Never-ending austerity

[David Johnson]

Apparently Boy George announced today -

Chancellor George Osborne has said he wants the government to be running a surplus in the next Parliament and can get there without raising taxes i.e. he wants the difference between income and expenditure to be a positive number.

Mmm... how achievable is that given despite hundreds of thousands of public sector workers being thrown out of work, cuts in front line services etc, the deficit is not going down in any meaningful sense either last year, this year or next year? Well if you look at this lot



and display the graph called UK Budget Deficit History, you will see that this has only happened 6 times in 50 years. Even Maggie Thatcher who laid waste to much of the country and had huge influxes of cash from flogging off taxpayers' assets left, right and centre could only manage to run a surplus twice in 11 years. And Thatcher was in power during the Silicon Revolution when there was huge amounts of money being spent by corporates on IT and the entire service industry in that area was booming.

And Boy George is going to do all of this without raising taxes.

Well the only way that is going to happen is that the kicking that the less well off have had over the last 3 years, is going to continue but at a much more ferocious rate making what has happened in the last 3 years to look kind and generous.

[Jonone]

'War is Peace'

'Austerity is Prosperity'

[Arginald Valleywater]

If the previous cunts sorry McBroon and Captain Darling had kept their eyes on the banks then we might not have to spend a decade clearing up their shit.

[David Johnson]

"'Austerity is Prosperity'

Depends who you ask. To a public sector worker who got the push and hasn't worked since "Austerity is Austerity".

If you ask an investment banker whose bonus Osborne is currently trying to ensure that the EU don't cap, "Austerity is Prosperity".

For the far greater proportion of the population "Austerity is Austerity"

[David Johnson]

Yep the Tories would have done so, so much better.


George Osborne launched a report
from his Party?s Economic Competitiveness policy review which advocated the
complete deregulation of the mortgage industry.
"Mortgage regulation. We see no need to continue to regulate the provision of mortgage finance,
as it is the lending institutions rather than the client taking the risk."
Freeing Britain to Compete, Final Report of the Conservative Party Economic Competitiveness
Policy Group, Published 17 August 2007
?

Osborne uses taxpayers' money to support the purchase of 600K houses.

2013

[cockneygeezer2009]

If George Osborne thinks promising more budget cuts for years will win the next election he is seriously deluded.

Didn't the Tories say they would balance the books before the next election? What happened to that? Like all governments this coalition can't be trusted.

[David Johnson]

"Didn't the Tories say they would balance the books before the next election? What happened to that?"

Yep, missed that one by a mile. I think the new target is 2018 though obviously the 3 years extra needed will mean the cuts required will be a lot more severe. THe horrors of compound interest! Wont see too much information about these cuts til after the next election.

The other target was to keep the AAA rating from the rating agencies. That one has gone kaput too.

To balance the economy so that our industrial basis was strengthened to make the economy less reliant on consumer spending was another. That one has also gone kaput when Osborne introduced his various schemes to use taxpayers money to help house buyers to afford houses that are overpriced and will leave them in negative equity when the schemes finish and/or the interest rate goes up.

So....when you completely miss one set of targets, think of another!

[David Johnson]

Not surprisingly Osborne's promise of endless austerity has not gone down to well. So Cameron in an interview with Nick Robinson put the case that you do not have to make more cuts or raise taxes to get a budget surplus. They can do it with "efficiency savings".

Ye Gods, this from a government who is going to miss its target for balancing the books by a minimum of 3 years and that is if everything goes fine.

[Dave Wells]

We need a proper revolution in this country !

[Arginald Valleywater]

Ah yes mass riots and bloodshed would really do us good.