means more revenues in the future, because the economy has grown and there's more revenues from that.
Plus as I alluded to before, inflation is actually our friend not our foe when it comes to debt to GDP when debt is running at 100% of GDP. Yes we have a deficit, but our debt is being deflated by 9.8% per annum as it stands. Nobody wants to say that out loud at the moment, because everyone is too shit scared of the past to admit the simple truth that there are upsides to having inflation and deflating debt is one of them. Nobody wants to admit that actually a bit of inflation is good for the Treasury, because its the dirty little secret.
Barty, it is economics 101 and with the amound of index linking of debt and other non-debt obligations (triple lock) it is much less true than it was.
If you read the statement a bit more carefully it agrees with you that More growth from lower taxes means more revenues in the future, it just thinks that more growth is not a probable consequence of lower taxes. Do you think it's inevitable?
But that's the point I'm making, the index linking is being quoted to say "woah £8.2bn of debt payments, how horrendous" but nobody stops to say "oh but we had £15bn of debt deflation" because it's uncomfortable.
Uncomfortable truths are still truths.
Edit: And yes I disagree with the IFS. I absolutely think lower taxes will mean more growth in the future. Not inevitable but very probable.
When is the future though? I can't see any imminent prospect of above trend growth with the world situation.
To be honest any growth whatsoever, even miniscule growth, while we have high inflation is good enough.
Debt to GDP goes up with relation to the deficit, but goes down with relation to inflation and growth. If the deficit is high and inflation + growth is low, then debt to GDP spirals. If the deficit is low and inflation + growth is high, then debt to GDP falls.
In 1947 after WWII our debt to GDP was 251.8% of GDP. In the following years we almost always ran a deficit, but by 1974 our debt to GDP had fallen to a far healthier 45.2% of GDP.
How did it fall from 251.8% to 45.2%, while we normally had deficits? Because we had some growth and some inflation and that outstripped our deficits.
Now we're high debt to GDP, quite frankly having inflation is a good thing to fix our problems, but nobody will admit that.
A lot of our inflation is imported though, and imported inflation has no direct effect on nominal GDP. Also, we now have high levels of index linked debt, so inflation directly affects our debt servicing costs. And we have an independent central bank which will raise rates in response to higher inflation, also raising debt servicing costs and slowing the economy. While nominal GDP growth may well be positive (which is why it is okay to run a fiscal deficit, even under a Labour government) the idea that high inflation is going to fix everything - especially the kind of inflation we have now - is naive.
If inflation solved economic problems, Britain would have been in great form by 1980.
Debt to GDP had collapsed from 250% of GDP to 40% of it in a little over a generation.
You tell me, was that great form or not?
Inflation brings its own problems, but that doesn't mean it can't address other problems. One fire can fight another fire.
So you are saying that Thatcher inherited a golden economic legacy?
An unusual position for a Tory to take!
The fall in debt to GDP happened from 1947 to 1974 as I said earlier. From 1974 to 1979 it started going back up again, which was then reversed consequently under the Tories. It was never again as high as it was in 1979 until Gordon Brown got it back up there with his mismanagement of the economy.
In the five years before the recession at the start of the 90s, debt to GDP had fallen by 16%. It then rose for a few years, as tends to happen over a cycle when there's a recession, but it rose to a lower peak than it had been.
In the five years before the GFC, debt to GDP had increased by 7%. Unprecedented and incredible to increase debt to GDP before a recession, and meant we were extremely vulnerable to it getting smashed out of control when it happened, Gordon Brown reversing in one swoop sixty years of debt management.
This needs to stop. It's bringing us all into disrepute.
But how ridiculous claiming that reversing tax rises so t hat tax is back at levels they were at the last election is going against the manifesto. Erm, what was it the manifesto said about tax last time?
Wanting people on low and middle incomes to keep more of their money does not remotely go against the manifesto.
How ridiculous is saying “ We find that planned tax cuts with stalling economic growth would leave debt on an unsustainable path”?
What is unsustainable debt?
As one of PBs most astute right wing thinkers Bart, is borrowing on this scale today certain going to mean higher taxes in future?
Its utterly ridiculous, the IFS is a joke with that statement.
No it won't mean higher taxes in the future. More growth from lower taxes means more revenues in the future, because the economy has grown and there's more revenues from that.
Plus as I alluded to before, inflation is actually our friend not our foe when it comes to debt to GDP when debt is running at 100% of GDP. Yes we have a deficit, but our debt is being deflated by 9.8% per annum as it stands. Nobody wants to say that out loud at the moment, because everyone is too shit scared of the past to admit the simple truth that there are upsides to having inflation and deflating debt is one of them. Nobody wants to admit that actually a bit of inflation is good for the Treasury, because its the dirty little secret.
Barty, it is economics 101 and with the amound of index linking of debt and other non-debt obligations (triple lock) it is much less true than it was.
If you read the statement a bit more carefully it agrees with you that More growth from lower taxes means more revenues in the future, it just thinks that more growth is not a probable consequence of lower taxes. Do you think it's inevitable?
But that's the point I'm making, the index linking is being quoted to say "woah £8.2bn of debt payments, how horrendous" but nobody stops to say "oh but we had £15bn of debt deflation" because it's uncomfortable.
Uncomfortable truths are still truths.
Edit: And yes I disagree with the IFS. I absolutely think lower taxes will mean more growth in the future. Not inevitable but very probable.
When is the future though? I can't see any imminent prospect of above trend growth with the world situation.
To be honest any growth whatsoever, even miniscule growth, while we have high inflation is good enough.
Debt to GDP goes up with relation to the deficit, but goes down with relation to inflation and growth. If the deficit is high and inflation + growth is low, then debt to GDP spirals. If the deficit is low and inflation + growth is high, then debt to GDP falls.
In 1947 after WWII our debt to GDP was 251.8% of GDP. In the following years we almost always ran a deficit, but by 1974 our debt to GDP had fallen to a far healthier 45.2% of GDP.
How did it fall from 251.8% to 45.2%, while we normally had deficits? Because we had some growth and some inflation and that outstripped our deficits.
Now we're high debt to GDP, quite frankly having inflation is a good thing to fix our problems, but nobody will admit that.
A lot of our inflation is imported though, and imported inflation has no direct effect on nominal GDP. Also, we now have high levels of index linked debt, so inflation directly affects our debt servicing costs. And we have an independent central bank which will raise rates in response to higher inflation, also raising debt servicing costs and slowing the economy. While nominal GDP growth may well be positive (which is why it is okay to run a fiscal deficit, even under a Labour government) the idea that high inflation is going to fix everything - especially the kind of inflation we have now - is naive.
If inflation solved economic problems, Britain would have been in great form by 1980.
Debt to GDP had collapsed from 250% of GDP to 40% of it in a little over a generation.
You tell me, was that great form or not?
Inflation brings its own problems, but that doesn't mean it can't address other problems. One fire can fight another fire.
So you are saying that Thatcher inherited a golden economic legacy?
An unusual position for a Tory to take!
The fall in debt to GDP happened from 1947 to 1974 as I said earlier. From 1974 to 1979 it started going back up again, which was then reversed consequently under the Tories. It was never again as high as it was in 1979 until Gordon Brown got it back up there with his mismanagement of the economy.
In the five years before the recession at the start of the 90s, debt to GDP had fallen by 16%. It then rose for a few years, as tends to happen over a cycle when there's a recession, but it rose to a lower peak than it had been.
Any guess as to what proportion of government debt was inflation linked back then?
But how ridiculous claiming that reversing tax rises so t hat tax is back at levels they were at the last election is going against the manifesto. Erm, what was it the manifesto said about tax last time?
Wanting people on low and middle incomes to keep more of their money does not remotely go against the manifesto.
How ridiculous is saying “ We find that planned tax cuts with stalling economic growth would leave debt on an unsustainable path”?
What is unsustainable debt?
As one of PBs most astute right wing thinkers Bart, is borrowing on this scale today certain going to mean higher taxes in future?
Its utterly ridiculous, the IFS is a joke with that statement.
No it won't mean higher taxes in the future. More growth from lower taxes means more revenues in the future, because the economy has grown and there's more revenues from that.
Plus as I alluded to before, inflation is actually our friend not our foe when it comes to debt to GDP when debt is running at 100% of GDP. Yes we have a deficit, but our debt is being deflated by 9.8% per annum as it stands. Nobody wants to say that out loud at the moment, because everyone is too shit scared of the past to admit the simple truth that there are upsides to having inflation and deflating debt is one of them. Nobody wants to admit that actually a bit of inflation is good for the Treasury, because its the dirty little secret.
Barty, it is economics 101 and with the amound of index linking of debt and other non-debt obligations (triple lock) it is much less true than it was.
If you read the statement a bit more carefully it agrees with you that More growth from lower taxes means more revenues in the future, it just thinks that more growth is not a probable consequence of lower taxes. Do you think it's inevitable?
But that's the point I'm making, the index linking is being quoted to say "woah £8.2bn of debt payments, how horrendous" but nobody stops to say "oh but we had £15bn of debt deflation" because it's uncomfortable.
Uncomfortable truths are still truths.
Edit: And yes I disagree with the IFS. I absolutely think lower taxes will mean more growth in the future. Not inevitable but very probable.
When is the future though? I can't see any imminent prospect of above trend growth with the world situation.
To be honest any growth whatsoever, even miniscule growth, while we have high inflation is good enough.
Debt to GDP goes up with relation to the deficit, but goes down with relation to inflation and growth. If the deficit is high and inflation + growth is low, then debt to GDP spirals. If the deficit is low and inflation + growth is high, then debt to GDP falls.
In 1947 after WWII our debt to GDP was 251.8% of GDP. In the following years we almost always ran a deficit, but by 1974 our debt to GDP had fallen to a far healthier 45.2% of GDP.
How did it fall from 251.8% to 45.2%, while we normally had deficits? Because we had some growth and some inflation and that outstripped our deficits.
Now we're high debt to GDP, quite frankly having inflation is a good thing to fix our problems, but nobody will admit that.
A lot of our inflation is imported though, and imported inflation has no direct effect on nominal GDP. Also, we now have high levels of index linked debt, so inflation directly affects our debt servicing costs. And we have an independent central bank which will raise rates in response to higher inflation, also raising debt servicing costs and slowing the economy. While nominal GDP growth may well be positive (which is why it is okay to run a fiscal deficit, even under a Labour government) the idea that high inflation is going to fix everything - especially the kind of inflation we have now - is naive.
If inflation solved economic problems, Britain would have been in great form by 1980.
Debt to GDP had collapsed from 250% of GDP to 40% of it in a little over a generation.
You tell me, was that great form or not?
Inflation brings its own problems, but that doesn't mean it can't address other problems. One fire can fight another fire.
So you are saying that Thatcher inherited a golden economic legacy?
An unusual position for a Tory to take!
The fall in debt to GDP happened from 1947 to 1974 as I said earlier. From 1974 to 1979 it started going back up again, which was then reversed consequently under the Tories. It was never again as high as it was in 1979 until Gordon Brown got it back up there with his mismanagement of the economy.
In the five years before the recession at the start of the 90s, debt to GDP had fallen by 16%. It then rose for a few years, as tends to happen over a cycle when there's a recession, but it rose to a lower peak than it had been.
In the five years before the GFC, debt to GDP had increased by 7%. Unprecedented and incredible to increase debt to GDP before a recession, and meant we were extremely vulnerable to it getting smashed out of control when it happened, Gordon Brown reversing in one swoop sixty years of debt management.
A reminder that Brown was the most damaging chancellor of my lifetime. And yet, he still regularly gets dragged out of his crypt to pontificate on economic matters. Why?
But how ridiculous claiming that reversing tax rises so t hat tax is back at levels they were at the last election is going against the manifesto. Erm, what was it the manifesto said about tax last time?
Wanting people on low and middle incomes to keep more of their money does not remotely go against the manifesto.
How ridiculous is saying “ We find that planned tax cuts with stalling economic growth would leave debt on an unsustainable path”?
What is unsustainable debt?
As one of PBs most astute right wing thinkers Bart, is borrowing on this scale today certain going to mean higher taxes in future?
Its utterly ridiculous, the IFS is a joke with that statement.
No it won't mean higher taxes in the future. More growth from lower taxes means more revenues in the future, because the economy has grown and there's more revenues from that.
Plus as I alluded to before, inflation is actually our friend not our foe when it comes to debt to GDP when debt is running at 100% of GDP. Yes we have a deficit, but our debt is being deflated by 9.8% per annum as it stands. Nobody wants to say that out loud at the moment, because everyone is too shit scared of the past to admit the simple truth that there are upsides to having inflation and deflating debt is one of them. Nobody wants to admit that actually a bit of inflation is good for the Treasury, because its the dirty little secret.
Barty, it is economics 101 and with the amound of index linking of debt and other non-debt obligations (triple lock) it is much less true than it was.
If you read the statement a bit more carefully it agrees with you that More growth from lower taxes means more revenues in the future, it just thinks that more growth is not a probable consequence of lower taxes. Do you think it's inevitable?
But that's the point I'm making, the index linking is being quoted to say "woah £8.2bn of debt payments, how horrendous" but nobody stops to say "oh but we had £15bn of debt deflation" because it's uncomfortable.
Uncomfortable truths are still truths.
Edit: And yes I disagree with the IFS. I absolutely think lower taxes will mean more growth in the future. Not inevitable but very probable.
When is the future though? I can't see any imminent prospect of above trend growth with the world situation.
To be honest any growth whatsoever, even miniscule growth, while we have high inflation is good enough.
Debt to GDP goes up with relation to the deficit, but goes down with relation to inflation and growth. If the deficit is high and inflation + growth is low, then debt to GDP spirals. If the deficit is low and inflation + growth is high, then debt to GDP falls.
In 1947 after WWII our debt to GDP was 251.8% of GDP. In the following years we almost always ran a deficit, but by 1974 our debt to GDP had fallen to a far healthier 45.2% of GDP.
How did it fall from 251.8% to 45.2%, while we normally had deficits? Because we had some growth and some inflation and that outstripped our deficits.
Now we're high debt to GDP, quite frankly having inflation is a good thing to fix our problems, but nobody will admit that.
A lot of our inflation is imported though, and imported inflation has no direct effect on nominal GDP. Also, we now have high levels of index linked debt, so inflation directly affects our debt servicing costs. And we have an independent central bank which will raise rates in response to higher inflation, also raising debt servicing costs and slowing the economy. While nominal GDP growth may well be positive (which is why it is okay to run a fiscal deficit, even under a Labour government) the idea that high inflation is going to fix everything - especially the kind of inflation we have now - is naive.
If inflation solved economic problems, Britain would have been in great form by 1980.
Debt to GDP had collapsed from 250% of GDP to 40% of it in a little over a generation.
You tell me, was that great form or not?
Inflation brings its own problems, but that doesn't mean it can't address other problems. One fire can fight another fire.
So you are saying that Thatcher inherited a golden economic legacy?
An unusual position for a Tory to take!
The fall in debt to GDP happened from 1947 to 1974 as I said earlier. From 1974 to 1979 it started going back up again, which was then reversed consequently under the Tories. It was never again as high as it was in 1979 until Gordon Brown got it back up there with his mismanagement of the economy.
So the inflation of the 1970s increased rather than decreased the debt to GDP ratio.
Does Liz have any ideas for anyone under the age of 90 yet
Yes, make them pay for everyone over the age of 90.
Keeping house prices high by reducing stamp duty eventually means those who inherit will inherit more wealth!
Everyone else pretty buggered though.
At this point, I will vote for literally any party - Labour, Lib Dem, Tory, Green, Reform, Monster Raving Loony, even the Natural Law Party or UKIP if either of them are still around, if they stand on a five word manifesto - "We will build more houses".
I have friends living in AirBnBs because they can't even find anywhere to rent any more.
It is no longer merely the elephant in the room, it is the whole stampede.
Sure. But it was when US students started protesting in big ways that the US war on Vietnam came unstuck.
More power to the protestors.
Was certainly one factor, but hardly the only one.
AND note that serious US anti-war protests involving students began in 1964. Took another FOUR years to escalate to level of 1968 Democratic Convention protests. AND it wasn't until 1973 that the last US combat troops left Vietnam.
But no doubt that "draft beer, not students" was a POWERFUL anti-war message.
But how ridiculous claiming that reversing tax rises so t hat tax is back at levels they were at the last election is going against the manifesto. Erm, what was it the manifesto said about tax last time?
Wanting people on low and middle incomes to keep more of their money does not remotely go against the manifesto.
How ridiculous is saying “ We find that planned tax cuts with stalling economic growth would leave debt on an unsustainable path”?
What is unsustainable debt?
As one of PBs most astute right wing thinkers Bart, is borrowing on this scale today certain going to mean higher taxes in future?
Its utterly ridiculous, the IFS is a joke with that statement.
No it won't mean higher taxes in the future. More growth from lower taxes means more revenues in the future, because the economy has grown and there's more revenues from that.
Plus as I alluded to before, inflation is actually our friend not our foe when it comes to debt to GDP when debt is running at 100% of GDP. Yes we have a deficit, but our debt is being deflated by 9.8% per annum as it stands. Nobody wants to say that out loud at the moment, because everyone is too shit scared of the past to admit the simple truth that there are upsides to having inflation and deflating debt is one of them. Nobody wants to admit that actually a bit of inflation is good for the Treasury, because its the dirty little secret.
Barty, it is economics 101 and with the amound of index linking of debt and other non-debt obligations (triple lock) it is much less true than it was.
If you read the statement a bit more carefully it agrees with you that More growth from lower taxes means more revenues in the future, it just thinks that more growth is not a probable consequence of lower taxes. Do you think it's inevitable?
But that's the point I'm making, the index linking is being quoted to say "woah £8.2bn of debt payments, how horrendous" but nobody stops to say "oh but we had £15bn of debt deflation" because it's uncomfortable.
Uncomfortable truths are still truths.
Edit: And yes I disagree with the IFS. I absolutely think lower taxes will mean more growth in the future. Not inevitable but very probable.
When is the future though? I can't see any imminent prospect of above trend growth with the world situation.
To be honest any growth whatsoever, even miniscule growth, while we have high inflation is good enough.
Debt to GDP goes up with relation to the deficit, but goes down with relation to inflation and growth. If the deficit is high and inflation + growth is low, then debt to GDP spirals. If the deficit is low and inflation + growth is high, then debt to GDP falls.
In 1947 after WWII our debt to GDP was 251.8% of GDP. In the following years we almost always ran a deficit, but by 1974 our debt to GDP had fallen to a far healthier 45.2% of GDP.
How did it fall from 251.8% to 45.2%, while we normally had deficits? Because we had some growth and some inflation and that outstripped our deficits.
Now we're high debt to GDP, quite frankly having inflation is a good thing to fix our problems, but nobody will admit that.
A lot of our inflation is imported though, and imported inflation has no direct effect on nominal GDP. Also, we now have high levels of index linked debt, so inflation directly affects our debt servicing costs. And we have an independent central bank which will raise rates in response to higher inflation, also raising debt servicing costs and slowing the economy. While nominal GDP growth may well be positive (which is why it is okay to run a fiscal deficit, even under a Labour government) the idea that high inflation is going to fix everything - especially the kind of inflation we have now - is naive.
If inflation solved economic problems, Britain would have been in great form by 1980.
Debt to GDP had collapsed from 250% of GDP to 40% of it in a little over a generation.
You tell me, was that great form or not?
Inflation brings its own problems, but that doesn't mean it can't address other problems. One fire can fight another fire.
So you are saying that Thatcher inherited a golden economic legacy?
An unusual position for a Tory to take!
The fall in debt to GDP happened from 1947 to 1974 as I said earlier. From 1974 to 1979 it started going back up again, which was then reversed consequently under the Tories. It was never again as high as it was in 1979 until Gordon Brown got it back up there with his mismanagement of the economy.
In the five years before the recession at the start of the 90s, debt to GDP had fallen by 16%. It then rose for a few years, as tends to happen over a cycle when there's a recession, but it rose to a lower peak than it had been.
In the five years before the GFC, debt to GDP had increased by 7%. Unprecedented and incredible to increase debt to GDP before a recession, and meant we were extremely vulnerable to it getting smashed out of control when it happened, Gordon Brown reversing in one swoop sixty years of debt management.
This needs to stop. It's bringing us all into disrepute.
You're right, demolishing your economically innumerate claims that Brown didn't overspend by pointing out that debt to GDP was rising even before the recession hit, rather than falling as had always happened before then, is bringing you into disrepute.
If you don't want to be in disrepute, stop pretending that Brown didn't trash the finances. Stop trying to pretend that debt to GDP doesn't matter.
When Russian trolls make false claims here, they get called out. When you and @OnlyLivingBoy make false and disreputable claims like claiming that Brown increasing debt-to-GDP by 7% in the five years pre-crash is comparable to Thatcher cutting debt-to-GDP by 16% in the five years pre-crash, its not my pointing out your nonsense that makes you disreputable, its the fact you're being disreputable.
👋🏻 from New York… suggestion today from senior diplomatic source that 2023 would be good year for Joe Biden to make State visit. April is 25th anniversary of Good Friday agreement suggesting that’s a deadline for resolving NI protocol disagreement https://twitter.com/AnushkaAsthana/status/1572693191287279617
Sure. But it was when US students started protesting in big ways that the US war on Vietnam came unstuck.
More power to the protestors.
Totally agree your last point.
I think she is arguing that these people all support the war and want Ukraines all to be killed but they don't want to do the work themselves.
US students didn't support the war and didn't want to be killed.
True. Though being a full-time student also meant NOT getting drafted, as students had virtually-automatic deferment from induction. Problem was IF you flunked out!
Plus college students - or FORMER students - who actually got drafted had MUCH reduced odds of ending up in combat against their inclination, than non-college draftees. Most definitely a significant socio-economic divide.
(Who, to be fair has changed his position in recent years: "Decades of fire suppression and lack of indigenous fire ecology can contribute to dense forests with a lot of understory 'fuel' and many dead standing trees.[83][84] When a forest fire eventually does occur, the increased fuel creates a crown fire, which destroys all vegetation and affects surface soil chemistry. Although such fires have been occurring sporadically for 100 million years, and are part of the natural ecological rhythm of forests, frequent and small 'natural' ground fires do prevent the accumulation of fuel and allow large, slow-growing vegetation (e.g. trees) to survive.")
But how ridiculous claiming that reversing tax rises so t hat tax is back at levels they were at the last election is going against the manifesto. Erm, what was it the manifesto said about tax last time?
Wanting people on low and middle incomes to keep more of their money does not remotely go against the manifesto.
How ridiculous is saying “ We find that planned tax cuts with stalling economic growth would leave debt on an unsustainable path”?
What is unsustainable debt?
As one of PBs most astute right wing thinkers Bart, is borrowing on this scale today certain going to mean higher taxes in future?
Its utterly ridiculous, the IFS is a joke with that statement.
No it won't mean higher taxes in the future. More growth from lower taxes means more revenues in the future, because the economy has grown and there's more revenues from that.
Plus as I alluded to before, inflation is actually our friend not our foe when it comes to debt to GDP when debt is running at 100% of GDP. Yes we have a deficit, but our debt is being deflated by 9.8% per annum as it stands. Nobody wants to say that out loud at the moment, because everyone is too shit scared of the past to admit the simple truth that there are upsides to having inflation and deflating debt is one of them. Nobody wants to admit that actually a bit of inflation is good for the Treasury, because its the dirty little secret.
Barty, it is economics 101 and with the amound of index linking of debt and other non-debt obligations (triple lock) it is much less true than it was.
If you read the statement a bit more carefully it agrees with you that More growth from lower taxes means more revenues in the future, it just thinks that more growth is not a probable consequence of lower taxes. Do you think it's inevitable?
But that's the point I'm making, the index linking is being quoted to say "woah £8.2bn of debt payments, how horrendous" but nobody stops to say "oh but we had £15bn of debt deflation" because it's uncomfortable.
Uncomfortable truths are still truths.
Edit: And yes I disagree with the IFS. I absolutely think lower taxes will mean more growth in the future. Not inevitable but very probable.
When is the future though? I can't see any imminent prospect of above trend growth with the world situation.
To be honest any growth whatsoever, even miniscule growth, while we have high inflation is good enough.
Debt to GDP goes up with relation to the deficit, but goes down with relation to inflation and growth. If the deficit is high and inflation + growth is low, then debt to GDP spirals. If the deficit is low and inflation + growth is high, then debt to GDP falls.
In 1947 after WWII our debt to GDP was 251.8% of GDP. In the following years we almost always ran a deficit, but by 1974 our debt to GDP had fallen to a far healthier 45.2% of GDP.
How did it fall from 251.8% to 45.2%, while we normally had deficits? Because we had some growth and some inflation and that outstripped our deficits.
Now we're high debt to GDP, quite frankly having inflation is a good thing to fix our problems, but nobody will admit that.
A lot of our inflation is imported though, and imported inflation has no direct effect on nominal GDP. Also, we now have high levels of index linked debt, so inflation directly affects our debt servicing costs. And we have an independent central bank which will raise rates in response to higher inflation, also raising debt servicing costs and slowing the economy. While nominal GDP growth may well be positive (which is why it is okay to run a fiscal deficit, even under a Labour government) the idea that high inflation is going to fix everything - especially the kind of inflation we have now - is naive.
All inflation has a direct effect on nominal GDP.
Yes I completely agree that we have moderate levels of index linked debt, so our debt servicing costs are affected. I have literally made that point myself all thread long. The impact of inflation on debt servicing costs was to increase our debt serving to £8.2bn and every media publication in the country talking about the economy has ran that figure today.
But not one media publication that I've seen has acknowledged or even mentioned the fact that August's inflation deflated our debt by £15bn. I can only assume the journalists are too economically illiterate to understand that point, but those of us who understand economics and don't recoil in horror at inflation as if it is the original sin and purely negative can understand it.
Labour's deficit was so large from 2002 onward that unprecedentedly debt to GDP was going up then, even with nominal GDP growth even pre-recession. That is the catastrophe that needs to be avoided over the economic cycle.
How was that unprecedented? As we have discussed multiple times in the past Labour's pre-GFC structural deficit was of a similar magnitude to what was seen during the prior Tory government, and our debt to GDP ratio was edging up only slowly and was still well below the level Labour inherited in 1997.
You are incorrect to state that all inflation increases nominal GDP. The latter is the value of all goods and services produced in the domestic economy and so excludes imports by definition. To the extent that higher import prices make domestic economic agents poorer (a negative terms of trade shock) you might expect GDP to be lower in fact. Recall that imports enter negatively in the expenditure measure of GDP.
You are categorically wrong to say that Labour's pre-recession deficit was comparable to the Tories pre-recession deficit at the same stage of the economic cycle, in fact quite the opposite the Tories were running a pre-recession budget surplus before the recession that preceded the GFC.
Anyway, I was referring to debt-to-GDP. When post-war without a recession causing a deficit had debt to GDP ever risen for years in a row, prior to a recession? It was unprecedented.
Debt to GDP peaked in 1981 and fell consistently from 1981 to 1990/91. Debt to GDP then rose, because of the recession as standard following the economic cycle, but that rise slowed down and stopped in 1996/97. Debt to GDP started falling then as it had done consistently since WWII until 2002 when unprecedentedly Gordon Brown started growing debt outside of a recession. Every year from 2002 to 2008 debt to GDP rose, without any recession to cause that rise.
That was unprecedented, unforgiveable and disastrous.
Arguing with you is like arguing with a goldfish, because you keep repeating things that I have pointed out to you on multiple occasions before are either highly misleading or just plain wrong. Fundamentally, I don't think you are an honest or well informed commentator on economic questions. I suppose I should just let it go, but as someone who works in economics for a living it just annoys me that you are on here day after day spouting this stuff as though you are an expert.
Yes the Tories were running a surplus before the early 1990s recession. Because they created an artificial boom via terrible policy making, which temporarily boosted tax revenues then crashed the economy amid inflation and sky high interest rates, leaving millions unemployed or in negative equity. A home grown recession. Yet you present this as some kind of triumph.
Yes, debt to GDP rose moderately in the early 2000s. It is true that the UK escaped recession during this period, unlike the US. And growth was a lot stronger than in the Euro Area too. But there were significant global headwinds, and the weakness of the outlook is evident in the fact that the BOE cut interest rates significantly. In this context of weaker growth it isn't surprising that the debt to GDP ratio went up a bit. And this timely fiscal loosening arguably helped the UK economy grow more strongly through this weak patch in the global cycle. Ultimately, the debt to GDP ratio rose from 34% of GDP in 2001 to 40% in 2006. Still well below the 43% that Labour inherited in 1997 (under the Tories it had risen from 28% in 1991). Meanwhile the structural fiscal deficit in 2006 was 3.6%, similar to the level seen throughout the 1980s and much smaller than the level seen in the early 1990s.
I'm sorry, but there is simply no evidence to support your assertion that fiscal policy under the last Labour government was unprecedented or disastrous. It was entirely typical of postwar UK governments, not great, but not terrible, and will most likely appear a paragon of fiscal rectitude compared to what we are about to see - and which you will no doubt cheerlead relentlessly.
Baltic nations say they will refuse refuge to Russians fleeing mobilisationhttp://reut.rs/3f2DOFD
Frankly, I'm not surprised. Leave the side the fact that they're already rammed with refugees, I can't think of a better way to get an army in by stealth than to pretend they're refugees.
If he done that with Ukraine he'd have won the war by now.
It's also in nobody's interest, apart from those trying to run away of course, for them to be allowed to escape their fate. The best chance of seeing an end to the war and Putin at the same time is if such an immense number of Russians are slaughtered that the sorry dumb fucks finally make a concerted effort to get rid of their rotten czar.
What a horrible thing to say.
Putin will like it if the Baltic states really are refusing to allow entry to male Russian citizens between the ages of 18 and 45 or whatever the ages are.
You call Russians "dumb fucks" but I wonder how many would stare at their TV screens all day long at a tsar's funeral if a tsar were head of state in Russia.
As for getting an army in by stealth, I thought that was still the NATO governments' line on how Russia did get its forces into Ukraine. Little green men and hybrid warfare and stuff. ("Hybrid warfare" being a particularly stupid term that I am glad to see the back of.)
But how ridiculous claiming that reversing tax rises so t hat tax is back at levels they were at the last election is going against the manifesto. Erm, what was it the manifesto said about tax last time?
Wanting people on low and middle incomes to keep more of their money does not remotely go against the manifesto.
How ridiculous is saying “ We find that planned tax cuts with stalling economic growth would leave debt on an unsustainable path”?
What is unsustainable debt?
As one of PBs most astute right wing thinkers Bart, is borrowing on this scale today certain going to mean higher taxes in future?
Its utterly ridiculous, the IFS is a joke with that statement.
No it won't mean higher taxes in the future. More growth from lower taxes means more revenues in the future, because the economy has grown and there's more revenues from that.
Plus as I alluded to before, inflation is actually our friend not our foe when it comes to debt to GDP when debt is running at 100% of GDP. Yes we have a deficit, but our debt is being deflated by 9.8% per annum as it stands. Nobody wants to say that out loud at the moment, because everyone is too shit scared of the past to admit the simple truth that there are upsides to having inflation and deflating debt is one of them. Nobody wants to admit that actually a bit of inflation is good for the Treasury, because its the dirty little secret.
Barty, it is economics 101 and with the amound of index linking of debt and other non-debt obligations (triple lock) it is much less true than it was.
If you read the statement a bit more carefully it agrees with you that More growth from lower taxes means more revenues in the future, it just thinks that more growth is not a probable consequence of lower taxes. Do you think it's inevitable?
But that's the point I'm making, the index linking is being quoted to say "woah £8.2bn of debt payments, how horrendous" but nobody stops to say "oh but we had £15bn of debt deflation" because it's uncomfortable.
Uncomfortable truths are still truths.
Edit: And yes I disagree with the IFS. I absolutely think lower taxes will mean more growth in the future. Not inevitable but very probable.
When is the future though? I can't see any imminent prospect of above trend growth with the world situation.
To be honest any growth whatsoever, even miniscule growth, while we have high inflation is good enough.
Debt to GDP goes up with relation to the deficit, but goes down with relation to inflation and growth. If the deficit is high and inflation + growth is low, then debt to GDP spirals. If the deficit is low and inflation + growth is high, then debt to GDP falls.
In 1947 after WWII our debt to GDP was 251.8% of GDP. In the following years we almost always ran a deficit, but by 1974 our debt to GDP had fallen to a far healthier 45.2% of GDP.
How did it fall from 251.8% to 45.2%, while we normally had deficits? Because we had some growth and some inflation and that outstripped our deficits.
Now we're high debt to GDP, quite frankly having inflation is a good thing to fix our problems, but nobody will admit that.
A lot of our inflation is imported though, and imported inflation has no direct effect on nominal GDP. Also, we now have high levels of index linked debt, so inflation directly affects our debt servicing costs. And we have an independent central bank which will raise rates in response to higher inflation, also raising debt servicing costs and slowing the economy. While nominal GDP growth may well be positive (which is why it is okay to run a fiscal deficit, even under a Labour government) the idea that high inflation is going to fix everything - especially the kind of inflation we have now - is naive.
All inflation has a direct effect on nominal GDP.
Yes I completely agree that we have moderate levels of index linked debt, so our debt servicing costs are affected. I have literally made that point myself all thread long. The impact of inflation on debt servicing costs was to increase our debt serving to £8.2bn and every media publication in the country talking about the economy has ran that figure today.
But not one media publication that I've seen has acknowledged or even mentioned the fact that August's inflation deflated our debt by £15bn. I can only assume the journalists are too economically illiterate to understand that point, but those of us who understand economics and don't recoil in horror at inflation as if it is the original sin and purely negative can understand it.
Labour's deficit was so large from 2002 onward that unprecedentedly debt to GDP was going up then, even with nominal GDP growth even pre-recession. That is the catastrophe that needs to be avoided over the economic cycle.
How was that unprecedented? As we have discussed multiple times in the past Labour's pre-GFC structural deficit was of a similar magnitude to what was seen during the prior Tory government, and our debt to GDP ratio was edging up only slowly and was still well below the level Labour inherited in 1997.
You are incorrect to state that all inflation increases nominal GDP. The latter is the value of all goods and services produced in the domestic economy and so excludes imports by definition. To the extent that higher import prices make domestic economic agents poorer (a negative terms of trade shock) you might expect GDP to be lower in fact. Recall that imports enter negatively in the expenditure measure of GDP.
You are categorically wrong to say that Labour's pre-recession deficit was comparable to the Tories pre-recession deficit at the same stage of the economic cycle, in fact quite the opposite the Tories were running a pre-recession budget surplus before the recession that preceded the GFC.
Anyway, I was referring to debt-to-GDP. When post-war without a recession causing a deficit had debt to GDP ever risen for years in a row, prior to a recession? It was unprecedented.
Debt to GDP peaked in 1981 and fell consistently from 1981 to 1990/91. Debt to GDP then rose, because of the recession as standard following the economic cycle, but that rise slowed down and stopped in 1996/97. Debt to GDP started falling then as it had done consistently since WWII until 2002 when unprecedentedly Gordon Brown started growing debt outside of a recession. Every year from 2002 to 2008 debt to GDP rose, without any recession to cause that rise.
That was unprecedented, unforgiveable and disastrous.
Arguing with you is like arguing with a goldfish, because you keep repeating things that I have pointed out to you on multiple occasions before are either highly misleading or just plain wrong. Fundamentally, I don't think you are an honest or well informed commentator on economic questions. I suppose I should just let it go, but as someone who works in economics for a living it just annoys me that you are on here day after day spouting this stuff as though you are an expert.
Yes the Tories were running a surplus before the early 1990s recession. Because they created an artificial boom via terrible policy making, which temporarily boosted tax revenues then crashed the economy amid inflation and sky high interest rates, leaving millions unemployed or in negative equity. A home grown recession. Yet you present this as some kind of triumph.
Yes, debt to GDP rose moderately in the early 2000s. It is true that the UK escaped recession during this period, unlike the US. And growth was a lot stronger than in the Euro Area too. But there were significant global headwinds, and the weakness of the outlook is evident in the fact that the BOE cut interest rates significantly. In this context of weaker growth it isn't surprising that the debt to GDP ratio went up a bit. And this timely fiscal loosening arguably helped the UK economy grow more strongly through this weak patch in the global cycle. Ultimately, the debt to GDP ratio rose from 34% of GDP in 2001 to 40% in 2006. Still well below the 43% that Labour inherited in 1997 (under the Tories it had risen from 28% in 1991). Meanwhile the structural fiscal deficit in 2006 was 3.6%, similar to the level seen throughout the 1980s and much smaller than the level seen in the early 1990s.
I'm sorry, but there is simply no evidence to support your assertion that fiscal policy under the last Labour government was unprecedented or disastrous. It was entirely typical of postwar UK governments, not great, but not terrible, and will most likely appear a paragon of fiscal rectitude compared to what we are about to see - and which you will no doubt cheerlead relentlessly.
This is absolute nonsense, debt to GDP shot up by 7% pre-crash under Brown. Name one period of time, ever, post-war that debt to GDP went up outside of a recession or its aftermath? Ever in the entire history of post-war economics, when had debt to GDP ever been increased like that before?
1991 was a recession so of course it had increased from that, increasing from a recession is how the economic cycle works, but it had fallen by 16% pre-recession as opposed to being increased pre-recession like Brown did. 🤦♂️
The chart here shows an unreleased poll from last Monday which had Labour on 46%, their highest polling figure since July 2017, before this week's return to 42%.
👋🏻 from New York… suggestion today from senior diplomatic source that 2023 would be good year for Joe Biden to make State visit. April is 25th anniversary of Good Friday agreement suggesting that’s a deadline for resolving NI protocol disagreement https://twitter.com/AnushkaAsthana/status/1572693191287279617
So, basically, expect sod all progress for another 6 months at least?
Politico.com - Primary meddlers revealed as Trump hoards his millions: Takeaways from new campaign finance reports - Democrats' main House super PAC sent money last month to a group that aired ads in the GOP primary for a New Hampshire House district.
Super PACs from both parties dove into the final round of primary contests to boost their preferred nominees in key congressional races. In one case, it was a Democratic group boosting its preferred opponent. But the funding behind these efforts was a mystery — until this week.
House Majority PAC, Democrats’ flagship House super PAC, funded a group that jumped into the Sept. 13 GOP contest to challenge Rep. Annie Kuster (D-N.H.). The super PAC made a $125,000 contribution on Aug. 25 to Democrats Serve, another super PAC that backs Democrats with public service backgrounds. That group ran nearly $570,000 in TV ads boosting Bob Burns, a far-right Republican who opposes abortion rights, over moderate GOP Mayor George Hansel, who was backed by Republican Gov. Chris Sununu.
House Majority PAC only had to disclose contributions made during the month of August on this reporting deadline, so it’s possible the super PAC seeded Democrats Serve with even more money in early September. Another connection to the race: Abby Curran Horrell, House Majority PAC’s executive director, was previously a top aide to Kuster.
Meanwhile, a GOP group that played in New Hampshire in favor of Hansel, American Liberty Action PAC, received funding from two lesser-known groups on the right that have been active in 2022 primaries.
American Liberty Action PAC got $1.6 million from the Eighteen Fifty Four Fund, a group formed by Kevin McLaughlin, a former National Republican Senatorial Committee executive director, that has tried to stymie far-right candidates in GOP primaries. American Liberty Action PAC also nabbed a $2.6 million transfer from American Prosperity Alliance, a group incorporated in May that lists Parker Poling, the 2020 National Republican Congressional Committee executive director, as a member of its board, according to OpenSecrets.
American Liberty Action PAC also spent in August GOP primaries to successfully block two controversial Republican candidates: Carl Paladino, a congressional hopeful in New York whose past comments include praising Adolf Hitler on the radio, and Anthony Sabatini, a MAGA-aligned state representative who sought a House seat in Florida.
Trump’s PAC spent millions on legal fees — and provided no new insight on fundraising
The former president’s leadership committee did not make any contributions to Republican candidates or causes in the month of August outside of a $150,000 donation to a PAC opposing Cheney. But it did spend $3.8 million on legal fees and a bit shy of $800,000 on events and travel. The group still has $99 million cash on hand, according to its latest filing.
Save America PAC primarily does its fundraising through another group, the Save America Joint Fundraising Committee, which reports its finances on a different schedule. The joint committee did not shift any of its proceeds to Save America PAC in August, so the latter group’s monthly fundraising report does not include any information about the response generated by Trump’s massive fundraising operation in the wake of the Aug. 8 court-ordered search for classified documents at Mar-a-Lago. The joint committee has heavily cited the FBI search in fundraising appeals, and it reportedly saw a spike in donations.
Trump’s leadership PAC still has more resources on hand than either of the two parties’ national committees. As of the end of August, the Democratic and Republican National Committees collectively had $80 million in the bank: $55.8 million for the DNC and $24.2 million for the RNC.
Congressional committees raise about the same — but Senate Dems have more in the tank
The Republican and Democratic congressional committees were at near-parity in August fundraising, with the National Republican Senatorial Committee and the National Republican Congressional Committee outraising their Democratic counterparts by very narrow margins.
Both Senate committees raised about $12.6 million each. Senate Democrats’ campaign arm has significantly more money in the bank for the final stretch of the campaign — $45.8 million compared to $16 million for Republicans — giving the party more cash to move around in the final weeks of the campaign.
The House campaigns are entering the final stretch with roughly the same amount of resources. The NRCC raised $15.6 million to the DCCC’s $15.5 million, and both have nine figures in the bank: $110.7 million for Democrats, and $113.2 million for Republicans.
As if the draft in Moscow will be aimed mostly at the privileged. Of course it won't be. It never is in any country or part of a country.
Good to see people protesting against the draft ANYWHERE.
Hopefully many young men in Yoshkar-Ola will take the attitude "I ain't got no quarrel with them Ukrainians. No Ukrainian ever called me an illiterate lump of dogsh*t. "
Does Liz have any ideas for anyone under the age of 90 yet
Yes, make them pay for everyone over the age of 90.
Keeping house prices high by reducing stamp duty eventually means those who inherit will inherit more wealth!
Everyone else pretty buggered though.
At this point, I will vote for literally any party - Labour, Lib Dem, Tory, Green, Reform, Monster Raving Loony, even the Natural Law Party or UKIP if either of them are still around, if they stand on a five word manifesto - "We will build more houses".
I have friends living in AirBnBs because they can't even find anywhere to rent any more.
It is no longer merely the elephant in the room, it is the whole stampede.
No mention of the SNP?
Would one and a bit million across the UK count?
Scottish Gmt has built about the equivalent, pro rata (actually 105K).
This could be nothing, but if there was something going on, this might be how it would start.
OSINTdefender @sentdefender Very interesting, these sort of “Numbers Stations” are used by a number of Countries around the World, but other than a few theories it is not known what their actual purpose is although it most likely is a way of communicating with Strategic Nuclear Assets around the Globe.
Sure. But it was when US students started protesting in big ways that the US war on Vietnam came unstuck.
More power to the protestors.
Totally agree your last point.
I think she is arguing that these people all support the war and want Ukraines all to be killed but they don't want to do the work themselves.
US students didn't support the war and didn't want to be killed.
True. Though being a full-time student also meant NOT getting drafted, as students had virtually-automatic deferment from induction. Problem was IF you flunked out!
Plus college students - or FORMER students - who actually got drafted had MUCH reduced odds of ending up in combat against their inclination, than non-college draftees. Most definitely a significant socio-economic divide.
Just look at Presidents who were young at that time.
Clinton got a student deferment Dubya Bush joined the National Guard, so learned to fly in Texas Obama was too young Trump had bone spurs Biden had asthma.
(Who, to be fair has changed his position in recent years: "Decades of fire suppression and lack of indigenous fire ecology can contribute to dense forests with a lot of understory 'fuel' and many dead standing trees.[83][84] When a forest fire eventually does occur, the increased fuel creates a crown fire, which destroys all vegetation and affects surface soil chemistry. Although such fires have been occurring sporadically for 100 million years, and are part of the natural ecological rhythm of forests, frequent and small 'natural' ground fires do prevent the accumulation of fuel and allow large, slow-growing vegetation (e.g. trees) to survive.")
Is stoking (ahem) anti-bear sentiment, your personal contribution in defense of Ukraine?
Impressed that people need to keep saying that Russia is banning males 18 to 65 from leaving the country. The average male life expectancy in Russia is just over 66 years. We are talking about almost all living Russian males here.
Impressed that people need to keep saying that Russia is banning males 18 to 65 from leaving the country. The average male life expectancy in Russia is just over 66 years. We are talking about almost all living Russian males here.
Sure. But it was when US students started protesting in big ways that the US war on Vietnam came unstuck.
More power to the protestors.
Totally agree your last point.
I think she is arguing that these people all support the war and want Ukraines all to be killed but they don't want to do the work themselves.
US students didn't support the war and didn't want to be killed.
True. Though being a full-time student also meant NOT getting drafted, as students had virtually-automatic deferment from induction. Problem was IF you flunked out!
Plus college students - or FORMER students - who actually got drafted had MUCH reduced odds of ending up in combat against their inclination, than non-college draftees. Most definitely a significant socio-economic divide.
Just look at Presidents who were young at that time.
Clinton got a student deferment Dubya Bush joined the National Guard, so learned to fly in Texas Obama was too young Trump had bone spurs Biden had asthma.
Al Gore and John Kerry both enlisted and served - Kerry in combat - in Vietnam.
Sure. But it was when US students started protesting in big ways that the US war on Vietnam came unstuck.
More power to the protestors.
Totally agree your last point.
I think she is arguing that these people all support the war and want Ukraines all to be killed but they don't want to do the work themselves.
US students didn't support the war and didn't want to be killed.
True. Though being a full-time student also meant NOT getting drafted, as students had virtually-automatic deferment from induction. Problem was IF you flunked out!
Plus college students - or FORMER students - who actually got drafted had MUCH reduced odds of ending up in combat against their inclination, than non-college draftees. Most definitely a significant socio-economic divide.
Just look at Presidents who were young at that time.
Clinton got a student deferment Dubya Bush joined the National Guard, so learned to fly in Texas Obama was too young Trump had bone spurs Biden had asthma.
Al Gore and John Kerry both enlisted and served - Kerry in combat - in Vietnam.
Fat lot of good it did them.
McCain was of course arguably the most famous vet of them all after years in Hanoi Hilton.
Does Liz have any ideas for anyone under the age of 90 yet
Yes, make them pay for everyone over the age of 90.
Keeping house prices high by reducing stamp duty eventually means those who inherit will inherit more wealth!
Everyone else pretty buggered though.
At this point, I will vote for literally any party - Labour, Lib Dem, Tory, Green, Reform, Monster Raving Loony, even the Natural Law Party or UKIP if either of them are still around, if they stand on a five word manifesto - "We will build more houses".
I have friends living in AirBnBs because they can't even find anywhere to rent any more.
It is no longer merely the elephant in the room, it is the whole stampede.
Seems it is coming in friday statement with designated areas overruling planning restrictions and providing tax incentives
Sure. But it was when US students started protesting in big ways that the US war on Vietnam came unstuck.
More power to the protestors.
Totally agree your last point.
I think she is arguing that these people all support the war and want Ukraines all to be killed but they don't want to do the work themselves.
US students didn't support the war and didn't want to be killed.
True. Though being a full-time student also meant NOT getting drafted, as students had virtually-automatic deferment from induction. Problem was IF you flunked out!
Plus college students - or FORMER students - who actually got drafted had MUCH reduced odds of ending up in combat against their inclination, than non-college draftees. Most definitely a significant socio-economic divide.
Just look at Presidents who were young at that time.
Clinton got a student deferment Dubya Bush joined the National Guard, so learned to fly in Texas Obama was too young Trump had bone spurs Biden had asthma.
Al Gore and John Kerry both enlisted and served - Kerry in combat - in Vietnam.
Fat lot of good it did them.
McCain was of course arguably the most famous vet of them all after years in Hanoi Hilton.
Should have called it McCain International Hotel Hanoi. That, empirically, works better.
Sure. But it was when US students started protesting in big ways that the US war on Vietnam came unstuck.
More power to the protestors.
Totally agree your last point.
I think she is arguing that these people all support the war and want Ukraines all to be killed but they don't want to do the work themselves.
US students didn't support the war and didn't want to be killed.
True. Though being a full-time student also meant NOT getting drafted, as students had virtually-automatic deferment from induction. Problem was IF you flunked out!
Plus college students - or FORMER students - who actually got drafted had MUCH reduced odds of ending up in combat against their inclination, than non-college draftees. Most definitely a significant socio-economic divide.
Just look at Presidents who were young at that time.
Clinton got a student deferment Dubya Bush joined the National Guard, so learned to fly in Texas Obama was too young Trump had bone spurs Biden had asthma.
Al Gore and John Kerry both enlisted and served - Kerry in combat - in Vietnam.
Fat lot of good it did them.
Indeed. How Kerry was pilloried by "patriotic" Republicans concerning his military service was an early indicator how far down the rabbit hole the party was headed.
Impressed that people need to keep saying that Russia is banning males 18 to 65 from leaving the country. The average male life expectancy in Russia is just over 66 years. We are talking about almost all living Russian males here.
Impressed that people need to keep saying that Russia is banning males 18 to 65 from leaving the country. The average male life expectancy in Russia is just over 66 years. We are talking about almost all living Russian males here.
I was watching Daily Politics on tape while cooking tonight and Jacob Rees showed up. He was introduced as ‘Business Secretary’.
WTAF? I assumed he had been put out to pasture. A google confirmed he is back in the cabinet.
Truss is clearly mad.
Er, where have you been for the last few weeks? A Faraday cage?
He is i/c energy and things.
Been avoiding much news due to royal overload, but I didn’t know he was in the cabinet, never mind in such an important role as biz secretary. Absolutely ludicrous.
Sure. But it was when US students started protesting in big ways that the US war on Vietnam came unstuck.
More power to the protestors.
Totally agree your last point.
I think she is arguing that these people all support the war and want Ukraines all to be killed but they don't want to do the work themselves.
US students didn't support the war and didn't want to be killed.
True. Though being a full-time student also meant NOT getting drafted, as students had virtually-automatic deferment from induction. Problem was IF you flunked out!
Plus college students - or FORMER students - who actually got drafted had MUCH reduced odds of ending up in combat against their inclination, than non-college draftees. Most definitely a significant socio-economic divide.
Just look at Presidents who were young at that time.
Clinton got a student deferment Dubya Bush joined the National Guard, so learned to fly in Texas Obama was too young Trump had bone spurs Biden had asthma.
Al Gore and John Kerry both enlisted and served - Kerry in combat - in Vietnam.
Fat lot of good it did them.
McCain was of course arguably the most famous vet of them all after years in Hanoi Hilton.
Good point. Though unlike Gore & Kerry, McCain was a Navy brat (his father being a fighting Admiral in WW2) and a graduate of US Naval Academy.
EDIT - though objectively several other POTUS and also-rans were ahead of John McCain on "most famous vet of them all" rankings.
Such as George Washington, US Grant, Dwight Eisenhower and . . . wait for it . . . John F. Kennedy.
Does Liz have any ideas for anyone under the age of 90 yet
Yes, make them pay for everyone over the age of 90.
Keeping house prices high by reducing stamp duty eventually means those who inherit will inherit more wealth!
Everyone else pretty buggered though.
At this point, I will vote for literally any party - Labour, Lib Dem, Tory, Green, Reform, Monster Raving Loony, even the Natural Law Party or UKIP if either of them are still around, if they stand on a five word manifesto - "We will build more houses".
I have friends living in AirBnBs because they can't even find anywhere to rent any more.
It is no longer merely the elephant in the room, it is the whole stampede.
No mention of the SNP?
Would one and a bit million across the UK count?
Scottish Gmt has built about the equivalent, pro rata (actually 105K).
They've built more in a couple of parts of my small town than the previous Labour-LD administration across the whole of Scotland did, IIRC.
Thanks for that.
Assuming that source is reliable, I now find myself a fan of the SNP. Something I never thought I would hear myself saying.
As I say in my previous post, I'm pretty much of the opinion that the lack of housing is the root cause of almost everything that's wrong with the economy (I've posted several times a link to an article called "the housing theory of everything" - I won't post it again for the hundredth time).
All I want is a political party that takes the housing crisis seriously. Build more effing houses - it's that simple. If the SNP get that, then I'm a fan.
Does Liz have any ideas for anyone under the age of 90 yet
Yes, make them pay for everyone over the age of 90.
Keeping house prices high by reducing stamp duty eventually means those who inherit will inherit more wealth!
Everyone else pretty buggered though.
At this point, I will vote for literally any party - Labour, Lib Dem, Tory, Green, Reform, Monster Raving Loony, even the Natural Law Party or UKIP if either of them are still around, if they stand on a five word manifesto - "We will build more houses".
I have friends living in AirBnBs because they can't even find anywhere to rent any more.
It is no longer merely the elephant in the room, it is the whole stampede.
Seems it is coming in friday statement with designated areas overruling planning restrictions and providing tax incentives
Russian media apparantly going with 'protestors will be drafted'
Drafting people who really, really don't want to fight must be part of Putin's "genius" that I am never going to understand. Of course we ought to consider the alternative possibility that Putin has gone completely round the twist.
Or he has no other alternative. His "regular" army is bled dry and needs to be rested and reformed for next spring's offensives. Commentators seem to think his plan is to use the conscripted reserves to hold defensive positions through winter. Although if they need three months training to get back to speed the winter will be half over.
The message to the home market both civilian and military will change next week after the formal annexation of the four regions. Specifically, the message regarding NATO countries' involvement will change. The message will be here are Russian soldiers defending Russian soil against an enemy who is being supplied with lethal weapons by NATO countries. That will cover all Russian soldiers who are there. That's unlikely to persist without an escalation.
Liz Truss is a moron, even I wouldn't have sacked Shapps, in fact I'd have him in my cabinet.
Michael Green and Grant Shapps are the only duo from either party to do the only logical thing and abolish the risible franchising system on the railway. They deserve some credit merely for that.
But how ridiculous claiming that reversing tax rises so t hat tax is back at levels they were at the last election is going against the manifesto. Erm, what was it the manifesto said about tax last time?
Wanting people on low and middle incomes to keep more of their money does not remotely go against the manifesto.
How ridiculous is saying “ We find that planned tax cuts with stalling economic growth would leave debt on an unsustainable path”?
What is unsustainable debt?
As one of PBs most astute right wing thinkers Bart, is borrowing on this scale today certain going to mean higher taxes in future?
Its utterly ridiculous, the IFS is a joke with that statement.
No it won't mean higher taxes in the future. More growth from lower taxes means more revenues in the future, because the economy has grown and there's more revenues from that.
Plus as I alluded to before, inflation is actually our friend not our foe when it comes to debt to GDP when debt is running at 100% of GDP. Yes we have a deficit, but our debt is being deflated by 9.8% per annum as it stands. Nobody wants to say that out loud at the moment, because everyone is too shit scared of the past to admit the simple truth that there are upsides to having inflation and deflating debt is one of them. Nobody wants to admit that actually a bit of inflation is good for the Treasury, because its the dirty little secret.
Barty, it is economics 101 and with the amound of index linking of debt and other non-debt obligations (triple lock) it is much less true than it was.
If you read the statement a bit more carefully it agrees with you that More growth from lower taxes means more revenues in the future, it just thinks that more growth is not a probable consequence of lower taxes. Do you think it's inevitable?
But that's the point I'm making, the index linking is being quoted to say "woah £8.2bn of debt payments, how horrendous" but nobody stops to say "oh but we had £15bn of debt deflation" because it's uncomfortable.
Uncomfortable truths are still truths.
Edit: And yes I disagree with the IFS. I absolutely think lower taxes will mean more growth in the future. Not inevitable but very probable.
When is the future though? I can't see any imminent prospect of above trend growth with the world situation.
To be honest any growth whatsoever, even miniscule growth, while we have high inflation is good enough.
Debt to GDP goes up with relation to the deficit, but goes down with relation to inflation and growth. If the deficit is high and inflation + growth is low, then debt to GDP spirals. If the deficit is low and inflation + growth is high, then debt to GDP falls.
In 1947 after WWII our debt to GDP was 251.8% of GDP. In the following years we almost always ran a deficit, but by 1974 our debt to GDP had fallen to a far healthier 45.2% of GDP.
How did it fall from 251.8% to 45.2%, while we normally had deficits? Because we had some growth and some inflation and that outstripped our deficits.
Now we're high debt to GDP, quite frankly having inflation is a good thing to fix our problems, but nobody will admit that.
A lot of our inflation is imported though, and imported inflation has no direct effect on nominal GDP. Also, we now have high levels of index linked debt, so inflation directly affects our debt servicing costs. And we have an independent central bank which will raise rates in response to higher inflation, also raising debt servicing costs and slowing the economy. While nominal GDP growth may well be positive (which is why it is okay to run a fiscal deficit, even under a Labour government) the idea that high inflation is going to fix everything - especially the kind of inflation we have now - is naive.
All inflation has a direct effect on nominal GDP.
Yes I completely agree that we have moderate levels of index linked debt, so our debt servicing costs are affected. I have literally made that point myself all thread long. The impact of inflation on debt servicing costs was to increase our debt serving to £8.2bn and every media publication in the country talking about the economy has ran that figure today.
But not one media publication that I've seen has acknowledged or even mentioned the fact that August's inflation deflated our debt by £15bn. I can only assume the journalists are too economically illiterate to understand that point, but those of us who understand economics and don't recoil in horror at inflation as if it is the original sin and purely negative can understand it.
Labour's deficit was so large from 2002 onward that unprecedentedly debt to GDP was going up then, even with nominal GDP growth even pre-recession. That is the catastrophe that needs to be avoided over the economic cycle.
How was that unprecedented? As we have discussed multiple times in the past Labour's pre-GFC structural deficit was of a similar magnitude to what was seen during the prior Tory government, and our debt to GDP ratio was edging up only slowly and was still well below the level Labour inherited in 1997.
You are incorrect to state that all inflation increases nominal GDP. The latter is the value of all goods and services produced in the domestic economy and so excludes imports by definition. To the extent that higher import prices make domestic economic agents poorer (a negative terms of trade shock) you might expect GDP to be lower in fact. Recall that imports enter negatively in the expenditure measure of GDP.
You are categorically wrong to say that Labour's pre-recession deficit was comparable to the Tories pre-recession deficit at the same stage of the economic cycle, in fact quite the opposite the Tories were running a pre-recession budget surplus before the recession that preceded the GFC.
Anyway, I was referring to debt-to-GDP. When post-war without a recession causing a deficit had debt to GDP ever risen for years in a row, prior to a recession? It was unprecedented.
Debt to GDP peaked in 1981 and fell consistently from 1981 to 1990/91. Debt to GDP then rose, because of the recession as standard following the economic cycle, but that rise slowed down and stopped in 1996/97. Debt to GDP started falling then as it had done consistently since WWII until 2002 when unprecedentedly Gordon Brown started growing debt outside of a recession. Every year from 2002 to 2008 debt to GDP rose, without any recession to cause that rise.
That was unprecedented, unforgiveable and disastrous.
Arguing with you is like arguing with a goldfish, because you keep repeating things that I have pointed out to you on multiple occasions before are either highly misleading or just plain wrong. Fundamentally, I don't think you are an honest or well informed commentator on economic questions. I suppose I should just let it go, but as someone who works in economics for a living it just annoys me that you are on here day after day spouting this stuff as though you are an expert.
Yes the Tories were running a surplus before the early 1990s recession. Because they created an artificial boom via terrible policy making, which temporarily boosted tax revenues then crashed the economy amid inflation and sky high interest rates, leaving millions unemployed or in negative equity. A home grown recession. Yet you present this as some kind of triumph.
Yes, debt to GDP rose moderately in the early 2000s. It is true that the UK escaped recession during this period, unlike the US. And growth was a lot stronger than in the Euro Area too. But there were significant global headwinds, and the weakness of the outlook is evident in the fact that the BOE cut interest rates significantly. In this context of weaker growth it isn't surprising that the debt to GDP ratio went up a bit. And this timely fiscal loosening arguably helped the UK economy grow more strongly through this weak patch in the global cycle. Ultimately, the debt to GDP ratio rose from 34% of GDP in 2001 to 40% in 2006. Still well below the 43% that Labour inherited in 1997 (under the Tories it had risen from 28% in 1991). Meanwhile the structural fiscal deficit in 2006 was 3.6%, similar to the level seen throughout the 1980s and much smaller than the level seen in the early 1990s.
I'm sorry, but there is simply no evidence to support your assertion that fiscal policy under the last Labour government was unprecedented or disastrous. It was entirely typical of postwar UK governments, not great, but not terrible, and will most likely appear a paragon of fiscal rectitude compared to what we are about to see - and which you will no doubt cheerlead relentlessly.
This is absolute nonsense, debt to GDP shot up by 7% pre-crash under Brown. Name one period of time, ever, post-war that debt to GDP went up outside of a recession or its aftermath? Ever in the entire history of post-war economics, when had debt to GDP ever been increased like that before?
1991 was a recession so of course it had increased from that, increasing from a recession is how the economic cycle works, but it had fallen by 16% pre-recession as opposed to being increased pre-recession like Brown did. 🤦♂️
So what? Labour ran too tight a fiscal policy at first and then too loose a fiscal policy. Overall by the time the GFC hit they had left debt lower than it was when they got in. How is that disastrous? And debt also went up because while the economy avoided the US led recession it slowed and tax revenues went down - the economic cycle. And the UK may have gone into recession in the absence of a fiscal loosening. Besides, there is no great virtue in reducing the debt to GDP ratio if it is already low. One of the causes of the GFC was that globally, government debt had fallen to such low levels that there weren't enough safe assets to satisfy demand, so the private sector started creating synthetic ones by securitising and tranching US mortgages. Labour's fiscal record wasn't great, but I am not claiming it was. I am disputing your claim that it was especially bad. It wasn't. It was entirely similar to the record of other postwar governments, until we were hit by the worst global crisis since ww2.
Does Liz have any ideas for anyone under the age of 90 yet
Yes, make them pay for everyone over the age of 90.
Keeping house prices high by reducing stamp duty eventually means those who inherit will inherit more wealth!
Everyone else pretty buggered though.
At this point, I will vote for literally any party - Labour, Lib Dem, Tory, Green, Reform, Monster Raving Loony, even the Natural Law Party or UKIP if either of them are still around, if they stand on a five word manifesto - "We will build more houses".
I have friends living in AirBnBs because they can't even find anywhere to rent any more.
It is no longer merely the elephant in the room, it is the whole stampede.
Seems it is coming in friday statement with designated areas overruling planning restrictions and providing tax incentives
Baltic nations say they will refuse refuge to Russians fleeing mobilisationhttp://reut.rs/3f2DOFD
Frankly, I'm not surprised. Leave the side the fact that they're already rammed with refugees, I can't think of a better way to get an army in by stealth than to pretend they're refugees.
If he done that with Ukraine he'd have won the war by now.
It's also in nobody's interest, apart from those trying to run away of course, for them to be allowed to escape their fate. The best chance of seeing an end to the war and Putin at the same time is if such an immense number of Russians are slaughtered that the sorry dumb fucks finally make a concerted effort to get rid of their rotten czar.
What a horrible thing to say.
Putin will like it if the Baltic states really are refusing to allow entry to male Russian citizens between the ages of 18 and 45 or whatever the ages are.
You call Russians "dumb fucks" but I wonder how many would stare at their TV screens all day long at a tsar's funeral if a tsar were head of state in Russia.
As for getting an army in by stealth, I thought that was still the NATO governments' line on how Russia did get its forces into Ukraine. Little green men and hybrid warfare and stuff. ("Hybrid warfare" being a particularly stupid term that I am glad to see the back of.)
They tried the usual covert ops stuff that the USSR so loved. Which failed, in an early example of how incompetent the planning & execution of the invasion was to be.
Does Liz have any ideas for anyone under the age of 90 yet
Yes, make them pay for everyone over the age of 90.
Keeping house prices high by reducing stamp duty eventually means those who inherit will inherit more wealth!
Everyone else pretty buggered though.
At this point, I will vote for literally any party - Labour, Lib Dem, Tory, Green, Reform, Monster Raving Loony, even the Natural Law Party or UKIP if either of them are still around, if they stand on a five word manifesto - "We will build more houses".
I have friends living in AirBnBs because they can't even find anywhere to rent any more.
It is no longer merely the elephant in the room, it is the whole stampede.
No mention of the SNP?
Would one and a bit million across the UK count?
Scottish Gmt has built about the equivalent, pro rata (actually 105K).
They've built more in a couple of parts of my small town than the previous Labour-LD administration across the whole of Scotland did, IIRC.
Thanks for that.
Assuming that source is reliable, I now find myself a fan of the SNP. Something I never thought I would hear myself saying.
As I say in my previous post, I'm pretty much of the opinion that the lack of housing is the root cause of almost everything that's wrong with the economy (I've posted several times a link to an article called "the housing theory of everything" - I won't post it again for the hundredth time).
All I want is a political party that takes the housing crisis seriously. Build more effing houses - it's that simple. If the SNP get that, then I'm a fan.
It's certainly broadly correct - there is more emphasis here on houses. I'm not clued up on all the detail, though. So that seemed a convenient summary. Ferret sure doesn't hesitate to say if it thinks the SNP is wrong - but also sif its opponents are wrong.
I was watching Daily Politics on tape while cooking tonight and Jacob Rees showed up. He was introduced as ‘Business Secretary’.
WTAF? I assumed he had been put out to pasture. A google confirmed he is back in the cabinet.
Truss is clearly mad.
Er, where have you been for the last few weeks? A Faraday cage?
He is i/c energy and things.
Been avoiding much news due to royal overload, but I didn’t know he was in the cabinet, never mind in such an important role as biz secretary. Absolutely ludicrous.
Russian media apparantly going with 'protestors will be drafted'
Drafting people who really, really don't want to fight must be part of Putin's "genius" that I am never going to understand. Of course we ought to consider the alternative possibility that Putin has gone completely round the twist.
Or he has no other alternative. His "regular" army is bled dry and needs to be rested and reformed for next spring's offensives. Commentators seem to think his plan is to use the conscripted reserves to hold defensive positions through winter. Although if they need three months training to get back to speed the winter will be half over.
The message to the home market both civilian and military will change next week after the formal annexation of the four regions. Specifically, the message regarding NATO countries' involvement will change. The message will be here are Russian soldiers defending Russian soil against an enemy who is being supplied with lethal weapons by NATO countries. That will cover all Russian soldiers who are there. That's unlikely to persist without an escalation.
It isn't going to stop the Ukranian offensives, just make them more bloody.
The war ends when Russians refuse to fight. 1917 all over again.
Impressed that people need to keep saying that Russia is banning males 18 to 65 from leaving the country. The average male life expectancy in Russia is just over 66 years. We are talking about almost all living Russian males here.
You could have made that point in a nice way, Ishmael. If everyone is stupid who doesn't know something you know, what are you when someone else knows stuff you don't?
I doubt the Russian army will be drafting many guys in their early 60s.
On a lighter note, at least in Russia a man won't be counted as a woman just because he says he feels he is one. That said, whether a man who did self-identify as female in an effort to avoid the draft would be welcome in the army is another matter.
Does Liz have any ideas for anyone under the age of 90 yet
Yes, make them pay for everyone over the age of 90.
Keeping house prices high by reducing stamp duty eventually means those who inherit will inherit more wealth!
Everyone else pretty buggered though.
At this point, I will vote for literally any party - Labour, Lib Dem, Tory, Green, Reform, Monster Raving Loony, even the Natural Law Party or UKIP if either of them are still around, if they stand on a five word manifesto - "We will build more houses".
I have friends living in AirBnBs because they can't even find anywhere to rent any more.
It is no longer merely the elephant in the room, it is the whole stampede.
Seems it is coming in friday statement with designated areas overruling planning restrictions and providing tax incentives
Does Liz have any ideas for anyone under the age of 90 yet
Yes, make them pay for everyone over the age of 90.
Keeping house prices high by reducing stamp duty eventually means those who inherit will inherit more wealth!
Everyone else pretty buggered though.
At this point, I will vote for literally any party - Labour, Lib Dem, Tory, Green, Reform, Monster Raving Loony, even the Natural Law Party or UKIP if either of them are still around, if they stand on a five word manifesto - "We will build more houses".
I have friends living in AirBnBs because they can't even find anywhere to rent any more.
It is no longer merely the elephant in the room, it is the whole stampede.
Seems it is coming in friday statement with designated areas overruling planning restrictions and providing tax incentives
A £100bn deficit at a time when debt is being deflated by £200bn cuts debt to GDP, it doesn't increase it. Debt financing is going up because of inflation, but debt deflation is happening because of inflation too, and that has been omitted from the IFS report, even while counting the debt servicing costs. Idiots. 🤦♂️
Bart, honestly, who is more likely to be innumerate between the IFS and you? Debt deflation is a consequence of nominal terms increase in gdp, so if you are working in nominal terms it is factored in.
Does Liz have any ideas for anyone under the age of 90 yet
Yes, make them pay for everyone over the age of 90.
Keeping house prices high by reducing stamp duty eventually means those who inherit will inherit more wealth!
Everyone else pretty buggered though.
At this point, I will vote for literally any party - Labour, Lib Dem, Tory, Green, Reform, Monster Raving Loony, even the Natural Law Party or UKIP if either of them are still around, if they stand on a five word manifesto - "We will build more houses".
I have friends living in AirBnBs because they can't even find anywhere to rent any more.
It is no longer merely the elephant in the room, it is the whole stampede.
Seems it is coming in friday statement with designated areas overruling planning restrictions and providing tax incentives
Does Liz have any ideas for anyone under the age of 90 yet
Yes, make them pay for everyone over the age of 90.
Keeping house prices high by reducing stamp duty eventually means those who inherit will inherit more wealth!
Everyone else pretty buggered though.
At this point, I will vote for literally any party - Labour, Lib Dem, Tory, Green, Reform, Monster Raving Loony, even the Natural Law Party or UKIP if either of them are still around, if they stand on a five word manifesto - "We will build more houses".
I have friends living in AirBnBs because they can't even find anywhere to rent any more.
It is no longer merely the elephant in the room, it is the whole stampede.
Seems it is coming in friday statement with designated areas overruling planning restrictions and providing tax incentives
Does Liz have any ideas for anyone under the age of 90 yet
Yes, make them pay for everyone over the age of 90.
Keeping house prices high by reducing stamp duty eventually means those who inherit will inherit more wealth!
Everyone else pretty buggered though.
At this point, I will vote for literally any party - Labour, Lib Dem, Tory, Green, Reform, Monster Raving Loony, even the Natural Law Party or UKIP if either of them are still around, if they stand on a five word manifesto - "We will build more houses".
I have friends living in AirBnBs because they can't even find anywhere to rent any more.
It is no longer merely the elephant in the room, it is the whole stampede.
Seems it is coming in friday statement with designated areas overruling planning restrictions and providing tax incentives
Every few years the government comes up with a plan to 'rip up planning laws', usually in combination to with something about 'enterprise zones'.
It is an idea that the audience like, the government take credit for it, then nothing happens to implement it, then it is forgotten, and after a couple of years then it is announced again. It has gone on like this in a pointless cycle for at least 20 years.
Does Liz have any ideas for anyone under the age of 90 yet
Yes, make them pay for everyone over the age of 90.
Keeping house prices high by reducing stamp duty eventually means those who inherit will inherit more wealth!
Everyone else pretty buggered though.
At this point, I will vote for literally any party - Labour, Lib Dem, Tory, Green, Reform, Monster Raving Loony, even the Natural Law Party or UKIP if either of them are still around, if they stand on a five word manifesto - "We will build more houses".
I have friends living in AirBnBs because they can't even find anywhere to rent any more.
It is no longer merely the elephant in the room, it is the whole stampede.
Seems it is coming in friday statement with designated areas overruling planning restrictions and providing tax incentives
Does Liz have any ideas for anyone under the age of 90 yet
Yes, make them pay for everyone over the age of 90.
Keeping house prices high by reducing stamp duty eventually means those who inherit will inherit more wealth!
Everyone else pretty buggered though.
At this point, I will vote for literally any party - Labour, Lib Dem, Tory, Green, Reform, Monster Raving Loony, even the Natural Law Party or UKIP if either of them are still around, if they stand on a five word manifesto - "We will build more houses".
I have friends living in AirBnBs because they can't even find anywhere to rent any more.
It is no longer merely the elephant in the room, it is the whole stampede.
Seems it is coming in friday statement with designated areas overruling planning restrictions and providing tax incentives
Every few years the government comes up with a plan to 'rip up planning laws', usually in combination to with something about 'enterprise zones'.
It is an idea that the audience like, the government take credit for it, then nothing happens to implement it, then it is forgotten, and after a couple of years then it is announced again. It has gone on like this in a pointless cycle for at least 20 years.
And this may well be different as Truss is a very determined politician in a hurry
Both John McCain's grandfather and father were four-star admirals, and both served in World War II.
I don't know how such a family background would affect a man's career in the Royal Navy, but I have often thought that, in the US Navy, it might help explain McCain's rebelliousness.
Like McCain, George H. W. Bush and Donald Rumsfeld were naval aviators, one of the most dangerous jobs in the US military.
Does Liz have any ideas for anyone under the age of 90 yet
Yes, make them pay for everyone over the age of 90.
Keeping house prices high by reducing stamp duty eventually means those who inherit will inherit more wealth!
Everyone else pretty buggered though.
At this point, I will vote for literally any party - Labour, Lib Dem, Tory, Green, Reform, Monster Raving Loony, even the Natural Law Party or UKIP if either of them are still around, if they stand on a five word manifesto - "We will build more houses".
I have friends living in AirBnBs because they can't even find anywhere to rent any more.
It is no longer merely the elephant in the room, it is the whole stampede.
Seems it is coming in friday statement with designated areas overruling planning restrictions and providing tax incentives
That to me looks like she is building the houses where it’s political convenient rather than essential
She is a politician that many seem to have written off after 2 weeks
She may just surprise many and certainly being ahead 40% to 33% of Starmer in the red wall seats is a surprise
She did not burst out of an egg 2 weeks ago.
To many she did, figuratively speaking
I do wonder how much the energy companies individual letters being sent to all consumers affirming the government support including the £400 discount from October, the additional £650 payments and the £600 winter fuel allowance payment to pensioners is influencing some opinion
Impressed that people need to keep saying that Russia is banning males 18 to 65 from leaving the country. The average male life expectancy in Russia is just over 66 years. We are talking about almost all living Russian males here.
You could have made that point in a nice way, Ishmael. If everyone is stupid who doesn't know something you know, what are you when someone else knows stuff you don't?
I doubt the Russian army will be drafting many guys in their early 60s.
On a lighter note, at least in Russia a man won't be counted as a woman just because he says he feels he is one. That said, whether a man who did self-identify as female in an effort to avoid the draft would be welcome in the army is another matter.
But it is not a closely guarded secret that life expectancy at birth is life expectancy at, you know, birth, and distorted by failure to make it to first birthday.
Politico.com - Ohio GOP House candidate has misrepresented military service Campaigning for a northwestern Ohio congressional seat, Republican J.R. Majewski presents himself as an Air Force combat veteran who deployed to Afghanistan after the 9/11 terrorist attacks.
WASHINGTON — Campaigning for a northwestern Ohio congressional seat, Republican J.R. Majewski presents himself as an Air Force combat veteran who deployed to Afghanistan after the 9/11 terrorist attacks, once describing “tough” conditions including a lack of running water that forced him to go more than 40 days without a shower.
Military documents obtained by The Associated Press through a public records request tell a different story.
They indicate Majewski never deployed to Afghanistan but instead completed a six-month stint helping to load planes at an air base in Qatar, a longtime U.S. ally that is a safe distance from the fighting.
Majewski’s account of his time in the military is just one aspect of his biography that is suspect. His post-military career has been defined by exaggerations, conspiracy theories, talk of violent action against the U.S. government and occasional financial duress.
Still, thanks to an unflinching allegiance to former President Donald Trump — Majewski once painted a massive Trump mural on his lawn — he also stands a chance of defeating longtime Democratic Rep. Marcy Kaptur in a district recently redrawn to favor Republicans. . . .
Does Liz have any ideas for anyone under the age of 90 yet
Yes, make them pay for everyone over the age of 90.
Keeping house prices high by reducing stamp duty eventually means those who inherit will inherit more wealth!
Everyone else pretty buggered though.
At this point, I will vote for literally any party - Labour, Lib Dem, Tory, Green, Reform, Monster Raving Loony, even the Natural Law Party or UKIP if either of them are still around, if they stand on a five word manifesto - "We will build more houses".
I have friends living in AirBnBs because they can't even find anywhere to rent any more.
It is no longer merely the elephant in the room, it is the whole stampede.
Seems it is coming in friday statement with designated areas overruling planning restrictions and providing tax incentives
That to me looks like she is building the houses where it’s political convenient rather than essential
She is a politician that many seem to have written off after 2 weeks
She may just surprise many and certainly being ahead 40% to 33% of Starmer in the red wall seats is a surprise
Isn't that lead entirely down to having a role in Queen's mourning and funeral?
I know I keep saying this - but it is a shock to hear a PM with a northern accent. There hasn't been one in my lifetime. I don't want to overreact to this - but Johnson, May, Cameron, Blair, Major, Thatcher: none of them sounded, to my ears, particularly relatable. Nor does Starmer, and nor did Corbyn, Miliband or Duncan Smith, come to that. (Hague had a nothern accent, but a weird one. Oddly, Michael Howard's voice didn't make him sound like someone from somewhere entirely different in the same way, to my ears at least. And ditto Gordon Brown's voice, although his rather agressive delivery undid any of that.) You didn't automatically take against them because of their voice, but they didn't sound like anyone you knew. Liz does. This is an entirely personal view, and is far from the key criterion for choosing a PM - but perhaps that might have a bit to do with why she is doing well in the red wall.
Does Liz have any ideas for anyone under the age of 90 yet
Yes, make them pay for everyone over the age of 90.
Keeping house prices high by reducing stamp duty eventually means those who inherit will inherit more wealth!
Everyone else pretty buggered though.
At this point, I will vote for literally any party - Labour, Lib Dem, Tory, Green, Reform, Monster Raving Loony, even the Natural Law Party or UKIP if either of them are still around, if they stand on a five word manifesto - "We will build more houses".
I have friends living in AirBnBs because they can't even find anywhere to rent any more.
It is no longer merely the elephant in the room, it is the whole stampede.
Seems it is coming in friday statement with designated areas overruling planning restrictions and providing tax incentives
Every few years the government comes up with a plan to 'rip up planning laws', usually in combination to with something about 'enterprise zones'.
It is an idea that the audience like, the government take credit for it, then nothing happens to implement it, then it is forgotten, and after a couple of years then it is announced again. It has gone on like this in a pointless cycle for at least 20 years.
Call it 6-10 months to come up with some details to any proposals, some pre-consultation or consultation, the shires hate it and a by-election is lost because of it, then we're about a year out from an election and they decide it can wait until afterwards.
Impressed that people need to keep saying that Russia is banning males 18 to 65 from leaving the country. The average male life expectancy in Russia is just over 66 years. We are talking about almost all living Russian males here.
You could have made that point in a nice way, Ishmael. If everyone is stupid who doesn't know something you know, what are you when someone else knows stuff you don't?
I doubt the Russian army will be drafting many guys in their early 60s.
On a lighter note, at least in Russia a man won't be counted as a woman just because he says he feels he is one. That said, whether a man who did self-identify as female in an effort to avoid the draft would be welcome in the army is another matter.
But it is not a closely guarded secret that life expectancy at birth is life expectancy at, you know, birth, and distorted by failure to make it to first birthday.
True, but you are frequently needlessly unpleasant, for reasons known only to yourself.
Does Liz have any ideas for anyone under the age of 90 yet
Yes, make them pay for everyone over the age of 90.
Keeping house prices high by reducing stamp duty eventually means those who inherit will inherit more wealth!
Everyone else pretty buggered though.
At this point, I will vote for literally any party - Labour, Lib Dem, Tory, Green, Reform, Monster Raving Loony, even the Natural Law Party or UKIP if either of them are still around, if they stand on a five word manifesto - "We will build more houses".
I have friends living in AirBnBs because they can't even find anywhere to rent any more.
It is no longer merely the elephant in the room, it is the whole stampede.
Seems it is coming in friday statement with designated areas overruling planning restrictions and providing tax incentives
Every few years the government comes up with a plan to 'rip up planning laws', usually in combination to with something about 'enterprise zones'.
It is an idea that the audience like, the government take credit for it, then nothing happens to implement it, then it is forgotten, and after a couple of years then it is announced again. It has gone on like this in a pointless cycle for at least 20 years.
And this may well be different as Truss is a very determined politician in a hurry
None of our previous PMs were determined at any point in the last 20 years?
Does Liz have any ideas for anyone under the age of 90 yet
Yes, make them pay for everyone over the age of 90.
Keeping house prices high by reducing stamp duty eventually means those who inherit will inherit more wealth!
Everyone else pretty buggered though.
At this point, I will vote for literally any party - Labour, Lib Dem, Tory, Green, Reform, Monster Raving Loony, even the Natural Law Party or UKIP if either of them are still around, if they stand on a five word manifesto - "We will build more houses".
I have friends living in AirBnBs because they can't even find anywhere to rent any more.
It is no longer merely the elephant in the room, it is the whole stampede.
Seems it is coming in friday statement with designated areas overruling planning restrictions and providing tax incentives
That to me looks like she is building the houses where it’s political convenient rather than essential
She is a politician that many seem to have written off after 2 weeks
She may just surprise many and certainly being ahead 40% to 33% of Starmer in the red wall seats is a surprise
She did not burst out of an egg 2 weeks ago.
To many she did, figuratively speaking
I do wonder how much the energy companies individual letters being sent to all consumers affirming the government support including the £400 discount from October, the additional £650 payments and the £600 winter fuel allowance payment to pensioners is influencing some opinion
Before concluding his speech, Zelensky called out seven countries who voted against his video address to the UN, which were Russia, Belarus, Cuba, North Korea, Eritrea, Nicaragua and Syria.
Does Liz have any ideas for anyone under the age of 90 yet
Yes, make them pay for everyone over the age of 90.
Keeping house prices high by reducing stamp duty eventually means those who inherit will inherit more wealth!
Everyone else pretty buggered though.
At this point, I will vote for literally any party - Labour, Lib Dem, Tory, Green, Reform, Monster Raving Loony, even the Natural Law Party or UKIP if either of them are still around, if they stand on a five word manifesto - "We will build more houses".
I have friends living in AirBnBs because they can't even find anywhere to rent any more.
It is no longer merely the elephant in the room, it is the whole stampede.
Seems it is coming in friday statement with designated areas overruling planning restrictions and providing tax incentives
Every few years the government comes up with a plan to 'rip up planning laws', usually in combination to with something about 'enterprise zones'.
It is an idea that the audience like, the government take credit for it, then nothing happens to implement it, then it is forgotten, and after a couple of years then it is announced again. It has gone on like this in a pointless cycle for at least 20 years.
And this may well be different as Truss is a very determined politician in a hurry
Sorry to disappoint you and @kyf_100. But no one in the industry is expecting anything to happen. It is reheating of the same ideas we have heard before, they sound good but are undeliverable.
Robert Jenrick tried to seriously change the planning system following orders from No.10 (Cummings) and it just led to a mutiny of Conservative MP's and was a major contributory factor in the decline of Boris Johnson.
The only answer to all of this is the Labour party adopting a policy of building houses in the London Green Belt , why don't they do this? It is bizarre. The Green Belt is largely conservative or lib dem anyway.
Comments
Anne Appleblaum in Atlantic saying today that there is no doubt something happened in Kremlin last night such that he pulled the 8pm scheduled national TV appearance and had to do it in the morning.
Is an interesting demo of actually how you’d use a to nuke on a battlefield. Compete with a real, live nuke going off.
At 1kt yield, the majority of energy given off will be prompt radiation. Lethal dose for a few hundred yards. Outside that it’s just a biggish bang.
Great if you can catch a tank battalion in that radius. Otherwise you kill an Hangul of vehicles and a company of troops to become an international pariah.
An unusual position for a Tory to take!
The hard part about doing propaganda is that the past changes so quickly you have no idea what will happen yesterday.
https://twitter.com/DarthPutinKGB/status/1572532099181318144?cxt=HHwWgMDQmZrn4NIrAAAA
Privileged Muscovites prefer Ukrainians be murdered by some illiterate private from Yoshkar-Ola.
https://twitter.com/MelaniePodolyak/status/1572659641221521409
1) Kwasi Kwarteng, chancellor
“UK has no gas supply issues. And even if we lifted the fracking moratorium tomorrow, it would take up to a decade to extract sufficient volumes – and it would come at a high cost for communities and our precious countryside.”
1/8. Putin’s speech demonstrates that Russia is losing. Given casualties and desertions, Putin wants bodies in occupied Ukraine to defend against Ukrainian counter-offensives. That’s pretty much it.
https://twitter.com/timothydsnyder/status/1572573842115301378
I can't really agree with you regarding the train and track ownership - the UK may have introduced this rule (along with the stupid rule about not feeding chickens leftover food), but it was adopted and enforced at a European level. This principle arguably wrecked the UK's rail privatisation, and I can't see any reason for keeping it as a rule.
I don't disagree that the list is not an earth-shattering one, but even 'small beer' is something.
“even if you were extracting more right now…the price that's going to be generated is going to be the international wholesale gas price.
“idea that…that will impact the price of wholesale gas internationally, I don't think that is realistic”
3) Simon Clarke, levelling-up secretary:
“Gas is certainly preferable to coal but I don’t expect fracking to be a big supplier in the UK”
https://twitter.com/PickardJE/status/1572688305866555395
More power to the protestors.
A £100bn deficit at a time when debt is being deflated by £200bn cuts debt to GDP, it doesn't increase it. Debt financing is going up because of inflation, but debt deflation is happening because of inflation too, and that has been omitted from the IFS report, even while counting the debt servicing costs. Idiots. 🤦♂️
“I want to place on record my complete and absolute opposition to exploratory drilling, which may lead to fracking, in the North East Derbyshire constituency and particularly at this particular site near Marsh Lane”
A broader draft would clearly include many anti-war types. But plenty of them, and others not entirely gung-ho for a go at the Ukrainians, would be (relatively) happy to end up in the logistics chain or in other non-combat jobs.
Which by definition (or rather in theory) would help in process of combing out personnel (current & new soldiers) from support roles and sending them to the front.
In theory.
I think she is arguing that these people all support the war and want Ukraines all to be killed but they don't want to do the work themselves.
US students didn't support the war and didn't want to be killed.
In the five years before the recession at the start of the 90s, debt to GDP had fallen by 16%. It then rose for a few years, as tends to happen over a cycle when there's a recession, but it rose to a lower peak than it had been.
In the five years before the GFC, debt to GDP had increased by 7%. Unprecedented and incredible to increase debt to GDP before a recession, and meant we were extremely vulnerable to it getting smashed out of control when it happened, Gordon Brown reversing in one swoop sixty years of debt management.
Truss has the same plan.
Everyone else pretty buggered though.
At this point, I will vote for literally any party - Labour, Lib Dem, Tory, Green, Reform, Monster Raving Loony, even the Natural Law Party or UKIP if either of them are still around, if they stand on a five word manifesto - "We will build more houses".
I have friends living in AirBnBs because they can't even find anywhere to rent any more.
It is no longer merely the elephant in the room, it is the whole stampede.
AND note that serious US anti-war protests involving students began in 1964. Took another FOUR years to escalate to level of 1968 Democratic Convention protests. AND it wasn't until 1973 that the last US combat troops left Vietnam.
But no doubt that "draft beer, not students" was a POWERFUL anti-war message.
If you don't want to be in disrepute, stop pretending that Brown didn't trash the finances. Stop trying to pretend that debt to GDP doesn't matter.
When Russian trolls make false claims here, they get called out. When you and @OnlyLivingBoy make false and disreputable claims like claiming that Brown increasing debt-to-GDP by 7% in the five years pre-crash is comparable to Thatcher cutting debt-to-GDP by 16% in the five years pre-crash, its not my pointing out your nonsense that makes you disreputable, its the fact you're being disreputable.
https://twitter.com/AnushkaAsthana/status/1572693191287279617
Plus college students - or FORMER students - who actually got drafted had MUCH reduced odds of ending up in combat against their inclination, than non-college draftees. Most definitely a significant socio-economic divide.
(Who, to be fair has changed his position in recent years: "Decades of fire suppression and lack of indigenous fire ecology can contribute to dense forests with a lot of understory 'fuel' and many dead standing trees.[83][84] When a forest fire eventually does occur, the increased fuel creates a crown fire, which destroys all vegetation and affects surface soil chemistry. Although such fires have been occurring sporadically for 100 million years, and are part of the natural ecological rhythm of forests, frequent and small 'natural' ground fires do prevent the accumulation of fuel and allow large, slow-growing vegetation (e.g. trees) to survive.")
Mogg I'm unsure about - is he also out to destroy the Tories or is he just stupid?
Yes the Tories were running a surplus before the early 1990s recession. Because they created an artificial boom via terrible policy making, which temporarily boosted tax revenues then crashed the economy amid inflation and sky high interest rates, leaving millions unemployed or in negative equity. A home grown recession. Yet you present this as some kind of triumph.
Yes, debt to GDP rose moderately in the early 2000s. It is true that the UK escaped recession during this period, unlike the US. And growth was a lot stronger than in the Euro Area too. But there were significant global headwinds, and the weakness of the outlook is evident in the fact that the BOE cut interest rates significantly. In this context of weaker growth it isn't surprising that the debt to GDP ratio went up a bit. And this timely fiscal loosening arguably helped the UK economy grow more strongly through this weak patch in the global cycle. Ultimately, the debt to GDP ratio rose from 34% of GDP in 2001 to 40% in 2006. Still well below the 43% that Labour inherited in 1997 (under the Tories it had risen from 28% in 1991). Meanwhile the structural fiscal deficit in 2006 was 3.6%, similar to the level seen throughout the 1980s and much smaller than the level seen in the early 1990s.
I'm sorry, but there is simply no evidence to support your assertion that fiscal policy under the last Labour government was unprecedented or disastrous. It was entirely typical of postwar UK governments, not great, but not terrible, and will most likely appear a paragon of fiscal rectitude compared to what we are about to see - and which you will no doubt cheerlead relentlessly.
Putin will like it if the Baltic states really are refusing to allow entry to male Russian citizens between the ages of 18 and 45 or whatever the ages are.
You call Russians "dumb fucks" but I wonder how many would stare at their TV screens all day long at a tsar's funeral if a tsar were head of state in Russia.
As for getting an army in by stealth, I thought that was still the NATO governments' line on how Russia did get its forces into Ukraine. Little green men and hybrid warfare and stuff. ("Hybrid warfare" being a particularly stupid term that I am glad to see the back of.)
1991 was a recession so of course it had increased from that, increasing from a recession is how the economic cycle works, but it had fallen by 16% pre-recession as opposed to being increased pre-recession like Brown did. 🤦♂️
The chart here shows an unreleased poll from last Monday which had Labour on 46%, their highest polling figure since July 2017, before this week's return to 42%.
20 point lead incoming
Northern Ireland.
Despite our jokes about politicians that is actually pretty rare.
Never forget, Boris did not trust him with a real job.
https://www.politico.com/news/2022/09/21/primary-meddlers-trump-millions-campaign-finance-reports-00058027
. . . .
Primary meddling revealed
Super PACs from both parties dove into the final round of primary contests to boost their preferred nominees in key congressional races. In one case, it was a Democratic group boosting its preferred opponent. But the funding behind these efforts was a mystery — until this week.
House Majority PAC, Democrats’ flagship House super PAC, funded a group that jumped into the Sept. 13 GOP contest to challenge Rep. Annie Kuster (D-N.H.). The super PAC made a $125,000 contribution on Aug. 25 to Democrats Serve, another super PAC that backs Democrats with public service backgrounds. That group ran nearly $570,000 in TV ads boosting Bob Burns, a far-right Republican who opposes abortion rights, over moderate GOP Mayor George Hansel, who was backed by Republican Gov. Chris Sununu.
House Majority PAC only had to disclose contributions made during the month of August on this reporting deadline, so it’s possible the super PAC seeded Democrats Serve with even more money in early September. Another connection to the race: Abby Curran Horrell, House Majority PAC’s executive director, was previously a top aide to Kuster.
Meanwhile, a GOP group that played in New Hampshire in favor of Hansel, American Liberty Action PAC, received funding from two lesser-known groups on the right that have been active in 2022 primaries.
American Liberty Action PAC got $1.6 million from the Eighteen Fifty Four Fund, a group formed by Kevin McLaughlin, a former National Republican Senatorial Committee executive director, that has tried to stymie far-right candidates in GOP primaries. American Liberty Action PAC also nabbed a $2.6 million transfer from American Prosperity Alliance, a group incorporated in May that lists Parker Poling, the 2020 National Republican Congressional Committee executive director, as a member of its board, according to OpenSecrets.
American Liberty Action PAC also spent in August GOP primaries to successfully block two controversial Republican candidates: Carl Paladino, a congressional hopeful in New York whose past comments include praising Adolf Hitler on the radio, and Anthony Sabatini, a MAGA-aligned state representative who sought a House seat in Florida.
Trump’s PAC spent millions on legal fees — and provided no new insight on fundraising
The former president’s leadership committee did not make any contributions to Republican candidates or causes in the month of August outside of a $150,000 donation to a PAC opposing Cheney. But it did spend $3.8 million on legal fees and a bit shy of $800,000 on events and travel. The group still has $99 million cash on hand, according to its latest filing.
Save America PAC primarily does its fundraising through another group, the Save America Joint Fundraising Committee, which reports its finances on a different schedule. The joint committee did not shift any of its proceeds to Save America PAC in August, so the latter group’s monthly fundraising report does not include any information about the response generated by Trump’s massive fundraising operation in the wake of the Aug. 8 court-ordered search for classified documents at Mar-a-Lago. The joint committee has heavily cited the FBI search in fundraising appeals, and it reportedly saw a spike in donations.
Trump’s leadership PAC still has more resources on hand than either of the two parties’ national committees. As of the end of August, the Democratic and Republican National Committees collectively had $80 million in the bank: $55.8 million for the DNC and $24.2 million for the RNC.
Congressional committees raise about the same — but Senate Dems have more in the tank
The Republican and Democratic congressional committees were at near-parity in August fundraising, with the National Republican Senatorial Committee and the National Republican Congressional Committee outraising their Democratic counterparts by very narrow margins.
Both Senate committees raised about $12.6 million each. Senate Democrats’ campaign arm has significantly more money in the bank for the final stretch of the campaign — $45.8 million compared to $16 million for Republicans — giving the party more cash to move around in the final weeks of the campaign.
The House campaigns are entering the final stretch with roughly the same amount of resources. The NRCC raised $15.6 million to the DCCC’s $15.5 million, and both have nine figures in the bank: $110.7 million for Democrats, and $113.2 million for Republicans.
Good to see people protesting against the draft ANYWHERE.
Hopefully many young men in Yoshkar-Ola will take the attitude "I ain't got no quarrel with them Ukrainians. No Ukrainian ever called me an illiterate lump of dogsh*t. "
Would one and a bit million across the UK count?
Scottish Gmt has built about the equivalent, pro rata (actually 105K).
https://theferret.scot/claim-snp-delivered-105000-affordable-homes-true/
They've built more in a couple of parts of my small town than the previous Labour-LD administration across the whole of Scotland did, IIRC.
OSINTdefender
@sentdefender
Very interesting, these sort of “Numbers Stations” are used by a number of Countries around the World, but other than a few theories it is not known what their actual purpose is although it most likely is a way of communicating with Strategic Nuclear Assets around the Globe.
https://mobile.twitter.com/sentdefender/status/1572681332144087041
Priyom.org
@priyom_org
After updating to its new 4930kHz frequency last week, today the Air Horn Russian military station sent what sounds like its first actual coded message ever in 5+ years of operations on the air: https://priyom.org/media/310393/airhorn-4930.0usb-20220921-141815z-msg-bytm.ogg What did the Russian military announce this morning?...
https://mobile.twitter.com/priyom_org/status/1572626805588107264
Apologies all if I called this wrong.
WTAF? I assumed he had been put out to pasture. A google confirmed he is back in the cabinet.
Truss is clearly mad.
Clinton got a student deferment
Dubya Bush joined the National Guard, so learned to fly in Texas
Obama was too young
Trump had bone spurs
Biden had asthma.
Liz Truss is a moron, even I wouldn't have sacked Shapps, in fact I'd have him in my cabinet.
Or am I reading this wrong?
He is i/c energy and things.
https://twitter.com/PhillipsPOBrien/status/1572694988961771522
Fat lot of good it did them.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2022/09/21/liz-truss-rip-green-planning-laws-bid-kickstart-housebuilding/
Two thirds of Russians are 15-64
https://www.statista.com/statistics/271344/age-distribution-in-russia/#:~:text=In 2021, about 18.49 percent,over 65 years of age
EDIT - though objectively several other POTUS and also-rans were ahead of John McCain on "most famous vet of them all" rankings.
Such as George Washington, US Grant, Dwight Eisenhower and . . . wait for it . . . John F. Kennedy.
Assuming that source is reliable, I now find myself a fan of the SNP. Something I never thought I would hear myself saying.
As I say in my previous post, I'm pretty much of the opinion that the lack of housing is the root cause of almost everything that's wrong with the economy (I've posted several times a link to an article called "the housing theory of everything" - I won't post it again for the hundredth time).
All I want is a political party that takes the housing crisis seriously. Build more effing houses - it's that simple. If the SNP get that, then I'm a fan.
railway. They deserve some credit merely for that.
Besides, there is no great virtue in reducing the debt to GDP ratio if it is already low. One of the causes of the GFC was that globally, government debt had fallen to such low levels that there weren't enough safe assets to satisfy demand, so the private sector started creating synthetic ones by securitising and tranching US mortgages.
Labour's fiscal record wasn't great, but I am not claiming it was. I am disputing your claim that it was especially bad. It wasn't. It was entirely similar to the record of other postwar governments, until we were hit by the worst global crisis since ww2.
The UK and US are steadfast allies. 🇬🇧🇺🇸
Today, I stressed to @POTUS our commitment to win this new era against authoritarian regimes.
We stand united in the face of Putin’s appalling war and support the people of Ukraine in their fight for freedom.
https://twitter.com/trussliz/status/1572701774527471616
She may just surprise many and certainly being ahead 40% to 33% of Starmer in the red wall seats is a surprise
The war ends when Russians refuse to fight. 1917 all over again.
I doubt the Russian army will be drafting many guys in their early 60s.
On a lighter note, at least in Russia a man won't be counted as a woman just because he says he feels he is one. That said, whether a man who did self-identify as female in an effort to avoid the draft would be welcome in the army is another matter.
It is an idea that the audience like, the government take credit for it, then nothing happens to implement it, then it is forgotten, and after a couple of years then it is announced again. It has gone on like this in a pointless cycle for at least 20 years.
I don't know how such a family background would affect a man's career in the Royal Navy, but I have often thought that, in the US Navy, it might help explain McCain's rebelliousness.
Like McCain, George H. W. Bush and Donald Rumsfeld were naval aviators, one of the most dangerous jobs in the US military.
I do wonder how much the energy companies individual letters being sent to all consumers affirming the government support including the £400 discount from October, the additional £650 payments and the £600 winter fuel allowance payment to pensioners is influencing some opinion
Politico.com - Ohio GOP House candidate has misrepresented military service
Campaigning for a northwestern Ohio congressional seat, Republican J.R. Majewski presents himself as an Air Force combat veteran who deployed to Afghanistan after the 9/11 terrorist attacks.
https://www.politico.com/news/2022/09/21/ohio-gop-majewski-military-00058125
WASHINGTON — Campaigning for a northwestern Ohio congressional seat, Republican J.R. Majewski presents himself as an Air Force combat veteran who deployed to Afghanistan after the 9/11 terrorist attacks, once describing “tough” conditions including a lack of running water that forced him to go more than 40 days without a shower.
Military documents obtained by The Associated Press through a public records request tell a different story.
They indicate Majewski never deployed to Afghanistan but instead completed a six-month stint helping to load planes at an air base in Qatar, a longtime U.S. ally that is a safe distance from the fighting.
Majewski’s account of his time in the military is just one aspect of his biography that is suspect. His post-military career has been defined by exaggerations, conspiracy theories, talk of violent action against the U.S. government and occasional financial duress.
Still, thanks to an unflinching allegiance to former President Donald Trump — Majewski once painted a massive Trump mural on his lawn — he also stands a chance of defeating longtime Democratic Rep. Marcy Kaptur in a district recently redrawn to favor Republicans. . . .
This is an entirely personal view, and is far from the key criterion for choosing a PM - but perhaps that might have a bit to do with why she is doing well in the red wall.
Before concluding his speech, Zelensky called out seven countries who voted against his video address to the UN, which were Russia, Belarus, Cuba, North Korea, Eritrea, Nicaragua and Syria.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/world-62970683
Robert Jenrick tried to seriously change the planning system following orders from No.10 (Cummings) and it just led to a mutiny of Conservative MP's and was a major contributory factor in the decline of Boris Johnson.
The only answer to all of this is the Labour party adopting a policy of building houses in the London Green Belt , why don't they do this? It is bizarre. The Green Belt is largely conservative or lib dem anyway.