The budget: thumbs up or thumbs down?

[policywonk]

Interested in seeing what the MN consensus is (if we can reach such a thing)

For me: thumbs up, on balance, despite not enough Hot Low-Carbon Action

Dveloped coutries' debts are structured in different ways, and the repayment terms are a lot more onerous.

Pwonk am applauding you. Howcome with all those spin masters, Labour can't manage to get that across.

Thank you smee!

Why aren't they getting this point across - because most of the newspapers have turned decisively against Labour and have no intention of printing mitigating facts, I reckon.

Plus economics is hard and people (me included) find it dull. And most of us (me included) have no background in it at all.

Pwonk. I know. How depressing that we're sinking back into all that..

Stephanie Flanders' comment:

"You can?t raise the kind of money this government needs to raise by soaking the rich. There aren?t enough of them, and those that do exist tend to be very good at keeping the government?s hands off their cash. Taxing the rich makes for good politics but less effective economics."

is spot on. Most people in the £150,000 + income range enjoy flexibility in how they might have their salaries structured, and can certianly afford to benefit from tailored tax advice.

FGS are you trying to sell us the idea that debt is A Good Thing!!??? Money spent on paying debt interest takes away from money that could be spent on hospitals, schools etc. Is that what you want?

I have no idea whether we will be better or worse off, we have generally found ourselves significantly worse off under a labour government. Having said that I give the budget a thumbs up I support the tax measures on the high earners. A necessary evil for the next few years.

fembear, it's an ideological debate as much as anything else. Lefties tend to tolerate (or embrace) much higher levels of public sector debt than righties, because such debt enables public sector spending.

Having dug into this a bit, lots of people are saying that the real problem is that so few of us have substantial savings; the combination of high private sector debts AND public sector debts is potentially disastrous. Brown is certainly massively at fault in allowing personal debt levels to grow out of control - he should have exercised a lot more control over the markets.

fembear, methinks you might be missing the point. Pwonk's not saying it's good - just that in relation to others our debt isn't as outrageous..

"Lefties tend to tolerate (or embrace) much higher levels of public sector debt than righties, because such debt enables public sector spending."

Well if you borrow now then you can engage in capital projects now but it only means that you have less money in the future as you need to divert resources to finance interest and repayments. Labour have admitted that it is not reasonable to spend any more on hospitals and schools because they have already had a huge building project.
This debt isn't for capital projects i.e. investment. It is to finance day-to-day expenditure like unemployment pay. That is wrong.

Public debt shouln't be confused with external debt, which reflects foreign currency liabilities of both the private and public sector and must be financed out of foreign exchange earnings.

this is the external debt table

In fact the mundi index is great for all sorts of country comparisons if you toggle.

As suggested by Swedes, here is a mini poll to get your yea or nay to yesterday's Budget. We'll start a new thread, too, just to flag up the poll. thanks

OK Swedes - but how much of that is private debt? (Have no idea what the answer to this is so it's not a leading question.)

Have voted Garaldine, but must say I don't agree with the wording of the question - I don't care how it affects my finances - I care how it affects the environment, developing countries, the redistribution of income and public servies!

PW - "The Budget Thumbs Up or Thumbs Down" is verbatim of your original thread. Was the colon significant?

Geraldine MNHQ : Thank you very much for doing the poll.

Oh, I can't see the page now cos I've already voted, but it said something like 'thumbs up or thumbs down - how has it affected your family's finances?'

My mind is on Higher Things

Spend it on mink-lined bootees, Lenin.

Oh. Bootees lined with the hair of, um, redundant derivatives traders?

I haven't even checked our personal finances for the net effect.

There have been instances when I would have been entitled to tax credits and was told so by the tax office. However, I thought it was immoral to claim them as we can manage v well without so never did. And I have never been on the dole or had any other sort of social security.

I think I am typical of self reliant free-marketeer types. It's a quieter form of wealth distribution.

That's why students are mostly left wing. It's a no-brainer to want to share everything equally when you have nothing.