To think that the way to encourage economic growth is to create jobs rather than cut them?

[toptramp]

Or have I got something wrong?

Just watching Newsnight and the plight of NEETS (not in education or employment)

For example the creche in the local leisure centre was shut down meaning that at least 3 people lost their jobs at creche workers. I could go on.

I really do worry about this cuts business and a tinsy part of me thinks that it is being used as an excuse to privatise left, right and centre. I am a bit of a novice at this tbh but can someone please EXPLAIIIIN!/

totally agree, I'd rather see full employment than economic growth anyway

I work with NEETs - otherwise know as young people wanting work or training and often needing a great deal of support to be job ready

you are soooo NOT being unreasonable x

Ok, here goes. We need jobs but private sector jobs. Public sector jobs have to be funded by taxes on private companies and people who work in the private sector (public sector taxpayers are just refunding some of their wages).

In the good years the government spent more than it received in taxes. To do this it borrowed money, which has to be repaid with interest. This is the deficit.

Now we need to spend less than we receive intakes to pay back the debts plus the interest. Public sector jobs and other public sector spending get us more in debt. It sucks because if we hadn't overspent in the good years we wouldn't need to underspend now. But we do. In countries where borrowing is out of control they may go bankrupt and have huge cuts, eg Greece.

Investors don't have to lend to the UK government and can raise interest rates. If private individuals and companies (especially big ones) are taxed too much, they'll go abroad so instead we have to cut expenditure.

No, you're right. The cuts are purely ideological. Happycamel is talking crap and doesn't understand economics (e.g. the deficit isn't the debt, it's the difference between the debt and the expected economic growth, so they're wrong at the very first paragraph of that argument). Public sector jobs are just as beneficial to the economy as private sector ones, and in fact they feed off each other as when more people have jobs in the public sector they can spend money on things in the private sector and get the economy going even more- it's a lot of feedback loops. Look at Sweden etc where the main employers are public sector.

In times of recession the government should spend more on the public sector for two reasons:

1. Labour is cheaper (it is now much less expensive to get builders etc than it was during the boom).
2. The public sector wages boost the private sector.

Therefore, government spending now gets better value for money and helps to shore up the public sector, keeping the economy flowing and possibly growing. It's not just spending, but investment in a stronger, better future and therefore: growth.