Missed out “ not to do”
The populous are just as bad Ral.
Some seem to think they can have their cake and eat it.
We in the west are heading for a Greek crisis.
It’s time for politicians to talk straight, and for the populous to accept things have to change. Voting for parties who promise the earth whilst spending money they don’t have has to end. I agree with you Ral taxes will raise, because cut backs just won’t be accepted. Problem is will they have the bottle to raise them enough, I suspect not.
I also agree with you, future generations will carry brunt of what will be required.
Every Government in the Developed World spends money it does not have, and the UK economy has had a structural deficit since God was a lad. The notio of 'balancing the books' is for the birds, and the sub-species of the gullible [see what I did there ...]. Keynsian Economics says that if an activity is possible and beneficial, the Government should pursue it to maximise economic activity and improve public services et al, with taxation revenues increasing from the extra activity to pay towards the cost of the new services, and Government borrowing to finance the operations alongside. The level of Government Debt, and the maturity dates, plus economic policy must be honed to a state that satisfies the Financial Markets, to avoid Financial Crashes, and the catastrophe of the Truss/Kwarteng Budget that almost throttled the Pension Funds [including your and my Private Pensions ...] who operate on a system of Liability Driven Investments; in simple terms, this involves Pension Funds mortgaging the existing Pension Fund Assets that pay current Pensions at, say, 3% growth rates, to buy new Investments that yield, say 5%, to enable the Funds to meet next year's [hypothetical] 5% Pension increase. The Lenders require the vlue of the pledged assets to be 25%-50% above the value of the Loans, to protect themselves against Market Crashes [as happened with Truss/Kwarteng] and the Bank of England had to provide billions of £ emergency standby funding [not all of it was used, but the level needed to be high enough to convince the Financial Markets that we were not about to repeat the 1992 Black Wednesday debacle].
Today,14th July, the Financial Markets are getting the jitters again, because the UK Jobs Market is shrinking, with the highest number of people looking or work for some time, *because* Rachel ffrom Accounts pledged to balance the books by hiking NICs, and employers responded by freezing recruitment, reducing headcount, reducing posts from F/Time to P/Time etc to protect their profits. So, her attempt to balance the books has made matters worse, because economic activity will decline, tax revenues will reduce and welfare benefits payments in total will increase to fund the unemployment increase. And this is before the full impact of the US Trade War settles on UK and the rest of the world ...
As for the burden on uturre generations, the UK Government could use a combination of Modern Monetary Theory and a vintage solution hat the bank of England deployed to meet the costs of the War of Independence and the Napoleonic Wars; Undated Consolidated Loans ['UK Consols Gilts'] were issued and the debt was deferred until inflation eroded its cost, and was finally redeemed around 2014, IIRC [say 20 years ago to allow for fading memory]
Steve
