quote:

---

Originally posted by Ender's Shadow:
Sometimes, as with Mormons and Muslims, the big lie they live by is to do with religion.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Ender's Shadow:

And underlying this is the suggestion that the unions have the right to alter the policy of a government elected with a very clear majority of the population in the coalition - unlike Maggie's. Either we are a democracy - OR the unions have the right to bully us into doing what they believe is right.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Doc Tor:
I know it's late, but really. Penny Red is prophetic voice - unlike you.

So fuck off to bed, you tedious Tory. Leave it to people of good heart to stand on the barricades.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Ender's Shadow:
the policy of a government elected with a very clear majority of the population in the coalition

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Arrietty:

quote:

---

Originally posted by Ender's Shadow:
the policy of a government elected with a very clear majority of the population in the coalition

---

Nobody voted for the coalition.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Arrietty:

quote:

---

Originally posted by Ender's Shadow:
the policy of a government elected with a very clear majority of the population in the coalition

---

Nobody voted for the coalition.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Ender's Shadow:
Anyone who didn't vote for either the conservatives or labour knew that they were encouraging the formation of a coalition of some sort, unless they recognised they were just wasting their vote except in as far as they were 'sending a message'.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Ender's Shadow:
the loss of social services would only be a problem for the poor.

---

I'm a children's social worker. I think the above statement is incorrect in a number of ways.

However, my overwhelming response to the attitude displayed in that statement is extreme sadness. What you seem to be saying, Ender's Shadow, is that nobody gives a toss for those suffering hardship and disadvantage or for children suffering significant (often life-threatening) harm - after all they're only poor people and poor people's children. I suppose it shouldn't surprise me to know that this sentiment exists in the world, but when I read your statement while thinking of the children and families my colleagues and I support .....

(/Tangent)
 

---

Posted by Marvin the Martian (# 4360) on :
 
Penny Red apparently wants a general strike in order to force the government to turn Britain into Greece.

Hasn't really thought that one through, has she?
 

---

Posted by daronmedway (# 3012) on :
 
Still, a general strike is a spectacularly bad idea. And so passé.
 

---

Posted by Matt Black (# 2210) on :
 
Well, it seems that the Loony Left is still alive and well...

To reiterate what I've said here before, since 2008, I've had to lay off or otherwise lose 75% of my staff, the remaining staff have had to endure a 20% pay cut and my business partner and me a 50% pay cut. Our story, to judge by others in the private sector I know, is fairly indicative of the SME end of the private sector, and it really sticks in our craw to see the likes of Red Penny demanding that we cough up more money (either through more taxes or higher interest rates) to improve the lot of her and her comrades, or they'll stage a mass walkout which will achieve fuck all (how can it be otherwise?) other than to piss a lot of people off by inconveniencing them eg: working parents like me having to lose a day's pay to look after our kids every time the teachers down tools.

So, I would indeed question which unreal planet the OP subject is on; she and her bolshie comrades need to wake up and smell the coffee - in the words of Galadriel, "the world has changed", and they've got a helluva lot of catch-up to do.
 

---

Posted by Doublethink (# 1984) on :
 
So if you genuinely believed the government's economic policies are making the situation worse not better, for private and public sector, you wouldn't think it worth drawing their attention to that ?
 

---

Posted by Albertus (# 13356) on :
 
Ah yes, Laurie Penny. The kind of person who makes me embarrassed to be on the Left. I've never quite worked out why she looks so cross and miserable in her column pictures: she's about 26 and has a successful and high profile career as a columnist (= a licence to air your views to a wide audience on any topic, without necessarily having to know much about anything in particular, and get - I imagine fairly well- paid for it). What has she got to look miserable about, or at least look any more miserable than the rest of us? Perhaps it's a rather unconvincing attempt to live down the privileged background (minor public school, Oxford), that has got her to that place. Such a posture is not uncommon among people of that type.

As Alexei Sayle used to say about the SWP (another bunch of middle class fantasists, BTW), no doubt the reason they're always calling for a general strike is that they remember what a success the last one was. There are, what, 6 million trade unionists in the UK? Only about 1 private sector worker in 7 is a union member. I would like to see those figures greatly increased, but the point here is that even leaving aside the question of principle, as the OP points out, a general strike would hit all the wrong things. Furthermore, it's not difficult to imagine how the government, Mail etc, would present it to all those non-unionised squeezed middle types whose lives would only be further disrupted by it. If you want to drive that class of voter into the arms of the Tories and maybe even the Lib Dems for a generation, just call a general strike: look at the propaganda value that until very recently- and perhaps even a bit now- the Tories have got from the Winter of Discontent.

Actually, as Peter Wilby points out in his diary column in this week's New Statesman, it's capital that has been on strike for some time: financial institutions sitting on huge piles of money which they are noit lending because the returns available are not those which they want. We are told that lending is essential to the economy: if the workers in essential indistries were on prolonged strike, the government would be sending troops in to keep supplies moving, but when capital goes on strike, the most they seem to do is wring their hands- if, that is, they notice what is happening at all.

[ 15. September 2012, 08:46: Message edited by: Albertus ]
 

---

Posted by FooloftheShip (# 15579) on :
 
Public service and entrepreneurial capitalism are and are supposed to be two different environments. Part of the same economy, yes, but when did you ever hear of a teacher who got a massive bonus because a particular class got exceptional exam results? Or a doctor in an NHS hospital who got a performance bonus because a delicate operation went well? If you are going to live by the capitalist sword, you must be prepared to die by it too. And yes, I work in the private sector and have accepted the consequences of this, however reluctantly.

This doesn't mean that this particular incendiary columnist has a point, but it doesn't mean either that public sector workers should worship at the feet of those in the private sector.
 

---

Posted by Jolly Jape (# 3296) on :
 
What I find mystifying about this thread is that three of the most theologically conservative posters on the ship seem to be so happy to bow down, or, at the very least acquiesce in the bowing down of others, before the god of the market (or "mammon" as it used to be called). I would have thought such acquiescence would have, at the very least, started ringing some internal alarm bells. The faith-claims made for "market forces" are truely staggering, and right up there with those for Baal and Rephaim in their disregard of human dignity and Godly values. Indeed, there is a case for saying that capitalism is a modern fertility cult, the cult of economic, rather than biological, growth, which justifies every excess as the necessary cost of placating this wanton and evil god.
 

---

Posted by Matt Black (# 2210) on :
 
Nah, I can't stand the Mammon represented by investment banking, either; most people involved in SMEs have no great love for the City. For us, it's a Hobson's choice between that idolatry and worshipping the Leviathan of the State. Neither appeals.
 

---

Posted by FooloftheShip (# 15579) on :
 
Most of the "leviathan" of the state has become levaithan like because of attempts to ape the private sector. The prime example of this is the NHS, which looks like a single organisation from the outside but is actually a huge web of interlocking small feifdoms, which are not allowed to do anything together because of competition laws. Accountability disappears into an organisational pinyata, and all because of market idolatry.
 

---

Posted by Albertus (# 13356) on :
 

quote:

---

Originally posted by Matt Black:
Nah, I can't stand the Mammon represented by investment banking, either; most people involved in SMEs have no great love for the City. For us, it's a Hobson's choice between that idolatry and worshipping the Leviathan of the State. Neither appeals.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Zoey:
(Tangent/)

quote:

---

Originally posted by Ender's Shadow:
the loss of social services would only be a problem for the poor.

---

I'm a children's social worker. I think the above statement is incorrect in a number of ways.

However, my overwhelming response to the attitude displayed in that statement is extreme sadness. What you seem to be saying, Ender's Shadow, is that nobody gives a toss for those suffering hardship and disadvantage or for children suffering significant (often life-threatening) harm - after all they're only poor people and poor people's children. I suppose it shouldn't surprise me to know that this sentiment exists in the world, but when I read your statement while thinking of the children and families my colleagues and I support .....

(/Tangent)

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Jolly Jape:
What I find mystifying about this thread is that three of the most theologically conservative posters on the ship seem to be so happy to bow down, or, at the very least acquiesce in the bowing down of others, before the god of the market (or "mammon" as it used to be called). I would have thought such acquiescence would have, at the very least, started ringing some internal alarm bells. The faith-claims made for "market forces" are truely staggering, and right up there with those for Baal and Rephaim in their disregard of human dignity and Godly values. Indeed, there is a case for saying that capitalism is a modern fertility cult, the cult of economic, rather than biological, growth, which justifies every excess as the necessary cost of placating this wanton and evil god.

---

Interesting challenge. The question is whether economics is genuinely a science, producing models of the real world that provide an accurate guide as to what the consequences of certain policies will be, or whether it is merely mumbo-jumbo. As I've argued with monotonous regularity on these boards, the massive reduction in poverty in Asia as a result of adoption of free market policies rather than socialism in China, and the licence Raj in India, indicates to me that economics deserves to be taken seriously a science. Therefore it is no more rational to complain that you can't achieve economic growth while throttling the private sector than it to complain that if I release a large rock directly above my foot, I will be injured when it lands on my toes. You may not like the conclusions of science, but it is a rejection of truth merely to reject them because they are unpalatable; but Galileo's inquisitors would be proud of you.
 

---

Posted by Pyx_e (# 57) on :
 
As ever ES you sound more like a Thatcherite lackey and general armpitmonkey than a disciple. The irony is you pointing out the mote in others eyes before examining the plank in your own.

Fly Safe, Pyx_e
 

---

Posted by Boogie (# 13538) on :
 

quote:

---

Originally posted by FooloftheShip:
Most of the "leviathan" of the state has become levaithan like because of attempts to ape the private sector. The prime example of this is the NHS, which looks like a single organisation from the outside but is actually a huge web of interlocking small feifdoms, which are not allowed to do anything together because of competition laws. Accountability disappears into an organisational pinyata, and all because of market idolatry.

---

Exactly - the 'market' has messed with Education for years.


 

---

Posted by Albertus (# 13356) on :
 

quote:

---

Originally posted by Ender's Shadow:
The question is whether economics is genuinely a science, producing models of the real world that provide an accurate guide as to what the consequences of certain policies will be, or whether it is merely mumbo-jumbo.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Albertus:
It's an applied social science, which tells us how, under certain socially constructed circumstances, many or even most people are likely to behave. It can explain things and can help us understand the likely consequences of certain choices that we may make but the parameters within which it operates are not natural, immutable 'givens'.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:
Penny Red apparently wants a general strike in order to force the government to turn Britain into Greece.

Hasn't really thought that one through, has she?

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Jolly Jape:
What I find mystifying about this thread is that three of the most theologically conservative posters on the ship seem to be so happy to bow down, or, at the very least acquiesce in the bowing down of others, before the god of the market... Indeed, there is a case for saying that capitalism is a modern fertility cult, the cult of economic, rather than biological, growth, which justifies every excess as the necessary cost of placating this wanton and evil god.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Matt Black:
...To reiterate what I've said here before, since 2008, I've had to lay off or otherwise lose 75% of my staff, the remaining staff have had to endure a 20% pay cut and my business partner and me a 50% pay cut...

---

Whilst I sympathise with all in your position, and I know many folks in the same game as you, you fail to acknowledge that the malaise you face is because of Tory cuts and that recourse to the law is now, in most cases, impossible for all but the wealthy.
 

---

Posted by Matt Black (# 2210) on :
 
The Tories weren't in power in 2008 . Plus Gordon Brown is the politician largely responsible for the cuts bein necessary thanks to bailing out the banks when they fucked up with money we no longer had because he'd pissed it up against the wall as Chancellor. Labour have admitted this by accepting they'd have had to make deep cuts in spending too. So these aren't really 'Tory' cuts and we had to make most of our painful decisions in 2008-9, before the coalition got in
 

---

Posted by orfeo (# 13878) on :
 

quote:

---

Originally posted by Ender's Shadow:
Anyone who didn't vote for either the conservatives or labour

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Matt Black:
...Gordon Brown is the politician largely responsible for the cuts bein necessary thanks to bailing out the banks when they fucked up with money we no longer had because he'd pissed it up against the wall as Chancellor...

---

quote:

---

[G]overnment spending totalled £343bn in 1999-2000, which, if it had just kept pace with inflation, would have reached £438bn by 2009-2010. In reality, spending in that year reached £669bn, an increase, in real terms, of 53 per cent, over a 10- year period in which GDP had grown by less than 17 per cent. When you factor in how much of that GDP increase was the result of unprecedented levels of private debt then the truly unsustainable nature of the public spending becomes vividly apparent.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:
Penny Red apparently wants a general strike in order to force the government to turn Britain into Greece.

---

quote:

---

originally posted by Ender's Shadow

No - that is where I would disagree. IMNSHO homo economicus does always do certain things. It is these things that mean that the laws of economics are in effect immutable; the best that you can do is suppress the behaviour in the short term, with a cost in the medium term.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Jolly Jape:

quote:

---

originally posted by Ender's Shadow

No - that is where I would disagree. IMNSHO homo economicus does always do certain things. It is these things that mean that the laws of economics are in effect immutable; the best that you can do is suppress the behaviour in the short term, with a cost in the medium term.

---

Well, firstly, this is nonsense. If it were true, then the poor in, say, the USA, would always vote for the party that credibly promised them, say, free health care (since they could therefore either to afford healthcare in the first place, or else free up the money currently spent for other purposes).

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Ender's Shadow:
[QUOTE]Originally posted by Albertus:
[qb]...
Let us start with the simple concept of the demand curve. This claims that the demand for a product is a function of the price. This is inevitable; for different people a given product has a different value; therefore if the price is greater, for some people it makes sense not to buy it; it's not worth it to them.

Moving on to the supply curve: all that states is the supply is also a function of the price: again if I am a manufacturer of X, I will be willing to make more of an effort to produce X if the price I'm being offered is higher.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Jolly Jape:
There you go again. as Ronnie used to say. I could understand you position coming from a materialist, but not from a Christian. There are plenty of things that might be regarded as "working" from a purely utilitarian POV, but which are nevertheless illicit when viewed in the light of the Gospel. By this sort of argument, much of Jesus' teaching could be written off in the same way that you dismissed ideas of social justice. Love your enemies, pah, sentimental nonsense. Turn the other cheek, hopelessly naive. So if all these things can be relativised out of consideration without a murmur of dissent from you, what value do we place on your views on those awful liberals whom you seem to regard with such disdain.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Ender's Shadow:
But just declaring 'there is an alternative because I want there to be' is just... sad.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Ender's Shadow:
The objective I think we can all settle on is that we want to see the number of poor in the world reduced.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Ender's Shadow:
[QUOTE]Originally posted by Jolly Jape:
[qb]...China...

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by the long ranger:
Workers will eventually create co-operatives and work for themselves. Then capitalist fuckers will realise how little they have when nobody will do their bidding for them.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by leo:

quote:

---

Originally posted by the long ranger:
Workers will eventually create co-operatives and work for themselves. Then capitalist fuckers will realise how little they have when nobody will do their bidding for them.

---

Amen

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Sioni Sais:
If you're going to strike, for goodness sake do it effectively.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Doc Tor:

quote:

---

Originally posted by Ender's Shadow:
The objective I think we can all settle on is that we want to see the number of poor in the world reduced.

---

Bzzt. Thank you for playing. This is exactly what I meant above.

You take a family, a village, a tribe who make absolutely no money at all. They are in abject poverty, earning less than a dollar a day.

You take away their land, their animals, their ability to feed themselves, clothe themselves, destroy their family and tribal bonds, and you ship them off to the city where they can work 16 hours a day making shoes for the west. You pay them a dollar a day.

Look, they're not in poverty any more! Huzzah! A triumph for capitalism!

Fuck off.

---

 

---

Posted by Jahlove (# 10290) on :
 

quote:

---

Originally posted by the long ranger:
I think the most important thing the TUC could do would be to spend a lot of effort creating co-operatives - worker owned businesses.

Striking only really works when you have something to bargain with. In a period of high unemployment, the problem with any kind of striking is that the management can tell the workers to fuck off because they can get other staff. And you are already on a tough argument in the public sector when people see increases in pay having an (apparently) direct impact on services like libraries and old people's day centres.

I know nobody likes co-ops because they sound a bit commie, but they really are the only way forward. In the future, I see a massive mushrooming of the co-operative sector.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by leo:

quote:

---

Originally posted by the long ranger:
Workers will eventually create co-operatives and work for themselves. Then capitalist fuckers will realise how little they have when nobody will do their bidding for them.

---

Amen

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Sioni Sais:
One-day token protest strikes are bugger all use. If you want to hurt government, then identify the areas most critical to the running of government which have high levels of TU membership and willingness to come out on strike, and strike there for weeks, supporting your members with a levy from those who remain at work.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Ender's Shadow:

I have no fundamental problem with cooperatives except that they haven't swept all before them. To me that reflects some basic weakness in their nature; possibly that the workers are more inclined to take the profits and avoid risks than reinvest them to the benefit of future workers than entrepreneurs are.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Ender's Shadow:
The figures here indicate that hundreds of millions who were getting by on less than $1.25 a day are now substantially better off. That is a real success.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Doc Tor:
Moreover, increases in income per person were often achieved after a large rise in life expectancy. Which, it seems to me, indicates that people get wealthier when they have better lives. Not the other way around. By going for the 'growth first' model, the cart is before the horse.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Jay-Emm:

The first (say 20 years*) you cost society and your parents. The next 20 you pay yourself off (or rather pass the moral debt along). Any extra working life is actual growth or even more invested in your (grand)children**.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by ken:
I half-remember a soundbite-happy development economist some years ago saying that the number one thing that would be most likely to increase economic growth in almost any poor country is sending all girls to primary school.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Doc Tor:

quote:

---

Originally posted by ken:

---

You can plot exactly that on the link I gave earlier.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Stejjie:
Relieving poverty is hugely important, but it's not the only side of the equation. If capitalism and the free market can't provide both sides of this equation, then it's time to look for, or imagine, a system that can.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by South Coast Kevin:
... it seems to me that capitalism in its rawest form might be the most efficient system, in the strictly financial sense of the word 'efficient'. But most people (me included) don't quite want this ...

---

Can we even talk about strictly financial efficiency, as though "value" was a value-free term and economics was a pure science? Surely, before one can determine whether a system is efficient, one has to determine the "desireable outsomes". Sorry for the appalling language. Bit much even for Hell, I know.
 

---

Posted by Ender's Shadow (# 2272) on :
 
Economic growth occurs when the factors of production are applied in a new way to enable the production of more 'stuff'. Much of the problem with this lies in the definition of 'stuff': because the market doesn't value things like an absence of pollution, parents spending time with their children, and lots of other things, what may appear in the national accounts as economic growth may not be experienced as such.

Some economic growth is a result of the simple application of knowledge. An example of this is the use of dung on the fields to fertilise crops rather than burying it; there is no loss (assuming no disease issues), just more food produced. A similar effect was achieved when farmers were required to plough their fields instead of burning off the stubble; it turned out that this resulted in more production.

Where things get more complex is when the additional production can only be achieved by the use of extra 'factors of production'. These are usually defined as capital, labour and land: e.g. a factory where machines are staffed by workers located on a plot of land. In order to enable this factory to get built, capital to pay for the machines will need to be allocated, workers to staff the machines will need to be recruited, and land made available. Capitalism suggests that individuals are best placed to decide what opportunities are there to increase production; state socialism says that only the state can; cooperatives also make their own claim for a place in the sun. In one sentence my claim is that capitalism has proved to be the most effective means of mobilising the factors of production to enhance growth, thereby making available the resources to raise people (hundreds of millions of people in China alone) from severe poverty.

A significant element in the Chinese experience has been the transfer of millions from low productivity jobs in agriculture, to high production jobs in factories. But without the 'formation of capital' - i.e. the factories getting built - those jobs would not have become available. Any attempt to critique this model and suggest other sources of economic growth must explain away the role of factories in multiplying the value of workers' output; the claim of the capitalist is that factories are most likely to be most productively created when they are created by capitalists, because they are more responsive to the 'market' - i.e. the wants of the people expressed by what they are willing and able to pay for. Now of course this underestimates the potential benefits to the poor of certain additional production, and in the modern world this is rightly achieved by government action. The problem is that this requires taxation, and these if imposed on capitalists, by increasing the cost and reducing the return on their investment, may discourage them from risking their money to create more capital and so provide the economic growth that enables the poor to be helped.

It's this final point that the harridans of the left such as the writer of the article we started with fail to engage with; why should capitalists (broadly defined to include pension funds and cooperative members as much as solo entrepreneurs) risk their own money to benefit the community by forming capital that enhances everyone's life if they are unlikely to get a return greater than what a government bond offers?

To the nay sayers who suggest we don't need economic growth anymore, the easy answer is that it's the only way we are able to achieve greater welfare for the poor - assuming they still exist - without politically impossible tax rises on the squeezed middle. A more complex answer recognises that in a time of continuing scientific advance, there is a continuing need for the means of production to be updated with those developments. If you remove the incentive for the capitalist to make the investments necessary, the effect will be that the value of your production will start to fall precipitately as foreign firms undercut your costs of production or render your products obsolete. Given that the UK at least has to export in order to import the food and energy it needs, this is the route to rapidly declining real incomes, especially for the poor.

Is this to claim capitalism is perfect? Of course not. The issue is whether it is the least worst option available. Its worst excesses need to be ameliorated - enforcing competition and punishing price fixing VERY aggressively is a major issue. But to assume that there is an easy alternative is pie in the sky.
 

---

Posted by LeRoc (# 3216) on :
 

quote:

---

Ender's Shadow: The figures here indicate that hundreds of millions who were getting by on less than $1.25 a day are now substantially better off.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Doc Tor:
Edited to add - Cuba and China are good examples of this.

---

quote:

---

Marvin the Martian: To the extent that, despite having all those needs provided for them at no cost whatsoever, beggars are common on the streets.

---

1. There is a topic that's somewhat related to capitalism.
2. Ender posts the link to the Economist article, going: "Capitalism has lifted millions out of poverty in China!"
3. Some people give substantiated answers, giving nuances or even refutations, showing that things aren't as rosy as this article claims.
4. Ender maybe gives one more preachy post and then runs from the thread.
5. A couple of weeks later, he does the same on another, unrelated thread.

quote:

---

Originally posted by Ender's Shadow:
The problem is that this requires taxation, and these if imposed on capitalists, by increasing the cost and reducing the return on their investment, may discourage them from risking their money to create more capital and so provide the economic growth that enables the poor to be helped.

It's this final point that the harridans of the left such as the writer of the article we started with fail to engage with; why should capitalists (broadly defined to include pension funds and cooperative members as much as solo entrepreneurs) risk their own money to benefit the community by forming capital that enhances everyone's life if they are unlikely to get a return greater than what a government bond offers?

---

quote:

---

To the nay sayers who suggest we don't need economic growth anymore, the easy answer is that it's the only way we are able to achieve greater welfare for the poor - assuming they still exist - without politically impossible tax rises on the squeezed middle.

---

quote:

---

But to assume that there is an easy alternative is pie in the sky.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:

quote:

---

Originally posted by Doc Tor:
Edited to add - Cuba and China are good examples of this.

---

Having just got back from a fortnight in Cuba, I would not argue that it's a good example of "social improvements". Yes, they have basic needs like healthcare, education and housing provided to everyone, but they are still incredibly poor. To the extent that, despite having all those needs provided for them at no cost whatsoever, beggars are common on the streets.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by LeRoc:
I'm still on the fence about Cuba, but having spent some time there, I've seen no beggars on the streets at all.

---

quote:

---

Marvin the Martian: It's entirely possible that the towns I saw (Ciego de Avila and Moron) are anomalous - I didn't go everywhere. But those towns had a lot of people whose sole source of income appeared to be pestering tourists. Even most of the the staff at our hotel had very little compared to me (and I'm not exactly rich (by British standards)). More than one of them asked us if we could order an extra burger with our lunch and give it to them so that they could have something decent to eat rather than the soy protein that passes for government-supplied nutrition. The lifeguard on the hotel beach even asked if he could have our leftover suncream at the end of the holiday, because he couldn't afford any (suncream was almost twenty pesos for a small bottle, the average monthly wage there is about fifteen).

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by LeRoc:
After having travelled extensively through Latin American countries, and having lived in a number of them, I'd say that economically, Cuba is somewhere in the middle. Definitely below Brazil or Chile, but without a doubt above, say, Honduras.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Albertus:
I don't know whether or not you're too young to remember this, Marvin, but there was a time when we used to say with pride that, unlike in some Continental countries, you didn't see beggars in the UK. I can distinctly remember this. That all changed in the mid-late 80s, as the New Right and neoliberalism really began to get their hooks into the postwar welfare settlement.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Doc Tor:
And no one's mentioned the 50 year trade embargo (imposed and enforced by the US).

---

quote:

---

And still they manage to feed and house everyone, and have a better literacy rate and life expectancy than the USA.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by the long ranger:

quote:

---

Originally posted by Albertus:
I don't know whether or not you're too young to remember this, Marvin, but there was a time when we used to say with pride that, unlike in some Continental countries, you didn't see beggars in the UK. I can distinctly remember this. That all changed in the mid-late 80s, as the New Right and neoliberalism really began to get their hooks into the postwar welfare settlement.

---

I'd be interested to know when this mythical golden era happened, because I've read many accounts of Victorian and pre-war beggars. I can only conclude that if it existed it was between the 1950s and 1980s and those who were previously considered beggars or tinkers were relabelled drunks, travellers, dropouts, druggies or whatnot.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Stejjie:

quote:

---

Originally posted by Ender's Shadow:
The problem is that this requires taxation, and these if imposed on capitalists, by increasing the cost and reducing the return on their investment, may discourage them from risking their money to create more capital and so provide the economic growth that enables the poor to be helped.

It's this final point that the harridans of the left such as the writer of the article we started with fail to engage with; why should capitalists (broadly defined to include pension funds and cooperative members as much as solo entrepreneurs) risk their own money to benefit the community by forming capital that enhances everyone's life if they are unlikely to get a return greater than what a government bond offers?

---

So capitalists will only help the community when there's something in it for them?

And you're arguing we should be relying on them to help the world's poor?

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Stejjie:

quote:

---

But to assume that there is an easy alternative is pie in the sky.

---

Who said anything about an easy alternative? I didn't. An alternative might be quite difficult and require lots of thinking, imagination and hard work. It might even involve those who are sitting on huge piles of cash and refusing to invest actually doing something to help rather than bleating about being poor, put-upon "wealth creators".

But no easy alternative =/= no alternative at all. It's just supporters of the present system don't like the thought that the current system might be busted...

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Ender's Shadow:
And the idea that the owners of capital - for example pension funds - should be expected to risk that capital for no return is, of course, crass.

---

quote:

---

Marvin the Martian: I just wouldn't hold it up as an example of a country that's "doing it right" is all.

---

quote:

---

Marvin the Martian: I thought their idea was that the government should own all the capital so that it can provide for all our needs. Like it does in Cuba.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Albertus:

quote:

---

Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:

quote:

---

Originally posted by Doc Tor:
Edited to add - Cuba and China are good examples of this.

---

Having just got back from a fortnight in Cuba, I would not argue that it's a good example of "social improvements". Yes, they have basic needs like healthcare, education and housing provided to everyone, but they are still incredibly poor. To the extent that, despite having all those needs provided for them at no cost whatsoever, beggars are common on the streets.

---

I don't know whether or not you're too young to remember this, Marvin, but there was a time when we used to say with pride that, unlike in some Continental countries, you didn't see beggars in the UK. I can distinctly remember this. That all changed in the mid-late 80s, as the New Right and neoliberalism really began to get their hooks into the postwar welfare settlement.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Matt Black:
I grew up in the 1970s and there were plenty of beggars and winos on the streets back then; they used to turn up en masse every Midnight Mass and stagger around at the back singing the carols very loudly and a bar behind everyone else!

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Matt Black:
OK, the two phenomena may not be correlated but that doesn't alter the existence of the first, which I do remember well in 1970s Aldershot and its environs.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Albertus:
Drunks, I grant you, and old-fashioned tramps and meths drinkers in certain areas- but beggars as we see them now? Scracely at all, if ever.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Jengie Jon:
what I don't get is how beggars largely vanished under the last Labour government

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Jengie Jon:
what I don't get is how beggars largely vanished under the last Labour government only to reappear almost immediately on the election of a Conservative one. How does the change happen that quickly?

Jengie

---

Newport always had a few persistent rough sleepers, mostly around the pedestrian tunnel leading to the railway (which flooded! )but there was also discretionary funding available for hostels and night shelters. Maybe the Tories don't ship them to down-at-heel seaside towns like Rhyl and Hastings?
 

---

Posted by leo (# 1458) on :
 

quote:

---

Originally posted by Jengie Jon:
what I don't get is how beggars largely vanished under the last Labour government only to reappear almost immediately on the election of a Conservative one. How does the change happen that quickly?

Jengie

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Jengie Jon:
what I don't get is how beggars largely vanished under the last Labour government only to reappear almost immediately on the election of a Conservative one.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by ken:
Jengie's right about London. s soon as the tories got in, the numbes of rough sleepers started climibing again. No-where near as many as last time the Tories were in - the early to mid 1980s were by far the worst times in Britain since the War- but noticeably more.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Anglican't:

quote:

---

Originally posted by ken:
Jengie's right about London. s soon as the tories got in, the numbes of rough sleepers started climibing again. No-where near as many as last time the Tories were in - the early to mid 1980s were by far the worst times in Britain since the War- but noticeably more.

---

So this couldn't have been a consequence of Labour's recession, then?

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Ender's Shadow:
It works. It has worked well. The Chinese migrant labourers who choose to live away from their families to raise their standard of living have the alternative of staying living in poverty on the farm. Capitalism has given them an option (yes, ok, in some cases it has removed options, but in general this is true).

---

quote:

---

And the idea that the owners of capital - for example pension funds - should be expected to risk that capital for no return is, of course, crass.

---

quote:

---

Ah - OK - so you admit that there is no alternative model around at the moment. So, as a matter of fundamentalist belief, you just know that there must be an alternative. How do you know? Gabriel told you? A personal encounter with a member of the Trinity? Gold plates that you translated using magic spectacles? That's not the way the world works; sometimes there isn't a better model. And assuming that there must be is the sort of attitude that leads to paralysis in decision making, with opportunities to do the good being sacrificed for the sake of the vain hope of the best.

---

Me? Fundamentalist?

I'm not the one insisting that capitalism is the only way; I'm not the one who sees "the way the world works" and can't see any possibility of that changing or something new, different, better existing in the future.

Imagine if Jesus had just accepted "the way the world works": "I know the world's dying because of slavery to sin - but that's just the way the world works. Shrugs shoulders Meh, what you gonna do?"

No, if I'm honest, I don't know what an alternative might be. Giving the poor some control over their own lives, rather than leaving them dependent on the whims of entrepreneurs might be a start. But that doesn't mean that there can't be an alternative and that we just have to accept "the way the world works" as the only possible and most desirable outcome.
 

---

Posted by Ender's Shadow (# 2272) on :
 

quote:

---

Originally posted by Stejjie:
No, if I'm honest, I don't know what an alternative might be. Giving the poor some control over their own lives, rather than leaving them dependent on the whims of entrepreneurs might be a start. But that doesn't mean that there can't be an alternative and that we just have to accept "the way the world works" as the only possible and most desirable outcome.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Sioni Sais:
Stejjie, I've learned my lesson about ES (and one or two others). Don't confuse them with facts, their minds are made up.

A waste of bandwidth and pixels.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Ender's Shadow:
AFAIKS, the 'facts' are that hundreds of millions of poor people in Asia have been raised from absolute poverty as a result of the abandonment of socialist beliefs in the running of the economies of China and India and their adoption of more free capitalism. What are you pointing to?

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by the long ranger:
I read that the massive labour unions that emerged in the late 1890s in the USA had twin purposes both to negotiate better conditions with employers and to set up co-operatives.

These were destroyed by the capitalists who saw this as a step too far.

Fascinating.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Sioni Sais:
Stejjie, I've learned my lesson about ES (and one or two others). Don't confuse them with facts, their minds are made up.

A waste of bandwidth and pixels.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Sioni Sais:
Not so much a step too far, but as competition. Competition of a kind that is neither red-as-blood Communism nor free-market capitalism. One would hope capitalists welcomed competition but they don't: they simply use wealth to drive out competitors.

If I remember my industrial history correctly, they were frustrated by restrictive practices, such as a blanket refusal of 'conventional' businesses to trade with co-ops and let premises to them. How the heck do you regulate round that, without provoking howls of 'red tape' from pro-business politicians?

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by the long ranger:
I read that the massive labour unions that emerged in the late 1890s in the USA had twin purposes both to negotiate better conditions with employers and to set up co-operatives.

These were destroyed by the capitalists who saw this as a step too far.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Anglican't:
]So this couldn't have been a consequence of Labour's recession, then?

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by ken:
"Labour's recession"? Gordon Brown might be a clever bloke, but I don;lt think even his best friends woudl imagine that anything he could have done would have ruined the finacial systems of half the countries in Europe and also the USA. The worst you can accuse them of is not doing much better than most other governments.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Albertus:
There is a fifth reason which must, I'm afraid, be laid in part at the door of the Labour government: that is a failure to challenge the basic assumptions of the neo-liberal finance-led economy, acceptance of which amounted to a cross-party Lab-Con consensus. Most other northern European countries- apart from Ireland and Iceland- of course were nothing like so badly hit because they had not put themselves so completely in hock to the smoke and mirrors of, and submitted so meekly to the insolence of, Anglo-American style financial markets.

So it is not Labour's recession- it's the British political elite's recession- but we could have expected better from Labour.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Albertus:
More or less in tune with what I was saying.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by aumbry:
Not quite - the disaster in regulation was a product of Brown's mixture of arrogance and ineptitude not helped by the Tories' craveness in not being sufficiently strident and certainly half-hearted in their criticisms of this - but to be fair to them who was interested at the time?

---

quote:

---

Thing is, we'd have expected the Tories to let the City have its head. The whole raison d'etre of the Labour Party is to challenge that sort of thing. So we mind much more when they don't.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Matt Black:
I don't think it's bollocks: New Labour were far, far too close to the City.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Matt Black:
Couple that with Brown's public spending spurge from 2001-8, so when the shit hit the fan, the cupboard was bare, if you'll pardon the mixed metaphors.

---

• 1997 312.39 37.64
• 1998 318.43 36.22
• 1999 328.11 35.32
• 2000 338.07 34.63

• 2001 362.57 35.49
• 2002 384.93 35.80
• 2003 415.21 36.44
• 2004 451.50 37.55
• 2005 488.31 38.93
• 2006 502.56 37.83
• 2007 543.96 38.69
• 2008 575.97 40.17

In 2001-4 the public spending as %GDP remained lower than 1997 and at no point prior to 2009 did it get as high as the peaks of the 1980s In every year 1980-1986 public spending was higher than 2008 levels.

Please show me where the splurge was.

Secondly the myth that if we'd had a budget surplus in 2008 we'd have been much better placed when the crisis hit. (For the sake of this argument, let's accept that running a 1-3% surplus would have been possible (economically and politically which is not a given but hey, I'm feeling nice)). Now, this is a quick back-of-an-envelope


Public sector net debt 2008 £1433.87Bn - 36.61% GDP (well within the Maastrict criteria btw)
Year____Net borrowing by HM Government £Bn (%GDP)____Matt’s theoretical Net surplus (@2%GDP) £Bn____Difference £Bn

• 2005____43.4 (3.6) ____24.3____67.7
• 2006____39.7 (3.6) ____25.5____65.2
• 2007____35.8 (2.7)____27.0____62.7
• 2008____39.0 (2.7)____28.5____67.5

• 2008 1433.87 (36.61)
• 2009 1393.85 (44.26)
• 2010 1458.45 (52.08)
• 2011 1509.6 (59.97)
• 2012 1559.5 (66.62)
• 2013 1631.3 (71.05)
• 2014 1717.1 (74.08)
• 2015 1813.5 (75.27)

quote:

---

Originally posted by Anglican't:

But in your rather lengthy post you don't appear to have mentioned the deficit once - isn't that the main source of complaint by those on the right?

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Sioni Sais:
Indeed, the deficit is their main complaint, but in an economic downturn a deficit is no surprise.

---

Possibly - but running a large deficit during the boom is a surprise.
 

---

Posted by Albertus (# 13356) on :
 
I do like your tag, by the way, Anglican't- presumably this was La Margarita in retirement, telling Mr Murdoch to rein in his attack dogs?
 

---

Posted by Anglican't (# 15292) on :
 
Hehe, thanks. I put that up during the riots last year. I've had a busy year and haven't been on here that much recently. I need to find something to replace it, I think.
 

---

Posted by Sioni Sais (# 5713) on :
 

quote:

---

Originally posted by Anglican't:

quote:

---

Originally posted by Sioni Sais:
Indeed, the deficit is their main complaint, but in an economic downturn a deficit is no surprise.

---

Possibly - but running a large deficit during the boom is a surprise.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Anglican't:
Zog, on the figures you've presented, public spending appears to have risen by £100,000,000,000 in the space of around four years. Do you not think that might be a 'splurge'?

So, can we please stop with this bollocks and you know, look at the actual evidence.


But in your rather lengthy post you don't appear to have mentioned the deficit once - isn't that the main source of complaint by those on the right?

---

My most humble apologies Anglican't for not using the word deficit. I draw your attention to this section :-

quote:

---

Public sector net debt 2008 £1433.87Bn - 36.61% GDP (well within the Maastrict criteria btw)
Year____Net borrowing by HM Government £Bn (%GDP)____Matt’s theoretical Net surplus (@2%GDP) £Bn____Difference £Bn

• 2005____43.4 (3.6) ____24.3____67.7
• 2006____39.7 (3.6) ____25.5____65.2
• 2007____35.8 (2.7)____27.0____62.7
• 2008____39.0 (2.7)____28.5____67.5

Total difference; £263.1Bn: Predicted Net Debt £1170.8Bn (29.9% GDP)

All this makes the HUGE assumption of no macro-economic effects of such a budget which is doubtful. Such an economic strategy would likely lead to low levels of government investment also.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Albertus:
Maybe, but put it this way: if you go out with an umbrella every time it looks like it might rain you might look bit of a charlie sometimes, and find yourself carrying an unused umbrella, but at least when it does rain you're not going to get wet.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by alienfromzog:

For example:
In 1980 UK public sector spending was £233.2Bn.
In 1989 it was £525.3Bn
- an increase of nearly 300 Billion is 9 years!

However it is ridiculous to call that a splurge as in 1980 the public sector was 44.5% of GDP and in 1989 34.3%.


AFZ [/QB]

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by alienfromzog:
[1) The Bank of England does not exactly have an exemplary history in terms of successful oversight; the BCCI scandal of 1991 and the Bearings scandal of 1995 showed (arguably complete but certainly) significant incompetence on the part of the bank.

AFZ [/QB]

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by aumbry:
The fact is that there was an unrestrained property and financial services boom during much of this period which fed throught to tax receipts which was able to fuel this enormous increase in public expenditure. Once we entered recession and both the property market and financial services tanked it was not possible to sustain public expenditure without causing a deficit blow-out and we all know where that has led to. Of course Brown thought that was okay because he claimed to have defeated Boom and Bust.

Even the Labour Party (except possibly for Ed Balls) would no longer defend the Brown Splurge.

Are you possibly Gordon Brown's mother?

(By the way your analogy about buying a house with a mortgage as compared to paying rent is nonsense: things are only weighted towards buying a house because of property price inflation. Rent is no more of a waste of money than mortgage interest).

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by aumbry:
Also under Brown there was a PFI free-for-all in which hundreds of capital projects were brought on line but placed off the national balance sheet (he must have been studying Enron's business model) leading to a consultancy bonanza followed by subsequent heavy finance and running costs which will put enormous strains on current and future public expenditure.

The idea that capital expenditure doesn't count is also fatally flawed unless the expenditure was likely to have a positive effect on national productivity and it is very difficult to see how replacing old hospitals and schools with super expensive PFI projects would achieve that. If doubly doesn't count if this expenditure is made during the boom as it simply pours petrol on the fires.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by aumbry:
It is not necessary for me to post figures the ones you have posted are good enough.

If in 2000 which is more or less when Brown diverged from the spending policies of the previous government the % of GDP represented by public spending was 35% and in 2008 it was 40% i.e during a period of boom public expenditure as a proportion of the economy increased by 14.3% then that is a disaster waiting to happen. It means that despite the fact that there was an unsustainable boom in the economy the public sector boomed by 14% against the economy as a whole. But that is not the whole story because a lot of additional public expenditure was being masked by PFI projects.

Dare I suggest that whilst you are producing the figures you are not understanding them.

Do you think that the current financial mess doesn't exist?

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by alienfromzog:
What was public spending as a proportion of GDP in 1997? [/QB]

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by alienfromzog:

quote:

---

Originally posted by Matt Black:
I don't think it's bollocks: New Labour were far, far too close to the City.

---

That I agree with.

quote:

---

Originally posted by Matt Black:
Couple that with Brown's public spending spurge from 2001-8, so when the shit hit the fan, the cupboard was bare, if you'll pardon the mixed metaphors.

---

Now I know you like to believe this Matt but it doesn't fit particularly well with the facts.
Firstly the 'splurge:' -

UK Public spending 1997-2000 £Bn %GDP

• 1997 312.39 37.64
• 1998 318.43 36.22
• 1999 328.11 35.32
• 2000 338.07 34.63

UK Public spending 2001-2008 £Bn %GDP

• 2001 362.57 35.49
• 2002 384.93 35.80
• 2003 415.21 36.44
• 2004 451.50 37.55
• 2005 488.31 38.93
• 2006 502.56 37.83
• 2007 543.96 38.69
• 2008 575.97 40.17

In 2001-4 the public spending as %GDP remained lower than 1997 and at no point prior to 2009 did it get as high as the peaks of the 1980s In every year 1980-1986 public spending was higher than 2008 levels.

Please show me where the splurge was.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by aumbry:

quote:

---

Originally posted by alienfromzog:
What was public spending as a proportion of GDP in 1997?

---

37% but so what?

That was prior to ten years of boom. [/QB]

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Matt Black:

quote:

---

Originally posted by alienfromzog:
In 2001-4 the public spending as %GDP remained lower than 1997 and at no point prior to 2009 did it get as high as the peaks of the 1980s In every year 1980-1986 public spending was higher than 2008 levels.

Please show me where the splurge was.

---

Sorry, been away from the screen for a couple of days. You've basically answered your own question with the stats quoted by you: in 1997 after the recession of the early '90s, public spending was quite high as one would expect. It then steadily decreased whilst the economy recovered further andBrown stuck to Fat Ken's fiscal rules. Your figures then show that he threw caution to the wind in a boomp after 2001 and went on spending and spending like there was no tomorrow right up until after the shit began to hit the fan...

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Matt Black:
Sorry, been away from the screen for a couple of days. You've basically answered your own question with the stats quoted by you: in 1997 after the recession of the early '90s, public spending was quite high as one would expect. It then steadily decreased whilst the economy recovered further andBrown stuck to Fat Ken's fiscal rules. Your figures then show that he threw caution to the wind in a boomp after 2001 and went on spending and spending like there was no tomorrow right up until after the shit began to hit the fan...

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by alienfromzog:

quote:

---

Originally posted by Matt Black:
Sorry, been away from the screen for a couple of days. You've basically answered your own question with the stats quoted by you: in 1997 after the recession of the early '90s, public spending was quite high as one would expect. It then steadily decreased whilst the economy recovered further andBrown stuck to Fat Ken's fiscal rules. Your figures then show that he threw caution to the wind in a boomp after 2001 and went on spending and spending like there was no tomorrow right up until after the shit began to hit the fan...

---

Matt, Really?

Public spending was high in 1997 because of the recession in 1991? Seriously.

Care to justify that in either historic or international terms?

In the years 1948-1997 (50 years) public spending as a proportion of GDP averaged 39.7%.

AFZ

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Matt Black:
Conservative spending plans meant public spending was falling post-recession (the effects of which, as doubtless you know, lasted until around 1995, to answer your point there), and Brown stuck to those plans until 2001 - as he promised he would do. As the economy grew post-2001, public spending should have continued its downward trend, but instead it - unwisely - went up.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by aumbry:
It may well have been but it is unprecedented to have it at that level at the top of a boom -as your figures show spending more or less doubled in the period and was never going to be sustainable. Normally you peddle when going up hill not down hill.

Look at all the figures.

---

The nominal figures are not helpful. Between 1990 and 1997, public spending increased 45% in nominal terms. It is only in terms of spending/GDP ratio that you can make any meaningful comparison.

And you haven't answered my question...
What would you have done differently? AND HOW would that make a difference to the current situation?

AFZ
 

---

Posted by Matt Black (# 2210) on :
 

quote:

---

Originally posted by aumbry:

quote:

---

Originally posted by Matt Black:
Conservative spending plans meant public spending was falling post-recession (the effects of which, as doubtless you know, lasted until around 1995, to answer your point there), and Brown stuck to those plans until 2001 - as he promised he would do. As the economy grew post-2001, public spending should have continued its downward trend, but instead it - unwisely - went up.

---

I think you mean "public spending as a proportion of GDP" but otherwise I agree with you.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Matt Black:

quote:

---

Originally posted by aumbry:

quote:

---

Originally posted by Matt Black:
Conservative spending plans meant public spending was falling post-recession (the effects of which, as doubtless you know, lasted until around 1995, to answer your point there), and Brown stuck to those plans until 2001 - as he promised he would do. As the economy grew post-2001, public spending should have continued its downward trend, but instead it - unwisely - went up.

---

I think you mean "public spending as a proportion of GDP" but otherwise I agree with you.

---

Yep.

AFZ, it's fairly obvious: continue to reduce GDP as proportion of national income during the boom years to augment the 'war chest' (remember, Gordon used to have one of those - what happened to it?) to ease the pain and misery we are now enjoying once the balloon went up.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Matt Black:
Well, I think it's fairly self-evident that having a war chest as opposed to a gaping hole in the public finances would have meant that we wouldn't have to be cutting so hard and so deep now.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by alienfromzog:

quote:

---

Originally posted by aumbry:
It may well have been but it is unprecedented to have it at that level at the top of a boom -as your figures show spending more or less doubled in the period and was never going to be sustainable. Normally you peddle when going up hill not down hill.

Look at all the figures.

---

It is only in terms of spending/GDP ratio that you can make any meaningful comparison.

AFZ

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by alienfromzog:
There's one big problem with that argument... it just doesn't add up.

Even if you'd managed to get public spending down to 30% of GDP, with the massive loss of tax-take from the city, you're still looking at a big deficit.

And that's before you calculate how much smaller the overall GDP would have been with such a smaller public sector. Although modelling that is definitely beyond me.

And just out of interest, what would you not have funded in order to achieve this? Pensions? Tax-credits? Education or Health?

And if you can manage that, then can you show me a country with a government spending level of say 35% GDP that's been immune to the worldwide economic crisis?

No, no, no.... Britain's particular vulnerability was not the pre-crisis deficit or debt... both were low compared to other G8 countries. Britain's particular vulnerability was the large percentage of tax revenue from the financial sector.

AFZ

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by QLib:
Oh come off it - every British PM has tried to keep the property boom going since it started - and it certainly didn't start in 1997.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by aumbry:
and the vulnerability was exacerbated by bonding the tax revenue from the financial services boom into public spending and not being prudent by treating it as cyclical.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by aumbly:
Another factor of Brown's mismanagement was that in order to keep the property market frothing he allowed a consumer-credit boom to run in tandem with the public spending boom. That has still to unravel. In 1998 we bought what at the time we thought was a rather pricey flat in London and 10 years later sold it for 4 times what we paid for it ( and there was no genius to doing that) - that is not something that happens in a well regulated economy although the sale netted the Exchequer a nice wad from stamp duty.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by QLib:
Oh come off it - every British PM has tried to keep the property boom going since it started - and it certainly didn't start in 1997.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Jolly Jape:
I bought my first house in 1977 for £8,250, (so 20 years before your example, Marvin) and sold it in 1984 for £23,750, so tripled in 7 years. House-price inflation has been going on for all my adult life.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Doc Tor:
Let me google that for you ...

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:
I wonder if it's becoming more of a problem now because the numbers have got so big? 8k to 23k is only a 15k increase, whereas 45k to 130k isn't far off a 100k increase. Even though they're roughly the same increase in percentage terms, in terms of actual money the latter is far worse (or better, depending on which side of the fence you're on!).

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Sioni Sais:
You can now resume your regularly scheduled mud-slinging.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by aumbry:
The point was not that there had never been property price inflation prior to Brown but that Brown allowed the market to rocket using the increased tax take from the boom to further bump up public spending. The whole thing was a house of cards.

Why does AfZ keep asking me to back up my points with figures as I have already said that the figures he supplied show the unsustainable increase in public spending? All he can do is make daft assertions along the lines of "the nominal figures are unimportant it is spending as a propertion of GDP that matters" when that is patently not the case.

---

Yep, I'm the one who keeps making assertions and not providing any evidence to support what I'm trying to say.

AFZ
 

---

Posted by Matt Black (# 2210) on :
 
The trouble is - as Aumbry and I have pointed out - that your evidence doesn't really say what you'd like it to say...
 

---

Posted by aumbry (# 436) on :
 

quote:

---

Originally posted by alienfromzog:

quote:

---

Originally posted by Sioni Sais:
You can now resume your regularly scheduled mud-slinging.

---

Why thank you.

quote:

---

Originally posted by aumbry:
The point was not that there had never been property price inflation prior to Brown but that Brown allowed the market to rocket using the increased tax take from the boom to further bump up public spending. The whole thing was a house of cards.

Why does AfZ keep asking me to back up my points with figures as I have already said that the figures he supplied show the unsustainable increase in public spending? All he can do is make daft assertions along the lines of "the nominal figures are unimportant it is spending as a propertion of GDP that matters" when that is patently not the case.

---

Yep, I'm the one who keeps making assertions and not providing any evidence to support what I'm trying to say.

AFZ

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Matt Black:
The trouble is - as Aumbry and I have pointed out - that your evidence doesn't really say what you'd like it to say...

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by aumbry:
It may well have been but it is unprecedented to have it at that level at the top of a boom -as your figures show spending more or less doubled in the period and was never going to be sustainable. Normally you peddle when going up hill not down hill.

Look at all the figures.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by aumbry:
Why does AfZ keep asking me to back up my points with figures as I have already said that the figures he supplied show the unsustainable increase in public spending? All he can do is make daft assertions along the lines of "the nominal figures are unimportant it is spending as a propertion of GDP that matters" when that is patently not the case.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Matt Black:
True [...]

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Matt Black:
... a 28% increase during a boom is still mighty unwise ...

---

... and yet I don't remember Conservatives making the same criticism of the Thatcher government for increasing public spending in absolute terms by more than 28% from 1984/5 (£159.6 billion) to 1989/90 (£209.7 billion) (source) - so Mrs Thatcher's government increased public spending by more than 28% in fewer than 7 years. I don't recall Conservatives saying that they were outraged by the Thatcher Splurge .

As I see it, another way of understanding how people come to such different conclusions from the same numbers is this: some people hate Gordon Brown and others don't (or dislike his government for different reasons).
 

---

Posted by Matt Black (# 2210) on :
 
My criticism would apply equally to Thatcher in similar circumstances, FWIW. But inflation IIRC was significantly higher then.

[ 27. September 2012, 15:36: Message edited by: Matt Black ]
 

---

Posted by Ender's Shadow (# 2272) on :
 

quote:

---

Originally posted by Alwyn:

quote:

---

Originally posted by Matt Black:
... a 28% increase during a boom is still mighty unwise ...

---

... and yet I don't remember Conservatives making the same criticism of the Thatcher government for increasing public spending in absolute terms by more than 28% from 1984/5 (£159.6 billion) to 1989/90 (£209.7 billion) (source) - so Mrs Thatcher's government increased public spending by more than 28% in fewer than 7 years. I don't recall Conservatives saying that they were outraged by the Thatcher Splurge .

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Matt Black:
Thx - I hope I put the point somewhat more politely than ES, who is obviously having a Bad Something day...

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Alwyn:
You certainly did, Matt Black. I can't blame Ender's Shadow for being rude in Hell.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Alwyn:
You certainly did, Matt Black. I can't blame Ender's Shadow for being rude in Hell.

---

Merely tedious. ES has a gift for that.
 

---

Posted by Matt Black (# 2210) on :
 
And he gets all sniffy when people say 'fuck' but is happy to go around calling others 'idiots', as if that somehow retains the moral Christian highground.
 

---

Posted by Doc Tor (# 9748) on :
 

quote:

---

Originally posted by Sioni Sais:

quote:

---

Originally posted by Alwyn:
You certainly did, Matt Black. I can't blame Ender's Shadow for being rude in Hell.

---

Merely tedious. ES has a gift for that.

---

But it's Economics 101!!1111eleventy!

(edited to add 'fuck!' - thanks Matt )

[ 28. September 2012, 11:56: Message edited by: Doc Tor ]
 

---

Posted by Mark Betts (# 17074) on :
 
Oh dear, I see T.I.N.A. has reared her ugly head again! ("There is no Alternative")

Well no, just as long as the cuts and austerity measures don't penetrate Ender's Shadow's middle-class bubble of course.

[ 01. October 2012, 14:48: Message edited by: Mark Betts ]
 

---

Posted by Matt Black (# 2210) on :
 
Well, I have two dogs in this particular fight: my own private sector one and that of my wife, who works for the NHS and towards whose job the cutting axe is creeping ever closer. So, those are my interests declared. Nevertheless, I still tend to tilt (although less so in recent months*) towards Plan A more than anything else.

*Not so much because of the threat to Mrs B's position but more because it is stifling growth increasingly; a much smaller example of the 'Mediterranean' cuts deepening the recessions in those countries but significant nevertheless.
 

---

Posted by L'organist (# 17338) on :
 
What is depressing about the foregoing - and the article that gave rise to it - is the staggering economic illiteracy of the left. While I'm not saying that the more conservative have a much better grasp, they at least seem to have grasped a few basics.

First and foremost, NO government can create jobs unless it runs successful businesses that export their product; if they don't then all they do is employ people and have a merry-go-round of tax revenue from the private sector that actually produces wealth and, therefore, "new" money to pay its taxes.

The really frightening thing is the credibility being given to Messrs Miliband and Balls as a team to run the UK. Just who do posters think were the eminences grises behind the decision to sell the gold reserves when the price had been falling steadily for many months and they didn't even have the wit to at least only dispose of half of it. That alone cost the UK billions.

As for the subject of a general strike: we have legislation that requires a ballot of the work force before ANY strike action is lawful - and that would include a general strike.

What the UK needs is a long, hard look at the vast benefits bubble and then a decision made as to what should and shouldn't be covered.

Rather than wasting time by cutting/taxing child benefit for higher earners, a decision should be made NOW to limit CB to 2 - 3 at the most - children per woman during her lifetime. Only exception to be naturally occurring multiple births. And before the Romans (and others) start moaning about "accidents", the vatican has preached for years that their Rhythm Method is reliable so this would be a chance for them to have faith in its efficacy.

At the other end of life, while its a nice idea to gift all women a full pension regardless of whether or not they have sufficient contribution years, this is a quixotic gesture we can't afford.

The country's largest employers shouldn't be exempt from rigorous scrutiny either; someone should first actually MANAGE the NHS and then decisions taken on what constitutes health care; for example, in an over-crowded country without food security it is insane to provide government funded fertility treatment. While infertility may be a personal tragefy it is NOT a national health problem.
 

---

Posted by Sioni Sais (# 5713) on :
 

quote:

---

Originally posted by L'organist:
What is depressing about the foregoing - and the article that gave rise to it - is the staggering economic illiteracy of the left. While I'm not saying that the more conservative have a much better grasp, they at least seem to have grasped a few basics.

First and foremost, NO government can create jobs unless it runs successful businesses that export their product; if they don't then all they do is employ people and have a merry-go-round of tax revenue from the private sector that actually produces wealth and, therefore, "new" money to pay its taxes.

---

quote:

---

What the UK needs is a long, hard look at the vast benefits bubble and then a decision made as to what should and shouldn't be covered.

---

quote:

---

Rather than wasting time by cutting/taxing child benefit for higher earners, a decision should be made NOW to limit CB to 2 - 3 at the most - children per woman during her lifetime. Only exception to be naturally occurring multiple births. And before the Romans (and others) start moaning about "accidents", the vatican has preached for years that their Rhythm Method is reliable so this would be a chance for them to have faith in its efficacy.

---

quote:

---

At the other end of life, while its a nice idea to gift all women a full pension regardless of whether or not they have sufficient contribution years, this is a quixotic gesture we can't afford.

---

quote:

---

The country's largest employers shouldn't be exempt from rigorous scrutiny either; someone should first actually MANAGE the NHS and then decisions taken on what constitutes health care; for example, in an over-crowded country without food security it is insane to provide government funded fertility treatment. While infertility may be a personal tragefy it is NOT a national health problem.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by L'organist:
At the other end of life, while its a nice idea to gift all women a full pension regardless of whether or not they have sufficient contribution years, this is a quixotic gesture we can't afford.

---

While you've managed to show a degree of financial illiteracy that's even worse than Ender's Shadow, I wanted to highlight this bit above.

Stop being a sexist dipshit. Women predominantly (still) do the majority of the childrearing and caring for elderly relatives - I suppose you don't think either of those activities 'economic' enough to warrant a pension at the end, and you'd rather they went out to work and leave wiping dirty arses to some minimum wage care assistant in a private home somewhere.

Alternatively, do you suppose their husbands will look after them?
 

---

Posted by mdijon (# 8520) on :
 

quote:

---

Originally posted by L'organist:
Rather than wasting time by cutting/taxing child benefit for higher earners, a decision should be made NOW to limit CB to 2 - 3 at the most - children per woman during her lifetime.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by mdijon:

quote:

---

Originally posted by L'organist:
Rather than wasting time by cutting/taxing child benefit for higher earners, a decision should be made NOW to limit CB to 2 - 3 at the most - children per woman during her lifetime.

---

Just start to imagine a society that does this. What will this society do when the 4th child in a family is in poverty and doesn't have what we would regard as a minimum standard of living in a civilized nation? Do we accept the child's poverty as a price worth paying in order to deter couples from having more children than we think they should? At what point would you accept that the level of poverty was bad enough to justify giving in an paying the benefits out?

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Doc Tor:

quote:

---

Originally posted by L'organist:
At the other end of life, while its a nice idea to gift all women a full pension regardless of whether or not they have sufficient contribution years, this is a quixotic gesture we can't afford.

---

While you've managed to show a degree of financial illiteracy that's even worse than Ender's Shadow, I wanted to highlight this bit above.

Stop being a sexist dipshit. Women predominantly (still) do the majority of the childrearing and caring for elderly relatives - I suppose you don't think either of those activities 'economic' enough to warrant a pension at the end, and you'd rather they went out to work and leave wiping dirty arses to some minimum wage care assistant in a private home somewhere.

Alternatively, do you suppose their husbands will look after them?

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by mdijon:

quote:

---

Originally posted by L'organist:
Rather than wasting time by cutting/taxing child benefit for higher earners, a decision should be made NOW to limit CB to 2 - 3 at the most - children per woman during her lifetime.

---

Just start to imagine a society that does this. What will this society do when the 4th child in a family is in poverty and doesn't have what we would regard as a minimum standard of living in a civilized nation? Do we accept the child's poverty as a price worth paying in order to deter couples from having more children than we think they should? At what point would you accept that the level of poverty was bad enough to justify giving in an paying the benefits out?

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Matt Black:
I think that what IDS and Boy George have in mind is the scenario where Working Family™ can't afford to have more than two-three children but Non-Working Family™ can.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Matt Black:
That's faily typical leftist spin, I have to say. I don't see much wrong with capping the number of children that the taxpayer should fund. If you want to have more, fine, but pay for them yourself.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by L'organist:
What is depressing about the foregoing - and the article that gave rise to it - is the staggering economic illiteracy of the left. While I'm not saying that the more conservative have a much better grasp, they at least seem to have grasped a few basics.

First and foremost, NO government can create jobs unless it runs successful businesses that export their product; if they don't then all they do is employ people and have a merry-go-round of tax revenue from the private sector that actually produces wealth and, therefore, "new" money to pay its taxes.

The really frightening thing is the credibility being given to Messrs Miliband and Balls as a team to run the UK. Just who do posters think were the eminences grises behind the decision to sell the gold reserves when the price had been falling steadily for many months and they didn't even have the wit to at least only dispose of half of it. That alone cost the UK billions.

As for the subject of a general strike: we have legislation that requires a ballot of the work force before ANY strike action is lawful - and that would include a general strike.

What the UK needs is a long, hard look at the vast benefits bubble and then a decision made as to what should and shouldn't be covered.

Rather than wasting time by cutting/taxing child benefit for higher earners, a decision should be made NOW to limit CB to 2 - 3 at the most - children per woman during her lifetime. Only exception to be naturally occurring multiple births. And before the Romans (and others) start moaning about "accidents", the vatican has preached for years that their Rhythm Method is reliable so this would be a chance for them to have faith in its efficacy.

At the other end of life, while its a nice idea to gift all women a full pension regardless of whether or not they have sufficient contribution years, this is a quixotic gesture we can't afford.

The country's largest employers shouldn't be exempt from rigorous scrutiny either; someone should first actually MANAGE the NHS and then decisions taken on what constitutes health care; for example, in an over-crowded country without food security it is insane to provide government funded fertility treatment. While infertility may be a personal tragefy it is NOT a national health problem.

---

quote:

---

First and foremost, NO government can create jobs unless it runs successful businesses that export their product; if they don't then all they do is employ people and have a merry-go-round of tax revenue from the private sector that actually produces wealth and, therefore, "new" money to pay its taxes.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Matt Black:
If you can't afford to have more than three, then don't have more than three. I think this is less uncharitable than demanding that those in work who can't afford to have more children subsidise those not in work so that they can.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Matt Black:
If you can't afford to have more than three, then don't have more than three.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Doublethink:
And what about the fact that society needs children to be produced ?]

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by ken:
But say we accept their world-view. Then what happens to these children? In this unkinder, harder world of even more big-business capiltalism, what is to be done with the excess children of the poor?

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by L'organist:
First and foremost, NO government can create jobs unless it runs successful businesses that export their product; if they don't then all they do is employ people and have a merry-go-round of tax revenue from the private sector that actually produces wealth and, therefore, "new" money to pay its taxes.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Doublethink:
Oh look, an honest conservative.

---

quote:

---

originally posted by Sioni Sais

It's amazing, when children are abused in TV dressing rooms everyone is appalled, but when they are systematically driven into poverty, it's in the interest of 'fairness'.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by ken:
But say we accept their world-view. Then what happens to these children? In this unkinder, harder world of even more big-business capiltalism, what is to be done with the excess children of the poor?

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Sioni Sais:
A couple have five children and the breadwinner loses his job. How many children do you do 'allow' these welfare recipients?I've got to ask again, where does the money to keep the 'surplus' kids come from? I know first hand that there is no spare cash when you are on benefits.

It's amazing, when children are abused in TV dressing rooms everyone is appalled, but when they are systematically driven into poverty, it's in the interest of 'fairness'.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by BroJames:

quote:

---

Originally posted by ken:
But say we accept their world-view. Then what happens to these children? In this unkinder, harder world of even more big-business capiltalism, what is to be done with the excess children of the poor?

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Sioni Sais:
A couple have five children and the breadwinner loses his job. How many children do you do 'allow' these welfare recipients?I've got to ask again, where does the money to keep the 'surplus' kids come from? I know first hand that there is no spare cash when you are on benefits.

It's amazing, when children are abused in TV dressing rooms everyone is appalled, but when they are systematically driven into poverty, it's in the interest of 'fairness'.

---

Well here's a classic Anglican suggestion. A former Dean of St. Patrick's Cathedral in Dublin made this modest proposal

---

© Ship of Fools 2016


UBB.classic^TM 6.5.0