Off Topic Political Debate

At least he stands up to all threats of terrorism. Oh wait.... (and sorry for the link Aberdeen!)
http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2015/dec/09/donald-trump-ireland-sinn-fein-terrorism

 

I think it is about time that we buried this myth that the Tories are better with the economy. There is no government that destroyed the economy so effectively as the Tories did in the 1980s. Thatcher failed on the economy - she herself failed by the standard by which she wanted to be judged ie. inflation. The economy crashed in 1980/81 - the deepest recession since the war - many of the northern cities still bear the scars from this. It took until 1988 to recover the growth rate of the 1970s. She laid the foundations for the unbalanced economy of later years with her 'Big Bang' regulation in 1986 - thereby freeing the city of London of nearly all restraints. As a consequence the share of financial services in the total business income of the UK. rose whereas that of manufacturing fell - and, of course, this castle built on sand collapsed with the later banking crisis. She spoke of 'living within your means' yet at the same time we saw a revolution in irresponsible lending by banks. We saw the beginnings of the sharp rise in house prices leading to the present situation where we are seeing the poor forced systematically out of London. New Labour simply institutionalized Thatcherism and that is why they and Blair are now history. Yet despite all of this you will say that Socialism has destroyed the British economy - even though there has never been a 'socialist' labour party with a majority in the UK.

 

Thank you Aberdeen - that is what I was trying but failing to say.

 

It is not a myth. The economy in the 1980s started on the ropes. Union excesses in coal, steel, mining, shipbuilding and others destroyed our industrial base far more effectively than Thatcher. Thatcher simply recognised that these industries were dead or dying and put them out of their misery. In Germany the unions like everything else were destroyed by the end of the war and it was the Brits more than anyone else that set up a decent union structure that worked with bosses to benefit their industry and economy. The 1980 recession (like 2010) had its seeds sown 2 or 3 years earlier under Callaghan and his winter of discontent when unions tried to dictate terms and rubbish was not cleared but piled up on the streets - don't try another go at the media here as I experienced it in real life. The economy shrank as industries that had been overinflated and propped up were left to fall naturally. Then the rebuilding was able to start. The UK's economy has never since been as weak as it was before she came to power. Even the disastrous Brown failed to destroy her achievement of the UK economy rising in the world table. Thatcher's worst legacy was both failing to invest in new social housing and also in new smaller high tech industries leaving areas devastated. However the blame goes back to the unions - powerful union bosses many of whom had funding from the Soviet Union.
As a high wage, low resource economy our manufacturing base was always vulnerable. Harking back to heavy industry manufacturing is no more sensible than harking back to the glorious days when we were a farming economy. The service industry was always the future for us and Thatcher helped deliver it - and now it is the cyber economy that needs fostering. People who do not realise how the world changes condemn themselves and others to the slide into poverty. Previously successful empires like the Spanish failed to change and got left behind. If Britain now were trying to support the coal industry that Scargill claimed to represent we would be totally bankrupt and you would see genuine poverty and we would not be the 5th largest economy in the world.
Oh and you are totally incorrect; I will not say Socialism destroyed the economy so please refute what I say not what you think I might say. I say the unions helped destroy our economy and also the the Labour party (not left wing, not socialist, not communist, not marxist) just simply the Labour party are incompetent whenit comes to running the economy. If they were competent I suspect we would have a perpetual Labour government.

 

Leo, can you stop speaking as if you were the only person who actually lived through these periods of British history. I left Britain in 1989 because I had seen that it was becoming a land for yuppies and bankers - I did that along with many, many other people. Look at the immigration and emigration figures for that decade - Liverpool alone lost around 200,000 people. With whatever gloss you may choose to paint the Thatcher decade, there was a huge rise in poverty and inequality then - also rates of social mobility have remained very low since then. Germany also lost many of its old industries - so steel towns like Solingen or coal towns like Essen and Gelsenkirchen lost all their industries - but they restructured to new high tech or alternative products - which Britain could have done. Your analysis of Britain's role in the creation of the German Union movement also needs a bit of a rethink. I agree that industrial relations in Britain were difficult, particularly after the war, and all the wartime rhetoric of people coming back to a land fit for heroes didn't help. Have you ever wondered why British workers appear to work better for foreign employers ?

 

Why should I not quote my own experience - you do all the time - I have never said I was the only person. Attack my arguments not me.
In fact I mention that I lived through things to prevent the one or two people on here who seem to think we are all brainwashed by the media - personal experience is relevant

 

You left Britain for your own reasons - you sound like SH telling us why other people did what they did when you can have no knowledge of their reasons at all.
Poverty increased as it always does in a recession - and fell as Britain grew again. However measures of poverty are pathetic as they are statistically flawed and do not deal with actual poverty but with relative poverty.
Unlike America, Britain has always had low social mobility - give me any time when there was high social mobility in Britain - under any government. We can call people working class or middle class but when has there been a fundamental shift of wealth from the richest?
I already made the point that Thatcher failed to build new smaller higher tech industries. So did every Labour government - starting with Wilson.
I suggest you re-read your history of post war German unions. They were set up by the Allies and initiated by the British.
"industrial relations in Britain were difficult, particularly after the war" - The peak of strikes was from mid 60s to mid 80s and Thatcher ended it. Too late to save the industries though.
"British workers appear to work better for foreign employers" - another SH style global comment with no back up.

 

Leave me out of your petty sqabbles, I'm sunning myself in Tenerife!!!

 

OECD recent report on social mobility across the World.....and I quote:
'Britain has some of the lowest social mobility in the developed world - the OECD figures show our earnings in the UK. are more likely to reflect our fathers' than in any other country'
'Social mobility hasn't changed since the 1970s - and in some ways has got worse. For every one person born in the 1970s in the poorest fifth of society and going to university, there would be four undergrads from the top fifth. But if you were born in the 1980s, there would be 5.'
'Social mobility was actually higher for those born in the 50s and 60s.'

Unfortunately Leo during my lifetime Britain has lost a 'working class' and gained an 'underclass' with all of the problems which that entails - not least of which that the poorest 30% or so have become totally estranged from politics - no surprise then that the 'middle ground' has shifted to the right. By the way how could the British have established the entire German post war trade union movement when all of the biggest cities (apart from Hamburg and part of Berlin) were in the American zone ?

 

So as I said social mobility has hardly changed at all - and roughly half that time was under Tory and half Labour.
Underclass my foot. The so called poor nowadays are rich by historical standards - compare the living conditions of your underclass with those equivalent people 100 years ago. We are all vastly better off - but the divide has widened.
Poorest 30% are estranged from politics - really!!!!! Can't be bothered perhaps because the parties are all rubbish
Re-read my post re German Unions and you will see I talked of the Allies but the Brits initiating it. It was something I learned in school - I have not checked it but suspect it is roughly correct -unless you are going to tell me someone else helped set up the unions. Do I really have to look it up - it was only a passing point?

 

Trust you to holiday in countries where they drive on the right .

 

Regarding my use of the word 'underclass', I really didn't know what other word to use here because Britain really no longer has a 'working class' in the way it used to have. How long is it since the word 'working class' was used in a positive way in Britain ie. as having something to do with pride and a specific culture ? Nowadays it is used in a negative sense as simply another way of saying 'poor'. By saying estranged from politics I am implying that they are the least active segment politically (and this was not the case in the past) and estranged because there is no party which has represented the needs of the poorest 30% of our society for quite some time now. They live in a world in which they are forced to stand comparison with middle class ideas, middle class philosophies etc. Ideas which stress all the well known myths of capitalism eg. Anyone can make it if they work hard enough (we have seen that this is not true), the other great myth that if you allow the rich to get richer that this will in some way trickle down - something without a shread of proof. The last, and greatest, myth of capitalism being that it has something to do with freedom - it doesn't, it turns freedom into a commodity like all other things and the poorer you are the less of it you have. You can tell me until you are blind in the face that the poor of present day Britain are relatively better off than in the time of Dickins, or that they are better off than those in Sierra Leone, which is no different to saying that the citizens of the USSR were, in most ways, better off than under Czarism.

 

I am working class. Nobody ever game me a thing. Everything I have I worked incredibly hard for. I am proud of it and of the fact my parents and grandparents were working class too. The Middle Class - who are they? Nouveau riche? People who aspire to be Upper Class but haven't made it and probably never will.
Well known myths of capitalism - a loaded phrase with no basis. What you know someone else disagrees with I am sure.
Another favourite of yours - to savage "trickle down" Never mind that when rich people spend those less rich get some of it. Of course wealth trickles down, the guy who buys the ferrari enables a salesman to feed his kids. It does not redistribute wealth as progressive taxation might but every pound spent by Beckham benefits someone less wealthy.
I am not sure that the greatest myth of capitalism is freedom but who knows - still I would rather live in a free capitalist society than North Korea.
And lastly - the politics of Envy. It does not matter that the last 150 years have improved society no end - that workhouses have gone and children in rags living in the streets, that nowadays everyone has an expectation to have food, clothing and shelter - if only through the welfare state. no no - if my income has doubled I am sooooo unhappy because yours has trebled. The fact I have a standard of living that 100 years ago only the super rich could aspire to or dream of is irrelevant. The queen lives in palace and bankers have millions so I am hard done by.
Do you know what? I don't buy it. For me the fact that society has become immensely richer is a good thing especially as real poverty is a thing of the past for almost everybody in the UK. Yes I would like a greater distribution of wealth but let's thank capitalism - under Labour and the Conservatives - for what we have

If you deal in relative poverty then you will always have people who are poor even if they are all millionaires. Poverty is NOT relative - it is absolute. If people were able to adopt a Buddhist philosophy they would be happy even if they were the poorest paid toilet cleaner. If you envious of others you will always be discontent.

 

Phew.......

 

What is meant from 'myths' of capitalism is that 'capitalism' tends to justify itself through the perpetuation of certain myths - which are generally believed although there is no empirical basis for them. The 3 I mentioned are all, I believe, in this catagory. I am not interested in how you began your life or where it has got you as long as you are happy with it - I will not reply by giving details of what I have or have not achieved because they are not important to my argument and I cannot prove any of it here. We have debated elsewhere the trickle up vs. trickle down theory and I don't feel the need to repeat myself. As for real vs. relative poverty - of course I celebrate that all people in the UK. are better off than they were in 1900 - but they have become better off through the course of history and not necessarily through capitalism. The people of most countries are better off than they were 100 years ago regardless of the political systems they live under. So the USSR was feeding its whole population in 1950 which it was not doing in 1900 - the same goes for China. Whether you like it or not people do compare their economic situation with those around them and not with those 5,000 miles away or 100 years away and what you call envy is one of the fundamental pillars of capitalism - how long do you think it would exist if everyone suddenly said 'what I have is enough' and only bought what was absolutely necessary. One of the fundamental driving forces of capitalism is to convince people that what they have is not enough - to convince them that they need what they in fact don't, which is of course only possible through keeping the mass as stupid as possible.

 

You implied nobody was proud of being working class - my personal statement disproved that - even if I am the only one- which I am not. I am far from happy with my life as you should well know - but it has nothing to do with wealth.
What you fail to understand on "trickling" is that it is fact - not one of your myths. It does not end up redistributing wealth in the way taxes can but sorry it is a fact that Beckham's spend helps Mr not so well off car or champagne salesman.
Technology and the drive for economic progress have created the wealth. It is just that some systems are better at it than others. Have you not compared China today under a capitalist economy with Chairman Mao's China? Or is its vast wealth a coincidence.
People do compare themselves with those around them - but it does not make a fact out of a nonsense. They are better off - period. Just because they don't like their neighbour being even better off does not alter the fact. You see I deal with fact not myth nor what people feel. Tell me how many people would turn down a doubling of their salary just because somebody else was going to get more.
I agree that capitalism tries to drive desire for more - I have not said otherwise. Who are you to tell others what they need? Is that a fact?

 

I have never said that the idea of trickle down was nonsense just that the idea of trickle up is better - rather than allow one person to have 10 million it would be better if that money was shared over many 'spenders' this would stimulate the economy more - this is a straightforward Keynesian argument of strengthening the spending power at the base of the pyramid. I am not failing to understand anything by saying that allowing someone to become immensely wealthy in the hope that he will toss a few crumbs in my direction is a dangerous policy. Money given to those below is more likely to remain within an economic system rather than disappearing to Monaco or somewhere. With reference to China (and India) both countries now have a pollution undreamed of 20 years ago and when it is scarcely possible to walk around Shanghai, Beijing or New Delhi without wearing a face mask then you have to ask whether they really are better off than in the past.

 

Well said that man. I too am working class from generations of working class (miners, asbestos factory workers, road sweepers, military etc.) who through life choices and education have had and have excellent living standards. We have to directly subsidize my wifes family who are oppressed by a socialist regime in Venezuela, not for luxuries like i-pads and cars that if you don't have in the UK you are considered to be below the poverty line but for medicines, food and toilet paper yet statistics would tell you that poverty is falling in that nation, why? because it takes the median and if yo move that ever lower you bring the frankly starving to a category of being out of poverty, its a sick joke created by socialist academics.. I swear if I see that reference to trickle down once more I'll be visiting the asylum what on earth is the obsession?.I'll never be a billionaire as some of my friends are by birt right but do I care am I jealous no not at all, the sooner we learn to be happy and succeed within our own self imposed reference frame the better. Good parallels in football, a non league supporter can be just as happy as a Man U supporter if he sets his goals realistically and that's the important thing.

 

Blimey Aberdeen - keep posting like that and I will be in danger of falling for the Conservative party. Good points - well made - clear and cogent. I rarely hear anything from another part of the spectrum that convinces me they understand how an economy should be run

 

I was confused - I seem to have thought that you rubbished trickle down frequently. However I hope we both agree that if you had ten billion pounds to give away then injecting it into the base not the top of the pyramid would be far more distributive. However money gets into the economy through profits and earnings and some are ridiculously high like footballers salaries and top earners salary and bonuses. But in normal times you do not pay those except voluntarily by watching football etc or using those companies / banks. (leave aside bailouts for the moment - it is a side argument). That money is not going to the base of the pyramid whatever you want. It has to trickle down through spend (yes, slowly and inefficiently). Money also gets into the economy via the government - taxes and public spend. It is that way that is most likely to be used to redistribute wealth. However you have to remember that most of tax and public spend comes from other people so you need to have their permission to spend that money - it does not belong to the Government - the Government takes it from people - so needs consent.
I should ask the people in China and India whether they prefer starvation and true poverty to pollution.