Are the Conservatives that bad?

More demand side solutions to supply side problems. I'm not necessarily opposed to sending 'em back but it just wouldn't make the blindest bit of difference, certainly not in the medium to long term. Same with housing. And that's why everyone laughs at Farage now when he blames everything on immigrants.

Can you define a 'socialist' for me. Or rather define 'socialism'. Because I bet you're attributing it to something that isn't actually socialism.
Also socialism is a scale, not an absolute. The right wing make out like it's black and white. If you believe in the NHS you have socialist tendencies, if you believe in state schools you also have socialist tendencies. Some people have more than others, but I don't believe you can categorise someone as a 'socialist' like it's a boxed term.

But the Tories don't do anything for the poor. Even things that appear to don't, like the (Lib Dem) personal allowance rise, only benefits those earning over the personal allowance, so the only people who lose out from it are the poorest on the Tory zero hour contracts and low paid jobs who don't earn £10,000 a year. Or Help to Buy/HtB ISA, which is a demand-side "solution" to a supply-side crisis which will just pump up demand and thus push up house prices still further.

And growth in employment is really not something to celebrate if so many of the jobs are:
- low-paid, we all know about the ZHC's
- insecure - the Tories extending the probationary period where you can be sacked on a whim to two years
- subject to a £2,500 fee for accessing an employment tribunal
- straight-up slavery (workfare)
- people sanctioned, on workfare, hounded off benefits or who have magically become "self-employed" are all counted as "employed"

All that means more value, in cash, labour, or good old fashioned exploitation potential, accruing to the employer at the expense of the employee. Yes the economy still grows, yes these people are (mostly) in something you might get away with calling a job, but who cares if none of the benefit is going to the workers who actually create all the wealth.

Of course it is true. That's the entire point of fiat money. I suggest you google "monetary economics for beginners" and start there.

No, the state really isn't great, for all the reasons you mention, but private banks would be even worse. I have outlined the theory for why the state is closer aligned with the people than private banks, which you have not engaged with. It's not blind faith in the state, it's just that I consider the state less awful than private banks would be.

Stop thinking competition is some magic force. Competition only works in growing industries with high potential for innovation. Even there, as soon as the easy gains have been made and the growth is gone you get consolidation, mergers and collusion. That's literally an explicit part of the theory of corporate strategy.


All that would happen in terms of collusion would be the target shifts from the state to the private banks, lobbies follow whoever is in power. And the private banks are not even transparent or democratically accountable to the public (those being mechanisms to align interests). It would be a step backwards to what is essentially a feudal pre-state power structure.

Again, look at what happened when this was tried in America, I've given you the links. Every bank note issued was worth less than its face value. Look at what happened with the Libor rate scandal, that was banks trading currencies "freely" and no state was involved in that.

Well your argument for state control essentially boiled down to the idea that politicians won't want the people they collect tax of to be too poor to pay tax in the future, yes?

I think you are misunderstanding the position I am arguing for a little bit in that you think that the banking system would be like what we have today when it wouldn't because what we have today is a crony-capitalism fusion of state power and the banking system. The banking system we have today is far from a free market system.

You also aren't recoginising that would do away with the legal privileges of banks and that various other institutions would also have the right to create loans. This means mutual entreprises and more democratic financial services providers would not be shackled by the laws that mean that "too-big-to-fail" banks have massive advantages over other financial instiutions.

I would argue that a free system would allow for a far more democratic revolution in banking as mutuals, building societies, co-ops etc. would exist to fill these demands.


You are thinking about competition in the wrong way. What competition means is that the costumer has options or alternatives. So those people who want a store of value can go to a bank that has all its reserves in gold. Those who want their money at a co-op bank that provides crisis loans for the needy can do so. Those who want big returns can go to a highly leveraged risk taking bank.

What it is also means is that if a bank fails or if a banks issues too much money then it doesn't effect the rest of the economy and the bank just fails or loses business and people move on to something different.

You also need to recognise that private banks do not have the power to force you to use their money which is not the case in a purely statist system as the state does have that power and we can even see that the US federal government is already using that power.


The links say it wasn't a free banking system. It was just state regulated not federally regulated. Also all banks had to get charters from the state. That's not what I'm talking about. I also doubt that you could say that the Greenback was any better. The record of fiat currency isn't great either.

If you look at a real free banking system like the Scottish one from 1716 to 1845 we don't see what you are saying would happen with mergers, giant banks and "feudalism" but actually growing competition.

They've reduced the deficit by half and quite frankly, seem to be the only party willing to make stringent cuts without being affected by emotions or fear of public reprimands. Granted, some of the effects austerity has had on many has been problematic, but surely we should applaud the ruthlessness of a Government, who are willing to make the tough decisions for the long term benefits of our society and generation?

I'm no balled over my the jargon or false promises of other political parties as my sole intention is for the deficit to be eradicated before we, the young generation, become the next leaders of this society.

So bearing this in mind, I ask again: Are the Conservatives really that bad?

Just to be clear, are you calling for currency to be linked to the price of gold, or to be backed by physical gold? Neither would work.

No, it isn't true because what you said there is different from what you are saying now.

What you are saying here is basically a tautology i.e. that fiat money is money that is backed by a state.

But that's very different from saying all money must be backed by a state or only has value if it is backed by a state.

That's just clearly wrong. Even in the case of fiat money it is wrong as we can see in cases of hyperinflation where being backed by a state is not enough to give that money (much) value. What gives money its value is its use not state decree alone or in some cases at all.

Money is not synonymous with fiat money.

Name a currency that is not fiat money.

Well, I'd certainly agree that this is true. I suppose I'm referring to Socialism in a reasonably radical form - a largely planned/more planned than not economy perhaps? I apologize that this is so vague, but I cannot see much more of a way around it that giving a taxonomy of a whole economy and using that as my standard.

This post is just to replicate the exact problem that I attacked in the first place. It is not that the Conservative part does not 'do anything for the poor'.

You are mistaking short term benefits for benefits full stop. Indeed, I accept that it is probably true that, in regard to short-term improvements, the Conservatives do less for the poor than the rich. But why care about short-term solutions? Why do they matter if, in the long term, we are putting the poor in a situation in which they will be far worse than they would have been otherwise?

A similar issue occurs when we look at the immediate effects, or the obvious effects, of particular changes as opposed to the less obvious ones. If zero-hour contracts are one example - no doubt it is preferable that people should have long term, secure jobs than zero-hour contracts. But, even though this may make banning zero-hour contracts seem like a good idea, how can it be when it just leaves all those people relying on benefits? All it means is that the work doesn't get done, some company goes out of business or is less efficient and then just wastes money, and consequently everyone is paying more for everything and is consequently worse off. You can complain all you want about the plight of those on zero-hour contracts, but the only thing that allows you to do that is the fact that the other person suffering, paying an uncomfortable amount for what they would otherwise easily afford, is practically invisible.

Hmmm, I wonder which government that poster has lived under during the majority of his/ her education. Was it Labour? Yet you still wish to vote Labour?

Your ad hominem towards him turned out to be a bit of a fail didn't it?

If you're rich and live a lavish fantastic lifestyle, then nothing is wrong with the Conservative party, however if you're the rest of the 95% of the population, everything is wrong with them.

If you're going to get pedantic about it, you should know that there is no comma between the bits in bold. It make more grammatical sense when you remove the comma and instead replace it with the word "then".

But of course I'm not a bell end so I won't be pointing this out.

If a company is so incompetent that it can't afford* to provide secure employment at the national minimum wage it deserves to go out of business. It's not the state's job to provide a subsidy to businesses through cheap labour, it's the state's job to ensure the assets they allow businesses to use to generate profit are kept in good nick. The labour and consumer market is one of these assets.

*"Can't afford" too often seems to just mean the owners and management don't want to give up their high pay relative to the workers in the organisation, or can't be bothered to seek out innovative ways to cut costs that do not harm people.

I would say it's the Tories who are about short-term gain, like selling off state assets and public services to raise enough money to give out some handouts at the next election, while landing future governments with the obligation to rent those assets and services back from whoever they sold it to.

So without your vague blather about short-term and long-term, can you actually point to a policy this government has brought in which benefits the poor, either in the short or long term?

They're not supply side problems though are they, it appears like supply problems because supply is far lower than demand, but in reality demand is ridiculously large. When will you people understand that no one wants to 'send em back', UKIP are not the BNP despite what lefties would have you believe. Supply of housing is improving but it's nowhere near adequate and never will be because the current levels of demand are almost impossible to meet.

Sorry, what makes you think that the success of a business should depend on what you think it 'deserves'? Are you suggesting that the economy should revolve around the moral basis of how much we like a particular enterprise, rather than whether it actually provides something valuable to people?

What? That isn't an argument. It's only since 1971 that all national currencies have been fiat and I can point to bitcoin as an example of private money. Plus that wouldn't justify what you said earlier either.

No, I'm suggesting that if they can't afford their operating costs, they deserve to go out of business.

Right. But I'm saying that it is ridiculous to arbitrarily raise their operating costs, pushing them and their employees out of jobs. Deserve is a strange word to use.

So there are no examples.

Without the backing of a national government, no currency can maintain a stable value, and therefore are unfit for purpose. Its simply not an option.

Again, this really is very basic stuff, I suggest you read up on it before debating further.