news & politics:discussion

[Neil]

2 minutes ago, steviewevie said:

only if meets fiscal rules

if it doesn't labour do a liz truss, can't buck the markets.

[Neil]

4 minutes ago, steviewevie said:

we'd really like to spend 28bn

probably - but not just on green stuff there's other stuff needs fixing.

[steviewevie]

1 minute ago, Neil said:

if it doesn't labour do a liz truss, can't buck the markets.

the govt set the fiscal rules, they aren't set by OBR or God or something.

[fraybentos1]

19 minutes ago, Neil said:

ask yourself - why is it being watered down?

Well we have a poster in this thread insisting repeatedly that is has not been watered down and that has been a large source of any disagreement here.

But yes glad we can confirm it obviously has been watered down.

Something about fiscal rules I imagine. You could us that to justify cutting anything though. At the end of the day Labour said this is so important we need to spend X on it and now they are backtracking.

[Neil]

9 minutes ago, fraybentos1 said:

Well we have a poster in this thread insisting repeatedly that is has not been watered down and that has been a large source of any disagreement here.

But yes glad we can confirm it obviously has been watered down.

Something about fiscal rules I imagine. You could us that to justify cutting anything though. At the end of the day Labour said this is so important we need to spend X on it and now they are backtracking.

Fiscal rules are about limited resources. How popular do you think labour would be if they spent loads (everything available for spending)on green but failed to address anything else?

They need to get the right balance and thats hard to do as a prediction cos they can't know what situation they'll inherit.

[Neil]

15 minutes ago, steviewevie said:

the govt set the fiscal rules, they aren't set by OBR or God or something.

They're a consequenceof actual happenings, like a lizz truss budget.

[steviewevie]

3 minutes ago, Neil said:

Fiscal rules are about limited resources. How popular do you think labour would be if they spent loads (everything available for spending)on green but failed to address anything else?

They need to get the right balance and thats hard to do as a prediction cos they can't know what situation they'll inherit.

yes, but this is the green new deal, an industrial strategy to grow the economy. You borrow to invest, and from that investment comes growth. That is the idea anyway.

But, problem is we already have a large debt, nearly 100% of GDP, and the cost of paying back that debt has gone up...so it is a big problem if we don't get any growth, and it is a problem if the fiscal rules restricting everything is to get debt coming down within 5 years (i.e. one term), because that will just make everything a lot harder, especially because, as you say, everything needs money. 

So, looks like Labour's promise to the country will be they really would like to do lots of nice things but can't, sorry.

Of course they could raise loads of money by taxing wealth...

[fraybentos1]

12 minutes ago, Neil said:

Fiscal rules are about limited resources. How popular do you think labour would be if they spent loads (everything available for spending)on green but failed to address anything else?

They need to get the right balance and thats hard to do as a prediction cos they can't know what situation they'll inherit.

Presumably it would come from borrowing and also it isn't throwing money away and lots of jobs would be created too.

Also for a guy with a don't fly avatar on his profile I would have thought this would be a very high priority for you

Also how is 28 billion 'everything available for spending'- the gov spends like a trillion per year 

 

 

[steviewevie]

maybe they think that investing in green stuff might be good to meet our net zero goals and good for the environment and energy security and all that, but in terms of an industrial strategy in growing the economy might not work that well? We've kind of missed the boat? and jobs wise after building all these renewable thingies they don't require the same amount of man power to maintain then as required for extracting fossil fuels?

Edited February 5, 2024 by steviewevie

[Neil]

5 minutes ago, steviewevie said:

yes, but this is the green new deal, an industrial strategy to grow the economy. You borrow to invest, and from that investment comes growth. That is the idea anyway.

But, problem is we already have a large debt, nearly 100% of GDP, and the cost of paying back that debt has gone up...so it is a big problem if we don't get any growth, and it is a problem if the fiscal rules restricting everything is to get debt coming down within 5 years (i.e. one term), because that will just make everything a lot harder, especially because, as you say, everything needs money. 

So, looks like Labour's promise to the country will be they really would like to do lots of nice things but can't, sorry.

Of course they could raise loads of money by taxing wealth...

Taxing wealth is very difficult to do cos everything would have to be valued to identify the wealth for taxing as a society we can't even keep on top of valuing houses and they're one of the easier wealth stores to put a value on.we need less pie in the sky and more thinking things thru.

[Neil]

7 minutes ago, fraybentos1 said:

Presumably it would come from borrowing and also it isn't throwing money away and lots of jobs would be created too.

Also for a guy with a don't fly avatar on his profile I would have thought this would be a very high priority for you

Also how is 28 billion 'everything available for spending'- the gov spends like a trillion per year 

 

 

So if you're alternating existing spending what are you going to cut?

[steviewevie]

4 minutes ago, Neil said:

Taxing wealth is very difficult to do cos everything would have to be valued to identify the wealth for taxing as a society we can't even keep on top of valuing houses and they're one of the easier wealth stores to put a value on.we need less pie in the sky and more thinking things thru.

well, some people much cleverer than you and I have come up with ways it can be done...I mean we already have wealth taxes, they just need improving.

[Skip997]

No surprise that Neil is essentially against taxing wealth

[fraybentos1]

5 minutes ago, Neil said:

So if you're alternating existing spending what are you going to cut?

I'm not doing anything other than pointing out that Labour have backtracked. Sorry it's not up to me to cost policy proposals for the opposition. 

They came up with the idea so they must have had some sort of plan. Also it was to do with borrowing the money to invest so nothing existing would have to be cut anyway.

[Neil]

13 minutes ago, steviewevie said:

well, some people much cleverer than you and I have come up with ways it can be done...I mean we already have wealth taxes, they just need improving.

We don't have wealth taxes just income taxes.

[Neil]

18 minutes ago, Skip997 said:

No surprise that Neil is essentially against taxing wealth

I just can't see how it ca ln be done,vgo on show me how clever you are and say how it can be done.

I'm not against wealth taxes I'm against stupidity! No surprise that skippy reckons he can do the impossible.

Edited February 5, 2024 by Neil

[Neil]

11 minutes ago, fraybentos1 said:

I'm not doing anything other than pointing out that Labour have backtracked. Sorry it's not up to me to cost policy proposals for the opposition. 

They came up with the idea so they must have had some sort of plan. Also it was to do with borrowing the money to invest so nothing existing would have to be cut anyway.

If you expect them to spend that amount in all circumstances then you have to be prepared to cut other things if there's not enough resources to do it.

[steviewevie]

6 minutes ago, Neil said:

We don't have wealth taxes just income taxes.

inheritance tax?

[fraybentos1]

3 minutes ago, Neil said:

If you expect them to spend that amount in all circumstances then you have to be prepared to cut other things if there's not enough resources to do it.

Why would they need to cut other things if the money is coming from borrowing.

Also ask Labour what they were going to cut if you're so sure that is necessary cause it was their policy in the first place Neil

[fraybentos1]

9 minutes ago, Neil said:

We don't have wealth taxes just income taxes.

wrong 

[Neil]

6 minutes ago, steviewevie said:

inheritance tax?

That's a tax on the income somone recieves from an estate and is calculated after everything has been valued. So to apply wealth taxes across the living (which is what people mean when they talk about wealth taxes) would require everyone to sell up their possessions to have a cash value that can be taxed.( If there's a mass fire sale everything is worth f**k all)

[steviewevie]

2 minutes ago, Neil said:

That's a tax on the income somone recieves from an estate and is calculated after everything has been valued. So to apply wealth taxes across the living (which is what people mean when they talk about wealth taxes) would require everyone to sell up their possessions to have a cash value that can be taxed.( If there's a mass fire sale everything is worth f**k all)

it's a tax on inherited wealth.

(well, it should be).

[Neil]

3 minutes ago, steviewevie said:

it's a tax on inherited wealth.

(well, it should be).

It's also a tax levied on the cash value of assets which requires all assets to be valued. Valuing those assets is impossible. Is my house worth the £125k I paid or the £480k that my neighbours sold for?

[Neil]

7 minutes ago, steviewevie said:

it's a tax on inherited wealth.

(well, it should be).

If someone is inheriting wealth thsts income to them.

[Neil]

End of life taxes like inheritance taxes is not what people generally mean when they talk about wealth taxes. It's normally part of a conversationaabout how theres exteme wealth and thats normally sbout the living with extreme wealth.