• Welcome to the ShrimperZone forums.
    You are currently viewing our boards as a guest which only gives you limited access.

    Existing Users:.
    Please log-in using your existing username and password. If you have any problems, please see below.

    New Users:
    Join our free community now and gain access to post topics, communicate privately with other members, respond to polls, upload content and access many other special features. Registration is fast, simple and free. Click here to join.

    Fans from other clubs
    We welcome and appreciate supporters from other clubs who wish to engage in sensible discussion. Please feel free to join as above but understand that this is a moderated site and those who cannot play nicely will be quickly removed.

    Assistance Required
    For help with the registration process or accessing your account, please send a note using the Contact us link in the footer, please include your account name. We can then provide you with a new password and verification to get you on the site.

Neil's systematic and concise put-downs of Barna are a thing of beauty.

Neil's (fairly obviously)an economist.Sorry, I only did Economics to "A" Level.My (first) degree was in Politics.

It's not a co-incidence, I suppose, that the "put-downs" as you call them, (I'd say they were well-argued but right-wing posts)also happen to reflect your own politics.
 
Neil's (fairly obviously)an economist.Sorry, I only did Economics to "A" Level.My (first) degree was in Politics.

It's not a co-incidence, I suppose, that the "put-downs" as you call them, (I'd say they were well-argued but right-wing posts)also happen to reflect your own politics.

Well well well #barnabluegetsitwrongagain
 
Nope. You are more qualified than I am in economics with your A Level. My degree is in physics and I am a qualified acountant (though do very little accounting).

Whats a wormhole ? And is it the Tories fault ?
 
I do wonder sometimes how much of a post you read before deciding to reply with a link from the guardian.

The strategy has clearly failed to meet the projected forecasts. We have discussed before my thoughts on the limits of growth forecasts but let's not go over that again. I do not disagree, nor can anyone, that actual GDP performance is lower than the forecast based on the fiscal strategy.

My point is that alternative strategies may not have faired any better. You are of the opinion that borrowing more money is a risk free assured path back to trend growth. I think you are wrong.

I have always said that the pace of fiscal consolidation is about right. Osborne's plan differed by 2% originally from Darling's (did you agree with the Darling plan, Barna?). Osborne then lengthened the period such that it was less ambitious than Darling's.

Whilst I agreed with the general pace I have always disagreed with some of the actual spending decisions. I would have cut taxes (either an aggressive tax cut for the lowest paid or eliminating corporation tax entirely) to be funded through more revenue spending cuts. Some of the things that are protected (aid spending, pensioner benefits, the NHS) I would have cut.

There is no evidence to suggest that borrowing more money would work. We are at the point now where every pound borrowed adds less than 10p to GDP and the interest owed on that pound just about equals what the government recovers in taxes from the extra GDP. In other words, the extra growth just about funds the extra borrowing. That trend has been heading down for some time and will soon turn negative.

You can argue that spending has been poorly directed and I would agree. Spending on infastructure that adds capacity or improves productivity will improve medium run GDP. We've discussed this before and my position is that it is a great idea but there are no such projects. Name me a major infastructure project that could be started in 3 months? It is so difficult to develop infastructure due to the burden of regulation.

You won't have read this far, Barna. No doubt you've already produced a guardian link to the thoughts of Ed Balls, but just in case, it is always worth considering the path not taken before complaining about the one you did follow.

Fossetts Farm? Surely we're owed something given that the previous government called it in only to approve it, thus delaying it by 6 months, which was long enough for the recession to start!
 
Nope. You are more qualified than I am in economics with your A Level. My degree is in physics and I am a qualified acountant (though do very little accounting).

Interestingly I have also have a friend who lives locally to me who did a degree in Physics, then became an accountant...
 
I did a degree in physics. I was an undergraduate alongside Brian Cox so I disliked him a good decade before everyone else.
 
Fossetts Farm? Surely we're owed something given that the previous government called it in only to approve it, thus delaying it by 6 months, which was long enough for the recession to start!

Good point. If only we could get the government to fund it.
 
I was in the same year as Chris Hoy at Edinburgh. I never saw him in Century 2000

I went to Bournes Green Junior School and sat next to Mark Foster most years. I also played Sunday League with him. When I started secondary school I lost touch with him until about 6 months ago when I bumped into him in the street. Turns out he had just moved in about 2 minutes up the road to me...small world...
 
Nope. You are more qualified than I am in economics with your A Level. My degree is in physics and I am a qualified acountant (though do very little accounting).

In that case I stand corrected.It also makes your knowledge of (right-wing)economics even more impressive than I'd thought.

Btw,I see even Boris has joined the ranks of Boy George's critics, as has Jim O'Neill from Goldman Sachs.



http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2013/jan/26/goldman-sachs-criticism-george-osborne-austerity
 
This why you should read something other than the Guardian. Boris said Osborne should stop using, "the language of austerity." The Guardian piece is a gross misrepresentation.

I also never thought you'd side with a senior executive from Goldman Sachs.

There is no such thing as right or left wing economics. The political economy distinction is really between how effective the State can be in delivering growth and jobs.
 
This why you should read something other than the Guardian. Boris said Osborne should stop using, "the language of austerity." The Guardian piece is a gross misrepresentation.

I also never thought you'd side with a senior executive from Goldman Sachs.

There is no such thing as right or left wing economics. The political economy distinction is really between how effective the State can be in delivering growth and jobs.

China. Discuss
 
China. Discuss

Could go either way. Empty cities, oppressive regime, massive over capacity to make goods which are becoming increasingly expensive to ship to the West.
When the people start wanting to live in a similar style to westerners they might rise up against the regime - and get shot.
 
There is no such thing as right or left wing economics. The political economy distinction is really between how effective the State can be in delivering growth and jobs.

I seem to remember from Samuelson(6th form textbook)that economics was all about "the allocation of scarce resources by the state".
However, there are most certainly right wing economists(like Milton Friedman and Friedrick Hayek)and left wing ones (like Stiglitz,Paul Krugman and Sachs).It therefore follows that there are right wing economic theories as well as left wing ones.Though I imagine you would prefer to frame the debate in terms in terms of free markteers and Kenysian(or neo-Keysian)economists and economic theories.
 
This why you should read something other than the Guardian. Boris said Osborne should stop using, "the language of austerity." The Guardian piece is a gross misrepresentation.

I also never thought you'd side with a senior executive from Goldman Sachs.

You're quite right that Boris used this phrase.But he also provided a shopping list of half a dozen or so infrastucture items for London, which involved large scale central Govt.spending(including a new London cross rail link and a new runway at Stanstead or a new airport at two other possible locations near London.).
As far as siding with the man from GS goes, I'm a pragmist when necessary.
In any case it would seem that a change of policy is on its way from July.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2013/jan/26/mark-carney-bank-england
 
I heard an anti-Royalist claim that without the extra bank holiday last year for the Queen's Jubilee we'd be out of the recession...
 
Back
Top