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Scotland's 15.1 Billion Defecit


Terry_Tibbs

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On 05/09/2020 at 19:02, MixuFruit said:

Devomax as a cause to get behind failed I think mostly because the memory of Iraq still loomed large in people's minds. That's probably less of an overriding concern these days but given the UK government we have, I think anything of that sort just can't be trusted with these kind of people. 

Yeah, Iraq did destroy much of the trust in New Labour and the lack of preparedness for the financial crisis seemed to finish them off.

But - they did deliver the initial devolution settlement and participated in the next iterations of devolution, so I would still trust them from that perspective.

And it's not like Scottish Labour have too many stand-out, eh, 'selling points' right now, so maybe revive devo max and see what that does for them.

Where's "bring it on" Wendy when you need her?

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6 hours ago, D.A.F.C said:

More than 0.25% interest rate on savings would be a good start.

Im just being daft, can I not have some banter?

I do wonder where all this borrowing will end though, it can’t be good and I do get that we can’t default and that borrowing can be good somehow but it all seems like printing money on the back of nothing. I’ll never understand why it’s good.

Why not build 1000s of schools and hospitals then?

You can open a Santander 123 account and get 0.6% on the first £20k. Plus money back on your direct debits.

Or you can stick up to £50k in premium bonds and with average luck make 1%

Better idea is to have a diverse portfolio of investment trusts and you should be making at least 8% over the long term. (Not if you'd stuck money in just before the collapse at the star of this year obviously)

 

 

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23 hours ago, Thistle_do_nicely said:

i'm not quite as much of an economics expert as top boi Varoufakis - i've always assumed that the main problem with a household budget analogy is that a country has to think competitively with other nations. So if other countries (especially if they're nearby geographically) are going into debt in order to fund infrastructure such as broadband or travel links and you aren't, then you might have a bit of trouble attracting private investment down the line/retaining current private investment.

There's also that whole thing of "if you owe the bank £1 it's your problem, if you owe them £1,000,000,000,000 then it's the banks problem". Could try to control inflation if you really need to but afaik there's a broad consensus that INFLATION BAD

It's also to do with what economists call 'multiplier effects', whereby any investment the government makes creates jobs, which enable people to pay the money back into government coffers via taxes, and more people in work means they have more money to buy stuff, more firms employ folk as a consequence, more firms and more people in work means more tax revenue for the government, and so on.

Gordon Brown understood this, but built a whoppingly large public sector on the tax revenues that he assumed would always be there. Then - financial crisis, fewer jobs, less tax revenues, huge overhanging public sector expenses.

David Cameron failed to understand about multiplier effects, cut too many jobs too quickly using the 'household budget' analogue as an excuse, and we had a longer and deeper recession than necessary; only the Bank of England keeping interest rates so low for so long prevented a depression, as low interest rates encouraged people and firms to spend and invest, despite Osborne (Cyril Sneer?) 's economically illiterate policies.

In my opinion. Ahem. Sorry about the sermon.

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16 hours ago, D.A.F.C said:

Government borrowing for the benefit of the country is ok and I can see the benefits of it but atm government and personal borrowing is out of control somewhat.

https://neweconomics.org/2018/10/a-government-is-not-a-household

I mean if you don't agree with what's already been said by others or the video of the bold Yaris then this is maybe a waste of time, but this explains the concepts pretty well. It's scary to hear the quote about the pyramids but there is almost zero reason to be concerned. Again, the bailiffs aren't going to turn up at the White Cliffs and demand the UK give its sofa back. An interesting quote from the article:

But the irony is that the UK’s national debt is actually low in comparison to historical standards. We also have a globally unique method for measuring public finance which is biased against public investment. If Germany was to use our measurements, its government debt would be twice as large as ours.

 

Edited by Genuine Hibs Fan
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On 05/09/2020 at 19:56, Thistle_do_nicely said:

i'm not quite as much of an economics expert as top boi Varoufakis - i've always assumed that the main problem with a household budget analogy is that a country has to think competitively with other nations. So if other countries (especially if they're nearby geographically) are going into debt in order to fund infrastructure such as broadband or travel links and you aren't, then you might have a bit of trouble attracting private investment down the line/retaining current private investment.

There's also that whole thing of "if you owe the bank £1 it's your problem, if you owe them £1,000,000,000,000 then it's the banks problem". Could try to control inflation if you really need to but afaik there's a broad consensus that INFLATION BAD

The main problem with the "household budget" analogy has nothing to do with competition between countries (and the "crowding out" argument is balanced out by the "crowding in" argument, almost as if investment decisions in the real world depend on more than just government debt policy). The main problem with it is that it is total nonsense - government income and expenditure are linked, so a cut to government spending also decreases its own income. 

National, public, debt is not comparable to personal, private, debt and if you read comments from someone comparing the two, feel free to file such comments in the bin.

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On 06/09/2020 at 19:39, RabidAI said:

Yeah, Iraq did destroy much of the trust in New Labour and the lack of preparedness for the financial crisis seemed to finish them off.

But - they did deliver the initial devolution settlement and participated in the next iterations of devolution, so I would still trust them from that perspective.

Never forget, though, that devolution was an act of political expediency; and was constructed to frustrate independence. Blair recently said that if it hadn't arrived, Scotland would be independent by now. But as with lots of things – financial crisis, Iraq – they hadn't thought out the consequences of their actions.

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On 26/08/2020 at 16:43, Beth Paige-Black said:

There's many parts of GERS that can be tidied up by even a simple google search.   

Fuel Duties total £28 Billion pound per year.   8% of this is attributed to Scotland =  £2.24 billion.  

But Scots drive more miles that the UK average.   

'Department for Transport, shows that cars travelled an average of 7,134 miles in 2017'

According to the MOT data, analysed by the pay-per-mile insurance company 
By Miles, cars in Scotland are driven furthest. Vehicles tested in Scotland topped the table at 8,202 miles a year, while cars in south-west London notched up the least, travelling 5,345 miles a year on average.

If Scots are driving around 15% more miles we need another 0.2-0.3 billion additional fuel duties allocated to GERS.  

What about the disparity in price. 

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  • 11 months later...

Several key concepts out mainstream media and the usual nuggets never seem to quite get:

1) The meaning of the term "notional"...

2) The phrase "whilst within the UK"

3) The phrase "does not purport to represent the future economy of an independent Scotland."

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Hard to see how anyone could get worked up about a notional applied deficit which will be significantly lower than the amount Rishi has lost/given away to his pals in fraud over the last year. But gosh won't it be fun watching folks of a certain persuasion somehow manage to get themselves into a self-loathing froth anyway because The Queen/Rangers*.

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Several key concepts out mainstream media and the usual nuggets never seem to quite get:
1) The meaning of the term "notional"...
2) The phrase "whilst within the UK"
3) The phrase "does not purport to represent the future economy of an independent Scotland."
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Too much detail, three word slogans only, please.
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I always thought this was a strange cause for the unionists. Basically they're saying that, within the UK, Scotland is running at a significant deficit. Surely this means that Scotland is not doing well within the union, and might perform better unshackled from the corpse of the the rUK?

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2 hours ago, Jeff Venom said:
3 hours ago, git-intae-thum said:
Several key concepts out mainstream media and the usual nuggets never seem to quite get:
1) The meaning of the term "notional"...
2) The phrase "whilst within the UK"
3) The phrase "does not purport to represent the future economy of an independent Scotland."
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

Too much detail, three word slogans only, please.

Get Indy2 Done?

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