Anyone going to Rally Against Debt on May 14th? (67)

The object of persecution is persecution. The object of torture is torture. The object of power is power.

Credit where it's due though, it takes real determination to produce a piece ("Problem Explained") that's even more hilariously naïve than Johan Hari's column on the other side of the argument, that popped up here recently. I particularly liked the part in the fourth paragraph accusing the current government of being committed to unsustainable levels of spending.

If only we could harness up all those bloggers to the National Grid or something, now that really would help the economy....

I find it actually absolutely hilarious that this march even exists as some kind of opposition to the anti-cuts march, which included demonstrations aimed at making people actually pay their taxes.

The cuts are having to happen because the government is not making the effort to get the tax revenue which it is owed by companies such as Barclays and by individuals who, let's face it, are often party contributors or members. All the parties to it, though I'm going to rage about the Tories doing it, because they are doing it right now.

The object of persecution is persecution. The object of torture is torture. The object of power is power.

Clashes with the Eurovision Song Contest, so I won't be going.

Da Vinci was a well known sexual deviant. You know that sketch of the naked man in the wheel? Blueprints for a rape machine.
~~~
snowboarding FTW

Don't you think it rather ironic that those who bleat the most about others not paying the tax they think is due, tend to be those Guardian reading students who's public service parents have established an off shore trust fund to avoid to as many of their own liabilities as possible.

Para 4 only says that current government borrowing is crowding out commercial borrowing, which will be true to some extent. Remember that although the current government are trying to reduce the deficit, the national debt will continue to increase until the deficit is zero.

My own objections to the 'Problems Explained' post are:

Para 1: Ricardian Equivalence. There's no empirical evidence that Ricardian Equivalence actually works, because people aren't rational enough (or have very high discount rates, either interpretation works).

However, that doesn't alter the argument because the MPC can just keep monetary policy looser for longer to offset the reduced government spending.

Para 3: Since we're not in the Euro, it would probably be the IMF who eventually bailed us out, and they are big enough.

Para 5: This would be true in the long term, but not necessarily in the short term as the post suggests.

Overall the poster makes some economic mistakes but I can't see any overall flaws in the thrust of the reasoning.

--A

And are often those who approved of rioters that didn't want to pay their fair share for local public services when the Community Charge was introduced.

International man of mystery
Men are from Mars, women are from Hell

I do think it's ironic. Really it ought to be the Inland Revenue and the Treasury complaining about the billions they get stiffed for every year by big business.

The object of persecution is persecution. The object of torture is torture. The object of power is power.

Let me get this straight, you liked the poll tax?

The object of persecution is persecution. The object of torture is torture. The object of power is power.