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60 years of tories and tory-lites slowly but surely cutting "waste", privatizing, deregulating, pushing for austerity... Let that be a lesson to the US, seekin

60 years of tories and tory-lites slowly but surely cutting "waste", privatizing, deregulating, pushing for austerity... Let that be a lesson to the US, seeking government efficiency is a non-goal. Good, well-funded public services make productive citizens and a strong economy. Austerity leads to a dead country.

ryan93 2y ago
Like 44% of your economy is government spending. lol
- bruce511 2y ago
  This is not as crazy as it sounds at first glance. The % is less important than where they are spending that money. An "economy" is just a measure of the overall movement of money. If the bulk of that spending is internal, then that is contributing to the economy. Govt workers are consumers, local companies are providing goods to govt etc. USaid for example spent a lot of money on food. And a lot of that was purchased from US farmers. Killing USaid "saves a lot of money" but also costs a lot of producers their income. As long as the bulk of spending is local, govt spending is an excellent way of keeping money moving.
  - ryan93 2y ago
    Yeah but you can see how the endless British bleating about “austerity” is a little overwrought?
gottorf 2y ago
> Good, well-funded public services make productive citizens and a strong economy. Austerity leads to a dead country. Most Western European nations have a government expenditure as a percentage of GDP of roughly 50%; half the economy is government. Singapore, a famously productive country, is around 15%.
- thrance 2y ago
  Can you seriously compare a very wealthy city-state to actual countries? Do you not see why you can't run the UK like you would Monaco? You really went out of your way to pick the only "country" you could find with both low government spending and high quality of life, despite the data proving a strong correlation between these two in actual countries. Wow.
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
fransje26 2y ago
> Let that be a lesson to the US No worries, they're busy speed-running it to its conclusion..

ryan93 2y ago

Like 44% of your economy is government spending. lol

bruce511 2y ago
This is not as crazy as it sounds at first glance. The % is less important than where they are spending that money. An "economy" is just a measure of the overall movement of money. If the bulk of that spending is internal, then that is contributing to the economy. Govt workers are consumers, local companies are providing goods to govt etc. USaid for example spent a lot of money on food. And a lot of that was purchased from US farmers. Killing USaid "saves a lot of money" but also costs a lot of producers their income. As long as the bulk of spending is local, govt spending is an excellent way of keeping money moving.
- ryan93 2y ago
  Yeah but you can see how the endless British bleating about “austerity” is a little overwrought?

gottorf 2y ago

> Good, well-funded public services make productive citizens and a strong economy. Austerity leads to a dead country. Most Western European nations have a government expenditure as a percentage of GDP of roughly 50%; half the economy is government. Singapore, a famously productive country, is around 15%.

thrance 2y ago
Can you seriously compare a very wealthy city-state to actual countries? Do you not see why you can't run the UK like you would Monaco? You really went out of your way to pick the only "country" you could find with both low government spending and high quality of life, despite the data proving a strong correlation between these two in actual countries. Wow.
deleted 2y ago
[deleted]

fransje26 2y ago

> Let that be a lesson to the US No worries, they're busy speed-running it to its conclusion..