50%+ of Labour Party funding comes from trade unions.

[Wildcat]

That's all very well, but as the projected debt was causing concerns to those who were financing it we were in grave danger of facing spiraling interest rates as experienced by Greece and Ireland.

 

From the same article.

 

 

Quote

 

A phalanx of forecasters, including the International Monetary Fund and the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, have warned that unless the UK brings spending under control, it may struggle to raise cash on capital markets. In practice, this means the Government will be forced to pay higher interest rates on its bonds, potentially pushing up debt interest costs even higher than forecast by NIESR.

 

Robert Stheeman, chief executive officer of the Debt Management Office admitted yesterday that a possible downgrade in Britain's credit rating would push up these costs, though he denied that it would threaten Britain's ability to sell bonds.

 

 

I seem to remember that Moody's, and Standard & Poors had both downgraded Britain's credit rating and were threatening to downgrade further.

 

This would be the same IMF that has caused the rebellions in Egypt and who's austerity measures have shifted wealth from the rich to the poor and exacerbated social problems everywhere they have been implemented. See here for criticisms by a Nobel prize winning economist.

 

But, even the IMF who's economic analysis anyone should normally consider suspiciously are worried about what the Tories are doing..

 

http://falseeconomy.org.uk/blog/government-policies-will-further-squeeze-the-wages-of-ordinary-workers#

[Wildcat]

Surely in that case allowing our manufacturing base to go out to the third world is a good idea.:loopy:

 

Err no.

[caparo]

This would be the same IMF that has caused the rebellions in Egypt and who's austerity measures have shifted wealth from the rich to the poor and exacerbated social problems everywhere they have been implemented. See here for criticisms by a Nobel prize winning economist.

 

But, even the IMF who's economic analysis anyone should normally consider suspiciously are worried about what the Tories are doing..

 

http://falseeconomy.org.uk/blog/government-policies-will-further-squeeze-the-wages-of-ordinary-workers#

 

Yes it is easy to dismiss organisations like the IMF by finding a solitary voice who doesn't agree. Perhaps if you tried reading something other than the thoughts of Chaiman Scargill and using it as reputable and factual source material folks might take you a little more seriously.

[Wildcat]

Yes it is easy to dismiss organisations like the IMF by finding a solitary voice who doesn't agree. Perhaps if you tried reading something other than the thoughts of Chaiman Scargill and using it as reputable and factual source material folks might take you a little more seriously.

 

A Nobel prize winning economist is a long way from Arthur Scargill.

 

Completely missing the point and calling people names is a pretty good indication you have lost the argument. He is a long way from a loan voice on the topic......

 

How about:

 

David Blanchflower a former member of the Bank of England's Monetary Policy Committee, and Professor of Economics at Dartmouth College, New Hampshire and professor at the University of Stirling.

http://www.newstatesman.com/uk-politics/2010/10/government-spending-labour

 

Christopher Pissarides is the most recent economics Nobel Prize winner and a Professor at the London School of Economics.

http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/top-stories/2010/10/24/george-osborne-has-exaggerated-and-it-could-cost-us-1-million-jobs-115875-22654755/

 

Paul Krugman is a US economist and a Nobel Prize winner.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/10/22/opinion/22krugman.html?_r=1&ref=opinion

 

Or the Financial Times analysis:

 

Martin Wolf is the chief economics writer of the Financial Times and is a consistent critic of government policy:

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/07e8d3f4-ccc1-11df-a1eb-00144feab49a.html

 

Samuel Brittan columnist on the Financial Times

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/49e2fb1a-dd45-11df-9236-00144feabdc0.html#axzz14ydQeFRG

[Anna Glypta]

I would be looking at how the Regional Growth fund and similar could be used, looking to see what their reasons were (training needs perhaps?) and seeking to address them.

 

I would also seperate to that intervention and more generally be looking at import duties and how taxation affects or more specifically disincentivises work being done in the UK rather than abroad and seeking to rectify that to encourage work being done locally. Some form of Green taxes might be a way to do this, to disincentivise the transport of goods across long distances wasting fuel and resources when it could be done locally.

 

I don't see how that would have made a blind bit of difference. About 75% of Land Rover and Jaguar's business is exports so import duties, green taxes and other forms of protectionism would be as much use as a chocolate tea pot. The thing that is persuading UK businesses to move abroad are down to the fact that it is cheaper to do what they do elsewhere. That is almost entirely down to UK taxation, labour and material costs. Much of the taxation burden is caused by the need for ever increasing amonts of money to pay for the public sector. Cut the public sector spending and you remove a millstone from around the neck of British business.

[Wildcat]

I don't see how that would have made a blind bit of difference. About 75% of Land Rover and Jaguar's business is exports so import duties, green taxes and other forms of protectionism would be as much use as a chocolate tea pot. The thing that is persuading UK businesses to move abroad are down to the fact that it is cheaper to do what they do elsewhere. That is almost entirely down to UK taxation, labour and material costs. Much of the taxation burden is caused by the need for ever increasing amonts of money to pay for the public sector. Cut the public sector spending and you remove a millstone from around the neck of British business.

 

Public sector spending was lower a proportion of profits under Labour than the Tories. So that is not and cannot be the problem.

 

There was some growth in real public spending, largely brought about through not just paying wages but also paying more shareholders with taxation because they privatised and part privatised so many of the UK services. A policy the Tories are continuing whilst cutting back on what is delivered. That growth was not that significant and largely was a matter of redressing the failures and poor services they inheritted.

 

The millstone around the neck of british business, is the absence of a proper business strategy, a failure of investment compounding the problems of lack of available credit caused by the banks.

[Tony]

How often would you expect this ballot to occur? As far as I'm aware, the Unite position, which was inherited from its previous incarnations, was voted on at conference way back in the dim and distant past. Are you suggesting that members should be balloted every week, month, year?

 

Just one recent example would be fine. It seems reasonable to expect that a currentish membership have voted for it rather people who have long since died.

[Tony]

I would be looking at how the Regional Growth fund and similar could be used, looking to see what their reasons were (training needs perhaps?) and seeking to address them.

 

I would also seperate to that intervention and more generally be looking at import duties and how taxation affects or more specifically disincentivises work being done in the UK rather than abroad and seeking to rectify that to encourage work being done locally. Some form of Green taxes might be a way to do this, to disincentivise the transport of goods across long distances wasting fuel and resources when it could be done locally.

 

That sounds very like the BNP manifesto.

[Tony]

I actually think the problem is our whole country is happy to pay less for stuff and buy none british items.

 

Which unions have a Buy British policy?

[Anna Glypta]

Public sector spending was lower a proportion of profits under Labour than the Tories. So that is not and cannot be the problem.

 

There was some growth in real public spending, largely brought about through not just paying wages but also paying more shareholders with taxation because they privatised and part privatised so many of the UK services. A policy the Tories are continuing whilst cutting back on what is delivered. That growth was not that significant and largely was a matter of redressing the failures and poor services they inheritted.

 

The millstone around the neck of british business, is the absence of a proper business strategy, a failure of investment compounding the problems of lack of available credit caused by the banks.

 

 

I'm not sure what obscure figures you are attempting to concoct here to try and prop up your argument. Government spending is now far higher than it was in the past as is the tax burden on our industries. However you chose to try and dress it up there is no getting away from the fact that UK car production has fallen by at least 30% since 1997 and major manufacturers such as Rover, Ford and Peugeot have shifted their entire car production operation overseas. Others like vauxhall, Bentley, Rolls Royce and Aston Martin have shifted the majority of it and others like Jaguar and Land Rover are in the process of doing so.

As a result UK steel manufacturing is falling and enginerring companies that lived off the motor industry are in decline.

 

I'm sort of confused by all this talk of lack of credit from the banks. If you want to claim that much of the blame for the financial problems is down to banks making risky loans, surely trying to force banks to loan money to ventures that do not stand up to comercial scrutiny isn't too wise.