Which is more important now: political reform or the economy?

[FrakkinTheReturningOfficer]

Political reform is going to be bad for the economy, in the short term at least.

Sorting out the economy probably means putting political reform on hold.

Which would you choose?

The two aren't exclusive of each other. Sorting out the economy isn't in the power of elected politicians, they don't control it. Moving slowly towards democracy is something they can control to a degree.

Without political reform we may not see any decisive action on the economy.

Okay rephrase to 'tough measures designed to control the deficit, rebuild market confidence and encourage economic stability', which IMO isn't compatible with political reform.

Markets hate change...

its the markets which caused this. this is the socialising of losses created by private institutions. if they go down, big deal. life will go on.

The economy, above everything else.

Political reform is not for the benefit of the country - just small parties, including nutter ones.

The markets haven't caused the economic meltdown. It is simple spending more than you earn, ie government spend exceeding tax revenues.

absolutely the markets caused this. the entire right wing ideology of deregulated markets caused this. no one serious doubts that. the huge deficits are the result of bailing out massive financial institutions who held a gun to the head of society.

nothing to do with tax revenues. dear oh dear.

The economy is much more important.

I think the best political reform is that so many disgraced MPs have gone, and new, younger, more independent MPs in all parties are now elected.

I wouldn't mind seeing a House of Lords elected using PR, many more open primaries, equalised constituency sizes, and similar. I am fundamentally opposed to massive STV constituencies. The fact that an MP serves only 80000 gives them at least some serious connection to a local area. If they serve 500000 then they won't bother with solving tricky but mundane problems for constituents - it just isn't worth their while.

But none of that is as important as starting to cut the deficit.

It's even quite odd people are trying to compare one with the other.

Ooh let's not move a tiny way towards being a democracy one day, we have to protect business interests first. it shows how pernicious the prevailing political ideology is. capital is god.

you could quite easily change the electoral system and do X Y or Z to the economy.

Economy

Agree with coolfonz - nothing to do with each other. And frankly I am extremely fucking tired with right-wingers implying that the 'markets' are entitled to tell us what to do. Investors don't run my country - the electorate does.

Want to share that thought with the Greeks...?

I think the Greek situation rather illustrates my point, actually. Chinless investors and Goldman Sachs conspired to fuck up Greece's economy, and now ordinary people in Greece are asked to carry the can while said chinless investors sail off into the sunset on solid gold yachts. Why people think we should conspire with this crap ('oooh but we've got to think about what the markets want!') instead of fighting against it is completely beyond me.

policywonk

Greece spends more than it gets in tax, so it needs to borrow.

Who exactly is it going to borrow from if it tells the markets to fuck off?

Maybe if it got its own finances in order, it could then be some sort of airy-fairy socialist utopia. Till that time, it is utterly dependent on the international financial markets, and there is nothing it can do about it.

So you think we should just keep borrowing and spending at exactly the same rate, change nothing and watch as the country disappears down the toilet? Isn't that cutting off your nose to spite your face?

Unfortunately, sound money - not going on borrowing binges - is a fundamentally conservative principle, not a socialist one.

Greece can withdraw from the Euro and default. And if it did, everyone who believes in proper democracy - rather than the pus-riddled plutocracy that's been developed by Thatcherites over the last 30 years - will laugh like drains.

As to what we should do - why, we should tax the rich! While reforming the electoral system. Simples.

"So you think we should just keep borrowing and spending at exactly the same rate, change nothing and watch as the country disappears down the toilet? Isn't that cutting off your nose to spite your face?"

Chil1234, that's an excellent summation of Labour party policy

Oh, and introduce international financial regulation that would put all the speculators out of business. And strip the investment banks down to size. And reassert the power of central banks.

"we should tax the rich"
but will Tony and Cherie, Ruth Kelly and the union bosses on their £200,000 salaries accept being taxed higher?

I agree that Greece should withdraw from the Euro. Why they don't let the currency take a large part of the pain, instead of the people - just for the sake of a failed European political project, is beyond me.

If it defaults, though, no-one will lend to it, at least for a few years.

Not good when spending is more than tax take.

"Oh, and introduce international financial regulation that would put all the speculators out of business. And strip the investment banks down to size. And reassert the power of central banks."

at what point should we invite the IMF in?

The UK deficit, the cuts in public services, are a direct result of 30 years of neo-liberalism, supported by Labour, the Tories. The private sector collapsed and demanded the state bailed it out.

There is always a need for a dynamic economy which balances budgets. But the desire for credit was fuelled by a right wing utopian ideal of endless growth, no limits to growth and so on.

Without the finances of the state we would have ended up in front-line capitalism, like Somalia or Cote D'ivoire. Where men with machetes take it all.

The Anglo Saxon economies, which are built on zero regulation, market economies and so on, have been failing since 1989.

But despite all this, it's so interesting to see how much the right despise democracy, how they would sell sovereignty to banking, to multi-nationals. they hate the prospect of ordinary people controlling fiscal procedures, political procedures. this is how the right operates in the post-fascist era.

I agree that the two are not mutually exclusive:

Also the falling pound is arguably part of inevitable adjustment. The election uncertainty is just one of the evnts that could trigger this adjustment. In fact the Govnor of the BoE spent much of last year talking down the pound; I suspect they see/saw it as part of inevitable fiscal rebalancing...

Persistent low interest rates even with inflation pressure tells me that there is an element of us inflating our way out of our debts. I am not classically trained economist but I believe there is an element of that happening?