In this Institute of Economic Affairs podcast, Callum Price, Director of Communications, interviews Vicky Pryce, Chief Economic Adviser at the Centre for Economic and Business Research and former Director General for Economics at the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills.
Yes, another great discussion. These Podcasts I find fascinating. Vickys take is pretty much the same as most good commentators. Reeves is in a self imposed straight jacket by not increasing normal taxes. We need a short term answer to a stagnant and declining economy. I disagree we can necessarily improve productivity. We are all pretty burnt out trying to do more with less of for less. And pay rises are still not enough to make people happy. Starmer points to ‘shirkers’ as a scape goat to reduce all benefits! Trying to pay less to the needy just so they don’t have to put up taxes! It’s laughable they think we can’t see it! Economists keep banging on about house building as a money tree ti pay our way! That just says to me they have seen too many episodes of ‘homes under the hammer’ and think that’s the way to earn money! OMG!!!! They are so devoid of answers they either think ‘homes under the hammer’ will give them growth or the other latest bright idea we should cut just like Argentina has because that basket case is now a blueprint to our best economy! Jesus wept!! I’ve never heard so much cobblers in all my life! The simple things to remember are it costs what it costs! We can do it for nothing or less than nothing! Secondly, the economy is stagnant because we don’t have enough money in it! It’s not rocket science! The government, despite record taxation, still can’t get sufficient revenue to pay its (our) way! So it follows an idiots guide of cuts and borrowing to make ends meet and in doing so wonder why nothing gets done! There’s not enough bin men, judges, doctors, nurses, builders, and planning officers! You name it, we don’t have it! What we have too many of is civil servants, politicians , bankers, stock brokers, insurance company’s, pension funds, and anyone else who holds a pen and contributes nothing of what we need but still expects to be paid the same or more than a nurse or a surgeon or a bin man! And I love to hear that again we can blame Brexit! It was the most catastrophic decision straight after austerity and before, gas prices, Covid and Ukraine! Honestly we were lied to about its benefits and lied to about its costs but what really gets my goat is we were taken out with less than 50% of the total possible voter number! That’s not democracy! They didn’t win! They did not reach the winning line in my book!… but I digress, let’s get back to solving this debacle. … our economy is on its knees because of one thing… money! We are all short of it, people, business and government! And what do we all need? SPENDING! … yes, we can’t improve our product without both! We have to put the framework right first so we can start to get money and spending! Now, it’s really simple so, for those still looking at cutting welfare or putting more disabled on the right to die queue, or convincing productivity will improve if we have less bin men so we can have them work just once a month, please put down the riffles of the firing squad and start to look the other way!… and ask yourselves, where is all our money? If it’s not in our daily economy that pays taxes to the government where is it?? Well apparently, there is approximately £19,000,000,000,000.00 trillion pounds out there! So why are we short of it? Now I don’t know how much money rotates around being spent by you and me to give the money for profits to be earned do taxes can be paid but frankly I don’t need to know. But whatever it is it ain’t £19trillion pounds being rotated around the Uk every day, week or month! No! Because if it was let’s just see how much tax would be generated? 25% income tax plus NIC. Say another 15%. Then let’s consider VAT and duty. Say another 60% on Council tax, fuel duty, alcohols duty, tobacco duty, stamp duty, insurance duty, business rates, capital gains tax death duties and inheritance tax, car tax and airport tax? Have I forgotten anything? … oh yes! Charity! Yes charity is a tax to cover the money the government doesn’t spend but should! To my thinking all that £19 trillion pounds rotating every day should bring in £19 trillion pounds a year! But it doesn’t!!!!!! No! We only earn the government around £100 billion or maybe £150 billion! Do I know, by not knowing, and deducing using my own God given brain… there isn’t enough money in the pot if the actual economy we have to pay a depleted amount of tax so low, we have to borrow the missing amount in our public finances! And from whom do we borrow it? Yes the same bloody people who have it, keep hold of it and don’t spend it because they have so much of it they can! The rich! Meanwhile we are all devoid of it! So Vicky, it’s not about cutting money to my nan or my disabled blind mother! or building some houses that might pay back in 30 years after planning and training all the builders, electricians and plumbers we need because the polish have had to go home, no! It’s an easy problem caused by too much of our money, being held by too few people, that isn’t in our economy now when we need it! And what us the vehicle we have to get it back into our pot, not the governments pot, first it has to supply the goose that lays those golden tax eggs, us, yes you guessed it! ….. SPENDING!!!! Make them who have it SPEND it! We all spend our money each month! We have to pay our bills, tax and debts back monthly, so why shouldn’t the rich have to spend it back as well? There’s the answer, it’s staring us right in the face! We all think all of the money is in play all the time every day, it’s not! Only a bit of it is, that’s why things are stagnant! It’s not ideas of hard work we’re short of, it’s money to pay proper wages! Proper benefits! And proper tax amounts! Not keep making the rich few richer! We just keep getting poorer! We need a spending policy Callum! …debate that!!!! Please debate that!!!!
An interesting conversation. I was shocked by Pryce's apparent complacency about national debts, basically advocating that all countries borrow more, which would make it safer... because then we could all default together, and even musing that one way of wiping the slate clean would be... a nuclear war. Jeez!
… sorry it’s about £1000-1500 billion pounds per year in uk tax revenue! I missed a zero!…. And it’s still not enough! lol!
Yes, another great discussion. These Podcasts I find fascinating. Vickys take is pretty much the same as most good commentators. Reeves is in a self imposed straight jacket by not increasing normal taxes. We need a short term answer to a stagnant and declining economy. I disagree we can necessarily improve productivity. We are all pretty burnt out trying to do more with less of for less. And pay rises are still not enough to make people happy. Starmer points to ‘shirkers’ as a scape goat to reduce all benefits! Trying to pay less to the needy just so they don’t have to put up taxes! It’s laughable they think we can’t see it! Economists keep banging on about house building as a money tree ti pay our way! That just says to me they have seen too many episodes of ‘homes under the hammer’ and think that’s the way to earn money! OMG!!!! They are so devoid of answers they either think ‘homes under the hammer’ will give them growth or the other latest bright idea we should cut just like Argentina has because that basket case is now a blueprint to our best economy! Jesus wept!! I’ve never heard so much cobblers in all my life! The simple things to remember are it costs what it costs! We can do it for nothing or less than nothing! Secondly, the economy is stagnant because we don’t have enough money in it! It’s not rocket science! The government, despite record taxation, still can’t get sufficient revenue to pay its (our) way! So it follows an idiots guide of cuts and borrowing to make ends meet and in doing so wonder why nothing gets done! There’s not enough bin men, judges, doctors, nurses, builders, and planning officers! You name it, we don’t have it! What we have too many of is civil servants, politicians , bankers, stock brokers, insurance company’s, pension funds, and anyone else who holds a pen and contributes nothing of what we need but still expects to be paid the same or more than a nurse or a surgeon or a bin man! And I love to hear that again we can blame Brexit! It was the most catastrophic decision straight after austerity and before, gas prices, Covid and Ukraine! Honestly we were lied to about its benefits and lied to about its costs but what really gets my goat is we were taken out with less than 50% of the total possible voter number! That’s not democracy! They didn’t win! They did not reach the winning line in my book!… but I digress, let’s get back to solving this debacle. … our economy is on its knees because of one thing… money! We are all short of it, people, business and government! And what do we all need? SPENDING! … yes, we can’t improve our product without both! We have to put the framework right first so we can start to get money and spending! Now, it’s really simple so, for those still looking at cutting welfare or putting more disabled on the right to die queue, or convincing productivity will improve if we have less bin men so we can have them work just once a month, please put down the riffles of the firing squad and start to look the other way!… and ask yourselves, where is all our money? If it’s not in our daily economy that pays taxes to the government where is it?? Well apparently, there is approximately £19,000,000,000,000.00 trillion pounds out there! So why are we short of it? Now I don’t know how much money rotates around being spent by you and me to give the money for profits to be earned do taxes can be paid but frankly I don’t need to know. But whatever it is it ain’t £19trillion pounds being rotated around the Uk every day, week or month! No! Because if it was let’s just see how much tax would be generated? 25% income tax plus NIC. Say another 15%. Then let’s consider VAT and duty. Say another 60% on Council tax, fuel duty, alcohols duty, tobacco duty, stamp duty, insurance duty, business rates, capital gains tax death duties and inheritance tax, car tax and airport tax? Have I forgotten anything? … oh yes! Charity! Yes charity is a tax to cover the money the government doesn’t spend but should! To my thinking all that £19 trillion pounds rotating every day should bring in £19 trillion pounds a year! But it doesn’t!!!!!! No! We only earn the government around £100 billion or maybe £150 billion! Do I know, by not knowing, and deducing using my own God given brain… there isn’t enough money in the pot if the actual economy we have to pay a depleted amount of tax so low, we have to borrow the missing amount in our public finances! And from whom do we borrow it? Yes the same bloody people who have it, keep hold of it and don’t spend it because they have so much of it they can! The rich! Meanwhile we are all devoid of it! So Vicky, it’s not about cutting money to my nan or my disabled blind mother! or building some houses that might pay back in 30 years after planning and training all the builders, electricians and plumbers we need because the polish have had to go home, no! It’s an easy problem caused by too much of our money, being held by too few people, that isn’t in our economy now when we need it! And what us the vehicle we have to get it back into our pot, not the governments pot, first it has to supply the goose that lays those golden tax eggs, us, yes you guessed it! ….. SPENDING!!!! Make them who have it SPEND it! We all spend our money each month! We have to pay our bills, tax and debts back monthly, so why shouldn’t the rich have to spend it back as well? There’s the answer, it’s staring us right in the face! We all think all of the money is in play all the time every day, it’s not! Only a bit of it is, that’s why things are stagnant! It’s not ideas of hard work we’re short of, it’s money to pay proper wages! Proper benefits! And proper tax amounts! Not keep making the rich few richer! We just keep getting poorer! We need a spending policy Callum! …debate that!!!! Please debate that!!!!
An interesting conversation. I was shocked by Pryce's apparent complacency about national debts, basically advocating that all countries borrow more, which would make it safer... because then we could all default together, and even musing that one way of wiping the slate clean would be... a nuclear war. Jeez!