Scottish Government moving the goalposts

[BCram]

Income tax exists to control inflation and keep prices low, it doesn't actually pay for anything. Do you want hyper-inflation in the UK?

Income Tax provides about 25% of all tax revenues for the UK government. The method for controlling inflation is interest rate management. Inflation starts to rise, put the interest rate up to stifle demand. Keep putting it up until the economy is strangled and everyone is knackered then once the rate of inflation has fallen back, drop interest rates to help revive the economy that has just been strangled near to death.

That used to be the way things worked.

Since 2008 when Gordon Brown saved the financial sector with massive government injections of cash, interest rates have been very low, and much below trend rates. Some mumbo jumbo about Keynesian economics where governments were originally encouraged to borrow money to "invest" in infra-structure projects has been subverted to allow the financial sector to invest in stock markets around the world. The original idea of creating employment for manual workers who had money to spend in local shops and on local services has completely disappeared. Governments are bullying everyone because they are creating money. Needs a re-think IMO, but I would not go so far as to advocate state ownership or communism.

[Taintedice]

Since 2008 when Gordon Brown saved the financial sector with massive government injections of cash, interest rates have been very low, and much below trend rates. Some mumbo jumbo about Keynesian economics where governments were originally encouraged to borrow money to "invest" in infra-structure projects has been subverted to allow the financial sector to invest in stock markets around the world. The original idea of creating employment for manual workers who had money to spend in local shops and on local services has completely disappeared. Governments are bullying everyone because they are creating money. Needs a re-think IMO, but I would not go so far as to advocate state ownership or communism.

No-one battled an eyelid when Brown bailed out the banks. If it were covid he was dealing with, the right-wing press, the BBC and most especially the tories would be going mental at the sums being borrowed, even though the Bank of England has created it all by pushing a few buttons.

[BCram]

No-one battled an eyelid when Brown bailed out the banks. If it were covid he was dealing with, the right-wing press, the BBC and most especially the tories would be going mental at the sums being borrowed, even though the Bank of England has created it all by pushing a few buttons.

I think you are wrong. Brown would have taken the same approach as Sunak and Johnston took, and the support would have been the same. How you can think that the BBC and the Tories would have acted any differently if Labour had been in power depresses me. There is no inherent evil in Conservative thinkers and Socialist thinkers IMO. They have different ideas for economic growth but in a democracy no party can afford to focus solely on their core voters. I think the SNP struggle because they are so exclusive in focusing on independence.

[islaydarkblue]

No-one battled an eyelid when Brown bailed out the banks. If it were covid he was dealing with, the right-wing press, the BBC and most especially the tories would be going mental at the sums being borrowed, even though the Bank of England has created it all by pushing a few buttons.

Consequential funding not pushing a few buttons.