Off Topic Politics Thread

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TheSecondStain said:
No, I quite understand that Archers, but that's how the Labour Party are being portrayed and that's the choice people are making. My eldest brother asked me earlier this evening how I could vote for a party that would give up our nuclear deterrent option [Corbyn's values]. Well, I find that I can, as it doesn't want to give up on governing for the vast majority of its people. Besides, Germany have done well enough, without a nuclear deterrent, I would suggest.
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You could turn that around and ask how anyone could vote for a party that is about to reduce our army to it's lowest numbers since the Napoleonic wars.
Or who left us without an aircraft carrier, to help defend our island, and support our dependencies.
And don't get me started on the lack of police officers.

Should the U.K. be involved in wars or conflicts, in the future, they are more likely (one imagines) to be land, sea or air based and not nuclear.
The so called nuclear deterrent amounts to nothing, because should Putin decide that he wants to obliterate the UK, then that is that. We will be dust, whether or not our PM presses the button.


And just think of how much good any money saved by not upgrading our nuclear "deterrent" (several billion) could be put to, in other areas.
 
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ImpSaint said:
I am not saying it is doing well. I am saying it is doing well compared to other Western democracies. The world isn't doing too well and if everybody isn't doing too well then it is much harder to achieve good growth.

My point is that we have done better than virtually all Western democracies since the crash in terms of growth. Germany is still talked about as "the pinnacle" yet we have outperformed them growthwise and if the forecasts are right they will only match us in 2018 and not this year either.
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I find it amazing that we go on and on about growth as if it is a good thing. Growth is unsustainable and is the result of the economics we so ardently follow. Really, what we need to do is raise productivity through creativity and innovation; growth is temporary and unsustainable and the major issue with modern society.

All economic models are simply models yet we follow them blindly and say that they are good for the economy (usually the wealthy). Yet the weather forecast is also a model and if it is raining outside yet the forecast predicts sun we don't forgo our umbrella!
 
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St Badger said:
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The so called nuclear deterrent amounts to nothing, because should Putin decide that he wants to obliterate the UK, then that is that. We will be dust, whether or not our PM presses the button.

.
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Mmm I'm no political expert and this is not a political or pro nuclear comment whatsoever, but doesn't the above statement overlook the whole point of the word "deterrent" ??
 
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fatletiss said:
Mmm I'm no political expert and this is not a political or pro nuclear comment whatsoever, but doesn't the above statement overlook the whole point of the word "deterrent" ??
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You are confusing the idea of "deterrent" with the idea of a "toy", which is a beautiful thing people.
 
Archers Road said:
Not much point outperforming other economies if only the already wealthy are benefitting, which appears to be the case at the moment.

Stagnating wages, rising house prices, & now a falling pound pushing up inflation.

We have nurses forced to use food banks, we have libraries and swimming pools closing, schools laying off teachers. We have a workforce more insecure and worse paid after 7 years of this very slowly growing GDP, so who is the economy serving?
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We agree on this. What we don;t agree on is the cause. You blame the Tories. I blame globalisation. Globalisation is pushing the money upward, facilitated by all western governments. Legal corruption if you like. The EU being the most open in doing so with it's 2 head men being fully behind it in government and yet supposedly against it now.

GLobalisation is the cover for this diversion of money up the tree and the Tories and Blair's labour are guilty of facilitation. That is why it is even more unbelievable that the French just fell for Macron. Keep Le Pen out but not another banker globalist.

We can't keep borrowing to make up for what the globalists suck up the chain and even if we do spend for a few years more there will be a point where it has to stop. When will people realise that globalisation is sold to people as being a free, open border, cuddly teddies and roses thing when the reality is that it is all about money and power and more of our taxes going up the tree? We can;t keep borrowing without sorting out the globalist part which only benefits those that are middle earning and above quite literally by hammering those below.

The irony being that those with 2 jobs and 2 cars and a mortgage go on telly to be "the voice of the working class" without having a clue. The middle are doing nicely because the cost of living for those in the middle has come down. food, clothes, everything else as a result of globalisation has not increased in a decade meaning those in the middle are doing quite nicely. They seem not to notice WHY their cost of living hasn't risen too much.

I think if you ask most people they want all these things that have been cut "not to be cut" but then how else can we reduce the deficit / pay a little of the debt back if half of society protects the very machine that is depriving governments of funds?

Globalisation is the reason and we can't borrow forever.
 
St Badger said:
That really was shocking.
On the other side of the coin, the government added £52 billion to the national debt, last year, after previously saying they would clear the debt by now.
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Not sure about that. Cameron and Osborne made those promises and neither is an MP any longer. May and Hammond have different ideas and priorities and I think that will become clearer as more time passes.

If the Conservatives win seats in places like Stoke, Wales and the other parts of the north I'm pretty sure there will be something of a move to the left on the economy and perhaps a more conservative (small c) approach on social issues.

On the issue of borrowing, I saw Michael Portillo make an interesting point on TV last week. He considers government borrowing to be essentially regressive. Why? Well, when the government borrows it does so by issuing bonds. Tax money is eventually used to pay the interest. Who benefits here? Those rich enough to buy bonds in the first place of course. Fairly obvious but not something I'd particularly thought about before.
 
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ChilcoSaint said:
And if the Tories get back in, the amount spent on the NHS will drop to 6.7% of the GDP, currently around 8%. That would mean we spend less on the health of our population than any other developed country in the world. Shameful.
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When we know half the money in the GDP system is imaginary money for Davos why are we using spending per GDP? Should it not be per capita?

Then you have to see that while we are low per capita what comes into the equation is that other countries have far higher private proportion in those costs which skews things when we have a "not for profit" national health service that supposedly makes things cheaper.

So if the NHS does mean our healthcare is cheaper surely our £4k is worth someone else's £6k?

The if you look at the per capita figures we have increased our healthcare spending per capita substantially from £3192 in 2012 to £4003 in 2015. That is almost a 33% increase in 3 years.

So the question has to be asked how much our spending would cost in another country's healthcare system seeing as we have the NHS there to "keep costs down" with them not being private.

This % of GDP means nothing. IF you have 10 people in a country but the country has a high GDP then obviously healthcare is going to be 0.00000%

per capita is closer to normal and we are far from spending less "than any other developed country in the world" unless everybody to the right of us in this graph is "not developed."

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It doesn't address the issue that we have an NHS which is supposed to mean that our healthcare costs less than countries with mostly a private sector and if we are struggling to spend less while we do have an NHS then what is the point of the NHS?
 
ImpSaint said:
When we know half the money in the GDP system is imaginary money for Davos why are we using spending per GDP? Should it not be per capita?

Then you have to see that while we are low per capita what comes into the equation is that other countries have far higher private proportion in those costs which skews things when we have a "not for profit" national health service that supposedly makes things cheaper.

So if the NHS does mean our healthcare is cheaper surely our £4k is worth someone else's £6k?

The if you look at the per capita figures we have increased our healthcare spending per capita substantially from £3192 in 2012 to £4003 in 2015. That is almost a 33% increase in 3 years.

So the question has to be asked how much our spending would cost in another country's healthcare system seeing as we have the NHS there to "keep costs down" with them not being private.

This % of GDP means nothing. IF you have 10 people in a country but the country has a high GDP then obviously healthcare is going to be 0.00000%

per capita is closer to normal and we are far from spending less "than any other developed country in the world" unless everybody to the right of us in this graph is "not developed."

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It doesn't address the issue that we have an NHS which is supposed to mean that our healthcare costs less than countries with mostly a private sector and if we are struggling to spend less while we do have an NHS then what is the point of the NHS?
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That's a completely meaningless argument. As I said, we currently spend around 8% of our GDP, and the Tories have promised to cut that to 6.7% by 2020. That's less. Less money on healthcare. LESS!

Understand now?
 
OddRiverOakWizards said:
I find it amazing that we go on and on about growth as if it is a good thing. Growth is unsustainable and is the result of the economics we so ardently follow. Really, what we need to do is raise productivity through creativity and innovation; growth is temporary and unsustainable and the major issue with modern society.

All economic models are simply models yet we follow them blindly and say that they are good for the economy (usually the wealthy). Yet the weather forecast is also a model and if it is raining outside yet the forecast predicts sun we don't forgo our umbrella!
Click to expand...

Completely agree but when everybody else is arguing about growth then I am answering what is put there. The liberal media are obsessed by growth. Watch BBC News and it will not be able to get through half an hour without talking about growth. That is what the narrative is. They aren't bothered that we're all sandwich makers and coffee servers these days. As long as the top boys can keep on with their globalisation and not paying taxes. GROWTH.
 
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