Put simply, the past 20 years have been miserable: living standards have risen only very slowly, government revenues have persistently undershot forecasts even as the tax take has risen as a share of (depressed) GDP,
So, er, cut tax back as a percentage of GDP and see the growth return?
I think you’ve misread the intention of the actors here. The intention is to maximise the tax revenue, not increase people’s living standards. And their time value of money. They value the tax revenue now higher than tax revenue later. Because they want to be the people who benefit from it.
So were markets just being irrationally emotional when responding to Truss’s budget?
If prices are so noisy, why can’t indexation guarantee the real stability of both income and savings?
“we must think carefully about who, precisely, we hope to trade with in the future.”
Never trust a man who witters on about “we”. He actually means ‘I want to choose who you trade with.’
Or “whom”, if you prefer.
So were markets just being irrationally emotional when responding to Truss’s budget?
Idk what your low-effort trolling plan is (maybe just pick a screen name and stick with it), but markets weren’t responding to Truss’ budget.
They were reacting to the Bank of England signalling it was opposed to the British government.
It’s extraordinary that a legitimate UK government somehow lost a power struggle with unelected bankers. Andrew Bailey should be in jail right now, or at least on gardening leave while under investigation. Instead, our dead, gay, country allowed a cabal of grinning spivs to subvert the idea of democratic choice.
WWMTD? What would Margaret Thatcher do?
the past 20 years
Thiiiiiiings can only get bettaaaaah!
… which anyone with more than two brain cells to rub together knew was a load of cobblers at the time. But didn’t the Times endorse That Nice Mr. Blair in 2001, supporting Labour for the first time in its history, and again in 2005, presumably in the belief that they, in fact, were? Why yes, yes it did.
Only someone who didn’t live in Europe in the 1970’s and 1980’s could say the past 20 years have been miserable.
Since 1990 I’ve seen life in Southern Europe go from being roughly where the US was in 1970 to on parity with us by 2000 in terms of access to material goods and quality of life.
I’d agree with you Agammamon. When I first came down here in the late 60’s, outside of the big cities it was probably comparable to the UK 1930’s. In the deep rural, more like the 1830’s. Nowadays it’s comparable with the current UK. Rather better on things like roads & transport because they started later. In the past 10 years around here I’ve seen about 200km of new 8 lane highway go in, including a couple of 3km tunnels & they’re just in the process of completing a city wide metro system.
Of course you probably paid for it all but…
“…living standards have risen only very slowly” [citation needed]
Anyone who can remember living under Attlee or WilsonMk2/Callghan (Wilson MK1 was a noticeable downgrade from SuperMac/Home but he inherited a strongly growing economy with a massive rise in rel incomes since 1951 so it didn’t feeltoo bad) does not regard the past few years as miserable.
Of course the immigrants who were shunted into Grenfell Tower by the tenant-controlled housing management authority (with Emma Dent Coad as a Borough of Kensington rep) don’t remember Attlee and most of them don’t remember Wilson so they probably do think it has been miserable.