The Covid Economy: The Unshrinking State - BBC Newsnight

The coronavirus pandemic has pushed government borrowing to record levels and sent public debt sky-rocketing. But will it mark a lasting shift in our expectations of what the state does for its citizens?

In the first of a series looking at how the UK economy will change after coronavirus, Newsnight's Business Editor Helen Thomas reports.

#BBC #Covid19 #Newsnight

Newsnight is the BBC's flagship news and current affairs TV programme - with analysis, debate, exclusives, and robust interviews.

[mwat]

The overload of visual effects is not only annoying but distracting as well.

[TR]

Interviewing the Archbishop of Canterbury, filming a presenter driving a boat, movie-trailer narration, melodramatic background music, hiring tabloid hacks like Lewis Goodall... Newsnight has no idea what it is any more.

[bigboyfishing]

The rich get richer and the poor get poorer like it has always been.

[ReedoTV]

Someone on the staff has just discovered After Effects!

[matthewbaynham]

The blame lies with Cameron, May and Johnson.

When a country is in crises national debt goes up to survive and when a country is not in crises they pay off the debt.

In Germany the debt from the 2008 financial crash was paid off in 2016. Germany still has national debt but it's at the same level as before the 2008 crash.

In the UK the debt has just kept going up. In the crash it was natural for the debt to go up because it was a crises. But then came David Cameron and the national debt kept going up dramatically. And then under May still the national debt kept going up dramatically.

Boris Johnson increased the national debt even more so that May and Cameron before Covid-19 came along.

So now Germany is OK it came borrow and not worry too much because it doesn't have that mountain of debt.

The UK is up to it eye balls in debt, 10 years of Tory's have bankrupted the country. Don't just blame Boris or blame Covid-19 for the economic crises that's coming, it's all 10 years of Tory economic mismanagement.

[Jhihmoac]

If you think it's bad now, wait until companies use the losses they suffered during the pandemic as an excuse to justify wage, hours, and benefit cutbacks in the future!

[davidmurphy]

Stylish, thought-provoking and great gets for the interviews. Packages like this are why I keep watching Newsnight.

[BlackLamb]

>force people out of business with extreme lockdown measures
>claim the ensuing economic crisis is a failure of the free market
>promise UBI to the disadvantaged, who you've bankrupted to begin with
Looking forward to the resulting high time preference & inflation.

[charleswheaterwillcock]

I think the BBC should declare it is a political party and stop pretending it is a neutral organisation reporting the news. Most news programmes have a clear political slant, a campaigning theme, rather than sticking to reporting the facts.

What is wrong with the BBC having an agenda?

The fact that as a UK citizen I have to legally pay to be subjected to their views, with fines for those who do not pay up. A lot of the population are not comfortable with the direction the BBC is going in.

[theodorecurtis]

Arthur Laffer is wrong. Government money isn't tax-payer money. The government is the source of money which tax-payers use (do you see anyone else with a license to print money?) The government can do more than redistribute money, it can create money at will.

[DARKMATTERTIME]

Wealth transfer, the poor becomes poorer and the rich becomes richer.

[Inthemixmedia]

What happens when you build an economy on people shopping. By the end of July 2020, debt was £2, 004.0 billion, (2 trillion) or 100.5% of gross domestic product (GDP).

[paxundpeace]

The problem started with bad public funding of essential services like NHS and Social Service.
The conservative government cut 200, 000, 000, 000 over the last decade on investment in public infrastructure like hospitals, staffing emergency preparedness.
They didn't even restock the expired PPE stockpile that labour had ordered back in 2009.

[MrElliebeli]

The individual will be crushed by the state... You either accept the new order by working for the state or collecting benefits while the small business owners and self employed with no voice will get destroyed! This is not a recipy for economic growth.

[RbShahi]

Editor watched one too many movies by christopher nolan

[mattosx]

Enjoyed the bit at the end. Our current economic models have got us this far (and have achieved amazing things) but there are significant changes happening globally (climate change, automation and space commercialisation as some examples) that could lead humanity into our next level of economic and global prosperity. I think the idea of Universal basic income and more investment from the government is welcome (even better if it could be achieved on a global scale). If the economy is not working humanity and our future then who is it working for (we know the answer currently). There is a bit of good and bad in our current models and I think we might be able to do better for everyone particularly here in the UK and UBI could be a great place to start.

[emmafrost]

The government is there to maintain society from going into chaos and give citizens basic support. It's not there to help businesses and people's jobs to the level they want. It can create jobs by creating some new projects, but at the end of the day if a business is not working in a new environment, then the people need to re-think themselves.
E.g. turn that hotel into a small hospital and offer it rented to the NHS. Create new private offices for rent for those who can't work from home. Create a delivery restaurant vs an eat-in one... re-think your strategy for making money. And accept you won't be able to make the same outrageous profit. There's less money moving these days so things need to get cheaper.

[marshmccarthy]

God WTF is wrong witht the visual effects on this video

[MrMoses]

basically they are limiting the amount of people to anything you want or need to do ok, you will lose you're business that way plus people do not want to use the same as before people have changed in a good way but the government don't like it they want you back to normal now that they see it having a different effect on the economy ha ha ha ha ha

[Bloom_Oz]

Short anwser: It probably won't! 😂