Tory scum and the Lib Dem enablers!

[Adam]

nvm.

[p-branez]

*American enters*

I watched a couple - even one where the Mayor of London says the rioters, on top of having to bear tuition increases, should pay for the damage.

But it seems like the protests are a minority of the population - so the majority of British are just going along with the cuts, viewing them as necessary, even though they don't like them? Plus, with UK coalition government, it would seem like leaders have to work out a solution proper to both sides. But I guess that's a bit idealistic these days.

Oh, ok - ha. Guess that makes this post irrelevant.
Maybe you can just share something general about how government in UK works.

[Guy Incognito]

Maybe you can just share something general about how government in UK works.

easy, no matter what party they are in, politicians all make out its our interests they are interested in but end up spending our money on their second homes, bell towers and choc ices. Then we lose faith with all of them and dont really care who gets in which means two parties get in, cant decide about stuff and work to different agendas (or some give in to other agendas) which means public have even less faith in it all and we spend more time voting on singing competitions and watching celebrity twats starve in the jungle (which isnt even a real jungle, its a fucking hotel garden) instead.

Adam i read your post, its fair enough dude, you should have kept it in

[Adam]

Adam i read your post, its fair enough dude, you should have kept it in

Nah, it was a rant that wasn't backed up by any sources and mainly emotion - too easy to pick apart. The edit button doesn't last forever and I feared it'd turn into one of those lets all air our prejudice threads when all I wanted to is sing to the choir.

Also, I am a member of the Green party, I know better than to go an almost radical way of when something really pisses you off. It ain't the answer and you can become the thing you're fighting against in some cases.

[Guy Incognito]

Nah, it was a rant that wasn't backed up by any sources and mainly emotion - too easy to pick apart. The edit button doesn't last forever and I feared it'd turn into one of those lets all air our prejudice threads when all I wanted to is sing to the choir.

Also, I am a member of the Green party, I know better than to go an almost radical way of when something really pisses you off. It ain't the answer and you can become the thing you're fighting against in some cases.

well i had a bit of a rant as well. it was a bit daft but i think it had a ring of truth. I'm not exactly clever enough to understand everything that goes on in politics and i suppose could be accused of being a bit ignorant but i look out for me and my family when i guess i could be more politically aware.

[saz]

i'm still perplexed and disappointed the clegg and the liberal dems didn't form a coalition with labour and the independent mps. it would've made much more sense, as opposed to forming a coalition with the conservatives, who they do not share much in common with ideologically. a friend of mine voted lib-dem in the last election and was rightfully pissed once the coalition deal with the tories was announced. he's leaning green or socialist labour next time around.

the big sell-out meanwhile regarding clegg and the liberal dems involves next year's referendum on electoral reform. clegg sold out on proportional representation in favour of run off voting/the alternative vote, which is a bit of an improvement over the antiquated and undemocratic first past the post electoral system (in which britain, along with canada, india, the united states and australia's lower house of parliament sadly still use). there is a green party mp and a conservative mp pushing to have proportional representation on the ballot next year (http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-11470608), but i'm not sure if they can succeed.

[p-branez]

easy, no matter what party they are in, politicians all make out its our interests they are interested in but end up spending our money on their second homes, bell towers and choc ices. Then we lose faith with all of them and dont really care who gets in which means two parties get in, cant decide about stuff and work to different agendas (or some give in to other agendas) which means public have even less faith in it all and we spend more time voting on singing competitions and watching celebrity twats starve in the jungle (which isnt even a real jungle, its a fucking hotel garden) instead.


Ok, sounds about the same as in the US - except I don't know if we have the show where celebrities starve in the jungle. We have "Survivor" but I don't think it garners celebrity appearances.
Just because you may not be knowledgeable about politics doesn't mean your perspective isn't valid and welcome. Plus, you have first hand knowledge I never will.

To me, on the face of it, it seems like a coalition government creates a mandate that requires more collaboration and compromise - I'm all for including more and diverse perspectives in the policy making process. Whereas in US we have a strict two-party system based on simple majorities and minorities - and where crossing the party line is oftentimes unthinkable. And perhaps collaboration has happened it's just that 1) I don't follow British politics and 2) current times necessitate austerity policies that supersede traditional political lines and are disliked by all.

I guess our time for protest is coming in the US - we're off in fiscal and monetary policy la-la land and putting off the worldwide austerity measures for at least a few more years.

[saz]

current times necessitate austerity policies that supersede traditional political lines and are disliked by all.

I guess our time for protest is coming in the US - we're off in fiscal and monetary policy la-la land and putting off the worldwide austerity measures for at least a few more years.

austerity policies are not necessary and have proven to be disastrous. just look at what happened in ireland. they tried to run their government like a business, ie rampant deregulation of the banking and financial sector, sweeping, irresponsible tax cuts, then the international financial meltdown hit, and ireland introduced austerity measures, which has now resulted in europe bailing out ireland. britain tried it in 1918 which led to a financial and economic disaster. and it's always the poor and middle-class who suffer the most, while the rich, elite etc never have to bear the brunt. one of the few things obama has done right has been the stimulus - better yet, the jobs and middle-class tax cuts bill, which has saved and created millions of jobs (http://www.reuters.com/assets/print?aid=USTRE67N55X20100824), with economists urging more action from the government (http://www.usatoday.com/money/economy/2010-01-25-usa-today-economic-survey-obama-stimulus_N.htm).


The Tea Party's Wildest Dreams Come True -- in Britain. The Result? Disaster

Johann Hari
Columnist for the London Independent
Posted (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/johann-hari/the-tea-partys-wildest-dr_b_770748.html): October 20, 2010 08:28 PM


When was the last time Britain's public spending was slashed by more than 20 percent? Not in my mother's lifetime. Not even in my grandmother's lifetime. No: It was in 1918, when a conservative-liberal coalition said the best response to a global economic crisis was to rapidly pay off this country's debts. The result? (http://liberalconspiracy.org/2010/10/18/this-is-what-happened-the-last-time-cuts-were-so-drastic/) Unemployment soared from six percent to 19 percent, and the country's economy collapsed so severely that they lost all ability to pay their bills, and the debt actually rose from 114 percent to 180 percent. "History doesn't repeat itself," Mark Twain said, "but it does rhyme."

George Osborne, the finance minister, has just gambled Britain's future on an extreme economic theory that has failed whenever and wherever it has been tried. In the Great Depression, we learned some basic principles. When an economy falters, ordinary people -- perfectly sensibly -- cut back their spending and try to pay down their debts. This causes a further fall in demand and makes the economy worse. If the government cuts back at the same time, then there is no demand at all, and the economy goes into freefall. That's why virtually every country in the world reacted to the Great Crash of 2008 -- caused entirely by deregulated bankers -- by increasing spending, funded by temporary debt. Better a deficit we repay in the good times than an endless depression. The countries that stimulated hardest, like South Korea, came out of recession first.

David Cameron and George Osborne have ignored all this. They have ignored the warnings of the Financial Times, the newspaper most critical of their strategy. They have dismissed the warnings of Nobel Laureates for Economics like Paul Krugman and Joseph Stiglitz, whose warnings have consistently been proven right in this crisis. They have refused to learn from the fact that the country they held up as a model for how to deal with a recession -- "Look and learn from across the Irish Sea," Osborne said -- has suffered the worst collapse in the developed world. They have instead blindly obeyed the ideological precepts they learned as baby Thatcherites: Slash the state, and make the poor pay most.

Osborne galloped through his Comprehensive Spending Review (CSR) speech, failing to name almost any of the services that will be slashed or shut down. It's revealing that he doesn't want to publicly name them while the nation is watching.

But beneath the statistics, there was a swathe of human tragedies that will now unnecessarily unfold across Britain. PriceWaterhouseCooper -- nobody's idea of a Trotskyite cell -- says that a million people will now lose their jobs as a direct result (http://www.independent.co.uk/news/business/news/spending-cuts-will-cost-a-million-jobs-warns-pwc-2104921.html).



Johann Hari: Cameron's cuts will kill, not cure

To preach austerity as the solution to depression is the equivalent of drilling holes in your head to cure your migraine while dismissing aspirin as for wusses

Friday, 30 July 2010
The Independent (http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/commentators/johann-hari/johann-hari-camerons-cuts-will-kill-not-cure-2038887.html)


The National Housing Federation says the number of homeless people will double as a result of their slashing of housing benefit. Half a million children living below the poverty line will have their free school meals – the only nutritious meal of the day for many – cancelled. The unemployed are having £6.50 knocked off the £65 a week they have to live on. Iain Duncan Smith says "tons of elderly people" are going to be forced out of their "underoccupied" council homes. The list is long enough for a dozen columns. One minister recently told The Times the rationale behind it off the record: "The undeserving poor," he said, "are undeserving." Meanwhile, a recent Financial Times headline summarised the situation at the other end of the economic heap: "Well-paid breathe collective sigh of relief."

Before power, Cameron promised his cuts would not affect "frontline" services, but only the "backroom" and "waste". Now NHS bosses have drawn up plans to slash hip operations, cataract surgery, and the number of acute hospital beds. All frontline services are facing similar shut-downs. When David Cameron promised he wouldn't get rid of free bus passes, who knew it was because he would get rid of the bus instead?

A detailed study for Oxford University led by Dr David Stuckler calculates that there will be 38,000 premature deaths over the next decade as a result of all this – due to the reduced healthcare, dismantled services for the elderly and vulnerable children, increased suicides, and so on.

Ireland has been doing exactly what Cameron and Osborne urge, with a two-year headstart. What are the results? Last week, a study by the International Monetary Fund – nobody's idea of a left-wing pressure group – found that country's economic collapse now "exceeds that being faced by any other advanced economy, and matches episodes of the most severe economic distress [anywhere] in post-Second World War history."

During a recession, ordinary consumers quite sensibly cut back and spend less. But if the Government does the same, it means nobody is spending. This is bad enough for all the people who suffer immediately: the swelling army of the unemployed, the repossessed, the abandoned. But it turns out that it makes its original goal – paying off the debt – impossible too. As the Nobel Prize-winning economist Joseph Stiglitz explains: "If you introduce austerity measures, the amount you can raise in tax falls, and welfare payments go up – so you don't have enough money to pay your debts anyway."

Krugman, like most economists, says there is only one real way out. When consumer spending collapses, governments need to borrow and spend to prevent a depression – and then pay off the debt from the proceeds of growth once we have brought the good times back. It's revealing that the countries that have done this hardest and fastest – like South Korea, which spent a fortune on employing people to green the country's infrastructure – have been the first to pull out of this recession, while the countries glugging Cameron-juice have sunk deeper into the gloop.

[p-branez]

^ Are you American? Thanks for the input. You know more than almost all Americans about our politics.

There is no doubt that austerity policies are painful - and that pain is usually borne by the working class, not by the elites who caused the problem in the first place. Let's try and work this out - it's a tough situation, no one "solution" has proven successful, and each economy is unique in its needs and policy proposals. It can't be just austerity measures, but it also can't be just pro-growth monetary and fiscal policy. We are always searching for that middle ground.

For example, US growth in the past decades has been fueled by debt-financed consumption and speculation. Take a look at Steve Keen's Debtwatch blog. (http://www.debtdeflation.com/blogs/) He rebuts classical economic theory and popular Keynesian economics by focusing on debt levels and their role in economic growth. Americans must in the near future take austerity measures to stabilize debt (read: decrease entitlements/reform Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security and moderately increase taxes)

Let's look at US response to the crisis.

1. As I said in another thread, governments can run deficits if they invest in productive projects that will, in the long run, more than offset the temporary dip in consumption, like what South Korea is doing with green infrastructure. But that's not happening in the US. There is a "Putting America to Work" American Recovery and Reinvestment Act sign near my house, but no actual work taking place. Just signs. I wish I could take a picture but it's on a highway. The Recovery Act largely benefited road construction industry and state and local governments who used the money to plug gaps in budgets - so workers in state capitals have weathered the storm fairly well. We still have a long way to go in public sector lay-offs in US because public sector was, for the last two years, propped up by aid from federal government. Meanwhile, our public education system is fast falling in international rankings.

2. Through recent expansionary monetary policy, America is shipping its crisis overseas by devaluing the USD and transferring inflation. This hurts exporters in other countries because our exports are now relatively cheaper in the global marketplace. Also, turning on the printing press to resume proper domestic inflation levels has shipped inflation overseas. The Fed chooses to buy Treasury bonds from private banks, not the US Treasury, so private banks do as they see fit. The money will search for its highest rate of return - propping up asset bubbles in China and developing countries. Inflation in China is starting to run out of control.

Just because the unemployment numbers are better than they would be, or because GDP grew because of a huge increase in government spending doesn't mean our economy is back on track. These were short term measures, and now we are moving to address the long term causes. But we are part of a global economy - and I'm excited to learn about what is happening in Britain to better inform decisions in US.

[saz]

but it also can't be just pro-growth monetary and fiscal policy.

sure it can. we can spend now and create jobs, rebuild infrastructure, bring down unemployment, and then when the times are good, that's when you can really focus on the debt.


Americans must in the near future take austerity measures to stabilize debt (read: decrease entitlements/reform Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security and moderately increase taxes)

medicare, medicaid and social security don't need to be reformed or privatized. especially social security, which is in great shape (http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0810/41628.html). meanwhile defence spending has been out of control for decades, while america continues to fund an empire it doesn't need. plus, the trillion dollar and unecessary wars in iraq and afghanistan. and of course, the top tax rate has been at incredibly low levels and should be raised.


governments can run deficits if they invest in productive projects that will, in the long run, more than offset the temporary dip in consumption, like what South Korea is doing with green infrastructure. But that's not happening in the US.

on the contrary... (http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE6620NB20100703)


Just because the unemployment numbers are better than they would be, or because GDP grew because of a huge increase in government spending doesn't mean our economy is back on track.

no one said it is (although a depression was prevented). instead of a b.s. deficit commission, obama should have created a jobs commission the very first day he took office. the stimulus (dumb name, should have been called the jobs and middle-class tax-cuts bill) was far too small. really, obama has only provided band-aid solutions.

[Adam]

The student protests in Sheffield today were chanting on the way to his office "Nick Clegg, we know you, you're a fucking tory to" (y)

There is a lot of anger at Nick Clegg in Sheffield. We've never had tory representatives, only Labour or Lib Dems. Nick Clegg has to have more security in Sheffield than he does London when generally speaking the main MPs for your city get a nice time of it. Blunkett - all is forgiven, you're practically revered compared to how let down we feel atm.

[p-branez]

Yes, pro-growth monetary and fiscal policy will at some point work to rebound the US economy. But our domestic actions have international implications. Check out where to find inflation. (http://www.businessinsider.com/chart-of-the-day-if-youre-looking-for-inflation-heres-where-to-find-it-2010-11). Other countries, notably Germany and China, (http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/Foreign-Policy/2010/1112/Why-world-leaders-smacked-down-Obama-at-G20-summit) are not happy with the devaluation of the USD (http://www.markets247.com/devaluation-of-the-dollar-continues-130), not the least because it makes our exports relatively cheaper in the global marketplace.

I also don't think Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security need to be privatized, but look at the increasing share of our GDP they will eat up. (http://www.economist.com/node/17520102) (the second graph, from CBO). Like we saw with recent health care bill, there is waste in the systems that can be eliminated - like unnecessary testing or over-reliance on expensive specialist doctors.

I agree that we do need to cut military spending. The American government is engaged in two wars that represent hundreds of violations of international treaties on human rights and conventions regarding the right to wage war.

Yes, it's possible to pull out good investments in the Obama stimulus; there are many, and I enjoyed the link you posted in another thread. But the bulk of the money went (http://www.usatoday.com/money/economy/2009-01-15-obama-stimulus-plan_N.htm) to balancing the budgets of state and local governments. One can argue both ways whether this is a productive or necessary investment.

"About $318 billion would go to cash-strapped state and local governments facing the prospect of layoffs or tax increases. The money will go toward such things as school repairs and road construction and help pay for rising Medicaid costs."

Overall, we absolutely agree - Obama has provided a band-aid solution.

[scotty]

i'm still perplexed and disappointed the clegg and the liberal dems didn't form a coalition with labour and the independent mps. it would've made much more sense, as opposed to forming a coalition with the conservatives, who they do not share much in common with ideologically. a friend of mine voted lib-dem in the last election and was rightfully pissed once the coalition deal with the tories was announced. he's leaning green or socialist labour next time around.

the big sell-out meanwhile regarding clegg and the liberal dems involves next year's referendum on electoral reform. clegg sold out on proportional representation in favour of run off voting/the alternative vote, which is a bit of an improvement over the antiquated and undemocratic first past the post electoral system (in which britain, along with canada, india, the united states and australia's lower house of parliament sadly still use). there is a green party mp and a conservative mp pushing to have proportional representation on the ballot next year (http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-11470608), but i'm not sure if they can succeed.

Although I do not have much to say about the topic at hand, I must make a correction to your post. Australia does not use first past the post voting in its federal elections. We use preferential voting in the lower house (House of Representatives) and you can either use proportional (above the line) or preferential (below the line) in the upper house (the Senate). In upper house voting most people use proportional voting because it's easier and quicker than preferencing 80-odd candidates for the Senate, compared to 12 at the most for lower house voting.

For more info.: Australian Electoral System (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Australian_electoral_system)