UK Labour Party Watch

Hermit · **#13421** by **Hermit** » Sep 29, 2018 3:29 pm

Thommo wrote:Whilst Angelo is wrong, he's also definitely not any kind of advocate of economics, whether right-wing or otherwise.

The fact remains that it's easier to attack straw-men than steel-men.

Where's the strawman? Angelo wrote: "high profits means more jobs created". Isn't that precisely why advocates of supply-side economics/trickle down economics say theirs is the best economic system?

Thommo · **#13422** by **Thommo** » Sep 29, 2018 3:32 pm

Hermit wrote:
Thommo wrote:Whilst Angelo is wrong, he's also definitely not any kind of advocate of economics, whether right-wing or otherwise.

The fact remains that it's easier to attack straw-men than steel-men.

Where's the strawman? Angelo wrote: "high profits means more jobs created". Isn't that precisely why advocates of supply-side economics/trickle down economics say theirs is the best economic system?

No, I don't think so. And I don't think there are any actual advocates of "trickle down economics", or at least very few.

Hermit · **#13423** by **Hermit** » Sep 29, 2018 4:56 pm

Thommo wrote:
Hermit wrote:
Thommo wrote:Whilst Angelo is wrong, he's also definitely not any kind of advocate of economics, whether right-wing or otherwise.

The fact remains that it's easier to attack straw-men than steel-men.

Where's the strawman? Angelo wrote: "high profits means more jobs created". Isn't that precisely why advocates of supply-side economics/trickle down economics say theirs is the best economic system?

No, I don't think so. And I don't think there are any actual advocates of "trickle down economics", or at least very few.

Investopedia: "Many Republicans use the trickle-down theory to guide their policies. But it is still very heavily debated even today. President Donald Trump proposed cutting taxes for corporations and the wealthy in 2017. "

FP: "As inequality grew in the 1980s, supply-siders and Chicago school economists promised that, sooner or later, everyone would benefit. This idea gained more support during the triumphalist years of the 1990s..."

And everyone who advocates company tax cuts tries to justify them by asserting that company profits increase as a result, which in turn increases employment, hence wealth trickles down.

Scot Dutchy · **#13424** by **Scot Dutchy** » Sep 30, 2018 5:10 am

In equality in America just keeps on growing just like any third world country.

Thommo · **#13425** by **Thommo** » Sep 30, 2018 8:19 am

Hermit wrote:
Thommo wrote:
Hermit wrote:
Thommo wrote:Whilst Angelo is wrong, he's also definitely not any kind of advocate of economics, whether right-wing or otherwise.

The fact remains that it's easier to attack straw-men than steel-men.

Where's the strawman? Angelo wrote: "high profits means more jobs created". Isn't that precisely why advocates of supply-side economics/trickle down economics say theirs is the best economic system?

No, I don't think so. And I don't think there are any actual advocates of "trickle down economics", or at least very few.

Investopedia: "Many Republicans use the trickle-down theory to guide their policies. But it is still very heavily debated even today. President Donald Trump proposed cutting taxes for corporations and the wealthy in 2017. "

FP: "As inequality grew in the 1980s, supply-siders and Chicago school economists promised that, sooner or later, everyone would benefit. This idea gained more support during the triumphalist years of the 1990s..."

And everyone who advocates company tax cuts tries to justify them by asserting that company profits increase as a result, which in turn increases employment, hence wealth trickles down.

I think my criticism was that this is a summary not given by the advocates themselves wasn't it? Are investopedia advocates of what they call "trickle down"?

Maybe I'm mistaken, but taking your example of the Trump tax cut, I can't recall the decision being taken on the basis that cuts for the rich would trickle down to the poor. I seem to recall that the corporate tax cut was supposed to stimulate growth and investment (a much less controversial proposition in economic circles) and the personal tax cuts were said to benefit the middle classes (which was just a lie) by putting the money directly back into their pocket.

It's quite hard actually finding sources that speak in favour of the tax cut package, but the ones I could find don't seem to use "trickle down" as a justification at all:

https://www.afr.com/opinion/columnists/ ... 210-h0272n
https://www.csmonitor.com/USA/Politics/ ... support-it
https://fairandsimple.gop/31-reasons-for-tax-reform/
https://www.forbes.com/sites/johntharve ... 856f3303fe
https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics ... -expensing

And conversely it's easy to find sources that describe the package as trickle-down, but those sources are all critical of the policy and are written by people who oppose it:
https://thehill.com/opinion/finance/362 ... ickle-down
https://www.politico.com/story/2017/11/ ... cut-196333
https://www.ncronline.org/news/opinion/ ... own-theory

And just for the sake of completeness, an example of someone who actually voted (with reservations) for the package and the reasons they gave:
http://time.com/5052680/jeff-flake-gop- ... m-deficit/

Articles were not cherry-picked, they were just the top hits for searches for articles in favour of the cuts, articles talking about trickle down for the cuts and senators voting for the cuts.

Hermit · **#13426** by **Hermit** » Sep 30, 2018 11:24 am

Thommo wrote:Maybe I'm mistaken, but taking your example of the Trump tax cut, I can't recall the decision being taken on the basis that cuts for the rich would trickle down to the poor. I seem to recall that the corporate tax cut was supposed to stimulate growth and investment

I was not talking about cuts for the rich, although I do have objections to them as well. My first post was in reply to this:

angelo wrote:...high profits means more jobs created...

So corporate tax cuts are supposed to create more jobs because the money saved is supposedly spent on investing it on increased production machinery, plants or whatever. Thus increased profits supposedly trickle down via increased employment.

In the real world this is not what happens. The increased surplus gets ploughed into share buybacks and increased dividends instead. Shareholders use the extra dividends to buy shares elsewhere, I suppose. Does that increase production, I ask while trying to keep a straight face? Not that we have noticed. What we do notice is that it drives share prices up. That is not what I call a win-win scenario, for most workers simply don't have the spare money to play the stock market.

Before continuing, I'd like you to explain something to me. When you say "the corporate tax cut was supposed to stimulate growth and investment", what benefit do you envisage that cannot be described as trickle-down?

Thommo · **#13427** by **Thommo** » Sep 30, 2018 1:25 pm

Hermit wrote:In the real world this is not what happens. The increased surplus gets ploughed into share buybacks and increased dividends instead. Shareholders use the extra dividends to buy shares elsewhere, I suppose. Does that increase production, I ask while trying to keep a straight face? Not that we have noticed. What we do notice is that it drives share prices up. That is not what I call a win-win scenario, for most workers simply don't have the spare money to play the stock market.

Which is why I explained why I thought Angelo was wrong in #13413 in specifics before we started this exchange.

I don't think, by the way, a lot of the representations in this paragraph are actually representative at all. The proportion of profits that goes into reinvestment in business, instead of share buybacks is extremely significant, but you omit the one and mention the other. Shareholders are a wide variety of people, a huge amount of shares are bought or owned by pension funds, the proceeds of which (irrespective of whether those profits go to reinvesting in shares) go to workers, no face pulling required.

Hermit wrote:Before continuing, I'd like you to explain something to me. When you say "the corporate tax cut was supposed to stimulate growth and investment", what benefit do you envisage that cannot be described as trickle-down?

The whole idea of trickle down is that wealth "trickles" from the wealthy to the poor. The idea of having a lower rate of corporation tax is that it attracts investment and investment benefits society across the board - it's not about giving money to the rich and hoping it passes along, it's about increasing the total size of the pot. More inward investment means more jobs, a more competitive jobs market, more productivity and a whole raft of other indicators.

If 35% corporate tax rates were the norm, then it might be fair to describe cuts to way under the norm as being trickle down, but they surely aren't. Before the cuts the US was way way above the EU, or Canada, or Australia on corporation tax. Does that mean we have to say that the EU (particularly countries like Ireland), and the rest of the western world were all practising trickle down economics and only now the US is catching up? Hardly, I'd say.

The difference between a straw man and a steel man is whether you attack the weakest version of a position or the strongest.

This:

Is absolutely attacking the weakest.

Keep It Real · **#13428** by **Keep It Real** » Oct 06, 2018 2:51 pm

Jeremy Corbyn with Yanis Varoufakis at the Edinburgh Book Festival, August 20, 2018 | DiEM25

Enjoyable video featuring Jeremy Corbyn agreeing a lot with what appears to be a FALC exponent.

Thommo · **#13429** by **Thommo** » Oct 06, 2018 3:02 pm

Varoufakis is a maniac, who helped run the Greek economy over a cliff for a second time by playing chicken with the EU. He then ran away back to his own mulitmillion dollar lifestyle in Britain leaving the countrymen he was supposed to be working for stuck with the bill to pay for his hubris.

FALC is about as useful for making policy as the singularity is. You can't run a country based on technology you hope will be invented at some vague point in the future.

Keep It Real · **#13430** by **Keep It Real** » Oct 06, 2018 4:19 pm

Corbyn uses the emotive word "Poverty" over half a dozen times with reference to the UK - like it's a massive fucking primary problem. Surely he realises the definition of poverty the UK gov stats use is "60% or less of median income" - ie. not poverty at all for the vast majority of that stat. I also learnt he never went to university, which I'm sorry to say I can't help feeling a little snobby about.

RE Varoufakis - he inherited a shit sandwich and couldn't turn it into a smoked salmon and cream cheese one...nor even a cheese and pickle one. Hardly surprising. So he's a multi-millionaire...not automatically worthy of condemnation. I also don't see what's inherently wrong with moving back to Britain :dunno:

yes I'm sure he's far from perfect, but a maniac? Here are some supportive statements wiki has for him:

After many weeks of negotiations during which the Greek government, often against Varoufakis' advice, made many concessions to the troika of Greece's lenders...he explained that he decided to resign during a meeting with the prime minister, on the night of the referendum, during which he discovered that the prime minister, instead of being energised by the "No" vote, declared to Varoufakis his decision to acquiesce to the troika's terms. Unwilling to sign such a "surrender" document, Varoufakis chose to resign....Bloomberg said that Varoufakis was a "brilliant economist", but he had difficult interactions with other politicians and the media.[36] Galbraith, referring to Varoufakis's expertise in game theory, has said that he knows as much about this subject "as anyone on the planet", and that "[he] will be thinking more than a few steps ahead" in any interactions with the troika...In April 2016, Varoufakis publicly supported the idea of a basic income.

RE FALC: FALC engenders a feeling that we live in a de facto post scarcity economy, by my mind, which is beyond helpful in informing policy. It is a shot for the stars, and we'll probably never totally get there, nor would we want to IMO, but it's a good focal anthem to crystalise a superior paradigm and feed from ideologically, for me at least.

Thommo · **#13431** by **Thommo** » Oct 06, 2018 4:30 pm

Keep It Real wrote:RE Varoufakis - he inherited a shit sandwich and couldn't turn it into a smoked salmon and cream cheese one...nor even a cheese and pickle one. Hardly surprising. So he's a multi-millionaire...not automatically worthy of condemnation. I also don't see what's inherently wrong with moving back to Britain yes I'm sure he's far from perfect, but a maniac?

There's nothing wrong with moving away, or being rich. What I'm criticising him for is running away from the consequences of his actions, while other people suffer genuine poverty, hardship and unemployment as a direct result of his decisions. They are carrying the weight of his terrible decisions in government, while he gets away scot free. People he was voted to represent are damaged, but his life of privilege, fame and fortune was never at stake.

That offends my sense of fair play to an extreme extent.

I'm not criticising him for the situation he inherited (although, in fact the Samaras government had seen improving conditions in most key areas), but he made a set of assumptions that were a huge part of leading to a policy of conducting a referendum to reject the EU bailout after the deadline had expired. IIRC (from conversations here) that cost Greece about 25bn Euros in costs to recapitalise the banks alone. Greece then had to accept the bailout anyway.

Keep It Real wrote:
After many weeks of negotiations during which the Greek government, often against Varoufakis' advice, made many concessions to the troika of Greece's lenders...he explained that he decided to resign during a meeting with the prime minister, on the night of the referendum, during which he discovered that the prime minister, instead of being energised by the "No" vote, declared to Varoufakis his decision to acquiesce to the troika's terms. Unwilling to sign such a "surrender" document, Varoufakis chose to resign....Bloomberg said that Varoufakis was a "brilliant economist", but he had difficult interactions with other politicians and the media.[36] Galbraith, referring to Varoufakis's expertise in game theory, has said that he knows as much about this subject "as anyone on the planet", and that "[he] will be thinking more than a few steps ahead" in any interactions with the troika...In April 2016, Varoufakis publicly supported the idea of a basic income.

His politics, policies and negotiations were an utter failure. The course he chose impoverished his people in entirely avoidable ways. Again - they did not need to hold a referendum after they collapsed their banking system by missing a deadline at all.

All the economic theory in the world can't save him from the things that actually occurred on his watch.

Keep It Real wrote:RE FALC: FALC engenders a feeling that we live in a de facto post scarcity economy, by my mind, which is beyond helpful in informing policy. It is a shot for the stars, and we'll probably never totally get there, nor would we want to IMO, but it's a good focal anthem to crystalise a superior paradigm and feed from ideologically, for me at least.

That's great, I guess. It doesn't matter though unless the technology for it exists. It's essentially just saying hey Star Trek - wouldn't that be neat if it existed!

Great as that might be, until we invent the technology to automatically manufacture everything we need and everything we want as luxuries we have to actually get the jobs of housing, clothing, feeding, education and healing the population done. All FALC does is stop worrying about the actual problems of government by hypothesising them all away. You'll never solve the problems by simply assuming others are going to solve them for you.

Keep It Real · **#13432** by **Keep It Real** » Oct 06, 2018 5:45 pm

RE Varoufakis - I'm not really interested in trying to defend his handling of policy while in office and I certainly don't know anything like near enough about Greece at that time to do so competently. I guess the thing to remember is that he was a lecturer at Cambridge and got props from Galbraith, among innumerable other signals of his competence/expertise in at least SOME areas of economics. Great economist, crap politician perhaps? Stranger things have happened.

RE FALC - Yeah, I wrote we're not there yet (full automation), and probably never will be in my last post, which you've chosen to ignore. It promotes good policy in the way I've outlined in that post and many other ways too. All the political fossils out there are yapping on about the need "to create more jobs!" as usual and FALC espouses the opposite - I'm in love, and so is mother earth (economic activity is generally bad for the environment). A basic income, as espoused by Varoufakis, would be a massive and excellent step in the right direction.

Thommo · **#13433** by **Thommo** » Oct 06, 2018 6:02 pm

Keep It Real wrote:RE Varoufakis - I'm not really interested in trying to defend his handling of policy while in office and I certainly don't know anything like near enough about Greece at that time to do so competently. I guess the thing to remember is that he was a lecturer at Cambridge and got props from Galbraith, among innumerable other signals of his competence/expertise in at least SOME areas of economics. Great economist, crap politician perhaps? Stranger things have happened.

Could be, yeah. I worry that in advising a politician he's once again treading on the domain of his established incompetence.

Keep It Real wrote:RE FALC - Yeah, I wrote we're not there yet (full automation), and probably never will be in my last post, which you've chosen to ignore. It promotes good policy in the way I've outlined in that post and many other ways too. All the political fossils out there are yapping on about the need "to create more jobs!" as usual and FALC espouses the opposite - I'm in love, and so is mother earth (economic activity is generally bad for the environment). A basic income, as espoused by Varoufakis, would be a massive and excellent step in the right direction.

You're saying that solutions that (might hypothetically) work in a situation we aren't in should be applied to the present situation. You're saying it again in this paragraph. I'm thus replying from the position that we can't get around the fact we are in the situation we are in, and not the one we'd like to be. Therefore there is a logical and rational gap between the problems and your proposed solutions. You're simply ignoring the challenges we actually face in society today. Less jobs will not solve problems, it will create them. We need human labour to produce enough goods and services to sustain our current standard of living and we will for the forseeable future.

I've done basic income to death, so I won't rehash it. It's a fairly discretely separable idea that doesn't rely on full automation, or indeed communism to work.

Keep It Real · **#13434** by **Keep It Real** » Oct 06, 2018 6:28 pm

Thommo wrote:You're saying that solutions that (might hypothetically) work in a situation we aren't in should be applied to the present situation.

IMO FALC is a pseudo-utopian unrealistic (for the forseeable future) icon which is useful because it points us in the right direction. To illustrate this, let's flip the coin over and say we already live in a 90% automated society which bathes us in luxury (incorporating everything from custard cream biscuit manufacturing to combine harvesters and automated vehicle fabrication).

Thommo wrote:You're simply ignoring the challenges we actually face in society today. Less jobs will not solve problems, it will create them. We need human labour to produce enough goods and services to sustain our current standard of living and we will for the forseeable future.

You'll have to name the challenges idolising FALC "ignores" if you want me to admit to idolising FALCs failure in that respect or refute the conjecture. Some human labour is necessary and probably always will be. The amount of unnecessary economic activity is...large, however. If ultra competitive cutthroat rat race free market capitalism were not the prevailing paradigm, who's to say how much our standard of living (leisure time, psychological well-being, peace of mind, community spirit etc...happiness, basically) should improve.

Thommo · **#13435** by **Thommo** » Oct 06, 2018 7:26 pm

Keep It Real wrote:
Thommo wrote:You're saying that solutions that (might hypothetically) work in a situation we aren't in should be applied to the present situation.

IMO FALC is a pseudo-utopian unrealistic (for the forseeable future) icon which is useful because it points us in the right direction. To illustrate this, let's flip the coin over and say we already live in a 90% automated society which bathes us in luxury (incorporating everything from custard cream biscuit manufacturing to combine harvesters and automated vehicle fabrication).

If we say that, then what?

I can accept it as a hypothetical, but I certainly don't see it as true, according to any interpretation of that percentage I could follow. Without labour we certainly would not still enjoy 90% of the goods and services we currently do. Technology seems to act as a force multiplier for labour, rather than a substitute for it.

I don't find FALC useful as a guidepost either, I am in favour of technology and efficiency regardless of any economic theory bolted on top. I'm not a luddite, I don't believe the human soul needs to be freed by daily toil. I can't see how new technology or faster progress would be stimulated by discussion of what we might do when we get there, by introduction of a basic income or any of the other points discussed so far.

Keep It Real wrote:
Thommo wrote:You're simply ignoring the challenges we actually face in society today. Less jobs will not solve problems, it will create them. We need human labour to produce enough goods and services to sustain our current standard of living and we will for the forseeable future.

You'll have to name the challenges idolising FALC "ignores" if you want me to admit to idolising FALCs failure in that respect or refute the conjecture.

I referred to them before (well, some of them) - they are the challenges that our society faces: "housing, clothing, feeding, education and healing the population". You can obviously add policing, building and maintaining infrastructure, waste management and all sorts of other things to that as well.

You can idolise FALC all you want. I'm not fussed either way. But my criticism is of your tying that idolisation into policies for our current political situation - you've only named one as far as I can see, and that's a basic income. And my criticism there is simple - basic income might be good in a situation where almost no labour is required to make society function, but that does not tell us it would work in the society we are in. The question that faces the society we are in is whether a basic income is affordable, and if it's affordable, whether it's the fairest and best use of those resources.

Keep It Real wrote:Some human labour is necessary and probably always will be. The amount of unnecessary economic activity is...large, however. If ultra competitive cutthroat rat race free market capitalism were not the prevailing paradigm, who's to say how much our standard of living (leisure time, psychological well-being, peace of mind, community spirit etc...happiness, basically) should improve.

How do we identify this unnecessary economic activity? Why do you assume there would be improvement, rather than degradation at all?

Every non capitalist economic system that has been tried so far has performed worse than capitalism has. Communism is one of those systems, so it looks like that assumption flies directly in the face of the evidence.

ronmcd · **#13436** by **ronmcd** » Oct 12, 2018 3:49 pm

Jeremy Corbyn rules out SNP pact to prop up minority Labour government

Brexit and power. In that order, it seems. What a sell-out Corbyn is.

minininja · **#13437** by **minininja** » Oct 12, 2018 4:51 pm

ronmcd wrote:Jeremy Corbyn rules out SNP pact to prop up minority Labour government

Brexit and power. In that order, it seems. What a sell-out Corbyn is.

Corbyn really doesn't need a pact with the SNP to have their support on an individual policy basis though, does he? If he was running a minority government and the SNP voted against progressive policies with the Tories to bring him down then I imagine the SNP would rapidly lose support in Scotland. Frankly I think it's better to have policies debated on the chamber floor rather than in a behind the scenes stitch up, doing so probably gives the SNP more opportunity to voice their views and take a stand on anything important. Plus if he says he'll make a pact with the SNP that gives nobody any incentive to vote Labour in Scotland. He can't really say anything else.

Sendraks · **#13438** by **Sendraks** » Oct 12, 2018 4:56 pm

minininja wrote:
ronmcd wrote:Jeremy Corbyn rules out SNP pact to prop up minority Labour government

Brexit and power. In that order, it seems. What a sell-out Corbyn is.

Corbyn really doesn't need a pact with the SNP to have their support on an individual policy basis though, does he? If he was running a minority government and the SNP voted against progressive policies with the Tories to bring him down then I imagine the SNP would rapidly lose support in Scotland. Frankly I think it's better to have policies debated on the chamber floor rather than in a behind the scenes stitch up, doing so probably gives the SNP more opportunity to voice their views and take a stand on anything important. Plus if he says he'll make a pact with the SNP that gives nobody any incentive to vote Labour in Scotland. He can't really say anything else.

mrjonno · **#13439** by **mrjonno** » Oct 12, 2018 6:19 pm

I'm sure we have been through this before, a Labour pact with the SNP will cost more seats in England than it will gain in 'allied' seats in Scotland from the SNP.

It's nothing to do with policies just a simple calculation, with modern politics all you do is lie say you won't have an alliance with the SNP then have one after the election but don't call it an alliance

Sendraks · **#13440** by **Sendraks** » Oct 12, 2018 6:59 pm

mrjonno wrote:IIt's nothing to do with policies just a simple calculation, with modern politics all you do is lie say you won't have an alliance with the SNP then have one after the election but don't call it an alliance

Well no, its doing politics properly and trying to develop policies that appeal to a broad church. If Labour can do policies that the SNP supports (or has no choice but to support or lose credibility), then its a win for both parties and their votes. \

Our FPTP system has indoctrinate politicians and voters into thinking that has to be all about the majority and the just railroading through what you like, given the opposition little choice but to oppose and any sensible non-partisan policy development goes out the window. Which is bad.

So doing stuff which actually subverts the expectations of "modern politics" and encourages co-operation across the house would be a good thing.

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