Is the government corrupt?

But our debt has massively increased under the tories.
So we shouldn't have spent a penny on Iraq. That was the problem, not spending on schools, hospitals etc.

Yes, because of the structural deficit created by New Labour through its huge public spending.

We shouldn't have spent as much money as we did full stop. Iraq, schools, roads, whatever - there was too much public spending across all aspects of society.

You've completely disregarded my point, but I can't really be bothered to take it up with you once more.

There wasn't too much public spending at all. Had it not been for the financial crash caused by right wing economics we'd have been absolutely fine.

That's right - high public spending and the deregulation of the banking system proved to be an incompatible and toxic mixture. You are, however, looking at only one solution. You suggest that the deregulation of the banking system must be brought into philosophical line with the high spending - there is another possible solution, however, which looks at the other side of the problem; we could lower public spending to bring it into the same philosophical standpoint as the deregulation of the banking system. You are saying we need to make sure both things are on the left of economics, whereas there is another solution to bring both things to the right, economically speaking. Empirically, more 'right-wing' economics has triumphed over 'left-wing' economics, so I'm not quite sure why you argue that we should have brought both parts of that toxic mixture to the left.

Not at all. The financial crash caused by de-regulation was almost entirely responsible and would have screwed us over whether we had spent or not. No matter how little we spent, it was a global recession.

We didn't spend too much at all. Proper left wing regulation of the financial sector would have saved us , lower public spending at best would have slightly mitigated the damage.

Almost every financial crash in history has been due to right wing economics yet we never learn.

That's true - and you know why we stick with it? It's because it is the only system that can bring growth and prosperity to a country. It ****s up every 30 years or so, but we accept that because of the massive comparative benefits it has as a system. Socialist economic analysis may be less prone to market-caused crises, but it can never create prosperity and growth like economic liberalism can. To argue for socialism is simply to extol the consistency of its failings.

It was Bill Clinton's administration which deregulated the banks in order to get the banks giving more mortgages to lower income earners (sub prime). Left wing governments are part of the problem as well.

But free marketcapitalism has failed and failed harder. I'd rather have steady sustainable growth where everyone benefits rather then boom and bust which creates a system of a handful of winners and many more losers.

Right wing economics screws the world economy and our response is to go more right wing and punish the poor and disabled for mistakes of the financial sector.

Give a couple of examples of non-capitalistic systems which have provided the people with 'steady sustainable growth where everyone benefits.

On a smaller scale, kibbutzim in Israel where it has worked perfectly and everyone benefits. On a bigger scale in 1945 under clement atlee where the nhs and welfare state benefited nearly everyone. Or the alphabet agencies public sector expansion in the usa which created record levels of employment.

Name me a capitalist system which hasn't screwed over those at the bottom of society and has distributed wealth and prosperity fairly?

Free market economics caused the crash , not spending.

Government-control of the money supply caused the crash, not free market economics.

What tosh. It was the crash of the banking industry. How did government control the money supply which led to the crash?

It was a capitalist crash, not a socialist one.

Of course it did.

Central banking allows the government to print fiat currency in order to bribe people for votes. This creates inflation which encourages over-spending and over-borrowing.

It had little to do with capitalism, or the banks would never have been saved.

So the Lehman brothers crash had nothing to do with capitalism ? Deary me.

Banks today are not free-market institutions by any stretch of the imagination.

They get a number of special rights and privileges.
They benefit directly from cheap money policies of central banks.
Structurally important banks get their losses propped up by the state.

On a smaller scale, kibbutzim in Israel where it has worked perfectly and everyone benefits. On a bigger scale in 1945 under clement atlee where the nhs and welfare state benefited nearly everyone. Or the alphabet agencies public sector expansion in the usa which created record levels of employment.

Name me a capitalist system which hasn't screwed over those at the bottom of society and has distributed wealth and prosperity fairly?

Free market economics caused the crash , not spending.

The de-regulation of the banks which allowed them to give out ninja mortgages wand 150% mortgages caused the crash and that was very free market.

Intervention could have stopped it but any internetion would have been accused of being 'anti-aspirational'.

Hahaha both the major examples you cite are examples of capitalist economies. They are both examples of ordoliberalism - a form of capitalism that acknowledges the role of the state whilst ensuring that the market is the mechanism by which wealth and prosperity is created in the country. They are both forms of 'right-wing' economies, just more centred than the hot-blooded free market thinking that also exists - you've confused the presence of the state in a capitalist economy with 'left-wing' economics. Foolish.

And you didn't need to reiterate that last point; my contention doesn't lie there, as I have already pointed out. You clearly felt the need to say it again to ram your point home - problem is, you're missing because that's not what I'm arguing with you about.

No, no they were not. They were examples of public services being a nationalised, thus a socialist led economy.