BORROWING IS DEFERRED MISERY FOR KIDS - Where politicians don't really know what they are doing, don't understand economics or money at all, except how to grab a load for themselves while strutting on the political stage, borrowing to ease present taxation, makes them look good today. In reality, they are sinking the country as surely as the Titanic would founder, having struck a fiscal iceberg.

DAILY EXPRESS 15 JUNE 2023 - MORE PUBLIC SPENDING TODAY JUST MEANS MORE MISERY FOR OUR KIDS TOMORROW, SAYS JAMIE WHYTE

Many seem to believe that increased Government spending is somehow caring or virtuous. This is completely misguided and simply heaves a mountain of debt onto our kids, writes Jamie Whyte.

As we face rising interest rates, a spike in mortgage payments, and a crippling tax burden, we should think twice about our aversion to so-called "austerity".

David Cameron’s Conservative-led Government responded to the financial crisis with a policy called austerity.

It was a peculiar business. One oddity that might have struck people, but didn’t, is that governments are in no position to be either austere or generous.

The simple reason is that Government spending is funded by taxation.

Suppose the Government increases the tax on booze to fund extra spending on state school teachers.

That’s generous for teachers but austere for drinkers. However the Government arranges things, it’s always generous for the recipients and austere for those who pay.

Some will think I have missed the point entirely. Government spending is not funded only by taxation; it’s also funded by Government borrowing.

And the austerity policy concerned Government borrowing. The Government decided not to increase Government spending by borrowing the money to fund it.

That response won’t cut it, for two reasons. The first is that Government spending is merely deferred taxation. The interest payments are made from money supplied by taxpayers.

Of course, the debt created by higher spending isn’t the direct cause of our current interest rate woes, but it does feed in.

Now that interest rates can no longer be kept artificially low as they were between the 2008 crash and the end of the COVID-19 pandemic, taxpayers are being forced to stump up.

With almost half of the £750bn of Government borrowing between 2010 and 2019 being printed by the Bank of England, mortgage holders are now being forced to bear the brunt of rapid interest rate increases to control the subsequent inflation.

Government borrowing that funds current spending spreads the cost over the future generations of taxpayers who will pay to service the debt. [Borrowing to live, also increases the carbon footprint of the country and the workers who have to work harder to pay more taxes, that the government are squandering - leading to global warming, the world over.]

Refusing to increase Government debt is not austere for future taxpayers, as present taxpayers being forced to suffer the consequences of irresponsible fiscal policy from a decade ago, will now attest.

The second problem with this response is that the Conservative Government has not in fact resisted the temptation to increase spending and pay for it with borrowed money. [It seems to be their mantra, a way of passing the buck to stay in power for longer, to profit personally and help their chums get Gongs.]

In 2006-2007 (the last financial year before the financial crisis kicked in) Government spending was 39.6 percent of GDP.

In 2016-2017, after 10 years of “austerity”, it was 39.9 percent. 

And Government debt had risen from 35 percent of GDP to 83 percent. By 2022-2023 Government spending had risen to 43.6 percent of GDP and government debt is 100 percent of GDP.

Of course, the opponents of “austerity” say that the Government should have spent yet more and borrowed yet more.

They claim that Government debt can far exceed 100 percent of GDP without posing any serious economic problems.

Perhaps they are right – though, as Government debt rolls over into higher rates of interest, this idea will be put to the test.

The costs of this will be suffered by all of us through higher taxes, but spare a thought for the 2.5m mortgage holders who will have to renegotiate their agreements in the following two years – they are looking at a £9 billion bill as a consequence of those higher interest rates.

As I said above, neither austerity nor generosity is an option for governments.

They can take more from taxpayers and spend more. Or they can take less and spend less. For no good reason, people call the first option generous and the second austere.

If, instead, these options were called “controlling” and “respectful”, it might be more difficult for those who endlessly call for increased Government spending to pass themselves off as caring and virtuous.

There is nothing caring or virtuous about burdening taxpayers and mortgage holders of the future with the bill for today’s fiscal irresponsibility. By James Whyte

STATE OF THE NATION - The Green Party will have to work much harder if they are going to form an alliance with the Libdems in any general election. The results for the Greens in Wealden were staggering, as were the losses for the Conservatives with shamed leader Boris Johnson at the helm, lying to Parliament, lying to Queen Elizabeth and Lying to the electorate during his Big Red Bus campaign. How then was he voted in as Prime Minister, when so untrustworthy and demonstrably unreliable. Presumably, because of the under the table deals he was prepared to do. Covid fast track procurement fraud and cash for honours. When, in reality, he did not have a clue how to run the country, except to keep on borrowing, and building executive housing, so that the homeless, remained homeless, and the renting generation became extended to the next generation of slaves, to row Great Britain into yet more choppy water. With King Charles also coming under fire for his empty properties in a housing and cost of living crisis. The backbone of a nation is it's workforce. Those who physically carry the country forward with skills and services the ruling class shy from. It makes sense to reward workers with reasonable living conditions and equitable rewards. Not to enslave or shackle to the oars of financial servitude. To render them Galley Slaves, to the economic frauds so rampant in the UK. Thus, taxation in all forms needs to become totally transparent - so that the electorate can see what the governments, local and national are doing about the year on year deficit - doubtless fuelled by procurement fraudsters.

Unfortunately, simple solutions, like cutting the cost of living for millions of voters, with GENUINELY AFFORDABLE HOUSING - is something that eludes governments, once installed in power, they lose all incentive to change the political landscape to something more sustainable. Replaced by the urgency of repaying the loans their predecessor's borrowed to make them look clever, and the need to raise additional taxes, to pay for those errors of judgment.

By way of example, the above diagram shows 12 building plots for 18' x 54' flatpack units - on a one acre site, to include parking, but not including an access road. Arable land is roughly £8-9k per acre. An uplift of 100% for compulsory purchase - on land earmarked for Low Cost Exceptions; self-build starter homes (NPPF). Sites thus acquired for villages, will yield plots for registered persons at around £1,670 per plot.

Now, this really is affordable stuff. Flatpacks are around £30-40k, with solar power, borehole/pump and waste treatment pack coming in well under £50k per home. Against which mortgage repayments are roughly £250 per month. And a reduction in Council Tax, to Band A, for those renting executive houses at over £9000 per month. Good news for the homeless, not so good for overpriced market dealers, and price fixing councils, who use their power to monopolize the planning system, to obtain higher rateable bandings - to pay their enhanced pensions. Such councils, dealing in human misery, might be deemed planning criminals, no better than King Charles II and his African Royal Trading Company, officially sanctioning slave trading.

Cost-of-living crisis National debt Chancellor Jeremy Hunt 

United Kingdom Express sustainable

https://www.express.co.uk/comment/expresscomment/1780952/government-borrowing-mortgage-rates-rishi-sunak-national-debt

https://www.express.co.uk/comment/expresscomment/1780952/government-borrowing-mortgage-rates-rishi-sunak-national-debt

SOARING FOOD PRICES - Nothing is more alarming than doing a shop, and finding the prices have literally doubled overnight. Then coming home to find the government are saying inflation is running at 10%. Energy prices are also ridiculously high, even though the UK could be energy independent, if we harnesses our wind turbines more effectively. And we need to build more, with energy storage in batteries or as hydrogen, or hydrogen compounds.

One way of beating food prices is to grow your own vegetables, and plant an apple tree. Cherries and grapes also grow in the south of England. For EV's park and charging prices, need to be regulated, to stop profiteering from electric motorists. We need to transition to renewable energy for transport, as well as for home heating. All of these things can combine to reduce imports, and lower our national debt. Provided that politicians pull our belt in and stop strutting around pretending to be doing good. We need policy changes to speed our national recovery, not promises. The sad thing is, those in power do not have what it takes to make new statute to get things moving the right way.