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As I said, contrarian nonsense. The NHS staffing problem is due to a lack of qualified staff seeking work in the country period. The government can't and doesn

As I said, contrarian nonsense. The NHS staffing problem is due to a lack of qualified staff seeking work in the country period. The government can't and doesn't attempt to solve that by levying arbitrarily high taxes on private provision. Even if the reason the government couldn't hire heart surgeons was because so many of them worked in private practice, taxing private practice out of existence wouldn't affect the demand for heart surgery being too high for the number of surgeons, it would just leave the government on the hook for providing all of it. The reality is that government does attempt to keep tax base growth in line with spending growth where possible, and doesn't levy special employer NI contribution demands on heart surgeons. Because for all that the government attempting to broadly balance their budget over an economic cycle isn't exactly the same as coins in, coins out, it's not nearly as economically illiterate as 'the root causes of inflation is that productive employees haven't been forced into the public sector yet'. I mean, the poster child for high public sector employment on low wages and a government attitude that private enterprise is to be suppressed rather than milked as a revenue stream is Venezuela... I also think that if you're determined to promote the kookier elements of the functional finance model, you should probably consider the possibility that people consider the idea that the true function of taxes is to force them to take government jobs at arbitrarily low wages to be evil as well as inaccurate. Apparently people don't hate interest rate changes so much they don't prefer the government abolishing the welfare state and actively targeting their jobs for elimination so they have no choice but to join a low-paid workfare programme!

neilwilson 3y ago
"The NHS staffing problem is due to a lack of qualified staff seeking work in the country period. " Correct, which is why preventing those with money from jumping the queue is so important. Then the queue is a priority queue based upon need not ability to pay. There is no place for a 'Fast Track Queue' in the UK health system which serves nobody but the rich. You can't have a 'market' except where there is excess capacity to supply. You've very kindly explained why private medicine cannot exist. "economically illiterate as 'the root causes of inflation is that productive employees haven't been forced into the public sector yet'" Good job that's just a straw man then isn't it. Including the obligatory reference to Venezuela, Zimbabwe or Weimar just to demonstrate the comment is emotional rhetoric and belief rather than anything considered. But of course it is far, far better I presume to give rich people free money in higher interest payments than to ensure poor people have jobs.
- notahacker 3y ago
  + But of course it is far, far better I presume to give rich people free money in higher interest payments than to ensure poor people have jobs. Hang on a minute, you're the person who said that mass elimination of poor people's jobs was "exactly what we want"...

neilwilson 3y ago

"The NHS staffing problem is due to a lack of qualified staff seeking work in the country period. " Correct, which is why preventing those with money from jumping the queue is so important. Then the queue is a priority queue based upon need not ability to pay. There is no place for a 'Fast Track Queue' in the UK health system which serves nobody but the rich. You can't have a 'market' except where there is excess capacity to supply. You've very kindly explained why private medicine cannot exist. "economically illiterate as 'the root causes of inflation is that productive employees haven't been forced into the public sector yet'" Good job that's just a straw man then isn't it. Including the obligatory reference to Venezuela, Zimbabwe or Weimar just to demonstrate the comment is emotional rhetoric and belief rather than anything considered. But of course it is far, far better I presume to give rich people free money in higher interest payments than to ensure poor people have jobs.

notahacker 3y ago
+ But of course it is far, far better I presume to give rich people free money in higher interest payments than to ensure poor people have jobs. Hang on a minute, you're the person who said that mass elimination of poor people's jobs was "exactly what we want"...