Thursday 4th May (8 Viewers)

[Brighton Sky Blue]

No.

We need to increase the birth rate in the U.K. by taking away the restrictions and barriers that discourage couples having kids and staying together.

Schools open longer so that both parents can pursue careers should they choose. Better access to funded childcare. Ban homework (nightime should be family social time (sounds daft at first but follow it through)).

The alternative is a U.K. population crash or huge immigration necessity in order to avoid such things as raising retirement age (see France for details).

What if the parents are teachers? Should the school be re-labelled as a crèche?

 

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[Deleted member 5849]

Coventry remains red, how embarrassing, so many people moan about out great city but do nothing to change it.
Keep doing the same thing everything stays the same.

The best candidate in my ward was the Labour candidate

 

[WestEndAgro]

The best candidate in my ward was the Labour candidate

Fair enough

 

[Ashdown]

I'm not talking just about UK. I don't care where people are from or where they go. It's literally a numbers game. If, in order to survive we're working off the basis that we need more people in every generation in order to afford to pay for the previous one then we're fucked. It CANNOT happen forever, but we'll just blindly carry on working off that saying to ourselves 'it won't be us that suffers, so who cares'. It may be your great, great, great, great grandchildren, but who gives a fuck about them.

Improvements in working peoples pay and conditions almost always come at a time after there has been some disaster resulting in significant population loss - wars, pandemics etc. - because their overall value becomes higher purely because there is less supply. Places with high populations have low wages and poor conditions because workers are seen as dispensable as there is a plentiful supply to replace.

And the problems goes way beyond humans. So many things are getting worse because of the huge human population explosion post-industrial revolution. Climate and weather is becoming more extreme. We have huge problems with flooding because of us building on it. Air, land and water are polluted. We're currently in a period of mass extinction, and much of the reasons for that can be laid at humanity's door as we destroy or contaminate habitats so animals have fewer places to live, breed and feed.

Diseases like cancer are through the roof. Living in closer contact means diseases can spread like wildfire, and as current anti-biotics become ineffective (for those parts of the world lucky enough to have ready access to them) the risk of an untreatable disease/infection rises. The pandemic, in reality, was quite mild compared to previous ones, such as Spanish Flu or previous plagues. Imagine a quarter of the population being wiped out now in the space of a few years? 2BN people! And chances are given how quickly and easily we can travel the world these days, as well as living in closer proximity the conditions would be ripe for it to be way higher.

Relying on population growth can ONLY end in eventual disaster, and rather than being selfish and working on the (fair) assumption that it probably won't be us that bears the brunt of the suffering, we need to accept responsibility and look at different ways we can survive on this earth sustainably without taking over and destroying the entire thing.

But, yeah, that's not going to make someone put an X in the little box is it.

Fantastic post, completely starts to highlight the issues that are inevitable. Those that think that geo politics and economic growth and consumerism are what really matters are pushing the earth to early destruction. Without everything else human life will be barren and sterile .

 

[clint van damme]

Fantastic post, completely starts to highlight the issues that are inevitable. Those that think that geo politics and economic growth and consumerism are what really matters are pushing the earth to early destruction. Without everything else human life will be barren and sterile .

It's not pushing the earth to destruction, its pushing the human race to destruction
The earth will be fine when we're gone.

And no one is going to even think a out changing the current model until its far too late, its not worth worrying about, there's nothing you can do about it.

 

[Ashdown]

It's not pushing the earth to destruction, its pushing the human race to destruction
The earth will be fine when we're gone.

And no one is going to even think a out changing the current model until its far too late, its not worth worrying about, there's nothing you can do about it.

Sadly you’re probably right

 

[shmmeee]

I don't understand what you mean... what I was saying is if the country no longer has to pay pensions for everyone it would take it closer to a sustainable model with an aging population. Obviously still strains on the NHS and social care but social care is means tested anyway...

FP is right. Govenrment spends whatnot wants and creates inflation in areas it does, it also taxes what it wants and destroys money where it wants. The idea we need to collect in taxes before we can pay for stuff is nonsense as Covid showed. When the political will is there we can spend billions at the drop of a hat.

Doesn’t mean spending is consequence free, but that’s what taxes are for. The governments job is to keep money flowing around the economy not balance the books.

 

[shmmeee]

It's not pushing the earth to destruction, its pushing the human race to destruction
The earth will be fine when we're gone.

And no one is going to even think a out changing the current model until its far too late, its not worth worrying about, there's nothing you can do about it.

We need to become multiplanetary. I was watching a video about the Great Filter theory which is basically why haven’t we seen other life? Is it because whenever a species gets to a certain level they always kill themselves off? And is it discovery of carbon combustion that does it? E.g. every intelligent species figures out you can burn coal and gas for energy and fucks their environment before they can get off the planet.

I don’t like to agree with Elon Musk if I can help it but colonising another planet is our safety net whatever happens on Earth.

 

[skyblu3sk]

FP is right. Govenrment spends whatnot wants and creates inflation in areas it does, it also taxes what it wants and destroys money where it wants. The idea we need to collect in taxes before we can pay for stuff is nonsense as Covid showed. When the political will is there we can spend billions at the drop of a hat.

Doesn’t mean spending is consequence free, but that’s what taxes are for. The governments job is to keep money flowing around the economy not balance the books.

I'm lost... where have I linked taxes to spend. I get the model we borrow stacks of cash above what comes in through taxes that's why loads of prime ministers banged on about deficits over a load of years. The point I was making is I don't think government pensions will be for everyone going forward. They will use the excuse of balancing the books because most people will understand that from there own day to day finances. Part of me wonders if the current inflation suits the government at the moment as it pushes more money around the economy as pay rises happen in the private sector and floe back through the coffers but maybe I'm giving them more credit than deserved...

 

[shmmeee]

I'm lost... where have I linked taxes to spend. I get the model we borrow stacks of cash above what comes in through taxes that's why loads of prime ministers banged on about deficits over a load of years. The point I was making is I don't think government pensions will be for everyone going forward. They will use the excuse of balancing the books because most people will understand that from there own day to day finances. Part of me wonders if the current inflation suits the government at the moment as it pushes more money around the economy as pay rises happen in the private sector and floe back through the coffers but maybe I'm giving them more credit than deserved...

So debt to GDP is what matters. Same as if you earn £10k and owe £100k it’s a bigger problem than if you earn £2m and owe £100k. It’s very very rare for governments to run surpluses (Labour under Brown has the most I believe) but that’s not really as issue as long as your economy grows quicker than your debt. Because then the percentage of your gdp you’re paying each year goes down.

Managing that is what matters for credit score and currency price and the like. The governments main job should be unblocking the economy where it needs to. Making sure employers have skilled and flexible workforce and the infrastructure it needs to complete its business in the most efficient manner.

So why have taxes? Because you still need to claim back unearned wealth, wealth that isn’t productive, or to stop certain behaviours or price in externalities. A free market economy tends towards monopolies and wealth tends to flow from poor to rich and like the board game means that quickly not everyone is having a great time. So you need to take some funds off the top and hand them to your six year old so they can keep playing and having fun, without making Dad feel too bad for winning.

We have our own currency, we can spend whatever we want by printing it. But if we do that, just like the mythical magic money tree, our currency soon devalues, so we also have to destroy money from the supply to keep its value high. The other use of taxes.

This is why raising taxes in a recession is dumb: you’re removing money from an economy where it already isn’t flowing like it should. It’s also why austerity is dumb because you’re not spending into an economy where money isn’t flowing.

Governments arent people. They don’t die, they exist until they don’t and when they don’t whatever debts they had are gone too. There’s no penalty as a country for finishing with a large debt pile. The job of a state is to act as a long term smoothing mechanism: letting more money in when needed and claiming it back when viable.

You will build up debt during recession, because that’s better than your people dying or your economy falling apart. And then you grow the economy to make that debt less relevant.

 

[clint van damme]

So debt to GDP is what matters. Same as if you earn £10k and owe £100k it’s a bigger problem than if you earn £2m and owe £100k. It’s very very rare for governments to run surpluses (Labour under Brown has the most I believe) but that’s not really as issue as long as your economy grows quicker than your debt. Because then the percentage of your gdp you’re paying each year goes down.

Managing that is what matters for credit score and currency price and the like. The governments main job should be unblocking the economy where it needs to. Making sure employers have skilled and flexible workforce and the infrastructure it needs to complete its business in the most efficient manner.

So why have taxes? Because you still need to claim back unearned wealth, wealth that isn’t productive, or to stop certain behaviours or price in externalities. A free market economy tends towards monopolies and wealth tends to flow from poor to rich and like the board game means that quickly not everyone is having a great time. So you need to take some funds off the top and hand them to your six year old so they can keep playing and having fun, without making Dad feel too bad for winning.

We have our own currency, we can spend whatever we want by printing it. But if we do that, just like the mythical magic money tree, our currency soon devalues, so we also have to destroy money from the supply to keep its value high. The other use of taxes.

This is why raising taxes in a recession is dumb: you’re removing money from an economy where it already isn’t flowing like it should. It’s also why austerity is dumb because you’re not spending into an economy where money isn’t flowing.

Governments arent people. They don’t die, they exist until they don’t and when they don’t whatever debts they had are gone too. There’s no penalty as a country for finishing with a large debt pile. The job of a state is to act as a long term smoothing mechanism: letting more money in when needed and claiming it back when viable.

You will build up debt during recession, because that’s better than your people dying or your economy falling apart. And then you grow the economy to make that debt less relevant.

Raising taxes in a recession isn't dumb as long as you raise it for the right people. I know technically we're not in a recession now but for all intents and purposes we are so we should be clawing back some of the billions we handed to the mega rich during covid to deal with inflation.

The government lucked out with 'Putin illegal war' because its given them a bogeyman to blame inflation on while they keep funnelling money to their rich mates.

Well worth listening to some of Gary Stevensons stuff on YouTube on this.

 

[Deleted member 5849]

The idea we need to collect in taxes before we can pay for stuff is nonsense as Covid showed.

But releasing so much cash into the economy has caused the issues now - take it to extremes and you end up with Zimbabwe / 1930s Germany.

While it's technically true that Givernment doesn't have to spend what it takes in, it does have to recognise the consequence of not doing that. That therefore means that tax and spend is more appropriate than just spend spend spend with no thought to the consequence. There are of course times tou want to inflate or deflate, but it's not just the chancellor fancying increasing public spending, lets see what happens.

 

[Deleted member 5849]

Raising taxes in a recession isn't dumb as long as you raise it for the right people.

It also isn't dumb if you then spend the money on public construction works. Go full-on Roosevelt.

 

[clint van damme]

It also isn't dumb if you then spend the money on public construction works. Go full-on Roosevelt.

That's the thing isn't it, we're not spending on anything meaningful, quite the opposite.

For exasmple hs2, not a fan but if we're going to do it, do it.
Looks like we're now going to get a pared back version which no doubt won't achieve what it was supposed to.

 

[shmmeee]

But releasing so much cash into the economy has caused the issues now - take it to extremes and you end up with Zimbabwe / 1930s Germany.

While it's technically true that Givernment doesn't have to spend what it takes in, it does have to recognise the consequence of not doing that. That therefore means that tax and spend is more appropriate than just spend spend spend with no thought to the consequence. There are of course times tou want to inflate or deflate, but it's not just the chancellor fancying increasing public spending, lets see what happens.

You think inflation was caused by us keeping the economy going over lockdown? Rather than say energy and supply chain issues from Russia and China?

I think comparing a modern economy to Zimbabwe is a little over the top TBH. What matters is the strength of the economy not public spending. I’m not aware of any data showing a correlation between the two TBH.

 

[clint van damme]

You think inflation was caused by us keeping the economy going over lockdown? Rather than say energy and supply chain issues from Russia and China?

I think comparing a modern economy to Zimbabwe is a little over the top TBH. What matters is the strength of the economy not public spending. I’m not aware of any data showing a correlation between the two TBH.

It was definitely a factor. But it was an unavoidable necessity. The government has done nothing since to counter its affects.

Energy has also been a factor, and again, the government has done nothing to counter its affect other than a few sticking plaster gestures.

That's why we're suffering economically more than other comparable countries on pretty much every metric, well that and the other thing people don't like us mentioning.

 

[Deleted member 5849]

You think inflation was caused by us keeping the economy going over lockdown? Rather than say energy and supply chain issues from Russia and China?

I think comparing a modern economy to Zimbabwe is a little over the top TBH. What matters is the strength of the economy not public spending. I’m not aware of any data showing a correlation between the two TBH.

Release money intothe economy without a check and yes, it creates inflation. If there aren't checks that would deflate in opposition then yes, it *definitely* causes inflation. It's not OTT to compare it to Zimbabwe as that's the consequence if you do too much. The theory is appropriate at times (Brown during the credit crunch) but taking it to extremes and you're turbocharging something into a form that causes trouble and issues, is naive at best, stupid at worst.

To repeat, that's *not* to say that there aren't times when loosening is appropriate, the same as there are times when checks are appropriate too.

Nor is that to say that pay rises cause inflation, as you can do certain things to check it such as raise taxes, for example, and spend the money where needed(!)

 

[Deleted member 5849]

It was definitely a factor. But it was an unavoidable necessity.

I'm not saying it wasn't though was I, but we've had evidence of what happens if you just release cash into the economy haven't we!

 

[clint van damme]

Release money intothe economy without a check and yes, it creates inflation. If there aren't checks that would deflate in opposition then yes, it *definitely* causes inflation. It's not OTT to compare it to Zimbabwe as that's the consequence if you do too much. The theory is appropriate at times (Brown during the credit crunch) but taking it to extremes and you're turbocharging something into a form that causes trouble and issues, is naive at best, stupid at worst.

To repeat, that's *not* to say that there aren't times when loosening is appropriate, the same as there are times when checks are appropriate too.

Nor is that to say that pay rises cause inflation, as you can do certain things to check it such as raise taxes, for example, and spend the money where needed(!)

That's why even the markets baulked when Truss and Kwarteng announced the mini budget, even they realised it had gone too far.

 

[skyblu3sk]

That's why even the markets baulked when Truss and Kwarteng announced the mini budget, even they realised it had gone too far.

Major shock to the markets which in turn devalued all assets. I'm glad I'm not near pension age as wiped a chunk off that over night. The pain at the moment definitely has roots in that mini budget.

 

[clint van damme]

Major shock to the markets which in turn devalued all assets. I'm glad I'm not near pension age as wiped a chunk off that over night. The pain at the moment definitely has roots in that mini budget.

Actually checked my meagre pension pot for the first time in ages yesterday, its more meagre than last time I checked it!
11 years to go, hopefully I can get it looking a bit healthier in that time.

 

[skyblu3sk]

Actually checked my meagre pension pot for the first time in ages yesterday, its more meagre than last time I checked it!
11 years to go, hopefully I can get it looking a bit healthier in that time.

I'll be 38 this year but have been planning to retire early I'm sure it will recover by then but I reckon the shock knocked 15% off overnight. Before that I was tracking nicely 8% year on year gains (not taking in to account what I was putting in) so was I bit of a shock. Bring on top of that freezing of tax bands and inflation and I can see people's personal debt piles creaping up. I'm in a pretty fortunate position but could imagine if you weren't it would be quite a scary place to be.

 

[clint van damme]

I'll be 38 this year but have been planning to retire early I'm sure it will recover by then but I reckon the shock knocked 15% off overnight. Before that I was tracking nicely 8% year on year gains (not taking in to account what I was putting in) so was I bit of a shock. Bring on top of that freezing of tax bands and inflation and I can see people's personal debt piles creaping up. I'm in a pretty fortunate position but could imagine if you weren't it would be quite a scary place to be.

Well the mega rich are voracious in their pursuit of wealth, they've plundered the countries assets in the form of utilities, natural resources and infrastructure,they rinsed the poor and driven them into the ground but there's a healthy seam of middle class wealth andassets to be mined yet! Sorry to be so bleak!

 

[Deleted member 5849]

I'll be 38 this year but have been planning to retire early

Conversely, I'm looking forward to the mortgage I had to take out until I'm 75, in order to be able to afford to move as things stand(!)

 

[clint van damme]

Conversely, I'm looking forward to the mortgage I had to take out until I'm 75, in order to be able to afford to move as things stand(!)

You got a mortgage until you're 75? Wow.
Still the right move so fair play.

 

[shmmeee]

Conversely, I'm looking forward to the mortgage I had to take out until I'm 75, in order to be able to afford to move as things stand(!)

How did you manage that?

 

[clint van damme]

How did you manage that?

Brought a bottle of this to the meeting with the bank manager

 

[skyblu3sk]

Conversely, I'm looking forward to the mortgage I had to take out until I'm 75, in order to be able to afford to move as things stand(!)

Still the right move wages going up should mean you can over pay and bring the term down at some point. I think I have ours set to standard retirement age.

 

[Deleted member 5849]

wages going up

Wonder when thet'll happen?

But yeah, the plan is ride out high inflation, however long that will be, overpay if possible, bring down to a normal year if and when interest rates fall.

Don't particularly fancy paying a mortgage when I'm 75 after all... although first things first is still being alive to do so(!)

 

[skyblu3sk]

Wonder when thet'll happen?

But yeah, the plan is ride out high inflation, however long that will be, overpay if possible, bring down to a normal year if and when interest rates fall.

Don't particularly fancy paying a mortgage when I'm 75 after all... although first things first is still being alive to do so(!)

If you don't mine me asking how old are you now?

 

[clint van damme]

Wonder when thet'll happen?

But yeah, the plan is ride out high inflation, however long that will be, overpay if possible, bring down to a normal year if and when interest rates fall.

Don't particularly fancy paying a mortgage when I'm 75 after all... although first things first is still being alive to do so(!)

If you can over pay, even 20 or 30 quid a month, do it, you'll reap the benefits.
Of course easier said than done in the current climate.

 

[Deleted member 5849]

If you don't mine me asking how old are you now?

I do mind you asking Mid forties.

 

[clint van damme]

If you don't mine me asking how old are you now?

I do mind you asking Mid forties.

Looks mid twenties.....

 

[skyblu3sk]

I do mind you asking Mid forties.

Still got loads of time then. House prices seem to double every 10 years at the mo so equity levels will be decent over that timescale and I have a feeling interest rates will drop sharply once inflation is done with. I think the first house we got was 6% interest. Currently locked in at 1.49% I can see it being back to average 2% mortgages in a few years.

 

[Ashdown]

Raising taxes in a recession isn't dumb as long as you raise it for the right people. I know technically we're not in a recession now but for all intents and purposes we are so we should be clawing back some of the billions we handed to the mega rich during covid to deal with inflation.

The government lucked out with 'Putin illegal war' because its given them a bogeyman to blame inflation on while they keep funnelling money to their rich mates.

Well worth listening to some of Gary Stevensons stuff on YouTube on this.

I agree with you here…..question is, how do you get that fortune back off these super rich individuals and corporations. They always seem to know how to protect their wealth.