It is really important that the way 97% of money is created by the
private banks creating debt is widely understood. Thus thee banks have
an incentive to encourage personal borrowing. That creates calamity when
interest rates rise. And quantitative easing is useless if it simply
gives money to the banks. PFI is discredited as a costly device used to
avoid government borrowing. Sovereign money as proposed by Positive
Money is needed for much needed investment in transport infrastructure,
new hospitals and schools without borrowing.

Yes – but not just Tory. The “self evident truth” of an economic collapse caused by profligate public spending was never challenged by any of the Labour economics ministers at the time. To have done so would have shattered the underlying assumption of New Labour that Thatcher’s “reforms” were both necessary and positive. Its plan was to build on them rather than reverse them. This is part of the reason for the persistence of the austerity lie described in this essay.

It is quite remarkable that these people still hold to this absurd claim. They’ve been in power for 7 years now and it’s patently obvious that austerity policies are a thoroughly irresponsible adherence to an utterly failed ideology.

The original post by this guy was pitiful, but it is far from clear that it contravened oD guidelines. My impolite response was removed rapidly — despite the fact that it too was not contrary to the rules that supposedly oD is guided by.

As I and others have been commenting and complaining for years, oD “moderation” is not intellectually justified. It looks more emotional than anything.

And hey, I can upvote myself too. Cretin.

You really must think you are smart, and everyone else is a bit thick. Pity that it’s the other way around!

Investment grows GDP. Austerity leads to stagnation, it fixes nothing but a useless statistic..

We all know what Tories are and have been. Whether Corbyn is the answer to the mess that the UK has been placed in by Tory crooks is not clear, but it is clear that few people would be as incompetent as Theresa Mayhem, David Pigswill Cameron, and their potential replacements like Dunderhead Johnson and that imbecile from the 19th century, whose father was equally disgusting and imbecilic. Complaining about intelligent and decent politicians like Corbyn when the Tory party is populated by morons and crooks is nothing less than hilarious.

Ten years after the financial crisis, after a decade of supposed “austerity”, we are still running a deficit of over 2 1/2 % of GDP. While that is not a disastrous level, it leaves little room for fiscal expansion during the next recession, now overdue by historic standards. It would only be prudent to reduce borrowing further. Corbyn’s spending plans were indeed excessive and economically illiterate; there is no magic money tree.

But of course, the real issue is that there is next to no industry left in the UK — apart from the German-owned car companies like Rolls Royce — dating back to that evil hag called Thatcher. In tandem, the Tories (and the Right in the USA and elsewhere) deregulated banking allowing these crooks to screw over the world and cause the global financial crash of 2008/9 which is still with us.

So, your hilarious claim that the Tories are “responsible” in their economic management is just propaganda. Ludicrous propaganda. It belongs in the rubbish tip, but you will have to pay to deposit it there, since the collection of rubbish in the UK is now seen as a luxury rather than a public service. Toxic waste in particular is expensive to dispose of, and I regret to say that your comments fall into that category.

True, running the UKs economy is unlike running a household budget but the broader principles are the same insofar as if money runs out.. we go bust.

Labours thinking is that if they invest in infrastructure, the returns will outweigh the expense. But in simple terms, that’s a gamble.. very much so… and if the gamble doesn’t pay off, the UK will have tripled its debt repayments with nothing to show for it in return… and no more money to fall back on.. As opposed to the Tories, whose painful austerity we’re bemoaning.. but they’re moving on the principle of paying off debt.. and painful though it is, they are succeeding.. and when the next global crash happens, they will have ensured we have enough money to ride our way through.

The Tories policies are not exciting, they’re slow and boring.. but they work to ensure the UK remains solvent and ultimately, that we remain safer. Besides, anyone who seriously researches Corbyn, McDonnell and Abbott will realise their ‘giveaway sweets for all’ policies are no more than a tactical sweetener to get them into power… at which time look out.. because we will be submitted to the full onslaught of marxist power grabs and if anyone thinks for a moment they will be better off as a result, look at Venezuela.. because Corbyn has far more allegiance to their populist policies than the Nordic social democrat policies. The difference.? The Nordics respect and encourage private business and respect fiscal constraints. Populists do not. They will spend unerringly – like a gambler who reaches his limit but keeps spending, hoping to make up his losses.