Eurogeddon

[judoka_uk]

How do you plan on balancing a budget if you cut taxes which are the sole income for that budget??

How do would I do it. Or how did Britain do it in the 1930s?

We have been going that route here in the states and now we have no money to support our infrastructure.

I can't speak to what's happening in America as I'm not an American and don't know the specifics

The economy has to be boosted from all sides including taxes.

You can't boost an economy by increasing taxes. The economy is made up of private companies and individuals working to make a profit. Taxing it beyond a certain point retards growth and shrinks the economy. Shrinking the economy means less tax can be collected, because there's a smaller chunk for tax to be taken from.

The only sustainable and genuine way to grow an economy is to cut taxes.

A government can get a temporary boost by creating easy credit and borrowing to fund infrastructure products. However, they aren't sustainable, create dangerous bubbles and have to be paid for at some point.

Please tell me this is just a troll. Well if not then let me see if I have this right, you want our children to be stupid, our elderly to die off, and our society to de-evolve to the middle ages. Just wow.

This is why its impossible to have sensible discussion because lefties just strawman from the start and don't even bother debating sensibly.

Your suggestion is to privatize the police and prisons for a profit?? I guess you have never seen deathrace huh?? yeah nothing could ever go wrong with that idea.

Britain has had privatised prisons since 1992, there are currently 14 of them housing about 10% of the total prison population. There were a few teething problems at one that was a young offenders institute, but that's resolved now and its running successfully.

The problem with private prisons is when they're run alongside public prisons. As this creates a dysfunctional market without the correct incentives. Operating private prisons alongside public ones allows private prisons to only accept the easy to deal with prisoners leaving the public ones to deal with the hardest to deal with and thus the most expensive.

This is the problem with all privatisation programmes. They're never allowed to work properly, because people opposed to privatisation always insist the lion's share is still dealt with by the state.

Companies naturally respond to this dysfunctional market by skimming off the most profitable work and leaving the least profitable to the state. The people who opposed privatisation and demanded a mix of private and public then come along and claim that this shows privatisation doesn't work. The reality is of course is that they rigged the market with their demands and ensured that privatisation would fail.

I don't think privatising the police is necessarily the best solution, but there is an argument for use of private security guards to free up the police to spend more time in areas where crime is worse i.e poor neighbourhoods.

[Bneterasedmynam]

You can't overtax, that I agree with. You have to at least have reasonable income for the government though, and that will creat public jobs that does in fact help stimulate the economy. It has the extra added bennefit of fixing infrastructure.

When I was refering to us earlier I was referring to the economy in general, and not specifically to the U.S. or Europe.

On a side note you wouldn't have to invest as much into the police and prisons if you cut crime. The best way to cut crime?? Simple it's called education.

[judoka_uk]

You can't overtax, that I agree with.

What do you view as overtaxing? Most reasonable studies put the maximum economically tolerable size of the state at 36% of GDP. In the UK we're at 42% of GDP and rising. I don't know the American figures, but I'd be surprised if they were below 36%.

You have to at least have reasonable income for the government though, and that will creat public jobs that does in fact help stimulate the economy. It has the extra added bennefit of fixing infrastructure.

It depends on what you believe the reasonable role of government to be.

Any job created by the government is paid for by people not working for the government. The more government jobs are created the more stress you put on the productive sector of the
economy.

Also any infrastructure jobs created by government spending are temporary bubbles. Building a few bridges or a road only employs people for a relatively short period of time after which those jobs disappear. After which the tax payer is lumbered with the cost of maintenance in the long term.

On a side note you wouldn't have to invest as much into the police and prisons if you cut crime. The best way to cut crime?? Simple it's called education.

There will always be crime. Crime can never be eradicated. Reducing crime is very complex and is not as simplistic as 'education'.

If we want to reduce crime we need to unleash the economy by de-regulating, cutting tax and creating the conditions for growth, legalise most drugs to suck the money out of crime and remove the dependency on crime to fuel habits, open up the education system to competition to reward technical as well as academic education and privatise non-essential policing functions so that the police are free to concentrate man power and resources on ensuring the safety of the poorest in society by freeing them from the threat of routine criminality.

[DCS]

You can't boost an economy by increasing taxes. The economy is made up of private companies and individuals working to make a profit. Taxing it beyond a certain point retards growth and shrinks the economy. Shrinking the economy means less tax can be collected, because there's a smaller chunk for tax to be taken from.

The only sustainable and genuine way to grow an economy is to cut taxes.

Correct theory in a supply-side system and as long as you keep an eye in the Laffer curve, because you can find yourself with a government lacking money enough to operate.

Of course, if you are into anarcho-capitalism, this is the best path to follow.

A government can get a temporary boost by creating easy credit and borrowing to fund infrastructure products. However, they aren't sustainable, create dangerous bubbles and have to be paid for at some point.

Totally correct too.

This is why its impossible to have sensible discussion because lefties just strawman from the start and don't even bother debating sensibly.

Yes, it is like trying to debate with neolibs.

On a side note you wouldn't have to invest as much into the police and prisons if you cut crime. The best way to cut crime?? Simple it's called education.

But you need crime, lots of it.

Get your hands in Wacquant's work.

[judoka_uk]

Correct theory in a supply-side system and as long as you keep an eye in the Laffer curve, because you can find yourself with a government lacking money enough to operate.

There's certainly a balance to be struck. I can't think of a Western government that is balanced in the right direction though, all seem to disastrously tilted towards an overbearing and growth stiffling state.

Of course, if you are into anarcho-capitalism, this is the best path to follow.

I'm not. I think Anarcho-Capitalism would suffer from as many flaws, albeit different flaws, as Communism. I think the further you go towards the extremes of either spectrum the less likely they are to work in practice.

Yes, it is like trying to debate with neolibs.

I've never understood what a Neo-Liberal is. It seems to be a generic term of abuse for people of a right wing bent on the Grauniad. Apart from that I'm not sure what it really means or what a Neo Liberal actually is. Is it those on the Libertarian Conservative end of the spectrum?

[DCS]

Is it those on the Libertarian Conservative end of the spectrum?

Farage would be called leftist by a real neolib.

[Vince Tortelli]

I can only speak for the situation in America, but by all means cut the public education spending. We have thrown millions at the problem and no one seems to know where it all went, although my friends and relatives that teach public school assure me it isn't going to the teachers. Meanwhile our kids are fatter and dumber than any previous generation.
Make these little fiefdoms taste the full fury of Adam Smith.

[DCS]

Bailout: Eurogroup statement on Spain

http://www.consilium.europa.eu/uedoc...fin/130778.pdf

[DCS]

Italy is next.

[judoka_uk]

Guy Verhofstadt needs to pipe down and learn some humility.