Balanced financial news coverage

[matacaster]

I am fed up of listening to radio 4, TV and reading other news media where there appears to be a constant diet of stories saying everything needs more money spending on it. Pay, NHS, sewerage, water, trains, defence, education, immigration etc.

What I don't see on the news is how we are going to finance all these and an infinite number of worthy (or sometimes not so worthy) causes.

Simply saying increase taxation or print the money is nonsense all that does is make the pound less valuable and shift the available money robbing Peter to pay Paul.

Instead of endless appeals for more money, how about some in depth programs and articles devoted to making the money the country needs. Politicians come up with vacuous uncosted investments in say green projects, but there is no detail on what we might produce, who will buy it and how we will be able to compete with Chinese on price.

 

[Pinza-C55]

I am fed up of listening to radio 4, TV and reading other news media where there appears to be a constant diet of stories saying everything needs more money spending on it. Pay, NHS, sewerage, water, trains, defence, education, immigration etc.

What I don't see on the news is how we are going to finance all these and an infinite number of worthy (or sometimes not so worthy) causes.

Simply saying increase taxation or print the money is nonsense all that does is make the pound less valuable and shift the available money robbing Peter to pay Paul.

Instead of endless appeals for more money, how about some in depth programs and articles devoted to making the money the country needs. Politicians come up with vacuous uncosted investments in say green projects, but there is no detail on what we might produce, who will buy it and how we will be able to compete with Chinese on price.

An interesting piece of financial news probably not reported much was that according to Forbes the UK pound is the 5th strongest currency in the world. The top 4 are all middle east oil rich nations, the Euro is number 8 and the US Dollar is number 10.

 

[DarloRich]

Or, I am fed up of accuracy in news reporting so want some warming wibble to make me feel better - try GB news.

 

[Richardr]

An interesting piece of financial news probably not reported much was that according to Forbes the UK pound is the 5th strongest currency in the world. The top 4 are all middle east oil rich nations, the Euro is number 8 and the US Dollar is number 10.

That's a meaningless statistic though isn't it, all it is saying is that GBP £1 > USD $1 for example.

When, for example, Australia decimalized, they converted £1 into AUD $2 (i.e. 10 shillings became one dollar). Does that mean that their new currency was half as strong as their previous one, as then £1 > $1?

 

[Magdalia]

there appears to be a constant diet of stories saying everything needs more money spending on it. Pay, NHS, sewerage, water, trains, defence, education, immigration etc.

That's because all of the things that you list do need more money spent on them.

What I don't see on the news is how we are going to finance all these and an infinite number of worthy (or sometimes not so worthy) causes.

But there is more coverage of this, particularly since the Truss/Kwarteng "mini-budget".

Simply saying increase taxation or print the money is nonsense all that does is make the pound less valuable and shift the available money robbing Peter to pay Paul.

You have missed out borrowing, though that has got more expensive because of high inflation and the aforementioned "mini budget".

Another issue is that the government has twice already addressed difficult problems by throwing money at them without stopping to think much about the long term consequences. I'm thinking Covid and energy prices here. Doing "whatever it takes" has raised expectations, which can be seen in some comments about bailing out people with mortgages being affected by high interest rates.

how about some in depth programs and articles devoted to making the money the country needs. Politicians come up with vacuous uncosted investments in say green projects, but there is no detail on what we might produce, who will buy it and how we will be able to compete with Chinese on price.

We are not going to compete with China on price. But we have technology and knowledge advantages that enable us to compete in some potentially very lucrative industries: you mention green energy, and another is life sciences. Get those right and we will be able to spend money on your list of things that need it.

Where I'd agree with you about coverage being unbalanced is regarding investment in the infrastructure needed for those industries to flourish. Here there is a huge contrast between the amount of coverage given to NIMBYs banging on about house prices (they have no shame) compared to setting out the benefits that new infrastructure will deliver for UK economic growth, tax income and public expenditure on all of the things in your list.

 

[XAM2175]

I am fed up of listening to radio 4, TV and reading other news media where there appears to be a constant diet of stories saying everything needs more money spending on it. Pay, NHS, sewerage, water, trains, defence, education, immigration etc.

I'm not seeing any imbalance in this.

Or, I am fed up of accuracy in news reporting so want some warming wibble to make me feel better - try GB news.

That's a bingo.

 

[DarloRich]

That's a bingo.

it is one small step away from people "talking Britain down"!

 

[MikeWM]

I am fed up of listening to radio 4, TV and reading other news media where there appears to be a constant diet of stories saying everything needs more money spending on it. Pay, NHS, sewerage, water, trains, defence, education, immigration etc.

Pretty much 99% of news nowadays - other than sensational reporting about crime or nonsense about 'celebrities' - consists either of recycled government announcements, calls for the government to do more about something, or calls for the government to start doing something about something. We're in a national mindset now where the government tries to do everything, and the population demands the government does even more.

The only real solution appears to be to stop consuming mainstream news. I (mostly) have, and am trying to remove the last remains.

 

[matacaster]

Sorry to go off topic.
I wasn't trying to make a political point, as clearly without investing in some things we are good at (or new ideas, have robust feasibility studies and costings) then our economy will continue to go inexorably downwards as it has for years. Liz truss screwed up badly and tried to do very significant changes without having sounded out the movers and shakers, not having a robust plan and appears a fag packet. Labour have a plan to invest quite a lot but it's far too vague at the moment for me. Tories seem to wish to invest as little as they can (aside from HS2).

None of the parties appear to have a clear plan as to how we make the money we need as a country to be able to improve services etc etc and rebuild the pounds value. It's all borrow and tax.

 

[nlogax]

None of the parties appear to have a clear plan as to how we make the money we need as a country to be able to improve services etc etc and rebuild the pounds value. It's all borrow and tax.

You're not going to find much of what you want on TV. There's usually lengthier analysis in political podcasts. No actual manifestos up for critique yet but you can bet your bottom <insert currency of your choice> that the audio form will be where you'll get a decent level of analysis nearer election time. Some links..

• The Rest is Politics
• Inside Westminster
• The News Agents (bit tabloidy but does the job)
• The New Statesman (various podcasts and audio 'long reads' there)

There are dozens of them but those are good starters for ten.

 

[birchesgreen]

None of the parties appear to have a clear plan as to how we make the money we need as a country to be able to improve services etc etc and rebuild the pounds value. It's all borrow and tax.

To make money you do need to invest. If you want businesses coming here and expanding then you need a stable environment, good infrastructure, an educated healthy workforce et cetera. Countries can invest though and national debt is nothing at all like personal debt and isn't always a bad thing.

 

[WelshBluebird]

To make money you do need to invest.

Indeed one of the things that has held us back as a country in the last decade is austerity in the 10 years before covid. Cutting public spending sucks money out of the economy and hamstrings growth.

 

[nlogax]

Indeed one of the things that has held us back as a country in the last decade is austerity in the 10 years before covid. Cutting public spending sucks money out of the economy and hamstrings growth.

Austerity has put the country in a bad place, overall. I'd even argue that austerity policy from 2010 was one of the factors leading to the 2016 Leave vote.

 

[brad465]

Not sure who the author is, but this quote sums up one of the main issues in journalism these days:

"If someone says it's raining, and another says it's dry, the job of a journalist is not to strike a balance between them, it's to look out of the f****** window and see who's correct."

 

[Mcr Warrior]

Not sure who the author is, but this quote sums up one of the main issues in journalism these days:

"If someone says it's raining, and another says it's dry, the job of a journalist is not to strike a balance between them, it's to look out of the f****** window and see who's correct."

Sometimes attributed to Dr. Jonathan Foster (University of Sheffield, retired journalism lecturer).

 

[JamesT]

Indeed one of the things that has held us back as a country in the last decade is austerity in the 10 years before covid. Cutting public spending sucks money out of the economy and hamstrings growth.

Though the argument on the other side would be, what austerity? Government spending as a share of GDP just before the financial crash in 2008 was ~40%. Just before the pandemic it was 39.8% (from https://ifs.org.uk/taxlab/taxlab-key-questions/what-does-government-spend-money )
Brown-era government spending was considered fine, so why was a similar level later not?

 

[birchesgreen]

Though the argument on the other side would be, what austerity? Government spending as a share of GDP just before the financial crash in 2008 was ~40%. Just before the pandemic it was 39.8% (from https://ifs.org.uk/taxlab/taxlab-key-questions/what-does-government-spend-money )
Brown-era government spending was considered fine, so why was a similar level later not?

Austerity for us, not for their mates

 

[najaB]

Brown-era government spending was considered fine, so why was a similar level later not?

It matters less how much is being spent, than it does what it's being spent on.

 

[Gloster]

To my mind Austerity is when you are cutting back on the long-term investment, renewal and improvement. Unfortunately, this can result in a greater expenditure on the social consequences, such as unemploymen, that it leads to. So you end up spending just as much, but with no long-term end result, except that those at the bottom are pushed back even further. Of course, you can then say that ‘We are all in this together’, which makes it quite all right for those who are suffering: the rich feel your pain, if not your hunger pains.

 

[edwin_m]

Though the argument on the other side would be, what austerity? Government spending as a share of GDP just before the financial crash in 2008 was ~40%. Just before the pandemic it was 39.8% (from https://ifs.org.uk/taxlab/taxlab-key-questions/what-does-government-spend-money )
Brown-era government spending was considered fine, so why was a similar level later not?

The amount of money the government has to spend depends not only on tax as a share of GDP but on the size of that GDP. It hasn't recovered from the 2008 dip, has been growing at a lower rate since 2010, and recovered from the Covid dip but has flatlined since. Austerity and Brexit had quite a lot to do with that.

https://www.ons.gov.uk/economy/grossdomesticproductgdp/timeseries/ybez/pn2 (not quotable)