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>There’s nothing unspecified about cutting waste being beneficial. You haven't specified who's benefitted and how. Nor have you shown that 'waste' spending has

by foldr 3y ago

>There’s nothing unspecified about cutting waste being beneficial. You haven't specified who's benefitted and how. Nor have you shown that 'waste' spending has indeed gone down, either in absolute terms or as a fraction of total spending. >So, again you personally don’t like what’s going on, and at the exact same time it’s a very good thing for the long term health of the UK. How long is 'long' here? The country was in a better economic state when the Conservatives came to power in 2010. How long will we have to wait to see these long term benefits?

Retric 3y ago
Continuing my last point, Tokyo went through several major disruptions over the last 200 years ex: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special_wards_of_Tokyo https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special_wards_of_Tokyo > How long is ‘long’ here? Everyone’s kids is who benefits. I am talking 30-40 years, countries don’t turn around on a dime. That said from 2000 to 2010 the UK was ‘flat’ and it just dealt with COVID, but I am not blaming the people in power for either the event just how well they set the country up to improve in the future.
- foldr 3y ago
  >Everyone’s kids is who benefits. https://www.barnardos.org.uk/news/our-news/more-children-risk-councils-forced-halve-spending-early-support https://www.barnardos.org.uk/news/our-news/more-children-ris... In any case, you are implicitly conceding that you cannot point to any tangible benefits of this government's policies in the present day. They are merely policies that you think are ideologically correct, and thus expect to have good outcomes within some very long timeframe. No idea why you are brining Tokyo into this – sorry.
  - Retric 3y ago
    I am bringing every single other country into this because it makes it obvious why the UK is failing. > cannot point to any tangible benefits How about debt/ GDP ratio that fell down to 82.8% in 2019 right before the pandemic. This trend was really easy to find 84.5, 84.3, 83.5, 82.8 (pandemic) Making longer term predictions is much harder than retroactively looking on a few backward looking and easily gamed indicators. Rather than directly looking at GDP you need to compare things like GDP per capita PPP with other countries adjusting for demographics, economic development, etc but it’s really not worth getting into with someone that’s thinking in terms of political ideology.
    - foldr 3y ago
      A tangible benefit is one that’s visible to a large number of people in their daily lives. The link in my previous post details some of the many costs of cuts to local services. These will manifest as a long term drag on the UK economy, not just a blight on the lives of the affected children. You apparently assume that this damage must be worth it in order to make a particular economic statistic graph nicely. It is therefore clear which of us is in thrall to a particular political ideology. Future economic prosperity requires the current generation of children to be healthy, well educated and well adjusted members of society. Borrowing money now to ensure that this happens in future is one of the best long-term investments a government can make. The real question is not "how much are we borrowing?" but "what is the expected return on the spending enabled via borrowing?". That said, debt as a percentage of GDP is actually higher now than it was in 2010 when the Conservatives came to power! (This was also true before the pandemic.) See the chart here under the heading “Government debt”: https://commonslibrary.parliament.uk/research-briefings/sn02812/ https://commonslibrary.parliament.uk/research-briefings/sn02... >I am bringing every single other country into this because it makes it obvious why the UK is failing. Wikipedia article on Tokyo; therefore the UK is failing. Ok. London is a prosperous and successful city. It's really not the part of the UK you'd point to if you wanted to show that the country as a whole is failing.
      - Retric 3y ago
        No, a tangible benefit is one that’s real or concrete aka possible to measure. > Future economic prosperity requires the current generation of children to be healthy, well educated and well adjusted members of society. If that’s your personal ideology then fuck old people benefits… Except no, that’s not what either of us believe. You need to balance what you want to do with what you can sustain doing, there’s all sorts of lovely benefits the government of the UK could provide in theory but you need to weight nice to haves vs the ability for the system to sustain itself. The UK has been in a downward spiral for longer than either of us have been alive, fixing that is necessary or you’re not actually benefiting young people. Saying think of the children is all well and good, but debt isn’t a viable solution you need to cut somewhere if you want to prioritize children’s benefits more. PS: UK’s debt to GDP ratio was under 30 in 2000, and hit ~70 in 2010. The growth slowed and stopped after conservatives took over. Let’s not pretend the previous 10 years before the conservatives was good governance, it created a huge long term burden for the country which is going to stick around long after those leaders are all dead. The conservatives haven’t done a good job, but debt fueled spending is only useful in an absolute emergency not the solution to any and all problems.

by foldr 3y ago

Retric 3y ago

Continuing my last point, Tokyo went through several major disruptions over the last 200 years ex: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special_wards_of_Tokyo https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special_wards_of_Tokyo > How long is ‘long’ here? Everyone’s kids is who benefits. I am talking 30-40 years, countries don’t turn around on a dime. That said from 2000 to 2010 the UK was ‘flat’ and it just dealt with COVID, but I am not blaming the people in power for either the event just how well they set the country up to improve in the future.

foldr 3y ago
>Everyone’s kids is who benefits. https://www.barnardos.org.uk/news/our-news/more-children-risk-councils-forced-halve-spending-early-support https://www.barnardos.org.uk/news/our-news/more-children-ris... In any case, you are implicitly conceding that you cannot point to any tangible benefits of this government's policies in the present day. They are merely policies that you think are ideologically correct, and thus expect to have good outcomes within some very long timeframe. No idea why you are brining Tokyo into this – sorry.
- Retric 3y ago
  I am bringing every single other country into this because it makes it obvious why the UK is failing. > cannot point to any tangible benefits How about debt/ GDP ratio that fell down to 82.8% in 2019 right before the pandemic. This trend was really easy to find 84.5, 84.3, 83.5, 82.8 (pandemic) Making longer term predictions is much harder than retroactively looking on a few backward looking and easily gamed indicators. Rather than directly looking at GDP you need to compare things like GDP per capita PPP with other countries adjusting for demographics, economic development, etc but it’s really not worth getting into with someone that’s thinking in terms of political ideology.
  - foldr 3y ago
    A tangible benefit is one that’s visible to a large number of people in their daily lives. The link in my previous post details some of the many costs of cuts to local services. These will manifest as a long term drag on the UK economy, not just a blight on the lives of the affected children. You apparently assume that this damage must be worth it in order to make a particular economic statistic graph nicely. It is therefore clear which of us is in thrall to a particular political ideology. Future economic prosperity requires the current generation of children to be healthy, well educated and well adjusted members of society. Borrowing money now to ensure that this happens in future is one of the best long-term investments a government can make. The real question is not "how much are we borrowing?" but "what is the expected return on the spending enabled via borrowing?". That said, debt as a percentage of GDP is actually higher now than it was in 2010 when the Conservatives came to power! (This was also true before the pandemic.) See the chart here under the heading “Government debt”: https://commonslibrary.parliament.uk/research-briefings/sn02812/ https://commonslibrary.parliament.uk/research-briefings/sn02... >I am bringing every single other country into this because it makes it obvious why the UK is failing. Wikipedia article on Tokyo; therefore the UK is failing. Ok. London is a prosperous and successful city. It's really not the part of the UK you'd point to if you wanted to show that the country as a whole is failing.
    - Retric 3y ago
      No, a tangible benefit is one that’s real or concrete aka possible to measure. > Future economic prosperity requires the current generation of children to be healthy, well educated and well adjusted members of society. If that’s your personal ideology then fuck old people benefits… Except no, that’s not what either of us believe. You need to balance what you want to do with what you can sustain doing, there’s all sorts of lovely benefits the government of the UK could provide in theory but you need to weight nice to haves vs the ability for the system to sustain itself. The UK has been in a downward spiral for longer than either of us have been alive, fixing that is necessary or you’re not actually benefiting young people. Saying think of the children is all well and good, but debt isn’t a viable solution you need to cut somewhere if you want to prioritize children’s benefits more. PS: UK’s debt to GDP ratio was under 30 in 2000, and hit ~70 in 2010. The growth slowed and stopped after conservatives took over. Let’s not pretend the previous 10 years before the conservatives was good governance, it created a huge long term burden for the country which is going to stick around long after those leaders are all dead. The conservatives haven’t done a good job, but debt fueled spending is only useful in an absolute emergency not the solution to any and all problems.