Do some people not realise that the money that governments have to pay for things comes from taxes?

[Thedogshow]

I keep hearing people say things along the lines of ‘letting people die so that people can go shopping’ and ‘so that rich people can get more money’ etc. As if the other option would be to just chill out forever at home, get paid by the government and wait until this mythical time when we are ‘safe’ from coronavirus.
But the NHS, universal credit, all social care etc is paid for by money that is obtained by the government from income tax, corporation taxes, duties on alcohol etc. The alternative is to borrow more money from countries like China.
Surely they understand this?
If all businesses are shut and no one is earning the government will quickly run out of money. If lots of big businesses go bust it is catastrophic for the country. If banks go bust everyone loses everything. It makes the UK extremely vulnerable. And domestically, so, so many jobs will be lost, both in the private and public sector.
It is pretty important. Wanting the economy not to tank is not greed, it’s essential to protect the whole of society.
Nothing comes from nothing.

I'm sure this will fall on deaf ears but anyhoo:

Like most- no nearly all Governments of the world, they go to the bank for a loan like normal folks. The difference is they will nearly always get the loan because the people of that country are the security. Please dont let the name 'Bank of England' fool you- it's not owned by the morchacy or the Government- it's a private company.

To illustrate, As far as I can recall the UK only paid off the loan they got to fund Ww2 in about 2006 ish? I'm sure the Government were relieved to have completed that only to face a recession 2 years later (maybe part of the reason for austerity measures?) and have to now add again to the national debt.

Yes our children and I'm sure grand children will be paying this off amongst the accumulation of the other debts.

So why dont Governments own their own banks and print or I guess create numbers on a screen? Although that would be the common sense approach, common sense is not a bed fellow of politics.

Governments would rather take out a loan not that they use the word loan- a debt instrument- Corona bonds are a good example of a name. A new name to differentiate this new debt item from others. They'd rather do this than say immediately hike direct taxes for the rich because no one wants to tread on any ties and toes. Then Tax us all more when we go back to work and create jobs for us to go back to. It's possible to do and would pay down the debt a lot quicker but is not exactly a vote winning option is it?

Agree nellodee agree. Money’s not real, or rather, it’s only real whilst people believe it in.

As soon as people stop believing in it, or the government/institution that backs it, it loses all value.

Bitcoins were ‘mined from hard drives’ for chrissakes.

Please read a book on economics

I suggest you read a book on economics. When the government cranks up the printing press, one result is inflation. In the UK, more people claim benefits than pay tax. Do you imagine there is zero consequence to the eye watering levels of debt accumulated in the last 20 years? The North Sea can't bankroll it. That gig is over. Gordon Brown sold the gold reserves when the gold price was at an all time low. Do you imagine it's sustainable to have the burgeoning welfare state picking up the tab for multinationals paying basement wages? And that this welfare benefit is laughably called a 'tax credit?' The current situation is dysfunctional and unsustainable. But the same cabaret of clowns just keep chanting about 'evil Tories' and so it continues.

Bovary you didn't read the economics book then.

That whole post is based on assumptions that aren’t true. As per my last post.

To understand why you can't just 'print more money ' think of it like your Log Book against your car....you could copy your Log Book 20 times but there's only one car to substantiate against it, the rest are meaningless pieces of paper.

And theres a false assumption again.

You don't get the concept of fiat currency.

To use your analogy, your original log book isn't substantiated by anything anyway to begin with. All the created log books are equally valuable. How valuable is that? That's decided by the market.

Our country relies on money being created, whether by printing or banks adding 0s to spreadsheets.

If I may use an analogy of my own; Money isnt the eventual goal of economic production, it's just oil to make the machine of goods and services work.

mmm, people genreally want low taxation and fully funded public services. Paradoxically they vote Tory for the former whilst muttering about magic money trees on the latter.

The country seems happy to have pissed billions up the wall on Brexit, no deal and job losses would be fine because the Dunkirk Spirit would see Britain through. Now an actual crisis has taken place and the same people seem to have lost their shit over a 1 month shut down.

The key workers are still toiling its just that they don't generate wealth for the billionaires. The rush is to get the gig economy toiling again and debt cycle back up and running. If Britain hadn't have run down its manufacturing base it wouldn't be so reliant on people consuming shit to keep the economy afloat.

The key workers are still toiling its just that they don't generate wealth for the billionaires. The rush is to get the gig economy toiling again and debt cycle back up and running.

This!

Please dont let the name 'Bank of England' fool you- it's not owned by the morchacy or the Government- it's a private company.

See, this really summarises the problem with this whole thread. No research at all, just regurgitation of false assumptions.

If you'd troubled yourself to go to the Bank of England's Wikipedia page, you'd know it was nationalised in 1946 and is an "independent public organisation".

The real thing is that everyone expects SOMEONE ELSE to pay more tax to pay for the hundreds of billions in debt we're racking up to pay for the furlough, business support, extra benefits bill, crash in tax revenue due to the slump in the economy, etc.

What people need to realise is that EVERYONE will end up paying for this. ALL taxes will rise for EVERYONE. Income tax, NIC, VAT, duties, corporation tax, inheritance tax, capital gains tax, business rates - the lot and probabably some new taxes not even invented yet. Maybe not immediately, but over the next few years, we'll ALL be worse off financially.

This time, it won't be austerity to dig us out of the debt, it'll be tax rises.

And no, you can't just tax the rich. Even if you sent a tax bill for a billion pounds each to the richest 100 people/businesses, it's only raising a 100 billion. It's going to cost us 230 billion in support alone, not to mention lost tax revenue from the economic slump which will rack up debt to cover for years to come.

Hilarious that there are posters on another thread suggesting ending the state pension triple lock - that's re-arranging the deck chairs on the titanic. Much bigger tax increases/cost savings are needed.

We've only just recovered from the last financial crisis, which took 10 years. This one will take another 10 years to recover. Tighten your belts everyone, it's going to be a bumpy ride.

I was talking to a relative of mine about the high cost of health insurance here in Germany, and he seriously said that he was glad healthcare is free in the UK.

people genreally want low taxation and fully funded public services. Paradoxically they vote Tory for the former whilst muttering about magic money trees on the latter.

The difference is whether the money is spent wisely or not.

Blair/Brown pissed billions away on non-essentials and waste. Despite TREBLING the money on NHS, most was wasted because they didn't tackle the waste and inefficiency. Just poured more water into the leaky bucket whilst the holes got bigger. They ended up crippling the NHS by committing it to the ruinously expensive PFI deals to get shiny new hospitals with atriums and shopping malls rather than building far cheaper, but more functional hospitals - our kids will still be paying for that. Not to mention increasing GP wages for doing less work - brilliant!

I dont understand economics unfortunately. I might try and read a book or do an OU module. I do understand that governments raise taxes to pay for things though as that seems a simple concept. I dont understand different types of tax or what would be the fairest tax system or how all the wealth gets concentrated. I do get the value of unpaid labour like caring to the system. I work in a school paid for from taxes and often get told how we are unproductive - then they close the schools and people realise how essential the 4% of gdp spent on schools was to keep the rest of the economy going and how an educated workforce is more productive than an uneducated one.

The difference is whether the money is spent wisely or not

The problem for the right is that not everything boils down to money. The NHS is not solely about money. It currently has 1000's of vacancies, bursaries for nurses were cut, Brexit has discouraged foreign health care workers. All ideological choices done whilst telling the public there was no money but HS2 and Brexit still went ahead. Pissing money down a worthless ideological drain.

Actually, the cost of this is already coming from increased borrowing. That borrowing will have to be paid back at a later date through government revenue (i.e. taxes). welcome to "austerity measures II" where we cut all the NHS and public services to pay for that.

Goes hand in hand with 'we have long memories, they bailed out the banks.'

I'm not sure what people think would happen to society if the banks weren't bailed out.

I'm sure people don't understand how close the markets have come to Armageddon during this crisis either. If people weren't dying it would've the headline on every news bulletin.

I don’t understand why Brexit spending is blamed on the government only.

I agree money for it is wasted, but it was voted for by the Great British Electorate, across the board, well, maybe except the LibDen voters.

Blair/Brown pissed billions away on non-essentials and waste. Despite TREBLING the money on NHS, most was wasted because they didn't tackle the waste and inefficiency. Just poured more water into the leaky bucket whilst the holes got bigger. They ended up crippling the NHS by committing it to the ruinously expensive PFI deals to get shiny new hospitals with atriums and shopping malls rather than building far cheaper, but more functional hospitals - our kids will still be paying for that. Not to mention increasing GP wages for doing less work - brilliant!

Actually, PFI was introduced by John Major in 1992.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Private_finance_initiative

Has it now suddenly become a grteat idea since you can't blame Labour for it? Or would you like to correctly slam the Tories for introducing it???

Actually, the cost of this is already coming from increased borrowing. That borrowing will have to be paid back at a later date through government revenue (i.e. taxes). welcome to "austerity measures II" where we cut all the NHS and public services to pay for that.

This exposes the fallacy of capitalism. We've had 40 years of being told laissez faire free market economics works best. Survival of the fittest. Until they become "too big to fail" and expect tax payer bailouts. What was dangerously Marxist 4 months ago is now apparently common sense.

Like most- no nearly all Governments of the world, they go to the bank for a loan like normal folks

No they don't - they issue gilts, which is a type of loan, yes, but relies on other countries and institutions wanting to buy them. No demand for the gilts, (because they are priced with too low a yield) means the gilt issuance will be under subscribed, which means no money coming in.

I agree money for it is wasted, but it was voted for by the Great British Electorate

Yes and now the Great British electorate wants to go back to work because rationing essential food stuffs and job losses isn't quite as cool as it looked in the "No Deal" brochure.

Yes I do actually we need to balance things I'm not confident this government can

Yes and now the Great British electorate wants to go back to work because rationing essential food stuffs and job losses isn't quite as cool as it looked in the "No Deal" brochure.

Not sure what your point is, do you think public opinion has changed?

And even if it did, that's a completely different issue to COVID19 and its economic consequences.

Not sure what your point is, do you think public opinion has changed?

I think some public opinion is confused. Brexit job losses, fine, COVID job losses disaster.

Has it now suddenly become a grteat idea since you can't blame Labour for it? Or would you like to correctly slam the Tories for introducing it???

The Tories didn't force Blair/Brown to sign huge numbers of new PFI contracts did they?