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Have the Conservatives fixed our country?

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I had to look up imputed rent, but I must say, i'm not the wiser as to what you mean by using the term.

 

Imputed rent is the economic theory of imputation applied to real estate: that the value of a good is more a matter what the buyer is willing to pay than the cost the seller incurs to create it. In this case, market rents are used to estimate the value to the property owner.

 

I'm not sure that rent is counted as part of GDP at all, surely the key there is Product, and paying rent is not paying for a product of any kind (either goods or service).

 

The economy on the other hand is all about money flows, and rent is money flowing,

 

Edit - I looked it up and it is included and here is why

 

GDP attempts, albeit in a somewhat arbitrary way, to estimate the amount created and consumed within a geographic area. If you pay someone else to build you a house this year, that entire capital value is added to GDP, because it is something new that was created, but the value of the land, the *rent* you paid to buy that land, would not be included because the land already existed. One of the arbitrary aspects here is that if you build the house yourself, as my grandfather used to do, nothing would be added to GDP, but not for any rational reason.

 

Here is where it gets more interesting. What about next year while you are living in that house? Even though you are not explicitly paying rent, since you own the house, you are consuming a valuable factor of production: space-time, payment for which is called "economic rent". The rent you pay to a land monopolist represents the value you are receiving/taking from the community by occupying that location and excluding others. If you are not paying rent to a landlord, then you are said to be paying it to yourself and the government will use methods to impute that value.

 

I mentioned above that GDP is not supposed to count payments for things that already exist. Land of course already existed. However, space-time is more like a river, so people who monopolize certain locations over time are in fact the final consumers of those fruits of nature. Here again the methods become arbitrary though. The building values were already added to GDP when they were constructed, which is fine, but little if any effort is made to separate the subsequent annual payments that households make into the two relevant groups: rent and capital returns. Only rent should be added to GDP, but both rent and capital payment are added---well capital payments are added, but they are erroneously added twice. To make matters worse, the annual value of *all* land (locations) and natural resources should be included in GDP as economic/commons-rent, but a majority of rent is simply ignored. This is not an insignificant accounting error; I am guessing it might amount to a 20% underestimation of GDP.

 

So rent really should be included in GDP, but most is not.

 

Although it's clear that GDP is only a gross measure of economic activity really, as in the example given at the start, build a house yourself and live in it and it doesn't count towards GDP. Sell it and it does.

 

---------- Post added 17-06-2016 at 08:38 ----------

 

At it will continue to increase until the deficit is largely eliminated.

That is the way with debts and deficits.

You have to get rid of the latter almost entirely before the former starts moving in the right direction.

 

Surely it's not just "almost" entirely, you need to be running a surplus, not a deficit, in order to reduce your debt.

Although if it's a measure of debt as a % of GDP it could reduce whilst still running a deficit, if GDP were increasing rapidly (it doesn't have to mean that it's reducing in absolute value though).

Edited by Cyclone

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Surely it's not just "almost" entirely, you need to be running a surplus, not a deficit, in order to reduce your debt.

Although if it's a measure of debt as a % of GDP it could reduce whilst still running a deficit, if GDP were increasing rapidly (it doesn't have to mean that it's reducing in absolute value though).

 

Actually no.

We're discussing debt as a percentage of GDP.

If for example debt stands one year at 100% of GDP, then GDP grows by 2% and the size of the deficit is 1% of GDP, then debt as a fraction of GDP actually falls slightly.

Hence the "almost".

 

Of course the reverse is true as well. If there is negative growth, then there can be no deficit, or even a slight surplus, but the debt as a percentage of GDP can still rise.

 

Edit: Okay sorry. I now realise you just said pretty much the same thing.

Edited by unbeliever

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I wouldn't go so far as to say they have "fixed" our country, but they are doing a sterling job improving it.

 

1) They have managed to avoid dragging us into any illegal wars. This means there are not millions of dead innocent brown people as a result of their governance.

 

2) Lots of jobs have been created. A small number of these are zero hour contracts, but what the racist supporters of the Labour Party don't realise is that the majority of people on these contracts want zero hour jobs.

 

3) Tax breaks mean that I now get to keep a lot more of my hard earned money.

 

4) Cuts to welfare has meant that the gap between the non workers and the employed has widened, increasing the incentive to work.

 

5) The EU referendum. Even though I (like most intelligent people) shall vote remain, people deserve a choice.

 

I predict the conservatives will win the next election easily

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I wouldn't go so far as to say they have "fixed" our country, but they are doing a sterling job improving it.

 

1) They have managed to avoid dragging us into any illegal wars. This means there are not millions of dead innocent brown people as a result of their governance.

 

2) Lots of jobs have been created. A small number of these are zero hour contracts, but what the racist supporters of the Labour Party don't realise is that the majority of people on these contracts want zero hour jobs.

 

3) Tax breaks mean that I now get to keep a lot more of my hard earned money.

 

4) Cuts to welfare has meant that the gap between the non workers and the employed has widened, increasing the incentive to work.

 

5) The EU referendum. Even though I (like most intelligent people) shall vote remain, people deserve a choice.

 

I predict the conservatives will win the next election easily

 

Are you richer now than you were straight after the global financial crisis?

 

---------- Post added 17-06-2016 at 11:28 ----------

 

You know when fuel was 1.40 per liter.

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Actually no.

We're discussing debt as a percentage of GDP.

If for example debt stands one year at 100% of GDP, then GDP grows by 2% and the size of the deficit is 1% of GDP, then debt as a fraction of GDP actually falls slightly.

Hence the "almost".

 

Of course the reverse is true as well. If there is negative growth, then there can be no deficit, or even a slight surplus, but the debt as a percentage of GDP can still rise.

 

Edit: Okay sorry. I now realise you just said pretty much the same thing.

 

Yeah, took me a minute to catch up, but that was why I added the although :-)

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I wouldn't go so far as to say they have "fixed" our country, but they are doing a sterling job improving it.

 

1) They have managed to avoid dragging us into any illegal wars. This means there are not millions of dead innocent brown people as a result of their governance.

 

This is something at least, although they did bomb Libya to help depose Gaddafi and then just left it to descend into chaos and civil war so that now Daesh have their eyes on it.

 

2) Lots of jobs have been created. A small number of these are zero hour contracts, but what the racist supporters of the Labour Party don't realise is that the majority of people on these contracts want zero hour jobs.

 

Out of interest, where did you get the figures for the percentage of new jobs that are ZHCs? Also, how did you find out about whether these are what people really wanted? And the 'racist supporters of the Labour Party' bit - what is that about??

 

3)

4) Cuts to welfare has meant that the gap between the non workers and the employed has widened, increasing the incentive to work.

 

It's not proven that it increases the incentive to work. The DWP recently commissioned research on the benefit cap; it showed that it makes people less likely to find work, not more likely (they binned the research). Cuts to welfare have also caused real hardship and stress to people who would love to work but really can't. Is that really a price worth paying for an unproven increas in the incentive to work?

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This is something at least, although they did bomb Libya to help depose Gaddafi and then just left it to descend into chaos and civil war so that now Daesh have their eyes on it.

 

 

 

Out of interest, where did you get the figures for the percentage of new jobs that are ZHCs? Also, how did you find out about whether these are what people really wanted? And the 'racist supporters of the Labour Party' bit - what is that about??

 

 

 

It's not proven that it increases the incentive to work. The DWP recently commissioned research on the benefit cap; it showed that it makes people less likely to find work, not more likely (they binned the research). Cuts to welfare have also caused real hardship and stress to people who would love to work but really can't. Is that really a price worth paying for an unproven increas in the incentive to work?

 

1) The bombing of Libya was a NATO campaign, not a Tory one

 

2) I am on my phone at the moment so unable to provide links, but Google something along the line of "are people won zhc's happy" or "do people on zhc's want more hours" and you will find that most people on these contracts don't wany more hours. The racist bit refers to the fact people still vote for Labour even after they lied to Parliament in order to get the green light to murder incentive people. It is my position that had these people been white, the labour supporters would be horrified. But because they are brown no one cares that more brown people died because of our invasions than Jews dies in Auswitz.

 

3) Yes it is a price worth paying. I work hard and therefore am entitled to a better quality of life than those who don't work. I am fed up of people without jobs having TVS, holidays, heating etc.

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And which campaign are you presumably attributing to Labour alone and not Nato or the security council?

 

---------- Post added 17-06-2016 at 13:02 ----------

 

 

2) I am on my phone at the moment so unable to provide links, but Google something along the line of "are people won zhc's happy" or "do people on zhc's want more hours" and you will find that most people on these contracts don't wany more hours. The racist bit refers to the fact people still vote for Labour even after they lied to Parliament in order to get the green light to murder incentive people. It is my position that had these people been white, the labour supporters would be horrified. But because they are brown no one cares that more brown people died because of our invasions than Jews dies in Auswitz.

 

It's a strawman that they would want more hours.

 

What they almost certainly want is job security and predictable hours.

 

They may be very happy working part time, but nobody wants to be asked to work 37.5 hrs 1 week and then 0 hours for the next 3. It's impossible to budget or live like that.

All you were doing was conflating zero hours with part time, they're very different things.

 

To accuse all labour voters of being racist is crass and stupid.

Edited by Cyclone

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I am fed up of people without jobs having TVS, holidays, heating etc.

 

The UK spends 12% less a head on unemployment benefits than France and 19% less than Germany.

 

Our Government have stigmatised people on benefits, its quite ok for an elected Government to change benefits, but doing it with malice and for political gain is wrong.

I think knowledge and technologically brings growth, which ever Government is in charge should benefit from that.

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Slightly off topic but as the Referendum is all over bar the shouting (we are going out). Cameron is on his way and wont be PM by a week on Monday.

 

Boris, Gove and IDS will then take over and the fun will really start. NHS reform, unions hobbled, etc etc.

 

You will miss Cameron. History will be kinder than we are.

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1)

3) Yes it is a price worth paying. I work hard and therefore am entitled to a better quality of life than those who don't work. I am fed up of people without jobs having TVS, holidays, heating etc.

 

So Tories think that people who are too ill to work or have been made redundant shouldn't have heating? Should they pay for their own hypothermia treatment too?

 

Also, I wasn't aware of the need to ditch the telly if one loses one's job. You don't seem very happy. You do know it will just make you miserable if you keep comparing your situation to other peoples? It's a psychological dead end.

 

---------- Post added 17-06-2016 at 13:35 ----------

 

All you were doing was conflating zero hours with part time, they're very different things.

 

That's precisely what he was doing.

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Actually no.

We're discussing debt as a percentage of GDP.

If for example debt stands one year at 100% of GDP, then GDP grows by 2% and the size of the deficit is 1% of GDP, then debt as a fraction of GDP actually falls slightly.

Hence the "almost".

 

Of course the reverse is true as well. If there is negative growth, then there can be no deficit, or even a slight surplus, but the debt as a percentage of GDP can still rise.

 

Edit: Okay sorry. I now realise you just said pretty much the same thing.

 

We can ensure GDP has risen and will rise by increasing a fictitious number used to calculate GDP.

 

Debt as a fraction of GDP then falls.

 

We could include an imputation for sexual activity between partners based upon how much a prostitute may charge. This would allow GDP to rise substantially when the economically active and economically inactive get their end away.

 

We already estimate a figure for prostitution, so surely we ought to include a figure for sexual activity between partners when money does not change hands. To ensure fair comparison between countries where prostitution is more/less prevalent.

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