Hearthly wrote:
Cavey wrote:
You take the Gaywood approach to debate whereby just because you can impotently pick holes at the periphery of something (e.g. tax receipts have only risen slightly from last year, ignoring the fact that they're a damn sight fucking better than in 2008-10 and in any case, unemployment has plummeted, inflation is low and growth is inarguable etc etc), that means you've somehow proven some amazing point and "won" the argument.
It's not a peripheral point though, in any proper recovery wages increase and tax receipts increase, and neither are happening in this case. (Or at least, they're so small as to be negligible, and inflation may be low but wage growth is even lower, so in real terms people are getting poorer. And the government's borrowing more because they have to pay so many benefits and tax credits to people who are earning fuck all.)
Quote:
If people don’t earn, they don’t pay tax – and Treasury receipts are falling way below forecast – needing higher tax or deeper cuts to fill the gap. The rising numbers in self-employment are among the non-taxpayers, not budding entrepreneurs but earning an average £10,000, mini-cab driver their most frequent occupation.
Another set of OBR figures this week should set the Treasury shuddering, showing that the benefit cap, trumpeted by George Osborne as his trap for Labour, will be burst. Low pay means many more poverty incomes have to be topped up with extra tax credits. Now add in the government’s disastrous housing policies – and three decades of successive governments’ failure to build council houses – and those pigeons have come home to roost in the Treasury.
http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfre ... nances-taxI haven't really got the time for this constant moving-of-goalposts and widening/straw manning of the debate (ergo, where precisely did I say this was a *perfect* recovery, in *every single respect* and/or there have been no losers, no shrinking of incomes in real terms etc.
However, you might be interested to note that in Germany, real terms wages shrank for years throughout the 2000s, as they reformed their economy and hitherto ludicrously over unionised, socially democratic labour practices:
http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/10/ ... VM20121029Quote:
The wage archives office calculated that between 2001 and 2009, German real wages shrank by 6.3 percent, making it the only country in Europe without growth.
After record levels of unemployment, which peaked in 2005, labour market reforms boosted competitiveness and helped cut joblessness to its lowest since reunification.
The same has not been true of the wider euro zone, where rising wages consistently outpaced German pay rises, fuelling the economic divergence that is a sub-plot of Europe's debt crisis.
Funny how despite being mocked by your pals within the Labour government at this time ("old fashioned German economy" etc.), they're now the powerhouse of Europe, huh. Do you people EVER stop to consider, less still question why actual stuff actually happens, and/or question your own ideologies and belief systems as a result?
For someone like me, who would become the biggest Communist on the forum within a millisecond, if I actually thought that would work and there was decent empirical evidence to suggest this - it's all just so weird and perplexing. How very odd, a bit like football supporters I suppose.
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Dr Lave wrote:
Of course, he's normally wrong but
interestingly wrong