Tim Worstall

10 responses so far ↓

• 1 Jahn // Nov 19, 2012 at 1:47 pm

  The decline started early in the EU, some influence on the UK might be suspected. Note the chart a bit down on this page: http://www.klaus.cz/clanky/2616

• 2 John Galt // Nov 19, 2012 at 2:12 pm

  Is this just tax credits or the wider fire-hosing of money on welfare and public servants?

• 3 Andrew M // Nov 19, 2012 at 2:15 pm

  Blaming Gordon alone is too simplistic. A multitude of factors conspired to push down average disposable income per head in the years 2001-2011. Not least of those was the arrival of millions of eastern European migrants, most of whom are low-paid and thus push the average down. Also it was at the turn of the century that oil prices started rising, from as low as $10 a barrel to well over $100 today. In fact all commodity prices have risen strongly over the past decade, leading to a fall in disposable income.
  You can blame Labour for letting in the migrants; except that the Tories would almost certainly have let them in too. Average disposable incomes would have fallen even without Brown at the helm.

• 4 dearieme // Nov 19, 2012 at 3:05 pm

  “You can blame Labour for letting in the migrants; except that the Tories would almost certainly have let them in too.” Priceless: you really shouldn’t blame Labour for anything since you can always assert the hypothetical that the Tories would have done it too. How far shall we go? Don’t blame Hitler for butchering the Jews because Stalin would almost certainly have done it too?

• 5 Johnnydub // Nov 19, 2012 at 3:10 pm

  Andrew M – you’re ignoring the effects of taxing the productive to pay for the feckless.

  You’re also ignoring the fact that under Brown, once you strip out the effects of the property bubble, the economy stagnated.

  You can’t discount the fact that Gordon was an economic fool.

• 6 john77 // Nov 19, 2012 at 4:09 pm

  @ Johnnydub & AndrewM
  Since faulty methodology introduced in (surprise , surprise!) late 1997 understated CPI inflation by 0.3% pa and RPI inflation by about 0.6% pa until it was corrected in 2010 and a large part of the alleged growth in GDP was simply down to giving above-inflation pay rises to public sector workers whose contribution to GDP is treated as equal to cost (NHS, Civil Servants, teachers, firemen etc), rigorous analysis suggests that *even including the property bubble* there was no growth in real GDP/head under New Labour. Once you adjust for things like Childcare, which only counts towards GDP once you start paying for it, you will find a drop in real GDP/head.

• 7 Shinsei67 // Nov 19, 2012 at 5:45 pm

  dearieme:

  “Priceless: you really shouldn’t blame Labour ”

  Where does Andrew M say that one shouldn’t blame Labour ?

  Priceless, please stop making stuff up.

• 8 Jim // Nov 19, 2012 at 6:32 pm

  @Shinsei67: the bit where he says “You can blame Labour for letting in the migrants; except that the Tories would almost certainly have let them in too.” possibly?

  I don’t think its a massive logical inconsistency to conclude that when one says ‘You can blame X for Y, except Y would have happened anyway’ then you are excusing X from culpability for Y.

• 9 diogenes // Nov 19, 2012 at 7:10 pm

  shinsei – a priceless example of putting your foot in your mouth. I don’t think you can improve on that but please go ahead and try.

• 10 So Much for Subtlety // Nov 20, 2012 at 12:49 am

  Jim – “I don’t think its a massive logical inconsistency to conclude that when one says ‘You can blame X for Y, except Y would have happened anyway’ then you are excusing X from culpability for Y.”

  I don’t think so either, but that depends on what his point is. I tend to agree they are all useless c*nts and the Tories as about as bad as the New Labour people. Not quite but more or less. Neither of them show any signs of giving a damn about the future of the UK. That is saying that X is as bad as Y, and Z would have happened either way, but it is not saying that X or Y are excused for being c*nts. They are not. All of them should meet the end of a long piece of hemp.

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