First, it is clear from the OBR’s own data that the UK’s weak fiscal resilience is happening despite taxes having risen to their highest level relative to GDP since the 1950s. In other words, we are taxing heavily but are still running deficits because underlying growth is weak, spending needs have risen, and will keep doing so.
This, though, is not a story of profligacy. It is the predictable consequence of running an economy on the basis of neoliberal dogma. There has been long-term underinvestment in productivity-enhancing public and private infrastructure, as well as austerity in local government and social services spending. This has gone on for so long that crises have become systemic, and hopes that deregulated markets and property bubbles can somehow deliver broad-based prosperity despite this have been shattered. The myth of financial engineering as a basis for prosperity has been blown apart.
We’re spending too much. The solution is to spend more.
The austerity delusion continues. How did we get a debt of 100% of GDP by austerity?
“This, though, is not a story of profligacy …”
I beg to differ on that.
I think he actually hit on something here – “The myth of financial engineering as a basis for prosperity has been blown apart”. As long as you understand that “financial engineering” is a stand-in for central planning, this is a good point.
Right, Esteban. More:
‘It is the predictable consequence of running an economy on the basis of neoliberal dogma.’
Commie dick Murphy thinks the economy is ‘run,’ by third-parties.
‘When I’m with you baby, I go out of my head, and I just can’t get enough’
There has been long-term underinvestment in productivity-enhancing public and private infrastructure, as well as austerity in local government and social services spending.
What ‘public infrastructure’ is he referring to – not the F%^&ing Green New Deal?
And on what planet has there been austerity on social services spending???- we have no money whatsoever as the OBR confirms and we are spending it regardless.
I hope he has good security because when the shit goes down he will be top of the list for sure.
Me: Write a story on the fiscus of the UK as if you were on LSD.
Grok: Done.
“This is not a story of profligacy…” just let me, the country’s premier political economist have a go and I’ll show you some real profligacy.
I’d hazard a guess that when consumption exceeds production “neoliberal dogma” suggests increasing production followed by reducing consumption and then with borrowing if the gap can’t be temporarily closed. In Murphy’s twisted world does he believe increasing consumption magically makes production jump up to meet both the original and increased demand? He is probably correct in thinking that “neoliberal dogma” is not up to explaining how that might work.
Andyf, Spud is obsessed with money. He thinks that printing and distributing it correctly will cure the world’s ills. It seems never to have occurred to him that merely creating and distributing tokens of exchange does not magically make goods and services appear.
It also seems not to have occurred to him or his “reparations” enthusiasts that giving da nignogs loads of these tokens will do nothing for their own productivity. Quite the opposite: it will cause shortages of goods and services because they’ll all want o quit work to live as lottery winners.
But hey, intelligent people, etc. etc.
@Norman
It seems never to have occurred to him that merely creating and distributing tokens of exchange does not magically make goods and services appear.
Indeed. He can’t see the difference between money appearing on balance sheets & currency circulating in commerce. So he sees money, for instance in a pension fund & he wants to seize it & spend it on one of his pet ideas. It’s tomorrow money will be exchanged for goods & services as pensions are paid out. It will be exchanged for future goods & services (should they exist!) Not today’s G&S. The balance was created by savers foregoing the consumption of G&S in the past & present. Those G&S were consumed by who received the pension contributions. Possibly by a company spending it on new production facilities. Or maybe someone borrowed it to buy a new car. But spent it was. What’s appearing on the balance in the present is just a number. Meaningless in the present. It’s not today money. There are not the G&S to buy with it in the present. Spending it now just causes inflation.