£75Bn to invest what would you do

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So you are Government and you have £75Bn to invest, you are in complete control what would you do and why?

I would start a massive social housing building project.
This would utilise existing undeveloped brownfield sites but also some compulsory purchase of vacant properties and unused building land.
Unused building land would be compulsory purchased that had been made available for building but unused for 20 years. It would be valued at the original sale price plus RPI from the date it was sold.

As part of the scheme existing house builders would be asked to tender for the work, they would provide the expertise and the know how, however the actual building would be over seen by the local councils who would all be tasked to come up with a plan for their area. The house builders would basically be able to sell their services at a small profit to ensure they do not suffer unduly from this program. If they choose to not take part they are fully able to do that, but should there be a shortage wanting to take part a national housebuilding company would be setup to push the scheme forwards, employing individuals should that be needed.

In conjunction to go alongside the scheme there would be an apprentice scheme which required these house builders to train the trades. They would not directly employ these apprentices, and would not be liable for the costs, they would however be able to take them on at from the scheme. They would be liable to train these apprentices. The level of apprentices would be balanced to not create a vast oversupply of fully trained trades a few years down the line. The long term, circa 25 years level would be taken into account so this would not be a short term fix and then allow the industry to stagnate in 5 years time (ie not a political quick win)

The quality of the houses would not be aimed at top notch, nor would it be aimed to be poor either. Basically small family homes or single occupancy aimed (ie a few rooms upto 3 bed).

People can apply directly for the apprenticeship or would be put forwards by the Job Centre based on being assessed as having the correct potential skill set and attitude. (ie its not just a shove these lazy loosers into the program approach)

Those taking part in the apprenticeship scheme would be given a preferential application for one of the houses at the end of their apprenticeship. (ie Carrot)

These housees by statute would be banned from being purchaseable at any discount, they should be seen as a long term benefit to the country and our social support for anyone who needs it in our country. Flashier and larger housing would only be supplied by the current market.

The cost of the housing would be linked to actual wages on a sliding scale based on the size of the accomodation. Eg a 3 bed may be 30% of wages, so 30% of your take home wages would be treated as your rent. These funds would be collected with PAYE and returned back to the scheme.

My reasoning is this :
- Our global competitiveness is restrained by overly expensive houses this restrains the ability for us to attract and maintain industry in the UK
- The house building would kick start a lot of sectors, not just building, but retail (carpets, furniture etc)
- Contracts could be awarded for other industries to supply items, services, etc but again they would be restricted on profit, they would be guaranteed volumes on this scheme not large profit
- The population would gain a massive safety net of a right to a decent property giving them confidence for now and also into their retirement. Confident consumers are spending consumers
 
Caporegime
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Cut taxes for people/perhaps just give them the money.

Capitalism works only because the consumer continues to buy, if they slow down everything does.

Perhaps invest in energy research or something.
 
Soldato
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London
Cut taxes for people/perhaps just give them the money.

Capitalism works only because the consumer continues to buy, if they slow down everything does.

Perhaps invest in energy research or something.

Cut taxes yes,

Give people money? Thank god you're not in government with your brain power.
 
Soldato
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The problem with giving people money directly is that it'll likely be used to buy a big ticket item (like a TV or towards a car), in which case sees most of the money going overseas, or they will save it or pay off debts with it.

If I had £75b I would set up a state investment bank and lend it to small and medium businesses on very agreeable terms. They'll then hire more people/give people more money who will in turn spend it (pay raises tend more to trickle than be saved by earners).
 

Zip

Zip

Soldato
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Australia
/perhaps just give them the money.

Capitalism works only because the consumer continues to buy, if they slow down everything does.

P

Ol Krudd Did that down here.

All we did was bought stuff from overseas where it was cheaper then in Australia:p

Its a failed plan
 
Soldato
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If you took the Billy Bragg school of economics you would do nothing but give every houshold a cheque for £4k. Would be interesting to see what would happen.
 
Soldato
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robskinner = George Osbourne?

Hatter the Mad has the right idea. Thats what banks were supposed to do when the government gave them a load of cash but they didn't so a government run bank that lends money to businesses is a better way.
 
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Soldato
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England
Another four Type 45 destroyers, another three Astute class subs, another two Bay class ships, both carrier's properly kitted out, invest heavily in making the new frigates and the F-35 being as good as they can be, etc.




...What?
 
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Soldato
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Another four Type 45 destroyers, another three Astute class subs, another two Bay class ships, both carrier's properly kitted out, invest heavily in making the new frigates and the F-35 being as good as they can be.




...What?

Asides from the f-35's not a bad idea, with type 45's, astutes and the carriers being made in Britain the 75bn will eventually filter back around into the country as a whole. I remember watching a lib-dem mp saying that the type 45's should be ditched and britain should just buy a load of second hand arleigh-burkes as it would be cheaper and thus better for the economy, kind of ignoring that money spent in the country eventually comes back via taxes and money out is just a gift to foreign nations.


plus with that hardware we can invade france which would be good for a giggle.
 
Caporegime
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inflation that Zimbabwe wouold be proud of

from giving people 4k? lol doubt it if there were going to be massive inflation it would have been when the goverment first started magicking money out of thin air and giving it to the banks which should have made out currency worth less because there was more of it
 
Man of Honour
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infrastructure, mainly a complete revisit of the motorway network to reflect the realities of now rather than the 1960s, power generation and dedicated ro-ro freight rail.
 
Man of Honour
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11 Mar 2004
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Would pay for the entire research and development on the Skylon space plane. So we can be world leaders by a massive margin in the space industry.
Invest the rest, reopening closed train stations and encrougimg green tech research and manufacturing.
Probably wouldn't be enough though.
Build an Eco city in partnership with industries for research and manufacturing of the green tech. As well as lots of selfbuild plots.
 
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Associate
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30 Dec 2005
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Calgary
Build a lot of houses as above, finish the motorway network and clear up some of the road bottlenecks, replace Heathrow with something suitable between Birmingham and London, put some proper metro lines in places other than London, speed up HS2, and, in the unlikely event that there is some change from that, build an excess number of nuclear plants and a power line to Germany so we can sell the electricity to them when their ones close.
 
Associate
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Spend it all on housing an transport infrastructure. Will create jobs and end one of the long term issue in this country the lack of affordable housing.
 

Klo

Klo

Soldato
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Invest heavily in science/engineering and R+D in high tech industries. Might not be an immediate gain, but we will reap the benefits later.
 
Associate
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Calgary
Another four Type 45 destroyers, another three Astute class subs, another two Bay class ships, both carrier's properly kitted out, invest heavily in making the new frigates and the F-35 being as good as they can be, etc.




...What?

Sad thing is we probably could have had all that plus more if the MOD wasn't criminally incompetent. The minimum we were supposed to have was 12 T45s and the two carriers, one of which should have been ready next year, I believe. And sod the F35s, we would be better off with more of something cheaper.
 
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