Quote of the day 12th August 2015

"If we don’t borrow less as the economy grows, we really will end up in the same position as Greece has. And unless you can cover current expenditure out of tax income, even the drastic option of defaulting on your debts won’t enable you to escape."

(Former Labour councillor Tal Michael in an article on Labour Uncut called

"Labour cannot return to the days of 'No compromise with the electorate.'")

Comments

Jim said…
The answer is obvious "Spend Less".

here is a chart showing public spending from 2000-2016 Last two years are estimated.

Now what is interesting is that its never fallen, since 2010 the rate at which it increases slows a lot, but it always raises, it never falls. Even after all of those so called evil cuts, we see that spending still always raises, so it tells us there have been no cuts (only cuts to increases, which are not exactly saving)

Its like saying I spend £100 per week on fuel, I was going to start spending £110 per week on it, but i'm not going to now, so I have cut back. - Of course i have not cut back any, I just never increased.

In in there lies the answer, to reduce the burden, reduce the spending. Then there is no need to borrow, which opens the possibility of repaying some of it to reduce the cost of servicing it.

Its a far better plan than "lets keep spending the same up until we get a pay rise (raised GDP and tax take) that catches up with our spending, then we will need to borrow less to spend the same"
8:04 am
Chris Whiteside said…
Perhaps if one day the idea really sinks into the minds of the media and a larger part of the electorate that "taxpayers' money" does not mean the same thing as "magic money tree" ...
3:28 pm
Jim said…
More people than you realise are aware that its not a bottomless pit, but as you rightly point out there are still a few who cant see it.

There are a few who will attend a march or a protest waving a sign saying something like "they cut, we bleed", or somthing to that effect, protesting lets say about "perceived cuts to the budget of a hospital or something" so the decision is made to increase the budget of the hospital. Which of course means for every pound the hospital budget is increased then that pound can not be spent anywhere else, so it comes from savings made in the welfare budget for example the savings made by the under occupancy charge.

before you know it the same person who was waving the banner for the hospital is now waving the same banner because of perceived cuts to welfare, with out ever stopping to think that it was his actions that asked for that very course of action to be undertaken.
4:38 pm
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