Re: How do cutbacks save economies? : Thu Oct 11, 2012 8:07 pm  

Mintball wrote:

So you invest. At this point, borrowing to do that is as cheap as it can be. But if you do something quickly it will start to have a positive impact quickly too. So for instance – I think I mentioned, recently, Robert Skidelsky's idea of insulating homes, which could be done quickly (training new workers to do it is not difficult and doesn't take long). The first and quickest result is that you put a large number of people back into meaningful work. They're no longer claiming benefits, but paying tax – and spending money within their own local economies. The longer-term benefits would see people's housing improve and their bills fall (and I'm not even going to mention the enviornmental benefit ).

and when everyone's house is insulated they're back on the dole. wait, then we train them all up to be able to build new homes, so they build the homes and then insulate them. meanwhile the people who originally insulated and built homes who are now out of work due to massive influx of these ace builders and insulators train to do something else, oh i don't know, farming, yes, they all become farmers. ffs.

In the longer term, I think everybody now realises that the economy needs to be rebalanced. But that is a long term thing – it cannot happen overnight.

yes it can. it can happen as quickly or as slowly as people want it to.

If you simply keep cutting benefits, you'll probably increase crime – and you'll see even more increases in food banks, soup kitchens and people ending their own lives out of despair. Those are no, in my opinion, options for a civilised society.

so i'm expected to keep doling out my money to people so they don't rob me? really? maybe we should just hand out tenners until crime just stops completely.

Re: How do cutbacks save economies? : Thu Oct 11, 2012 8:27 pm  

Hi Samwire - I look forward to reading your positive contributions to the discussion. Y'know - actual ideas. Backed by actual logic. And sense.

Like, for instance, how you create, design and develop a new product, then find the market for it overnight.

Over to you, dearie. You're the expert, obviously.

Re: How do cutbacks save economies? : Thu Oct 11, 2012 8:34 pm  

Mintball wrote:

Hi Samwire - I look forward to reading your positive contributions to the discussion. Y'know - actual ideas. Backed by actual logic. And sense.

the same logic that comes up with just giving everyone a job?

Re: How do cutbacks save economies? : Thu Oct 11, 2012 8:58 pm  

Ferocious Aardvark wrote: Supposedly based on figures from the Office of National Statistics. I've found this: http://www.cps.org.uk/files/reports/original/121005151233-TheprogressivityofUKtaxesandtransfers.pdf You need a hobby

Ferocious Aardvark wrote: Supposedly based on figures from the Office of National Statistics. I've found this: http://www.cps.org.uk/files/reports/original/121005151233-TheprogressivityofUKtaxesandtransfers.pdf You need a hobby

Re: How do cutbacks save economies? : Thu Oct 11, 2012 9:48 pm  

samwire wrote:

and when everyone's house is insulated they're back on the dole.

How long do you think that is going to take, a year, five years, or your whole lifetime ?

Are you aware that the current round of subsidies for home insulation is looking at upvc double glazing that was fitted more then ten years ago simply because improvements in design and material technology means that the upvc windows you fit now are so much more efficient at insulating your house that its worth replacing the old ones ?

Have you looked at a new build house these days and wondered why their double glazing is only a few millimetres thick while the ones that you had fitted in the 1990s are 15 to 20mm thick ?

Do you think the research into house warming efficiency will EVER stop ?

Re: How do cutbacks save economies? : Thu Oct 11, 2012 10:33 pm  

JerryChicken wrote:

How long do you think that is going to take, a year, five years, or your whole lifetime ?

Are you aware that the current round of subsidies for home insulation is looking at upvc double glazing that was fitted more then ten years ago simply because improvements in design and material technology means that the upvc windows you fit now are so much more efficient at insulating your house that its worth replacing the old ones ?

Have you looked at a new build house these days and wondered why their double glazing is only a few millimetres thick while the ones that you had fitted in the 1990s are 15 to 20mm thick ?

Do you think the research into house warming efficiency will EVER stop ?

oh, so we're not just training them to bung some insulation in. they're going to be designing and fitting windows as well. will the polymer science training be just as quick as the installing insulation training? and there's the new glass technology that these poor buggers will be developing too.

Re: How do cutbacks save economies? : Fri Oct 12, 2012 8:10 am  

As Sky's economics correspondent Ed Conway was tweeting about yesterday, the latest round of debt issued by the UK government was for £12bn of borrowing on 12 year index-linked (ie inflation proof) bonds, which sold at a negative interest rate, -0.441%. This means lenders are paying the UK government for the privilege of lending to it, presumably because they fear that a guaranteed loss of 0.441% a year over 12 years, is better than the alternatives of investing elsewhere and risking losing more. So we are now getting paid to borrow money. https://twitter.com/EdConwaySky

As Sky's economics correspondent Ed Conway was tweeting about yesterday, the latest round of debt issued by the UK government was for £12bn of borrowing on 12 year index-linked (ie inflation proof) bonds, which sold at a negative interest rate, -0.441%. This means lenders are paying the UK government for the privilege of lending to it, presumably because they fear that a guaranteed loss of 0.441% a year over 12 years, is better than the alternatives of investing elsewhere and risking losing more. So we are now getting paid to borrow money. https://twitter.com/EdConwaySky

Re: How do cutbacks save economies? : Fri Oct 12, 2012 8:58 am  

samwire wrote:

the same logic that comes up with just giving everyone a job?

And don't decry farming: why not? Why not improve our own food production and security, eh?

But y'see, your little knee is playing those jerkery games so you're not reading all of what I have posted. Either that or you have comprehension difficulties.

I have said, the economy needs rebalancing. At present, 75% depends on people purchasing services or goods.

We need to start creating things and selling them – preferably including actually exporting them.

This does not happen overnight – and indeed, I'm still waiting for details of the product that can be designed, created and a market found for it overnight.

So in the meantime, while that process is happening, we need to create jobs – or the recession will continue, there will be no growth and the deficit will increase. Do you not understand that?

Re: How do cutbacks save economies? : Fri Oct 12, 2012 9:00 am  

samwire wrote:

... will the polymer science training be just as quick as the installing insulation training? ...

Probably as quick as developing a new product, designing it, getting a manufacturing set up created, finding markets for it etc etc etc. Y'know – 'as quickly as you want' – isn't that what you have claimed?

Re: How do cutbacks save economies? : Fri Oct 12, 2012 9:03 am  

samwire wrote:

oh, so we're not just training them to bung some insulation in. they're going to be designing and fitting windows as well. will the polymer science training be just as quick as the installing insulation training? and there's the new glass technology that these poor buggers will be developing too.

I think if you changed tack from the rather weird conviction your neurons seem to have gathered that the actual firm and sole proposition on this thread as a solution to the country's economic woes is the re-training of every unwaged person immediately as a full-time insulation fitter for the rest of their working lives, then it might just click that the poster only advanced insulation as one single illustrative example, and not as the panacea to solve the world's financial woes.