55 academics have opposed Corbyn

No, the point is that some academics agree with Corbyn and some do not. No one can claim the support of academia. Corbynites put forward a letter signed by 41 economists, and non-Corbynites put forward a letter signed by 55 economists.

Only that your ability to critically inspect sources appears to be severely compromised.

A "letter from economists" does not specifically imply that they're all economists at all, and there is certainly no evidence either way as to the level of their lunacy or the obscurity of their institutions.

Your quote didn't really tell us anything at all. We really need a full list of all the names and positions, a full divulgence of their links and affiliations to political organisations, lobby groups, corporations or other business entities, and funding bodies, and a detailed explanation as to the contents of this alleged letter and a full economic justification for that position.

That might have some relevance if politicians ever gave a **** what academics had to say.

Laso evven with both lets that is only 96 academics, hardly a large number.

The chief people in it were respected academics from top universities who can reasonably be said to know what is and is not mainstream in their field have said Corbyn is not mainstream.

Occams razer, it is more reasonable to take this at face value than to invent some story whereby these individuals got to their positions without understanding their own profession.

I doubt you showed this skepticism towards the Corbyn one tbh.

I show the same level of scepticism to all newspaper claims. I have seen the difference several times between reports I have personally authored and the headlines they have generated in the mainstream press to know how misleading headlines often are.

Its massively relevant, because the winner of the election is the party who manages to convince the electorate that their policies are sensible and mainstream, and the other parties are crazy and radical hard-right/hard-left.


The tories, somehow, did this brilliantly between 2008 and 2015. They took a lunatic right-wing idea that every single economist warned would seriously damage our ability to recover from the financial crisis and told people it was just "sensible economics".

The policy then severely damaged our ability to recover from the financial crisis and we experienced the longest, slowest, most painful recovery from a recession in over 80 years.

They then, rather cunningly, halted their policy a year before the election and the economy recovered, briefly, just in time for things to recover slightly and for them to claim it had worked. and the public believed them!!!

The alarming thing is, many members of the public STILL believe that austerity is a sensible mainstream economic policy, rather than a deliberate act of vandalism. This despite the fact that public services have been slashed to the bone, we're all significantly worse off, and the deficit has risen dramatically. Its the economic equivalent of shooting the patient in the legs.

I think there's this semantic confusion between government finance and the economy. The whole point of austerity is that we sacrifice short term economic growth to improve public finances, and once a surplus is achieved go back to concentrating on growing the economy.

If austerity ends by 2019, we have a surplus and then we go back to economic normality, will austerity have been a failure?

That would be mental. £45k isn't THAT much, so why should someone earning that have to give away more than half their money?

Why should anyone have to pay that percentage, for that matter? 40% of £100k is more than 40% of £30k. Heck, 40% of £100k is more than £30k. I don't get why higher earners should pay a higher percentage, when they're paying more anyway.

I think there's this semantic confusion between government finance and the economy. The whole point of austerity is that we sacrifice short term economic growth to improve public finances, and once a surplus is achieved go back to concentrating on growing the economy.

If austerity ends by 2019, we have a surplus and then we go back to economic normality, will austerity have been a failure?

Whereas Labour delivered one three years into office.

That would be mental. £45k isn't THAT much, so why should someone earning that have to give away more than half their money?

Why should anyone have to pay that percentage, for that matter? 40% of £100k is more than 40% of £30k. Heck, 40% of £100k is more than £30k. I don't get why higher earners should pay a higher percentage, when they're paying more anyway.

Yes it has been a complete unmitigated disaster and nothing is going to change that. The deficit has barely budged under austerity. Its still far higher than it was at any point in the previous 20 years, and far higher than it would normally be without austerity.

So if the idea was that ****ing up the economy was a worthwhile price to pay for rapidly shrinking the deficit, its clearly not worked, because we've had the worst of both possible worlds.

Which is what anyone with any semblance of understanding of economics knew what would happen. The idea that there is a payoff between short term economic growth and public finances is palpably nonsense. Short-term government finances depend enormously on a strong economy - if you damage the economy, you worsen the deficit. Which is exactly what has happened.

What would the alternative have been?

What would you normally do when there is a significant output gap and we're at the zero bound?

I'm not sure. But if i had a government which was spiraling in debt and not able to pay it back going at the same rate i'd try to change that.

Be honest now, you don't really know much about economics, do you?