social policy through grassing

The civil liberties point I will give you. I hope this government might
do something to sort that out but the signs do not look good. Teresa May
is scared of her own shadow so is rumoured to siding with the "spooks"
and the "Dave and Nick" show can't make their minds up. So that'll be a
failure then.

I don't agree that Labour created damage. A lot of good was done in
terms of improving the health service, education and generally restoring
the wreckage left by 18 years of the Tories. People weren't moaning
when the economy was booming for year after year and they were all
enjoying the proceeds. People have short memories and are not effective
in really discerning what improvements and facilities have been provided
to help them.

People are very conveniently forgetting what caused the recession -
greedy bankers. Who are making sure the Tories are kept on their toes -
oh yes greedy bankers. Perhaps you can tell me why the government would
appear to have waived a £6bn tax liability from Vodaphone. Those 6
billion quid could help avoid some of the nastiest and most oppressive
changes being proposed by the government. Would you really rather let
Vodaphone shareholders be £6bn richer or would you prefer the disabled
to be supported, schools to be built and proper health care be funded
for the most vulnerable? I know what I'd prefer to see and don't even
try to suggest that Vodaphone would somehow leave the UK if they were
forced to pay up.

I think there have been plenty of "showers of shit" in control of this
country prior to 1997 - both red shit and blue shit. You'll be telling
me next that Mr Callaghan and Mr Major both presided over wonderfully
effective governments.

I don't expect you to agree with me Lozzo. It's very clear that you're
true blue through and through and nothing will change your mind. I
accept I have a very real dislike of the Tories largely because of where
I grew up and having had to see my Dad out of work for long periods
because of the wanton destruction wrought by Thatcher. She was a clever
politician but I really do not like what she stood for or what she
became.

 

Erm I didn't suggest nobody should do them, merely that people should pay as
per the current proposal. What the country needs is industrial production.
Lawyers and accountant we are not currently short of.
And one thing I'm certainly not is "narrow minded"

I'm not quite sure what you think the alternative was but while I don't
agree with what you said I do fear the end may be as you say. There was
certainly a time when British and American industry had a certain momentum
and presence, with Industrialists of talent and worth and political nouse
behind them. I rather doubt that is still the case. So it does need a
govmint led strategy. In the early days they made a big play about talking
to the CBI et all about what was required. That all went quiet. Which is
ominous.

Well hey, it could be worse, it could be the previous fuckwits with
Milliband at the wheel.

And don't pretend that you are any less insulated than me, it isn't going to
spoil our lives.

 

I was never convinced by Nick Clegg during the election campaign. I was
concerned that his economic view was too far to the right and this just
seemed at odds with the rest of his party. I think we can now see
exactly where his principles (choke) lie. I fail to see much
"restraining influence" on what is being presented to the electorate.

The Tories will do whatever they like but there was no suggestion in
their manifesto of the appalling attacks that they are making on
fundamental aspects of our society. They are like a bunch of very
privileged vandals.

 

All Thatcher did was close down the industries that were dead on their feet,
or sell them off. It was just progression of post WWII industrial decline
in the face of USA and Asia/Japan. She didn't cause or create the
environment. Sod all she could do about it. But as a Grocer's daughter she
knew sod all about building major new industrial sectors. I don't recall her
Cabinet but I don't think Andrew Carnegie sat on it.

With I admit the exception of the Mining industry, but they had acted in
ways that marked their cards.

 

and thank **** for it's one sick puppy

 

+1

 

Trouble is, we couldn't actually afford it. A lot of it was done on
borrowed money, and because NL said there was "no more boom and bust"
what could possibly go wrong?

This figure of £6bn seems to be hotly disputed.

I used to be a true blue, but I thought that things might change for
the better in 1997. They didn't, not really.

More and more I find I agree with some of policies from all the main
parties, and totally disagree with some of policies from all the main
parties. That, and being highly cynical on all sorts of things, but
especially politics, means I don't think I'll ever know who to vote
for, as one party never comes close to what I'd like to see.

 

Yeah lets get this in black and white. for the past 15 or 20 years Britain
(and France) have been growing their Welfare States on the back of new debt.
Not revenue from industrial growth. Where were are now is that we have run
out of the capacity to borrow, because we might never repay the capital, and
recession has made it difficult to pay the interest on the current balance.
People are running around mewling about The Bankers, they assisted in
causing a recession. *That isn't the core problem*. We have as a nation been
living well beyond our means.

So either you grow the economy, and by that I mean international trade. Get
us into a positive balance of payments. Or put the failed and feckless in
caravan parks on the Isle of Wight and let them rot.

Lets look at it another way. We don't go out to work, create businesses and
generate wealth to pay fucking tax.
We pay *some* tax in order to provide a decent and workable society around
us, comprised of other people also trying hard and working. The rest is for
Toys and Beer.

 

You're not - whilst it's fair to say some difficult unpleasant changes
needed to be put into place to counter the massive deficit they've
been left by the last administration to deal with, tearing up the rule
book in such a way that many will end up in extreme hardship and
without any real hope of being able to drag themselves out of it, is
not the way to do it.

What we're seeing now is are the sticks before the carrots:

Sticks:

1. Incomes being reduced by way of a combination of the withdrawal /
reduction of benefits, increases in taxation, and the impending rise
in the price of commodities.

2. The premise that 'You there, yes you boy - the one currently
residing in social housing... you're taking the piss you are, what
with your rent being below the market rate and therefore subsidised'
is a valid argument.

A great one, this one - it's winning favour with lots of the
reasonably comfortable who feel they're bankrolling the proles and is
thus providing yet more power to the arm of the current Government
project to 'divide and conquer' in order to **** the majority over any
which way they please without finding their way is blocked by a solid
wall of majority opposition to it.

The fact is, private rents wouldn't be so high if there wasn't so much
demand for privately rented accommodation.

And the reason such a demand exists is thus: Your average house price
is now many, many more times that of the average wage and this is
prohibiting many who would love nothing more than to buy their own
home from getting on the ladder in the first place.

Given they still need somewhere to live, unless they're offered
something from the social housing stock, they're at the mercy of the
privately rented property market... and the more of them at the mercy
of that, the higher the demand and the higher the rate of rent that
can be attracted... and the more reliant someone is likely to be on
Housing Benefit, something they may well find out in due course will
be greatly reduced.

The high cost of houses also means that anyone who has gone down the
road of a buy to let has to cover more costs, and thus to make it
worth their while any income they get from the property has to cover
as much of these as possible... so maybe it's time limits were placed
on how much property someone can own, and the income from second homes
let out should be heavily taxed, as aside from anything else the extra
income generated from this could be put towards building more social
housing, never mind hopefully making buy to lets less attractive and
having the knock on effect of increasing the level of stock on the
housing market and lowering your average house price.

3. The proposal to force benefit claimants to do some work in
exchange for their benefits.

In the absence of a flourishing labour market, this just smacks of
getting people to work for below minimum wage; if the work is there to
be done, create proper jobs and pay people a proper wage to do it, not
get them briefly on the cheap.

Carrots:

As things stand, there aren't any.

The majority of the sticks outlined above would be more agreeable if
even more effort was being dedicated by the Government in creating
jobs, and no, I don't mean public sector ones either.

I mean by way of them providing real assistance to the manufacturing
sector (assuming we still have one) and industry, to ensure job
creation which in turn should lead to more job creation in other
sectors and this country being more self sufficient when it comes to
goods as well as it having more to trade with other nations, something
in itself which would help to reduce the deficit.

In short, unless we start to see some carrots pretty damn quick, the
sticks are going to lead to poverty and civil unrest on a scale which
if someone had suggested we'd be seeing them a few years back, they'd
have been mocked.

One last thing... all this money we as a nation allegedly owe - who
the **** do we owe it to?

 

Really?

It's not like they had much real choice, is it.

The best we can hope for now is that Clegg and his crowd grow some
balls in due course and break the coalition up... but even if they
did, it's not as if the main alternative, as in New Labradour or
whatever they're calling themselves this week, have any real
credibility left, and at the end of the day they're responsible for
the massive black hole in the countries finances, seemingly created to
keep an illusion of prosperity bought on the never never.

 

It may have been booming in the past but whereas the more sensible
would have considered these things tend to go round in circles and had
the prudence to put something aside for a rainy day, as I understand
it Brown kept borrowing money even in the good times... never mind
travesties such as the pillaging of pension funds and flogging off the
bulk of our gold when the market was at a low.

Irresponsible and short sighted policies that we're now all going to
be paying the price for, for a very long time.

Having said that, one wonders if the current shower aren't painting a
grimer picture than the reality to make sure they can force through
some pretty nasty stuff with minimal protest from those they allegedly
are in place to serve the best interests of.

 

"So, minister, can you tell us how you feel about the current state of the
country?"
"We care, we care deeply, we're really really concerned about... oh sod it
we don't CARE! We don't give a toss, whining nobodies constantly
complaining... 'I'm ill, I'm disabled, I live in sunderland' WELL I DON'T!
AND THE UNEMPLOYED! Gah, I'd boil them down for GLUE!"
(Who dares wins, 1986ish)


--
| |What to do if you find yourself stuck in a crack|
| |in the ground beneath a giant boulder, which you|
| |can't move, with no hope of rescue. |
| Andrew Halliwell BSc |Consider how lucky you are that life has been |
| in |good to you so far... |
| Computer Science | -The BOOK, Hitch-hiker's guide to the galaxy.|

 

Funny, I didn't have you down as stupid.

 

What's so stupid about that, bar there's no realistic alternative as
things stand?

 

There is a lot of confusion about the current financial situation. It comes
in three parts.

Current national debt, the enormous sum that we already owe and which should
be cleared as quickly as is practical.
Debt Interest, the sum we pay in daily calculated interest on the national
debt, which is huge

Deficit, the difference between national expenditure and national income,
which is currently significant.

Every day of Deficit increases national debt, postponing the day we might
repay it all, and increases interest payments. The interest widens the
Deficit. And so on.

All the current budget reduction proposals are aimed at reducing the
Deficit. Unless we do the country will eventually run out of the ability to
borrow and meet the day when civil servants, teachers, cops etc don't get
the monthly pay cheque.

Once and if the Deficit is terminated and as a nation we spend no more than
we earn, people can sit back and think things through some more.

Previously governments from before Thatcher but through her administration
and through Blair and Brown just kept on spending, even worse printing new
money, regardless of the Deficit and the National Debt in the firm belief
our economy would grow and tax revenues would rise to plug the gap and pay
back the loans (Gilts). It never happened, because our industrial landscape
is so miserable and China, India, Korea and Brazil decided to modernise and
industrialise.

So, now we have created tight times for ourselves and leaner times for our
kids. Yeah you could argue we should keep on raising more debt but then our
kids will have to forage in bins.

IMHO a prudent financial policy is to ensure you have an industrial and
fiscal strategy which ensures there is no deficit, that we have a positive
balance of payments. That there is no national debt but a national pool of
capital that keeps growing as tax revenues from the -ve deficit keep
accruing. Sound strange or impossible? Ha look around the world and notice
the (smug) countries doing exactly that.

OK so we probably still have government lending (debt) but they should be
forced to do it on a Programme basis with defined repayment schedules.

The single most significant historical step that could have been taken was
making it impossible to spend UK oil revenues, instead accruing it in a
national investment fund, buying property at home and around the world,
investing in key industrial sectors. Hmmm I wonder if a near neighbour
might have had such an idea. FFS even the Shetlands have managed it.

All of the above is self evident. Anyone who has run or owned a business
understands every aspect in detail. Anyone who has balanced a household
budget should be able to think it through logically and come to understand
it, if they do not already (most do).


What now, what other ways out of it. Well you could get very radical.
Revolutionary in fact. There are a small band of incredibly wealthy
individuals and other entities (Like the CofE) with vast commercial and
residential property portfolios. One of them quite close to Her Maj.
Declare them (and their ancestors) Enemies of the State and sequestrate
their entire asset portfolio by Act of Parliament and transfer the balance
to the Public Purse. See? all of a sudden out national debt doesn't look so
bad, government income has gone up and we can reduce the deficit is a slower
kinder fashion. I would vote for that.

 

We sort of owe it to ourselves.

The debt is sold as govt bonds, which "we" buy as investment
instruments for pensions etc. and receive interest on it.

 

I doubt we'll get it.

I find it quite ridiculous that a nation can basically be thrown to
the dogs a la Greece, seemingly on the word of a ratings agency
('Moodys'?) that lowers their credit rating.

Credit rating with who? Other nations... or maybe 'The World Bank'?

If the latter, we, amongst other countries have a stake in it, do we
not?

I might come across as a luddite asking questions like this, but it's
more than anyone in Government seems to be asking, with them choosing
instead to calmly tell us how we're all in the shit and that the money
has to be paid back and with no obvious sign of them trying to
negotiate terms on clearing the balance in a more measured fashion
which in turn should enable them to not really screw so many into the
floor.

Meanwhile, they're pissing away billions in foreign aid - by all means
offer assistance but given our deficit, how about using more of that
money in getting us into a better position and then maybe tossing a
few bones with meat on them to elsewhere?

'Conspiracy to defraud' is what it smacks of.

 

Precisely.
Lets default on our national debt shall we. "**** the rich and the banks".
OK so now Britain can't borrow any more and we have a huge deficit.
We can't pay civil servants and public sector workers, so many take early
retirement. As do those in the private sector as industry runs away.

OOPS we seem to have hit a problem. The pension funds are bankrupt and can't
pay *anyone*. OK so how many bins are there to forage in. None because we
can't pay Welfare benefits either and they already emptied all of the bins.
So we eat the livestock, once that's done we eat the fattest people first.

That's exactly where Greece is, except for the good grace of the German
people, who have gone out on a limb. 4% deficit and debt of 77% of GDP.
Here is an interesting read:
www.safehaven.com/print/16486/german-windfall-profits-from-exiting-the-euro

 

No they were not, the recession merely pulled them out of their hiding
place. They have a huge deficit and an unrealistic national debt. See my
other posts.

 

See my other post and consider the alternative to dealing with Deficit and
Debt.

Even this lot might not manage it but you better fucking hope they do.
Unless you too have your pension and retirement home in the sun already
sorted out.