Off Topic Political Debate

Virtually Zero discussion of these issues at the election..... One of the main reasons I voted Green

 

It was interesting that the Greens themselves seemed to avoid talking about their environmental policies and focussed on the more mainstream things like the environment. One of my criticisms of The Green party in the past was that they never did promote their mainstream policies, so it was good for me to see it. But proposing that they would increase my NI contribution by x10 was a real eye opener and put me right off them.

 

You obviously have not read the UK Green's manifesto if you claim their proposals are not 'left way'.

increase public spending
increase personal taxation
increase corporation tax
increase other taxes on businesses

if you support the Greens you need to honest about their fiscal policies which are controversial at least, damaging to the economy at worst. You say it is not important to get every aspect correct but they cannot be taken seriously until they do. Bennett's terrible mind block interview was purely down to lack of knowledge and her homework.

 

I don't own a jet, a helicopter or famous work of art but it does not stop me knowing about them.
Trickle down is NOT a theory. It is a fact. If someone buys something expensive some of this money will go to a person less well off (generally) and so on - what is not a fact (and I am not sure it is even a theory now) is that trickle down is a means of redistributing wealth.
You cannot argue that the person who bought a very expensive sports car might have otherwise given it away to 20 joe soaps to spend. It was his money and he will decide how to spend it - now if he bought that car and as a result 20 joe soaps benefitted through commission, continuing employment etc then their money would go as you suggest. You still have not explained how people spending money does not move money around and generally ending in smaller pockets - through employment, commisions, profits etc. (Yes, I get that 20 people spending money does it faster than one).
The rich get richer is not the alternative to either trickle up or trickle down. Redistributing wealth is more of a province of the tax system.

 

What I meant by saying that the Green party is the party of 'forwards' rather than left or right is that all of the other parties appear to be 'from yesterday' as it were. They all appear to believe that there is no natural limit to growth, they all want to perpetuate a system which, if replicated Worldwide, would need the resources from 4 and a half planets. Whatever criticism you may have of the Green Party, they are the party of tomorrow and not of yesterday. Britain has the duty to reduce its Carbon emissions to about a quarter to a fifth of their present levels - actually doing this is not a 'nice to have' but is the biggest challenge of the 21st century and a duty to the next generation. The Greens may not be coming up with all the right answers but they are asking the right questions and nobody else is.

 

I have no views regarding the 'green' issues, I don't know enough about those but I do object to 'The Greens' joining an anti austerity coalition or anti Tory coalition when their fiscal policies are so flaky. Fortunately they find themselves in a relatively impotent position in parliament with only one MP.

 

As superhorns has ably demonstrated Greens are very left. They - like Plaid Cymru, SNP and Labour - formed a gang in the election debates against the right wing Tories. No problem with that but please would people on the left get out of denial. If you support anti right wing views you get described as being left wing (even if that sometimes approaches centre ground - wherever that is now). It is not a bad label or a criticism, it is just a short hand and convenient way of grouping people so we have an idea of where they may stand.
I am very concerned about global warming. It is one of the most serious issues facing the planet. However it was never going to be solved in this election - this election was about trying to get the economy growing again and creating the wealth that helps to pay for environmental and other good causes. All parties recognised this (except maybe some Greens) but had different solutions. That is why at the moment I would not vote Green - not because (economics aside) I do not think they have some very good ideas - but because this is not the time to try to solve a problem when the house is still burning.

 

Trickle down is a theory Leo just as trickle up is also one - the main difference is that the latter theory has been around for longer (because Keynesianism is the older theory) and has more history on its side. Do you think that the rebuilding of Germany after the War would have been possible without creating a situation where there were as many consumers as possible - this is what the Marshall plan was all about. If you claim something like this as fact then you need to provide some kind of backup or evidence - and the evidence suggests that the rich are getting very much richer but precious little is trickling anywhere other than off shore tax havens.

 

That the Greens, Plyd Cymru, the SNP and Labour formed a gang of any description must be the joke of the year - or did you not see some of the rhetoric passing between the SNP and Labour ? The Greens also were taking votes away from Labour and so any ideas that they were all in it together are mere fantasy.

 

OK - let me try again. I am NOT talking about "trickle down theory" - whether there still is one or not. You always adopt an intellectual approach - going for definitions and theories and delving back into history - especially world war II etc. I am talking about the real world and what actually happens when you buy something. Stop telling me what I need to do - I have no need to provide you with evidence or back up. I just open my eyes and ask you to do the same.

Watch what happens when a man buys a Rolls Royce (better than Lamborghini?). He pays money. What happens to that money? Some goes in profit which enables the car dealer to buy things including perhaps another showroom car to make more profit. Some goes into the employment of the Rolls Royce dealers staff. They all receive wages and some get commissions; the showroom rent is paid and so on and so on. Now each of those people buy things - as I said before - the guy with a big commission may go out for a meal with family and friends and "share" his good fortune around and buy his wife a lovely bunch of flowers. The florist, restaurant owner and staff now all have money they otherwise would not have. It is not theory - it is fact and if you cannot see it then no evidence anybody gives you will convince you.

You talk of evidence - yet casually talk about tax havens with no rationale or evidence whatsoever. Now stick on the example of the man buying the expensive car and tell me how I have got it wrong that other - less well off - people benefit. Notice I did not need to use the word trickle at all.

 

OK Leo I will stick to your example. Money does trickle in all directions but the debate here is whether the trickle down theory is better than the trickle up one - which of those ensures that currency flows (ie. changes hands more often). We will take the value of a Rolls Royce (though I have no idea about this price whatsoever) or any other expensive item - my theory applies that many small purchases have a better effect than one big one on the economy, because more people are involved with more points of sale. So it has a better effect on the economy if 10 people all have one hundred thousand pounds rather than the one having a million - precisely because in the first case you have 10 spenders and therefore more points of sale. The amalgamated concept is that only a spending affluent society can ensure steady growth. As I said in a previous post it is consumers who create wealth - and the better economic system is the one that has lots of consumers, rather than a few.

 

The only difference Cologne is that Leo is talking about about what happens in the real world and your alternative is god knows where.

This gets back to my previous post about discussing real issues that can be changed by debate or the untried theories spinning about in your no doubt intelligent mind.

 

Finding examples of capitalism which are based upon a Keynesian model of an affluent, spending population are not difficult to find - most, so called capitalist societies do not have the vast divisions of wealth which the UK has - look at the Scandinavian model. So, I am not talking about examples which are'god knows where' or anything 'spinning around' in my mind. If your only contributions on here involve permanent bellittlement of other people's ideas then there really is no possibility of reasonable debate here.

 

I want to know how much climate change is caused by humans. Statistics can prove anything if twisted so how do you find the real answer? The green politicians will say one thing and the others another. Some scientists say everything since 1950 is our fault which I think is wrong what about the effects of volcanoes? Others think different ideas as there are temperature cycles that need looking at. Also if one country tries really hard to cut their emission will others or will the others create more problems to fill the holes?

 

Sorry Cologne - but I am not taking part in that debate - you seem to be having this debate on your own. I could not give a fig about the economic theory of trickle up, trickle down or trickle sideways.
I have already agreed with you that the more people involved in spending a given sum of money the faster money circulates. I was talking about real life though. If one person has a million pounds then he is the one who has it. He is not going to split it ten ways. My simple point is that by spending it then it will circulate to people. I totally agree that if in the next street there are 10 people each with £100k then their money will circulate faster - we are agreeing on that. What you do not seem to see though is that in the real world there are both - and in both cases money circulates. The problem comes if they tuck it under their bed and do not spend it. Then it is not "working" money.
Now if it goes into the bank then the bankers can lend a multiple times it's value - it is the fundamental basis of the banking system - and so it is working again - but people only put money in banks if they get interest - and if I remember rightly there are some people out there who do not like the idea of people earning interest - they have this naive view that people will lend others their money without being paid for it.
It is consumers who create wealth is it? How exactly does that work? Consumers help spread wealth around but it is workers, backed by capital and assets where needed, that actually create wealth. If you buy a pint of milk that has been produced and sold beneath its cost of manufacture then as a consumer you are acutally destroying wealth.
The capitalists (so much decried by so many on here) are wealth producers - the ones who work hard and take risks and add to national product. In a Green world apparently we let people sit around idly; working only if they so choose; but we pay them a social wage anyway - actually it means they take it from hard working other people. That is why the Greens will fail because they lost touch along the way with economic reality. Nobody gets anything from nothing.

 

Leo, if you do not have consumers and a steady demand for something then you can produce until you are blue in the face but your products remain white elephants. My point is that you need a steady demand, and the ability to pay for products, spread over as wide a base of the society as possible. These are the essentials and, once in place, production will happen - even without entrepreneurs. Up to about the 80s governments worked on keeping demand stable, if necessary through government spending, and this was the right way. The rates of growth in Europe were much higher during the 50s 60s and 70s than they have been since. And by the way, before getting up on your high horse again - you were the first to use the expression `trickle down', I simply took it over.

 

Perhaps football could be used as an appropriate analogy here - ie let's view the whole industry of football, from the top to the grassroots, as society. I don't think it unreasonable to say that the industry as a whole would prosper greatly if everyone within were to benefit more from the wealth it creates - virtually each part has a reliance on the others in order to exist. As things stand, and to use an oft repeated claim, the EPL at the top is awash with money, whereas the grassroots have little if any, with many struggling to survive - and some not managing that. Below the EPL, many rely on funds trickling down to survive - and unfortunately, clubs in the EPL work towards allowing less and less to trickle down - the greed factor? IMO it would be hard to argue that should more of the money available within the game be spread around at the lower levels, the benefits would trickle up and the game would thrive.

I'm not sure that that would meet with Leo's approval though. The main stumbling block between his trickle down viewpoint and others' trickle up viewpoint appears to be that he views the act of sharing wealth around as taking from the rich what rightfully belongs to them and them alone, whereas others view a country's wealth as exactly that - belonging to the country and those within it, not something that a small percentage can lay claim to as theirs, and dole out crumbs for the rest.

 

I presume that you are talking about the basic citizens wage here at the end. Rather than simply using this as a reason for attacking the credibility of the Greens it may be informative to actually find out something about it. This would replace all existing benefits (things which are paid anyway) and would be far easier to calculate and process. The only difference to those existing benefits is that everyone would get it - even those who are working. Imagine a situation in which a worker knows that the essentials of his life are covered and that anything which he earns is then 'spending' money - what this would actually do for the morale of work, and for the economy. There are many reputable economists of all political shades who are coming to the conclusion that the increase in spending power would more than cover the costs. Though I agree to it being a dangerous risk if it didn't work - partly because it may be irreversible once implemented.

 

And imagine the effect on employers too. When mooted for Scotland, I believe the suggestion was that salary levels would stay the same, but employers would 'top up' from that 'citizen's wage' to the current salary - meaning a smaller wage bill for them, and more for them to invest/expand their businesses., and a probable increase in tax revenue for the government.