The deficit is just a smokescreen for a Tory attack on the state – The Independent
This is nothing we don’t know already but it’s worth having a record of it – for future reference.
The Conservatives’ argument that spending cuts need to be made to reduce government debt is a “smokescreen” for their real mission to shrink the size of the state, the former head of the civil service has said.
Lord Turnbull, who also served as permanent secretary at the Treasury and principal private secretary to Margaret Thatcher, accused George Osborne at a meeting in Parliament of not being straight with the public over cuts.
“The idea that this debt is impoverishing people is I think an economic fallacy,” he told the Chancellor.
“I think what you’re doing, actually that you want a smaller state.
“Why is it so wrong to borrow if you are creating assets at the same time – why are you not looking at the total balance sheet?” he told the Chancellor.
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As you infer, it’s been obvious as soon as the Tories came into power that austerity and cuts were part of their ideological offensive against the state, The point is that it’s finally being recognized as such by the mainstream.
Public debt is not the same as household debt – countries over the world have been in the red since the concept was invented. Ceasescu’s attempts to eliminate the Romanian national debt resulted in mass shortages and homelessness (whilst Ceausescu spent a fortune building himself and his wife the world’s largest palace).
Why after more than five years of neocon economic policy are we still worse off than we were in 2008/9. By 2010 before the Conservatives and LibDems became a government we were on our uppers heading for a more constructed and wealthier future. The Tory line was that Labour spent too much money, that in itself is a joke, the Tories have spent far more and taken our debt beyond what we will be able to pay for a whole generation. What have we got to show for “austerity”?. Poverty among the lower class on a scale not known since 1922 and a future that will require us all to have the proverbial paddle for that “up the creek” scenario.
Typical Tory dismissive response “we just disagree”. He then goes to say that reducing public debt would allow the UK to better weather a future financial crisis. Surely adequately regulating the private sector so we don’t have another “financial crisis” is your job as the government? This is just more evidence to reveal the Tory mantra of the necessary of Austerity to hide ideological dismantling of the welfare state. Let’s just debunk this idea that the economy of a nation is like the economy of a household. There are good reasons that we as individuals with families don’t overborrow. These are the potential inability to sustain these debts because of the risk of losing all our income through death, illness and unemployment. None of these are risks that a country faces. NONE! A country can safely borrow to build infrastructure and assets because it will always have the asset generating value and will always have taxation to fund the debt. It can’t die, it can’t lose 50% or all of it’s income through illness and it certainly can’t be made unemployed unless such a catastrophe occurs that would make trade and money irrelevant.
Sri, we are reducing nothing;
Our private DEBTS are staggering and will become PUBLIC Debts when the Corporate gangsters finally seek more QE Welfare; even worse, mostly Yanks but any Foreign crook can do it:
“More than €53bn (£39bn) have been raised using bonds – interest-paying IOUs – by US companies so far this year
The UK’s major companies have also been at it. They have sapped Eurozone bond markets for €24bn this year – similar to last year, but nearly triple 2013’s figure”
This bunch of swindlers are already on QE ‘WELFARE’, (free money) not only in UK but US and EU also…..my guess is that we owe more money now, than we could ever repay, make no mistake, once the ‘SkunkBond’ I.O.U. market teeters, the whole financial World will collapse and, guess what, those who became exceptionally rich from failing in business but buying the Political scum, will have all their criminal gains in Switzerland.
For this, I don’t mind going back to the Military:
..may I, in all seriousness, suggest that we annex Switzerland as soon as the crap hits the Fan; its easy peasy, they, like us, have an Army which could not fight their way out of a paper bag; courtesy of Cameroon the stupid WITH THE midget Garda Loo Gideon, and their ‘Budget CUTS’.
And in other news, The Independent has discovered that rain makes the pavements wet.
As I mentioned, it’s worth holding on to these reports so we have them to remind ourselves (and others) that in the future, we can’t excuse ourselves from knowing what was going on at the time.
It’s an old right wing policy and mindset, it’s woven into the fabric of Conservatism, attack everything and everyone that they don’t believe in and agree with, we should all know this by now, if anyone should be getting attacked, it should be them!