THE DEFICIT

I wont vote caus I cant afford a cab up there & dont want to live wiv the deficit

its a load of old bollox. Like running government is same as budgeting households .  No one ever say why should they balance budget when few governments ever do and they can also print money or borrow for next to nothing.

Like if some major infrastructure needed repairing any government is going to go, no sorry we will just leave it undone till after next election as we want a balanced budget

I've never voted once in my life

I turn the telly over in disgust whenever politicians , the budget or the defecit are mentioned

These slimey Pricks don't even believe each other so what fkn chance have we got

We can't keep buying our way out of trouble so reducing the deficit is important.

dont you think, debt as % of gdp would be the better measure than dogmatic no deficit?

Must be an infinite amount of money in the country
otherwise where would all the money come from
if we all sold our house's tomorrow

"Do you know anyone that gives a damn about the deficit and will voting depending upon which party put across the best case for reducing it?"
I care.
"I don't so why do they keep banging on about it?"
Because you are not 64 million people, what a silly thing to say.
"it's a vote winner for absolutely nobody"
You are not 64 million people, what a silly thing to say.

I think we should have intelligence tests before people are allowed to vote, exhibit A: This thread.

akabula it doesn't matter how important the deficit is the point is the general public couldn't give a rats backside about it and wont be casting their vote based upon it, it wont even register, also the deficit is irrelevant when we keep borrowing x amount of money, whole economy is floating on a sea of debt no matter how much the deficit will be reduced.

Working classes are bothered by immigration
Middle classes are interested in which party will be good for their bank balance

Imports over export costs are a massive red herring, just one way of blithering on and on to waste time and deviate away from what really matters and avoid to talking about it.

Do you know anyone that gives a damn about the deficit and will voting depending upon which party put across the best case for reducing it? I don't so why do they keep banging on about it?

Tbf, Ed Miliband didn't mention the deficit in his speech at the party conference

The money doesn't exist wit-ham

Which is why we're left to fight for it between ourselves


Seriously .. Why do you care Just checking


The defecit's so Huge it won't make one bit of difference whoever's elected they're all as thick & greedy as pigsh!t

@scandhaven
I beg to differ. If we kept adding to the deficit we would be in real trouble eventually.
I want to hear what each party is doing in terms of the deficit, immigration, spending (especially on the NHS) and taxation.

yes that's my point Mc Moonbeam

so who do we owe this deficit to
as that money probably don't exist either

I'd love absolutely nobody to turn up to vote , maybe just a couple hundred kn0bs across the entire country

What power would the have then

I care because I have a reasonable grasp of the big picture and I don't want the UK to go the way of greece.

FFS by looks of things ("Imports over export costs") some people think the deficit and balance of trade are the same thing,

I'm guessing half the people who say they don't care about the deficit are the sort of people who'd say we should just print piles of money and we'll all be rich.

we would be in real trouble eventually

we   

already

are

When in a hole, stop digging.

the hole is debt as % of gdp. Greece i think is heading for budget surplus, not going to help them 1 bit

McM
Go back 50 years to the 60s and compare living standards then and now.
In any of the housing schemes you'd be hard pushed to find one car owner per street then. Now the streets are lined with cars.
One or two houses had telephones. Now Ma Pa and the kids all have mobiles.
Not everyone had a tv. Now it's a cvase of one in each  bedroom etc etc. I could go on and on.
So if we are in trouble now God knows what we were in then.

Apart from reducing their deficit.

You guys do realise that deficit means increasing debt, and debt even if it's not paid off requires interest to be pissed away by taxpayers just to service it?

And if debt gets unservicable a country is basically bankrupt?

Ig's frightening that I think people on this thread aren't trolling, no wonder people vote for the Greens or the SNP.

Then you are in a very tiny minority akabula, do you really think most people have bothered to read all the parties manifesto essay's, weigh everything up and make a decision? I doubt you've read all 83 pages of labour's for example (20,421 words long) votes will be cast mostly based on one of two things, 1) a tactical vote and 2) one big issue i.e taxation, immigration, we both know for most people it's that simple


"The best argument against democracy is a five-minute conversation with the average voter."

Winston Churchill

so who do we owe this deficit to

Those who buy Government bonds, so mainly financial institutions such as pension funds, investment funds etc but also the general public

It makes sense now. ... "Forgive them for the know not what they do."

"The best argument against democracy is a five-minute conversation with the average voter."
Winston Churchill
---
I agree with this completely, but I think WC was meaning you when he said it!

It's clearly obvious that when it comes down to voting, next to nobody will be considering which party is the best party to sort the deficit out, vast majority will quite frankly not give a s*** when in the voting booth, as said in my last post, if you think they will then you probably need to get out a bit more

I think most people want some reassurance regarding the deficit even if they don't fully understand it.
I personally don't want to read the nuts and bolts of everything but I do want a basic understanding of each parties approach to most things.
I'm surprised that more weren't put off voting for independence for instance given Salmond's inability to give a costing for anything.
A trait that Nicola has taken up btw.
"Don't worry about that or that or that, it'll be okay"
Well unfortunately I do worry and I want to know that policies have been fully costed.

I'm amazed the predicted SNP vote is going up, considering Scotland's deficit (significantly worse than the UK), but maybe this thread explains that!

electrical gadgets don't equal standard of living Aka

you'd have to offset that against things like crime , mental health , community breakdown , losing the country we live in to outsiders , the list goes on & on ...

both major parties will reduce deficit, one budget deficit, one overall deficit. Not going to matter to average voter who wont know the difference.

Institute for Fiscal Studies director Paul Johnson: "They (labour) are committed to getting a current budget balance - a current budget surplus - by the end of the parliament. That's an entirely credible fiscal policy.

2 sensible fiscal policies, the deciding factor for voters wont be "the deficit" imo, agree those who think it will be need to get out more

Those who buy Government bonds, so mainly financial institutions such as pension funds, investment funds etc but also the general public


So in other words .. they actually owe Us

Keep voting like good little puppets !!!

Are you Russell Brand?

The majority is owed to Pension funds & we all know what's gonna happen to them , this is also why the big FTSE companies aren't allowed to fail


Where did that Oil slump go again

Loads of voters will vote for who they've always voted for which is probably the party that their parents voted for. I think we all know that.
But I'm talking about the people who are actually interested in the future of the country which I would have thought was a considerable number.
Although after reading some of the thoughts on here I'm not too sure. In fact I'm depressed.

What's going to happen to the pension funds McM?

Just Checking is deluded beyond words, what kind of airy fairy world do you live in

On planet Earth, most voters are people who have very little interest in politics, you only have to see the turn out at in by-elections to see that, and they know even less about policies or even the names of key party members, but will turn up once every 5 years for the big one. This is a fact.

Well that's because it's depressing

Couldn't give a t0ss about this country , the level of greed & corruption sickens me every day

Why am I deluded?
I said that I agreed with: "The best argument against democracy is a five-minute conversation with the average voter.". Ok a bit tongue in cheek but I can see where he got that from.
You don't even need to have the conversation, reading posts on the internet really just makes you want to face-palm.

Mc Moonbeam     13 Apr 15 22:57 
I'd love absolutely nobody to turn up to vote , maybe just a couple hundred kn0bs across the entire country

What power would the have then




The risk of this strategy is that the ' couple of hundred knobs'  all turn out yo be brain dead  UKIP zombies.

Then we would be fkd !


Politics should matter to all of us. It is important. It governs the way we live and the life we lead. To not vote , and then complain about government actions, is nonsensical.

Just Checking     13 Apr 15 23:07 
Apart from reducing their deficit.

You guys do realise that deficit means increasing debt, and debt even if it's not paid off requires interest to be pissed away by taxpayers just to service it?

And if debt gets unservicable a country is basically bankrupt?




Here's a thought. If everyone in the UK paid the correct amount  of tax, then maybe we wouldn't be in the mess we are in now !

ironically thats what we were moaning at greece about.

the country is a joke country.

having to pay housing benefits because rents and house prices have gone over (by a long way) a reasonable cost.

The UK will spend £35 billion on debt interest in 2015/16.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/budget/11479261/summary-and-highlights.html

higher wages.
more tax collected.
lowered housing benefits as a result.
more money in pocket so more collected from things like vat.

either that or they raise tax on company profits.......

now as the tories are dead set again that because it "scares" people away from investing here, the above is the only option.

The US finance department have announced their spending numbers in the last day:

". . bringing the year-to-date total receipts to $1419.8 billion. Outlays totalled $287 billion, up 14 per cent from last year, for a year-to-date total of $1859.3 billion.   
The fiscal year-to-date deficit at the end of March was $439.5 billion. 
March's budget results were affected by differences in the calendar. If adjusted for timing-related transactions, the budget deficit would have been higher . . "

I've been selective, as have gone for the worst part of the statement, but it means in the last 6 months the US govt has been spending just under $1.31 for every $1 collected. That's a dog track over-round. Way to go guys. Party on. I can't see any problems with this strategy in the long term. There's still plenty of flexibility in the budget and no risk of any city or states going under or the bills not being paid.

Seriously, whatever else you do, please do not lend money to the US or UK governments, it will only encourage them.

Wages aren't going to rise much, immigration will see to that.
They're not importing labour to force wages up.
Oversupply of labour is meant to keep wages down.