Yours or the states?

 Hi All,

One of the key dividing lines between conservatives and socialists is that of property and money. To the socialist property and money should be owned outright by the state, as they are the most visible part of wealth and of course the most easily taken. Socialists don't like individual wealth, they believe it shouldn't exist, rather that it should be part of a collective pot which the state should administer for everyone else's benefit or good. Conservatives and Liberals have a different view in that property and money, legitimately bought and earned, is the individuals right to possess and use or spend as they see fit. Of course there would be taxes to pay, but after those have been paid and hopefully the tax would be a low as possible, then any surplus is for the individual and not collective pot. 

This difference can be illustrated in the news this week that Keir Starmer the Labour Party leader isn't happy that Brits have saved £125 billion extra cash during the pandemic. The bank of England and the government are crossing their fingers people will go and spend this after lockdown. However Sir Keir doesn't agree- the state should spend that money for people and projects the labour party approves of. Rather than outright seize the money, which would be politically folly, his scheme is to set up 'recovery bonds' which would then be spent. In other words you'd get an IOU with interest. 

The practical problem with this is that we already have government bonds - called Gilts - which are currently being dished out to fund the £400 billion deficit this year , with £200 billion of that being bought by the Bank of England, which has for the past decade bought over £600 billion of debt. Therefore if you want to give the government your money and earn interest you can do so already. Ah, but the thing is that government debt at present yields a very poor interest rate, which is true because of the point above- the Bank of England's 'money printing' has deliberately keep yields on the debt low. So presumably Sir Keir is aware he'd have to offer a higher rate to get at that £125 billion? If so isn't it a pointless waste of time if you as a government  can borrow cheaply at your normal source? 

They haven't thought this through. Well maybe they have and it's an automatic socialist reflex action following on from the thought that any property or money that isn't nailed to the floor should automatically belong to the state to use.