Trains, Banks and Public/Private Ownership - Prev.Predict UK Gen.Election Result

[fromtia]

Can you give me an example of a modern democracy that has been ruined specifically by welfare benefits and/or universal healthcare?

Benghazi! Clinton! Muslamofascists! politically correct liberals! supply side economics!

Am I doing this right? I'm out of practice.

[OttoVonBismarck]

I don't know that it's any more mean spirited than the sort of austerity Merkel has been pushing onto Europe for half a decade now; but I do think the Brits have gone down a path of questionable austerity. I mean there's decent evidence that America has had the economic success since 2008 that it has had in large part because we didn't go down the austerity path; and I'm not even really a Keynesian but I do think it's pretty obvious that you don't spur growth by taking money out of the pockets of working class families.

I don't think anyone ever doubted that you can use deficit financing in the short term to achieve economic success.

The USA has a nineteen trillion dollar debt, with a national deficit of just over 500 billion dollars.  Lets see how well the US does a generation from now with that kind of debt level.

Sure, unsustainable debt as a portion of GDP is bad for long term growth. The U.S. hit > 80% in 2009, in a circumstance where I consider that an appropriate action. Where we've gone bad is we crept up to >100% and have stayed there for several years, largely because Congress and the executive have never been able to agree on any sort of reasonable tax increase.

I mean I don't think I of all people need to sell my conservative credentials, but I think faced with the set of situations we have had the last 8 years the reasonable approach would have been to do the sort of stimulative spending we did in 2008-2010, then start to dial it back (we basically did this to a degree--after the sequester discretionary spending really hasn't been out of hand in my opinion), but at the same time we needed to levy reasonably higher taxes on the very wealthy. I think there's several reasonable proposals politicians have made:

1. Capping total deductions at some relatively high (for normal earners) level, like $50,000.
2. "The Buffet" rule, which taxes all income, regardless of source, over $1,000,000 AGI/yr at the top marginal tax rate (which would be in the 40% range.)
3. Higher-tax brackets for the ultra-rich (i.e. a new bracket that starts t like $10,000,000 AGI etc.)

I mean I don't ever want us back to the era when the highest bracket was 90%, but I mean I think it takes a special kind of supply-side imbecile to think it makes sense for the ultra-wealthy to be able to shield the vast majority of their income not only from the top tax rate, but from the next one down, at 15% tax rate many of the wealthiest Americans are paying a rate that is pretty similar to the rates a middle income person would pay. There's tons of evidence we could've actually had the stimulative spending we had, but kept debt to GDP under control while we did so if we had been able to correct some of the long-run stupidity we've been peddling about why rich people need to pay a very small percentage tax burden.

I think extremely high rates do, actually suppress revenues and hurt economic growth, lead to capital flight etc. Stuff like Hollande's 75% tax rate for the ultra wealthy or the crazy Swedish taxes that sometimes went over 100% are absurd. The very richest Americans actually paying like 40-45% of their income in tax, is pretty damn reasonable.

Long term I'm a lot more concerned about our absolute unwillingness to reform the big entitlement programs (which is the big growth element in our current Federal spending), than I am the current debt to GDP ratio, though. No matter how rosy our debt picture right now, we don't do something about those entitlement programs we're going to be in trouble. We've realized this before and made changes, but we've been refusing to do so now for a very long time.

[OttoVonBismarck]

The problem with Sanders/Corbyn style bribe policies isn't that they can't win elections, but that many countries have already tried them and had to reform them 20-30 years later. It's weird some people want to ignore that history.

It's not a bribe.
It's rational thinking on what is best for the country. Many many labour voters are to be found in situations where they don't stand to get much in the way of  the promised "free stuff".
That's the difference between labour and the Conservatives.
The tories think for today. How can they win the next election. How can they setup more opportunities for business to leech from the public purse.
Labour think of the bigger picture. They look to the long term. What effect is this inequality having? How does the future look if we continue on this course?

It is a bribe when you're telling people they shouldn't have to make say, minor tuition payments (I find Britain's super reasonable), or alluding to renationalizing things and etc. Those are indeed a form of bribe, and are bad policy.

[Solmyr]

It is a bribe when you're telling people they shouldn't have to make say, minor tuition payments (I find Britain's super reasonable), or alluding to renationalizing things and etc. Those are indeed a form of bribe, and are bad policy.

Britain, minor tuition payments? What?

I see no scenario in which restricting access to healthcare and education based on ability to pay is a good thing.

[Agelastus]

It is a bribe when you're telling people they shouldn't have to make say, minor tuition payments (I find Britain's super reasonable), or alluding to renationalizing things and etc. Those are indeed a form of bribe, and are bad policy.

Britain, minor tuition payments? What?

I see no scenario in which restricting access to healthcare and education based on ability to pay is a good thing.

Here is a page explaining tuition fee and maintenance fee loan repayments -

http://www.moneysavingexpert.com/students/student-loans-tuition-fees-changes

And while higher education applications did fall last year - it did not fall among the age 18 age group despite this group being 1% smaller than the previous year (which actually means a higher proportion of this group applied.)

https://www.ucas.com/corporate/news-and-key-documents/news/applicants-uk-higher-education-down-5-uk-students-and-7-eu-students

[Josquius]

Caught up with a Northern Irish friend today.
Interesting point re the ConDups ; this could be a breach of the Good Friday Agreement where the UK government guaranties neutrality.

Shame there's no Northern Irish opposition to raise this.
Bloody Sinn Fein.

[AnchorClanker]

Caught up with a Northern Irish friend today.
Interesting point re the ConDups ; this could be a breach of the Good Friday Agreement where the UK government guaranties neutrality.

Shame there's no Northern Irish opposition to raise this.
Bloody Sinn Fein.

I heard the same on NPR - they had interviewed a professor from the University of Cardiff who said much the same thing.

[Josquius]

The problem with Sanders/Corbyn style bribe policies isn't that they can't win elections, but that many countries have already tried them and had to reform them 20-30 years later. It's weird some people want to ignore that history.

It's not a bribe.
It's rational thinking on what is best for the country. Many many labour voters are to be found in situations where they don't stand to get much in the way of  the promised "free stuff".
That's the difference between labour and the Conservatives.
The tories think for today. How can they win the next election. How can they setup more opportunities for business to leech from the public purse.
Labour think of the bigger picture. They look to the long term. What effect is this inequality having? How does the future look if we continue on this course?

It is a bribe when you're telling people they shouldn't have to make say, minor tuition payments (I find Britain's super reasonable), or alluding to renationalizing things and etc. Those are indeed a form of bribe, and are bad policy.

You've missed what I wrote.
Labour's manifesto promised to make very sensible investments in the future of the country such as nationalising the railways and reducing tuition fees.
The people who stand to benefit most from all this extra "free stuff", as the right likes to put it, are the very poor....

Yet all signs suggest in the collection the poor and ignorant increasingly tend towards voting for Conservative flag waving over the party that wants to make their lives better.
The young voted labour which you might think is down to bribing them with reduced tuition.... but this is irrelevant to most young voters, it won't affect us, it's our successors that we're thinking about.
Do you really think Kensington, one of the richest parts of the world, flipped to Labour because they were bribed?

[Admiral Yi]

Now we're calling nationalizations "investments" too?  Is there any kind of public spending that isn't an "investment?"

[Tamas]

Now we're calling nationalizations "investments" too?  Is there any kind of public spending that isn't an "investment?"

Taxpayers paying for Tyr's stuff: investment.

[Josquius]

Taxpayers paying for Tyr's stuff: investment.

We already pay for stuff.
A decent chunk of what we pay for we don't get however, it is instead siphoned off to private companies profit reports and foreign governments.

Now we're calling nationalizations "investments" too?  Is there any kind of public spending that isn't an "investment?"

As opposed to selling off government property to private companies for some quick cash?
Yes.

[Admiral Yi]

A decent chunk of what we pay for we don't get however, it is instead siphoned off to private companies profit reports and foreign governments.

wut?

As opposed to selling off government property to private companies for some quick cash?
Yes.

Your argument for why nationalization be described as an "investment" is that when they were privatized, the government made some money?  I don't follow your logic.

[Josquius]

A decent chunk of what we pay for we don't get however, it is instead siphoned off to private companies profit reports and foreign governments.

wut?

As opposed to selling off government property to private companies for some quick cash?
Yes.

Your argument for why nationalization be described as an "investment" is that when they were privatized, the government made some money?  I don't follow your logic.

It's pretty simple logic.
Invest money into improving services in the long term vs. making a quick short term profit off them and putting them in the hands of a body whose primary motivation is profit not service.


Also not sure what you don't get in the first part.
This is well known stuff.
The government still spends a significant amount on rail subsidies yet:
http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/2015/08/18/foreign-state-owned-railway-british-train-companies-revenue_n_8003970.html

[Tamas]

Not that there's any point in trying to convince you, but what you forget is that a publicly owned service is also run by the same human beings as private ones, with the same motivations. Except, the concentration on short term personal benefits instead of concerns for long term suitability are far more prominent. Why? Because a publicly owned service have no upper limit to the costs it is able to bear, and it faces no possible competition to be worried about efficiency, or level of service.

[Josquius]

Not that there's any point in trying to convince you, but what you forget is that a publicly owned service is also run by the same human beings as private ones, with the same motivations. Except, the concentration on short term personal benefits instead of concerns for long term suitability are far more prominent. Why? Because a publicly owned service have no upper limit to the costs it is able to bear, and it faces no possible competition to be worried about efficiency, or level of service.

I'm tempted to let my mother who works in a school answer this one....
State owned bodies have budgets to deal with too. There's not somehow an unlimited pot of money just because they're working directly for the government rather than having to deal with a middle man trying to skim off as much as he can.

The competition argument is utter bullshit.
I need to take a train from Newcastle to Carlisle; there's only one sensible line to go on, where the trains are operated by a single franchise. Where's the competition? There's only a few rail routes in the world these days where you have real competition.
When dealing with core infrastructure like this privatisation is just ideologically driven idiocy.