Off Topic Political Debate

No - it is a country in the same way that England is

 

Totally agree - Islam is no better nor worse than Judaism or Christianity - and many more. It is fundamentalist extremists in all walks of life who are threatening- and that can be on animal rights as easily as religion

 

That may be so, but who is to say that they are right? Both http://www.newstatesman.com/politic...ow-chancellors-austerity-narrative-has-harmed and http://www.peri.umass.edu/236/hash/31e2ff374b6377b2ddec04deaa6388b1/publication/566/ offer alternate viewpoints - that austerity has actually harmed the economy. And all thanks to an error on a spreadsheet.

 

Leo, you are going to have to give me a little time to work through this. I am about a third of the way through and the only criticism I have is that the normal voter would not understand it. Gross national product is not a reliable indicator of true progress - Germany has had the highest in Europe for a long time but it is based on an unbalanced economy, and does not produce the highest living standards in Europe - far from it. Also the points of consumer choice and less consumption. It is a myth to believe that we can continue to produce and consume at the same rate as we are - if consumption in the whole World were the same as in the UK or Germany we would need 4 and a half planets. There is no techno fix solution were we can all carry on as before with different technology - this is like saying to a chain smoker with a bad cough that he can continue as before but that in a few years time there will be a technical solution for his problems. It is not something which will win elections but at some time in the future I believe that we will have ration books which measure each persons carbon footprint - in fact every person has the moral obligation to calculate their own footprint now. I do not like telling people how they should be spending their money - and a party which does this is committing electoral suicide -( which is why the Greens speak more about alternative energy ). But,the facts are that people in the future will have to eg. eat less meat than they have been accustomed to - this is the truth because our present agricultural system must transform itself radically - but, unfortunately the truth does not win elections.

 

I see no difference to what the Tories have done this time round to previous terms of office.... i.e .cut public spending.

I have seen a number of programmes/articles etc on the austerity issue over recent months and even Right-wing economists disagree on this. We appear to have been in 'debt' continually for centuries...... and for virtually all of that period we were ruled by the landed, the rich etc.


As someone who has worked hard in this life I cannot agree more that a better future realise it does not happen by itself.

I also am not a no-hoper

 

Good job we never had the idea of 'austerity' in 1945 - the Marshall plan and post war boom would never have happened. The people then knew that seeds had to be sown before they could be harvested - in other words nothing can only produce nothing.

 

If you do not address the debt that the country has you continue to pay vast amounts of interest. This is our debt, not one to be passed on to our children.

The Irish, unlike the British have experienced true austerity and come out of it much stronger. In addition the money market like sensible fiscal policies which is why the UK credit rating is far superior to austerity denying France.

 

This isn't real is it? I stopped reading fairy tales when I was 5...

 

What is wrong with "austerity". I'm all for incentives for economic growth but within our means. It is not acceptable to spend beyond what can afford to be repaid. I would love to be part of the first generation to actually produce more than we spend as a nation. In business it kills companies when you get venture capitalists come in and load up thriving businesses with debt, take out the cash for other things (bonuses, feed the investors) and then sell off the debt laden company whose profits now go to feed the debt instead of growth to provide more opportunity. This is the unacceptable face of capitalism and is mirrored in government when the party in power loads up the economy with debt (payments fed by taxes) effectively buying populace by giving folk what they shout for (an easy life on credit). Both the economy and business should be run as sustainable units without loading up future generations with undue debt for our ease of living.

 

Didn't expect your vote! I hope I'm proven wrong on Islam but when I first lived in their world the wall was still up across Europe and whilst the west was worrying about Russian nukes it was obvious that the real clash of cultures and fundamental values was with the islamic world. There are a small minority who are peaceful in intent but the underlying religious indoctrination is getting into the subconscious and is fundamentally evil.

 

There is no greater fairy tale than the idea that endless growth is possible, or desirable, in a World of finite resources. Systems are there to serve people not the other way around.

 

The idea of 'austerity' has its time and place as a provisional emergency measure to stop a country going under. But it can never stimulate recovery over a longer term. This can only be done through strengthening of infrastructure and spending power. When the 2 Germanies reunited in 1989 the first thing which the government here did was to give every East German a present (in form of West German Marks) in order to kick start the economy - in other words in similar fashion to the Marshall plan. You have to strengthen the base of the pyramid. I actually think that the introduction of an unconditional basic wage for every citizen would have a similar effect (and many reputable economists think the same).

 

I agee Cologne that endless growth is not sustainable. Yet the left leaning parties in the UK are calling for an end to austerity via huge growth in public services - The Greens would create 1 million new public sector jobs. Of course we know how they would plan to pay for these jobs, but would it not be a good start to shrink the public sectors?

 

I think people have to realise and accept the limits.. eg. fossil fuels, pyramidal profiteering, etc.

One of the biggest fairy tales is the dare I say it, capitalist work ethic imposed by those who seek to control others. Work hard for most of your lives.... take a consumerist two week holiday every year, save for a house... and one day you will be 'happy' . Marketing arms of the big corps perpetrate 'living the dream' and it was all developed using primitive psychology in the US by Freud's nephew.

I used to shock my undergrad students be showing them adverts and demonstrating the place of sex in so many ads..... and they had never seen it before.


https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/sex-drugs-and-boredom/201002/freuds-nephew-and-public-relations

 

I watched a very brief speech by Arthur Scargill the other day where he was proposing that everyone should be given £25,000 pa, but they would have the option of working for it. Checked it out and yes, that is what he did say. From a man who finished up taking his own union for a ride over his expenses, and tried to make the members pay for a flat in London as well as his home in Yorkshire his £25,000 would not go very far.

 

But that is not the whole story is it Yorkie? Yes, the then Labour government did have to pile billions into the likes of RBS and HBOS, but they also spent billions more than they earned on growing the public sector. They created hundreds of thousands of jobs in their heartlands with no care how they could be paid for.

 

Fortunately we have excellent present day examples of anti austerity route (France) verses minimal austerity (UK) and greater austerity (Ireland). Clearly the worst performer, and increasingly worsening, is France. Last October Ireland declared an end to its seven years of austerity. It now is enjoying growth at 4% annually with 3.25% annual growth rate for the remainder of the decade. Ireland's budget deficit will fall to 2.3% of GDP. France could only dream about these positive figures.

If you don't repay your debts large sums are wasted on interest payments which of course could be going to better use. In addition there is the moral issue of burdening of debts onto our children, unfair I say.

You don't need any obscure theories it is panning out in front of us.

 

Coincidentally, when at Uni I had to submit an assessment piece on textual analysis, and that is exactly the topic I chose to write on - got an HD for it too!

Did you submit that url for the eagle-eyed amongst us to spot the Watford link? Or was it mere coincidence that there is one?

#Listeningtothesoundofscurryingtothewebsite....

 

didn't see the Watford link?