Who DO (Trump and Vance) think they are?

The same goes for other sides, judging by the repeat posts on gn🤣

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Definition of Ad hominem:
When the argument/debate being made by one party is so weak they feel the only way to defend it is by verbally attacking the opposition on their character,physical attributes or any other personal details.

MaizieD

David49

The fact remains that, IF we really believe Russia is a threat we need to spend at least double the amount we do now, which will mean taxes go up a lot.

No they won't.

Did taxes 'go up a lot' when the government spent £37 billion on the covid pandemic?

They didn't because the government borrowed most of the money from other entities and now a huge tranche of our tax revenue is paid to them

I quote from The Office of Budget Responsibility Debt interest spending reached a post-war high of £111.6 billion in 2022-23, or 4.4 per of GDP, as inflation reached a 40-year high and interest rates surged. While debt interest spending has since fallen from this record, it is forecast to remain at historically elevated levels over the next five years.

Perhaps taxes should have gone up a bit during the COVID pandemic then we might have £10 or £20 billion available to spend on defence.

M0nica

MaizieD

David49

The fact remains that, IF we really believe Russia is a threat we need to spend at least double the amount we do now, which will mean taxes go up a lot.

No they won't.

Did taxes 'go up a lot' when the government spent £37 billion on the covid pandemic?

They didn't because the government borrowed most of the money from other entities and now a huge tranche of our tax revenue is paid to them

I quote from The Office of Budget Responsibility Debt interest spending reached a post-war high of £111.6 billion in 2022-23, or 4.4 per of GDP, as inflation reached a 40-year high and interest rates surged. While debt interest spending has since fallen from this record, it is forecast to remain at historically elevated levels over the next five years.

Perhaps taxes should have gone up a bit during the COVID pandemic then we might have £10 or £20 billion available to spend on defence.

The Bank of England created the money to buy bonds on the bond market and new bonds issued by the Treasury. So the BoE ‘owns’ the purchased bonds and the Treasury pays the interest on them to the B oE. It’s a completely artificial operation, the BoE is state owned, in effect the state is paying interest to itself. That debt interest is an accounting fiction. So you can deduct it from the interest paid on all government issued bonds.

As for the remaining bonds that have been issued over the years,(the supposedly ‘borrowed’ money) the bondholders don’t actually want to be unilaterally repaid, they want the interest. As a lot of pension funds are invested in government bonds, because they are the very safest investment they can make, it would cause chaos and consternation if the government were to ‘repay’ them.

Try asking gnet holders of Premium Bonds (which are also part of the ‘debt’) and you’ll get a pretty short answer…

Sorry, missed a bit from the last sentence. ‘Try asking gnet holders of Premium bonds if they want the government to repay them and…’ etc

I think PBs should be repaid. It's only a relatively small part of the National Debt, £129 billion (4.6%) but would save 5 billion a year in prize money which is very unfairly distributed.

If Reeves is rumoured to be wanting to make changes to ISAs to encourage investment in the stock market why not do the same with PBs or just PBs?

Changing ISA's is another of Reeves stupid ideas. On the contrary, if she wants to encourage saving she needs to have tax efficient offers on hand for small savers.

The most basic financial advice says that if you only hav a small quantity of savings they shoukd be saved as cash.

If she wants to encourage stock market investment and getting more investing in it safely, what she should do, is put a cap on how much you could put in cash ISAs in total - say £100,000 - which might be saved up over 50 years by saving £2000 a year in a cash ISA, or over 5 years at £20,000 a year.

If Reeves just reduces cash ISAs to, say £5,000 a year, many, if not most people with cash ISAs will not then buy Unit trusts or similar, they will simply put the remaining cash in the Building Society and manage without the tax free wrapper.

Silverbrooks

I think PBs should be repaid. It's only a relatively small part of the National Debt, £129 billion (4.6%) but would save 5 billion a year in prize money which is very unfairly distributed.

If Reeves is rumoured to be wanting to make changes to ISAs to encourage investment in the stock market why not do the same with PBs or just PBs?

I think PBs should be repaid

Try suggesting that on the Gnet PB threads 😂

The sale of treasury bonds, premium bonds and national savings accounts are all ways that the government has of taking excess money out of circulation to damp down demand led inflation.

Government finances don't work like household and business finances. Governments have different priorities. Public sector spending is not a money making enterprise, but lays the foundations for a healthy population and the infrastructure that people and businesses need to thrive. And the government has one power that businesses and households don't have, they can create our legal money.

Worrying about 'the national debt' is pointless. We've lived with one for 300+ years....

If she wants to encourage stock market investment

Why should she encourage stock market investment if all it does is further enrich the finance markets already wealthy sectors? And get distributed in bonuses and inflated salaries?

We all know, surely, that investing in stocks and shares is risky. What right does the Chancellor have to force people into risky investments?

We havn’t had borrowing close to 100% of GDP in peacetime before, when war has needed us to borrow more it has been repaid.

As borrowing/creation has increased, the value of sterling has fallen, making imports more expensive increasing the cost of living. There is no free lunch we have to pay for the services we use, there is plenty of wealth that could be taxed.

when war has needed us to borrow more it has been repaid.

That is because it was 'borrowed' from other countries (mostly the US in recent times). This isn't applicable now. Context is everything, David.

You need to stop looking at bond sales as 'borrowings' and look at them as what they are, which is a safe investment service.

All borrowing is an investment service, the interest rate reflects the risk, Reeves isn’t the smartest chancellor but at least she realizes that we have to live within our means, either we have to pay for public services from working harder or taxation.

I've no idea which economic theory you are proposing but borrowing/creating more for social giveaways is not going to improve the UK

Worrying about 'the national debt' is pointless. We've lived with one for 300+ years....

It obviously depends at what level it is at.

From AI

When a country's national debt becomes too high, it can lead to several negative consequences including: reduced government spending on essential services like healthcare and education, increased interest rates for borrowing, decreased investor confidence, slower economic growth, potential credit rating downgrades, and in extreme cases, a debt crisis where the country struggles to meet its debt obligations, potentially impacting its currency value and overall financial stability.

I've no idea which economic theory you are proposing

Just an old economist called Lord Keynes.

but borrowing/creating more for social giveaways is not going to improve the UK

Have you any understanding at all of the role of public spending in the domestic economy, David? Or of the multiplier effect of public spending? Or of the growth of the private sector resulting from public sector investment?

I have no idea what 'social giveaways' has to do with this. Apart from the fact that the wealthy benefit far more from state 'giveaways' via the tax system and public sector spending than does any benefit claimant...

fancythat

From AI

When a country's national debt becomes too high, it can lead to several negative consequences including: reduced government spending on essential services like healthcare and education, increased interest rates for borrowing, decreased investor confidence, slower economic growth, potential credit rating downgrades, and in extreme cases, a debt crisis where the country struggles to meet its debt obligations, potentially impacting its currency value and overall financial stability.

Sorry, that's just AI created rubbish.

I dont always agree with AI either, but I agree with every word of that particular piece.

“Have you any understanding at all of the role of public spending in the domestic economy, David? Or of the multiplier effect of public spending? Or of the growth of the private sector resulting from public sector investment?”

I’m well aware of the way public spending stimulates growth, the proble, is that successive government have failed to spend on growth.
The call from voters is to spend more on public services, there is a lot of talk about stimulating growth but little actually spent.

Social giveaways is exactly my point some need them, the wealthy don’t need them, they don’t need WFA, they don’t need ISAs, or state pensions, or free prescriptions. It’s money that could be spent on improving the economy, I agree with Keynes, but the UK cannot hope to improve the economy while its wasting so much money enriching the well off hoping for trickle down. It doesn't, it gets squirreled away, then gifted or inherited with very little taxation.

Trickle down economics do not work www.lse.ac.uk/research/research-for-the-world/economics/tax-cuts-for-the-wealthy-only-benefit-the-rich-debunking-trickle-down-economics

M0nica

Trickle down economics do not work www.lse.ac.uk/research/research-for-the-world/economics/tax-cuts-for-the-wealthy-only-benefit-the-rich-debunking-trickle-down-economics

Moreover, privatization is a great short term way to save money, longer term it is very expensive, even more so if it’s run by a foreign company, which may are, they are taking money out of our economy just like any import. Renewable energy, we are paying foreigners to provide solar and wind technology, nuclear energy is run by France.

I could go on about online tech and retail, hardly anything UK owned and taxed, we are light years behind.

Napoleon was right when he called us 'a nation of shop keepers'.

We will sell anything to anybody, providing we can see the money going into our bank accounts, we seem to be completely unconcerned abut what happens to the goods after we have sold them. - until, of course, we begin to suffer from how those goods are used. I live in Thames Water territory, with all that involves.

fancythat

I dont always agree with AI either, but I agree with every word of that particular piece.

You might agree with it, but it’s still nonsense. 😆

Study Japan…

David49

“Have you any understanding at all of the role of public spending in the domestic economy, David? Or of the multiplier effect of public spending? Or of the growth of the private sector resulting from public sector investment?”

I’m well aware of the way public spending stimulates growth, the proble, is that successive government have failed to spend on growth.
The call from voters is to spend more on public services, there is a lot of talk about stimulating growth but little actually spent.

Social giveaways is exactly my point some need them, the wealthy don’t need them, they don’t need WFA, they don’t need ISAs, or state pensions, or free prescriptions. It’s money that could be spent on improving the economy, I agree with Keynes, but the UK cannot hope to improve the economy while its wasting so much money enriching the well off hoping for trickle down. It doesn't, it gets squirreled away, then gifted or inherited with very little taxation.

I think we’re actually singing from the same songbook here, David, though yiur posts don’t always make sense to me🤔