I'm not arguing against us needing a defence budget.
I'm saying that arguing that we shouldn't cut our defence budget _because_ it would cause job losses is ridiculous. Either we need another three X-10 hunter killer drones, or we don't. Buying them in order to keep people employed is a terrible idea - a far smaller amount of money would pay for retraining and keeping people afloat until new jobs were generated.
It's akin to saying that the government should buy up excess cars so that Rover wouldn't go bust.
Arguably newer cars would be more eco-efficient as well, as well as safer. And that's before you talk about the benefit of jump-starting the economy by having people move their spending earlier.
The problem iwth the boiler scrappage schemes, we looked into this, but the company that was doing new boilers for old, were charging about £200 more for the boilers than you could get them from a competing company.
And the scrappage allowance from the government, was about £200.
Same with the car scheme. People were getting what £1k for their old car. If you can't negotiate £1k off the list price of a brand new car during a recession, you really aren't trying. Although that said, many people I suspect never negotiate and just pay the full price.
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andrewducker) wrote2010-09-24 12:01 pm
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If you do, then why not make the equipment for them locally rather than buying from another country?
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I'm saying that arguing that we shouldn't cut our defence budget _because_ it would cause job losses is ridiculous. Either we need another three X-10 hunter killer drones, or we don't. Buying them in order to keep people employed is a terrible idea - a far smaller amount of money would pay for retraining and keeping people afloat until new jobs were generated.
It's akin to saying that the government should buy up excess cars so that Rover wouldn't go bust.
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Which was pretty much idea behind the recent scrappage scheme. It was little more than a state subsidy to car manufacturers.
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I was happier with the boiler scrappage, because at least they were making things more eco-efficient there.
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And the scrappage allowance from the government, was about £200.
So it was really all just a big con.
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