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Albatross wrote: I'm not really portraying them in a positive or negative light, just trying to correct factual inaccuracies. I'm indifferent to them, to be honest with you Ketara. If they suck, they suck, and they'll probably lose the tender.
I've have accompanied several people to ATOS interviews. They are as bad as anyone says. They put words in peoples mouths so that they can typecast people. They claim not to make the decisions about whether people keep their disabillity benefits, which is true in a sense, but they provide the evidence which informs the decision, which effectivly makes them the decision maker. DWP do not questions their assessments and they are under pressure to find a set percentage of people fit for work regardless of disabillity as exposed in the dispatches program.
You are correct in that DLA is not contribution based, but it is also not means tested and is given to those in work, it's not about sitting at home smoking weed, it's about the incurred cost of living with such conditions.
I actually know a bit about Atos assessments having been present at one, the HCP was a nurse. Nurses are not professionals as they swear no oath, DWP decision makers are also not professionals.
You may find these interesting.
Im sorry. People like me are not Professionals? I think you will find that I am. I attended university, I am regulated by the Nursing and Midwifery council. Any nurse employed by ANY company is still accountable to the Nursing Midwifery Council, to the patient and to themselves. The company/environment we work for is irrelevant we strive,the standards we strive for are regulated. Any issue about a Nurse can be taken through our governing body.
Next time you visit your GP practice nurse or district nurse visits, then dont forget to mention that were not professionals because we dont chime off some sheet of paper.
That aside...
Having people on DLA (like my daughter whos on high rate DLA before anyone questions my motivations), its not unreasonable request for a health check before handing over funds.
A professional takes an oath, it has nothing to do with education level or bits of paper. It's no slight not being a professional by that definition, neither are teachers, scientists or countless other occupations.
I have said I am not adverse to the assessment of disabled people, only that it should not be carried out by a private company paid by results.
Anyways, my original point in bringing up welfare reform is that it lacks the compassion I would feel should be given to treating the disabled.
We're veering miles off-topic now, so I'll try to address the specific issues that pertain to the topic at hand.
So, what would you differently?
That level of callousness seems to have stemmed from Thatcher's time in power and this idea of an undeserving poor is a dangerous fabrication created to justify taking money from those with little to give to those with plenty.
That's a gross over-simplification, and let me tell you: Anyone who tries to tell you that the undeserving poor is a fabrication hasn't lived on a council estate. I did for most of my life. It's fething wild. Most of the politics students who espouse such views wouldn't have lasted 5 minutes on Berwick Hills estate. The 'poor and vulnerable' kids on that estate would have your wallet, your phone, your trainers and would put you in the frigging hospital before you could say 'It's not their fault, there just isn't enough community centres!'. It's improved since I left, due in no small part to people buying up ex-council houses. It's still pretty much a gak-hole, though. It's full of people just sitting on the dole getting pissed and stoned (and worse) every day because they can't be arsed to look for a job. D'you know what we used to call the dole? 'Free money'. Kids literally used to say gak like 'I'm off to the jobcentre to get my free money'. I see it everywhere I go. I see it in Salford, I see it Blackpool when I visit... It's an epidemic up north. It has to stop.
Like a zero sum game where one side already has zero, while the other side has a number with lots of zeroes. Of course welfare needs to be reformed but there should be a far lighter touch when treating the most vulnerable.
But who decides who the most vulnerable are? You can't just use simple quantitative economic data, like Labour did for the last 13 years. You need qualitative data - you need people who are aware of the harsh realities on the ground, who've lived in that millieu and know how it works. Some people are poor, not because they want to be (because most poor people want to be rich, duh), but because of a lack of motivation to better themselves. The problem is, most of them won't ever be rich because they don't want to get rich by working at it, so they just sit on their arses instead of doing low-paid menial work. Young British people see cleaning toilets for minimum wage as beneath them, even though a lot of them would be under-qualified for it. I've done it, because I'm not afraid of a little hard work - I had to support myself through uni somehow, right? But check this out: I was the only natural-born British citizen working for the company on site, and the site was huge. Literally every other member of staff (apart from the regional manager) was an African immigrant. Wait, I tell a lie - there were two women from Jamaica. Lovely people, nothing against them at all, but isn't that an indictment on British youth, on unskilled British people in general? I asked my regional manager about the situation and she told me that I was the first Briton they'd interviewed in absolutely ages. There are loads of cleaning jobs in Manchester. They struggle to fill them.
I do have one question for you though, do you think we could have 100% employment?
Anyways, my original point in bringing up welfare reform is that it lacks the compassion I would feel should be given to treating the disabled.
We're veering miles off-topic now, so I'll try to address the specific issues that pertain to the topic at hand.
How is that OT? There is a massive lack of basic human compassion in the treatment of the disabled currently. Be that institutional, or on the street. Whether that lack of compassion stems from Thatcher is debatable, but the 'greed is good', 'only look out for myself' attitude certainly grew in her time in office.
So, what would you differently?
That question has two answers really, utopically I would introduce a citizens income of 10 grand, paid to all, even when working. Realistically, I would make disability assessments a tribunal with three members, a doctor, a person from the DWP, and someone with expertise in living with a disability. The other welfare savings I care far less about, a reduction of the annual rise to 1% is probably fair when compared to workers, but I would like to see disability welfare as ringfenced as pensions are. By all means have a rigorous assessment procedure, but make it fair and don't make the reduction of spending it's primary motivation.
That's a gross over-simplification,
Of course it is, but in a week of top rate tax deductions and bedroom taxes it's frighteningly accurate.
let me tell you: Anyone who tries to tell you that the undeserving poor is a fabrication hasn't lived on a council estate. I did for most of my life. It's fething wild. Most of the politics students who espouse such views wouldn't have lasted 5 minutes on Berwick Hills estate. The 'poor and vulnerable' kids on that estate would have your wallet, your phone, your trainers and would put you in the frigging hospital before you could say 'It's not their fault, there just isn't enough community centres!'. It's improved since I left, due in no small part to people buying up ex-council houses. It's still pretty much a gak-hole, though. It's full of people just sitting on the dole getting pissed and stoned (and worse) every day because they can't be arsed to look for a job. D'you know what we used to call the dole? 'Free money'. Kids literally used to say gak like 'I'm off to the jobcentre to get my free money'. I see it everywhere I go. I see it in Salford, I see it Blackpool when I visit... It's an epidemic up north. It has to stop.
I've lived in some pretty gakky areas myself, but that doesn't mean I think there are two types of poor, those we help and those we tell you have to help yourself, its a silly idea. You cannot starve someone, make them homeless and then expect them to suddenly engage with society, that simply won't work. So you would need to reduce benefits for everyone, which seems attractive to a lot of people, but there is a human and economic cost to that, and the UK already has one of the lowest benefit rates relative to income in Europe.
But who decides who the most vulnerable are? You can't just use simple quantitative economic data, like Labour did for the last 13 years. You need qualitative data - you need people who are aware of the harsh realities on the ground, who've lived in that millieu and know how it works.
The vulnerable are those who need our help, it is as simple as that, the form that help should come in will vary, the archetypes you mention would be helped far more by different support than just the perpetual continuation of JSA payments, but they demonstrably need some form of support to become productive members of society. I concur wholeheartedly on the need for advice to come from those with experience, but policy now certainly isn't, how many in the Cabinet and all their special advisers grew up on a council estate? And when those with real experience offer help, such as with the impact of the welfare reform bill would have on the disabled as offered by the Sparticus report, it is ignored.
Some people are poor, not because they want to be (because most poor people want to be rich, duh), but because of a lack of motivation to better themselves. The problem is, most of them won't ever be rich because they don't want to get rich by working at it, so they just sit on their arses instead of doing low-paid menial work. Young British people see cleaning toilets for minimum wage as beneath them, even though a lot of them would be under-qualified for it. I've done it, because I'm not afraid of a little hard work - I had to support myself through uni somehow, right? But check this out: I was the only natural-born British citizen working for the company on site, and the site was huge. Literally every other member of staff (apart from the regional manager) was an African immigrant. Wait, I tell a lie - there were two women from Jamaica. Lovely people, nothing against them at all, but isn't that an indictment on British youth, on unskilled British people in general? I asked my regional manager about the situation and she told me that I was the first Briton they'd interviewed in absolutely ages. There are loads of cleaning jobs in Manchester. They struggle to fill them.
You are working on the assumption that someone's lot in life is entirely their own fault. Social mobility is not obtained through motivation alone. I actually agree with you about some people feeling above certain jobs, it's idiotic, and it does need to be addressed, but low paid menial work won't raise someone to a different social strata, and certainly won't get them off the welfare bill, housing benefit and tax credits will still need to be paid.
What would you do differently? What would be your way of dealing with the "scroungers"?
I do have one question for you though, do you think we could have 100% employment?
I'm not sure that's desirable for its own sake.
I'm more intersting in your opinion on it's possibility than it's desirability.
Anyways, my original point in bringing up welfare reform is that it lacks the compassion I would feel should be given to treating the disabled.
We're veering miles off-topic now, so I'll try to address the specific issues that pertain to the topic at hand.
How is that OT? There is a massive lack of basic human compassion in the treatment of the disabled currently. Be that institutional, or on the street. Whether that lack of compassion stems from Thatcher is debatable, but the 'greed is good', 'only look out for myself' attitude certainly grew in her time in office.
Or it was already there, waiting to be unleashed. Britain is historically an aspirational nation, and Thatcher (correctly, in my view) saw that he nation as a whole would benefit enormously from removing the barriers to individual enterprise and responsibility. Plus, the idea that she victimised the poor is nonsense. Welfare spending increased in almost every year of her time in office, possible only because of the economic growth her policies were responsible for.
So, what would you differently?
That question has two answers really, utopically I would introduce a citizens income of 10 grand, paid to all, even when working.
That is underpants-on-head crazy. You'd spend 365bn on that? Leaving aside the monstrous expense, you'd be giving people who are already earning enough money cash that they don't need (which you're against, remember?), but the daftest part is that you still wouldn't be helping the poor and disabled. You'd still have to give people money to buy modified vehicles or to modify their houses, physical therapy and care. £10K a year is just about hovering around minimum wage, and for London it would be unthinkable - you'd still have to pay out Housing Benefit. Plus, huge swathes of the population would simply stop looking for work. THEN, you've still got to pay for the NHS. Before you know it you've blown a third of our national budget for literally no good reason.
What savage cuts are you planning to make in order to pay for this lunacy? Welfare is, what? Around £90bn? How are you finding the other £275bn?
Realistically, I would make disability assessments a tribunal with three members, a doctor, a person from the DWP, and someone with expertise in living with a disability.
So throw more money at the problem and hope it goes away?
The other welfare savings I care far less about, a reduction of the annual rise to 1% is probably fair when compared to workers, but I would like to see disability welfare as ringfenced as pensions are. By all means have a rigorous assessment procedure, but make it fair and don't make the reduction of spending it's primary motivation.
Reduction of spending is a massive motivation. We can't afford to pay out as much as we do now because we need to make urgent savings. If we don't do that we'll be storing up huge problems for future generations, and someone will have to deal with it eventually, except the situation will be even more dire. Have you not been watching the news for the last... I dunno, 4 years?
That's a gross over-simplification,
Of course it is, but in a week of top rate tax deductions and bedroom taxes it's frighteningly accurate.
The 50% top rate was in place for less than 2 months. It was a landmine left for the Tories. That much is blindingly obvious. And have you forgotten the fact that the Coalition have raised the lower threshold at which you pay tax?
let me tell you: Anyone who tries to tell you that the undeserving poor is a fabrication hasn't lived on a council estate. I did for most of my life. It's fething wild. Most of the politics students who espouse such views wouldn't have lasted 5 minutes on Berwick Hills estate. The 'poor and vulnerable' kids on that estate would have your wallet, your phone, your trainers and would put you in the frigging hospital before you could say 'It's not their fault, there just isn't enough community centres!'. It's improved since I left, due in no small part to people buying up ex-council houses. It's still pretty much a gak-hole, though. It's full of people just sitting on the dole getting pissed and stoned (and worse) every day because they can't be arsed to look for a job. D'you know what we used to call the dole? 'Free money'. Kids literally used to say gak like 'I'm off to the jobcentre to get my free money'. I see it everywhere I go. I see it in Salford, I see it Blackpool when I visit... It's an epidemic up north. It has to stop.
I've lived in some pretty gakky areas myself, but that doesn't mean I think there are two types of poor, those we help and those we tell you have to help yourself, its a silly idea.
It's not a silly idea at all. Some people don't deserve welfare. It's a fact.
You are working on the assumption that someone's lot in life is entirely their own fault. Social mobility is not obtained through motivation alone.
Oh, here we go, that old 'economic determinism' chesnut. Are you aware of how insulting that is to someone from my background? It is always possible to transcend one's economic background in a free and democratic nation, to say anything else is the grossest paternalism. Hard work wins out in the end.
What would you do differently? What would be your way of dealing with the "scroungers"?
I'd make them earn their benefits, though not quite in the way that the current government is doing. I'd make them volunteer an equivalent number of hours in minimum wage to the amount they receive. If you want to take, you must give back to society in some other way. No-one, not even disabled people (unless they are utterly incapacitated) should be allowed to receive money for nothing. Or chicks for free.
Instead of expanding the TA, I'd bring back national service between 16 and 18 for all young people not in education or training. We don't need a huge standing army, but I would see a full-time, short-term length of service for young people as a happy medium between having large numbers of full-time serving soldiers on long contracts, and part-time weekend warriors. The inevitable reduction in youth crime and anti-social behaviour would go some way towards paying for it, too.
I do have one question for you though, do you think we could have 100% employment?
I'm not sure that's desirable for its own sake.
I'm more intersting in your opinion on it's possibility than it's desirability.
It depends what is meant by '100% employment'.
This message was edited 3 times. Last update was at 2013/04/11 14:17:32
That question has two answers really, utopically I would introduce a citizens income of 10 grand, paid to all, even when working.
That is underpants-on-head crazy. You'd spend 365bn on that? Leaving aside the monstrous expense, you'd be giving people who are already earning enough money cash that they don't need (which you're against, remember?), but the daftest part is that you still wouldn't be helping the poor and disabled. You'd still have to give people money to buy modified vehicles or to modify their houses, physical therapy and care. £10K a year is just about hovering around minimum wage, and for London it would be unthinkable - you'd still have to pay out Housing Benefit. Plus, huge swathes of the population would simply stop looking for work. THEN, you've still got to pay for the NHS. Before you know it you've blown a third of our national budget for literally no good reason.
What savage cuts are you planning to make in order to pay for this lunacy? Welfare is, what? Around £90bn? How are you finding the other £275bn?
I take it you missed the use of the word "utopically," then, or chose to ignore it? He knows it's unrealistic at very best, hence why he pointed out that this would only happen in a utopia.
This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2013/04/11 14:49:35
Melissia wrote:Stopping power IS a deterrent. The bigger a hole you put in them the more deterred they are.
Waaagh! Gorskar = 2050pts
Iron Warriors VII Company = 1850pts
Fjälnir Ironfist's Great Company = 1800pts
Guflag's Mercenary Ogres = 2000pts
Albatross wrote: I'm not really portraying them in a positive or negative light, just trying to correct factual inaccuracies. I'm indifferent to them, to be honest with you Ketara. If they suck, they suck, and they'll probably lose the tender.
I've have accompanied several people to ATOS interviews. They are as bad as anyone says. They put words in peoples mouths so that they can typecast people. They claim not to make the decisions about whether people keep their disabillity benefits, which is true in a sense, but they provide the evidence which informs the decision, which effectivly makes them the decision maker. DWP do not questions their assessments and they are under pressure to find a set percentage of people fit for work regardless of disabillity as exposed in the dispatches program.
My mother works in the care system and that's been here assessment of ATOS's handling of those interviews. Its about numbers on a spreadsheet, not humans. I'm surprised that a company that can say a paralyzed person can work (they can still speak, so stick them in a call center and strip all their benefits) is still handling the situation, but then again its the Tories and they're all for just tallying statistics. As I've already stated, the conservatives don't give a damn for the unemployed. Look at their current policies concerning benefits. They're apparently being stripped as an incentive to get people out working. Oh that sounds great. Are you going to be making a job for all the people who you're leaving penniless. No? Then again, how many of them actually came from amongst the plebs or didn't get pally with their other politicians in rich English universities? =P
Albatross wrote: I'm not really portraying them in a positive or negative light, just trying to correct factual inaccuracies. I'm indifferent to them, to be honest with you Ketara. If they suck, they suck, and they'll probably lose the tender.
I've have accompanied several people to ATOS interviews. They are as bad as anyone says. They put words in peoples mouths so that they can typecast people. They claim not to make the decisions about whether people keep their disabillity benefits, which is true in a sense, but they provide the evidence which informs the decision, which effectivly makes them the decision maker. DWP do not questions their assessments and they are under pressure to find a set percentage of people fit for work regardless of disabillity as exposed in the dispatches program.
My mother works in the care system and that's been here assessment of ATOS's handling of those interviews. Its about numbers on a spreadsheet, not humans. I'm surprised that a company that can say a paralyzed person can work (they can still speak, so stick them in a call center and strip all their benefits) is still handling the situation, but then again its the Tories and they're all for just tallying statistics. As I've already stated, the conservatives don't give a damn for the unemployed. Look at their current policies concerning benefits. They're apparently being stripped as an incentive to get people out working. Oh that sounds great. Are you going to be making a job for all the people who you're leaving penniless. No? Then again, how many of them actually came from amongst the plebs or didn't get pally with their other politicians in rich English universities? =P
Being paralysed does not preclude one from working. My dad is a paraplegic and worked for 30 years as a draughtsman. That is the whole point of this testing procedure - to ascertain exactly what someone can do, not what they can't do which has been the traditional default approach.
Automatically Appended Next Post: I should also add that I have first hand experience with this benefits situation - both my parents are disabled, my mum severely so. She would be the first to admit that the benefits she gets are extremely generous; to the extent where she certainly isn't short of a few bob, put it that way. Obviously, it is pretty crappy compensation for being basically unable to do the simplest of tasks, like feed oneself but still, the benefits can be and are good and handing them out without a rigorous means of testing and continuous assessment is simply foolhardy, even more so in an environment where every penny is trying to be saved.
This message was edited 2 times. Last update was at 2013/04/11 14:59:04
Someone who's paralyzed from the neck down shouldn't have all their benefits stripped from them and told that they should be out there working. I can admit that yes, if you have a mouth you can probably hold a conservation, but I doubt it would be a comfortable experience to be doing that in a work environment all day.
Ok, we'll go for another case. The job center says that a person is unemployable due to their mental state. ATOS says that they are, because the person is physically fit (which is typically the defining factor). Is it ethical to say that people with the mental state of children or the like should be out working? I'm foreseeing that the government's going to be making a loss over this whole benefits thing in the long run just from the number of court cases they'll have to wade through.
I'm biased on this matter of course. My mother works with the people that ATOS is doing its best to rid of their only form of income. My father was told by them that he was fit to work, when he's been refused a job for the past twenty years due to his mental condition. Though he at least hasn't has his benefits stripped as of yet due to calling them on their nonsense repeatedly.
Wyrmalla wrote: Someone who's paralyzed from the neck down shouldn't have all their benefits stripped from them and told that they should be out there working. I can admit that yes, if you have a mouth you can probably hold a conservation, but I doubt it would be a comfortable experience to be doing that in a work environment all day.
Ok, we'll go for another case. The job center says that a person is unemployable due to their mental state. ATOS says that they are, because the person is physically fit (which is typically the defining factor). Is it ethical to say that people with the mental state of children or the like should be out working? I'm foreseeing that the government's going to be making a loss over this whole benefits thing in the long run just from the number of court cases they'll have to wade through.
I'm biased on this matter of course. My mother works with the people that ATOS is doing its best to rid of their only form of income. My father was told by them that he was fit to work, when he's been refused a job for the past twenty years due to his mental condition. Though he at least hasn't has his benefits stripped as of yet due to calling them on their nonsense repeatedly.
People with mental and physical disabilities can and do work for a living either as a replacement or as a supplement to benefits. There are several programs that I know of off the top of my head around this area that employ disabled to do lots of things from making garden furniture to packing automotive supplies. In fact, my mother used to go to such a place until it was closed by the last Labour government
The point of 10k a year is that it isn't quite enough to live comfortably on, so working would be advisable. Also when an experiment was carried out in canada to determine if it provided a disincentive to work, it was found that the only groups with significant reduction of work were new mothers and young people. There were also massive reductions in domestic violence, alcohol and drug abuse, and road accidents. A similar scheme is being trialled currently in Namibia too. But, as I said, utopian, it's not going to happen for decades at the very least.
you'd be giving people who are already earning enough money cash that they don't need (which you're against, remember?)
I don't have any issue with people being rich, my issue is with people being poor, by all means earn hundreds of grand a year, but when someone else is deciding between eating or turning the radiator on there's something very wrong. There is no scarcity of money or resources in this country, it's just hoarded in too few hands, and that is immoral.
So throw more money at the problem and hope it goes away?
The current system is incredibly expensive, you pay a private contractor £500m and then still get lumbered with having to use tribunals for the 70% of people who appeal, it's hardly throwing more money at a problem to cut out £500m.
Reduction of spending is a massive motivation. We can't afford to pay out as much as we do now because we need to make urgent savings. If we don't do that we'll be storing up huge problems for future generations, and someone will have to deal with it eventually, except the situation will be even more dire. Have you not been watching the news for the last... I dunno, 4 years?
Reduction of spending doesn't seem such a motivation when it comes to pensions though does it? Pensions came to £74.2bn last year, while DLA came to £12.6bn. I simply asked that the lower number be ringfenced like the one 6 times larger. Bear in mind Osbourne wants to cut 18bn from welfare (a figure he will never achieve as spending is increasing and will continue to), which won't even cover half our annual interest payments on the debt.
It's not a silly idea at all. Some people don't deserve welfare. It's a fact.
So they starve on the streets or turn to crime, how does that help society?
Oh, here we go, that old 'economic determinism' chesnut. Are you aware of how insulting that is to someone from my background? It is always possible to transcend one's economic background in a free and democratic nation, to say anything else is the grossest paternalism. Hard work wins out in the end.
Really? Do you actually think you have more than an astronomically small chance to earn the sort of money that is handed out the children of the upper classes the moment they leave uni?
I'd make them earn their benefits, though not quite in the way that the current government is doing. I'd make them volunteer an equivalent number of hours in minimum wage to the amount they receive. If you want to take, you must give back to society in some other way. No-one, not even disabled people (unless they are utterly incapacitated) should be allowed to receive money for nothing. Or chicks for free.
Which reduces the amount of work available for anyone looking for a paid job, as can be seen currently.
Instead of expanding the TA, I'd bring back national service between 16 and 18 for all young people not in education or training. We don't need a huge standing army, but I would see a full-time, short-term length of service for young people as a happy medium between having large numbers of full-time serving soldiers on long contracts, and part-time weekend warriors. The inevitable reduction in youth crime and anti-social behaviour would go some way towards paying for it, too.
That makes some sense, I would like to see some level of choice though, perhaps extend it to include the police and other public services.
It depends what is meant by '100% employment'.
That everyone who can work, does. My point is that not that many jobs actually exist, and while population is growing the amount of available jobs isn't.
Wyrmalla wrote: Someone who's paralyzed from the neck down shouldn't have all their benefits stripped from them and told that they should be out there working. I can admit that yes, if you have a mouth you can probably hold a conservation, but I doubt it would be a comfortable experience to be doing that in a work environment all day.
Ok, we'll go for another case. The job center says that a person is unemployable due to their mental state. ATOS says that they are, because the person is physically fit (which is typically the defining factor). Is it ethical to say that people with the mental state of children or the like should be out working? I'm foreseeing that the government's going to be making a loss over this whole benefits thing in the long run just from the number of court cases they'll have to wade through.
I'm biased on this matter of course. My mother works with the people that ATOS is doing its best to rid of their only form of income. My father was told by them that he was fit to work, when he's been refused a job for the past twenty years due to his mental condition. Though he at least hasn't has his benefits stripped as of yet due to calling them on their nonsense repeatedly.
People with mental and physical disabilities can and do work for a living either as a replacement or as a supplement to benefits. There are several programs that I know of off the top of my head around this area that employ disabled to do lots of things from making garden furniture to packing automotive supplies. In fact, my mother used to go to such a place until it was closed by the last Labour government
I'm not saying that people can't work, I'm arguing that its unethical to have people who won't find it comfortable to work the same hours as the rest of us so as to make a living. Under ATOS if they find that you "can" work they remove your benefits and treat you as any other worker. So a person that's not fully capable of working/ someone who's in a low paid job geared towards the impaired will be in a deficit under these legislations. There's only a finite number of jobs that people with certain disabilities can do. ATOS is under the illusion that these are unlimited, and well payed. Instead these people wind up unemployed and thus increase the number of people claiming unemployment benefits.
Oh hey look what the newest policy the government's installed is. There's too many unemployed people in the country, let's cut their benefits so they can go out and work in non existent jobs... Yeah, the people'll love that (or at least the ones unaffected by our negative policies).
I take it you missed the use of the word "utopically," then, or chose to ignore it? He knows it's unrealistic at very best, hence why he pointed out that this would only happen in a utopia.
'Utopian' doesn't mean 'immune from repudiation'. If we're wishing for 'ice-cream and rainbows'-type fantasy scenarios, why not give everyone £100k?
Never have I witnessed a gap between the mainstream media and the public quite like the last twenty-four hours since the death of Margaret Thatcher. While both the press and President Obama were uttering tearful remembrances, thousands took to the streets of the UK and beyond to celebrate. Immediately this drew strong condemnation of what were called "death parties," described as “tasteless”, “horrible” and “beneath all human decency.” Yet if the same media praising Thatcher and appalled by the popular response would bother to ask one of the people celebrating, they might get a story that doesn't fit into their narrative, which is probably why they aren't asking at all.
I received a note this morning from a friend of a friend. She lives in the UK, although her family didn't arrive there by choice. They had to flee Chile, like thousands of others, when it was under the thumb of General Augusto Pinochet. If you don't know the details about Pinochet's blood-soaked two-decade reign, you should read about them but take care not to eat beforehand. He was a merciless overseer of torture, rapes and thousands of political executions. He had the hands and wrists of the country's greatest folk singer Victor Jara broken in front of a crowd of prisoners before killing him. He had democratically elected Socialist President Salvador Allende shot dead at his desk. His specialty was torturing people in front of their families.
As Naomi Klein has written so expertly, he then used this period of shock and slaughter to install a nationwide laboratory for neoliberal economics. If Pincohet's friend Milton Friedman had a theory about cutting food subsidies, privatizing social security, slashing wages or outlawing unions, Pinochet would apply it. The results of these experiments became political ammunition for neoliberal economists throughout the world. Seeing Chile-applied economic theory in textbooks always boggles my mind. It would be like if the American Medical Association published a textbook on the results of Dr. Josef Mengele's work in the concentration camps, without any moral judgment about how he accrued his patients.
Pinochet was the General in charge of this human rights catastrophe. He also was someone who Margaret Thatcher called a friend. She stood by the General even when he was in exile, attempting to escape justice for his crimes. As she said to Pinochet, "[Thank you] for bringing democracy to Chile."
Therefore, if I want to know why someone would celebrate the death of Baroness Thatcher, I think asking a Chilean in exile would be a great place to start. My friend of a friend took to the streets of the UK when she heard that the Iron Lady had left her mortal coil. Here is why:
I'm telling [my daughter] all about the Thatcher legacy through her mother's experience, not the media's; especially how the Thatcher government directly supported Pinochet's murderous regime, financially, via military support, even military training (which we know now, took place in Dundee University). Thousands of my people (and members of my family) were tortured and murdered under Pinochet's regime—the fascist beast who was one of Thatcher's closest allies and friend. So all you apologists/those offended [by my celebration]—you can take your moral high ground & shove it. YOU are the ones who don't understand. Those of us celebrating are the ones who suffered deeply under her dictatorship and WE are the ones who cared. We are the ones who protested. We are the humanitarians who bothered to lift a finger to help all those who suffered under her regime. I am lifting a glass of champagne to mourn, to remember and to honour all the victims of her brutal regime, here AND abroad. And to all those heroes who gave a gak enough to try to do something about it.
I should add here that I lived in Chile in 1995, when Pinochet had been deposed but was still in charge of the armed forces. I became friends with those who were tortured or had their families disappeared, so Thatcher's connection to Chile strikes a personal note with me. I also understand, however, that similar explanations for "why people are celebrating" could be made by those with connections to Argentina, apartheid South Africa, Indonesia, Belfast, Gaza or Baghdad. The case could also be made by those in the UK affected by Thatcher's Pinochet-tested economic dictates who choose not to mourn.
It also matters because the forty-eight hours after a powerful public figure dies is when the halo becomes permanently affixed to their head. When Ronald Reagan passed away, a massive right wing machine went into motion aimed at removing him from all criticism. The Democrats certainly didn't challenge this interpretation of history and now according to polls, people under 25 would elect Reagan over President Obama, even though Reagan's ideas remain deeply unpopular. To put it crudely, the political battle over someone's memory is a political battle over policy. In Thatcher's case, if we gloss over her history of supporting tyrants, we are doomed to repeat them.
As Glenn Greenwald wrote in The Guardian,
There is absolutely nothing wrong with loathing Margaret Thatcher or any other person with political influence and power based upon perceived bad acts, and that doesn't change simply because they die. If anything, it becomes more compelling to commemorate those bad acts upon death as the only antidote against a society erecting a false and jingoistically self-serving history.
Or to put it even more simply, in the words, of David Wearing, "People praising Thatcher's legacy should show some respect for her victims." That would be nice, wouldn't it? Let's please show some respect for Margaret Thatcher's victims. Let's respect those who mourn everyday because of her policies, but choose this one day to wipe away the tears. Then let's organize to make sure that the history she authored does not repeat.
I take it you missed the use of the word "utopically," then, or chose to ignore it? He knows it's unrealistic at very best, hence why he pointed out that this would only happen in a utopia.
'Utopian' doesn't mean 'immune from repudiation'. If we're wishing for 'ice-cream and rainbows'-type fantasy scenarios, why not give everyone £100k?
On the contrary, when someone says "in an ideal world," you don't immediately lay into whatever they say next. It's a fantasy, idle, and obviously meant as a non-serious point.
It just seems like wasted energy to lay into the point with any real robustness, especially when it's obviously not meant as an actual rebuttal.
Melissia wrote:Stopping power IS a deterrent. The bigger a hole you put in them the more deterred they are.
Waaagh! Gorskar = 2050pts
Iron Warriors VII Company = 1850pts
Fjälnir Ironfist's Great Company = 1800pts
Guflag's Mercenary Ogres = 2000pts
The point of 10k a year is that it isn't quite enough to live comfortably on, so working would be advisable. Also when an experiment was carried out in canada to determine if it provided a disincentive to work, it was found that the only groups with significant reduction of work were new mothers and young people.
That's not exactly comforting.
There were also massive reductions in domestic violence, alcohol and drug abuse, and road accidents. A similar scheme is being trialled currently in Namibia too. But, as I said, utopian, it's not going to happen for decades at the very least.
I hope it never happens at all, to be honest. In fact, I'd take up arms to stop it.
you'd be giving people who are already earning enough money cash that they don't need (which you're against, remember?)
I don't have any issue with people being rich, my issue is with people being poor, by all means earn hundreds of grand a year, but when someone else is deciding between eating or turning the radiator on there's something very wrong. There is no scarcity of money or resources in this country, it's just hoarded in too few hands, and that is immoral.
See, I find it immoral to take money away from people who have honestly traded their labour at a value set by the market, not by themselves, and to give it to people who haven't earned it by the same methods and call it 'moral', especially when the motivation for doing so seems largely punitive, despite the declarations of compassion one hears from the Left. The Left in the UK is fairly transparently motivated by hatred and envy of the wealthy, much more so than compassion for the poor. It's like Mrs. T said, the left wing don't care if the poor get more poor as long as the rich get less rich and the gap narrows.
So throw more money at the problem and hope it goes away?
The current system is incredibly expensive, you pay a private contractor £500m and then still get lumbered with having to use tribunals for the 70% of people who appeal, it's hardly throwing more money at a problem to cut out £500m.
£500m is far from incredibly expensive, especially when you consider the billions frittered away by Labour on the failed NHS IT system.
Reduction of spending is a massive motivation. We can't afford to pay out as much as we do now because we need to make urgent savings. If we don't do that we'll be storing up huge problems for future generations, and someone will have to deal with it eventually, except the situation will be even more dire. Have you not been watching the news for the last... I dunno, 4 years?
Reduction of spending doesn't seem such a motivation when it comes to pensions though does it? Pensions came to £74.2bn last year, while DLA came to £12.6bn.
Apples and oranges.
It's not a silly idea at all. Some people don't deserve welfare. It's a fact.
So they starve on the streets or turn to crime, how does that help society?
There's a third option.
Oh, here we go, that old 'economic determinism' chesnut. Are you aware of how insulting that is to someone from my background? It is always possible to transcend one's economic background in a free and democratic nation, to say anything else is the grossest paternalism. Hard work wins out in the end.
Really? Do you actually think you have more than an astronomically small chance to earn the sort of money that is handed out the children of the upper classes the moment they leave uni?
Right, I've tried to keep this polite, but you're talking absolute gak now. I genuinely don't know where to start with that statement. It's utter drivel. Do upper-class children enjoy greater advantages than poorer kids? Yes, of course. But those advantages aren't purely economic, and the idea that they are 'handed' huge salaries as soon as they leave university is nonsense. People from poorer backgrounds CAN succeed, just because it's more difficult doesn't mean they shouldn't try. I personally know a guy who works in pharmaceuticals who earns a six-figure salary, and he's from a similar background to me. I know solicitors, a stock-broker and PhDs, all of whom come from the same area, and who had the same disadvantages I did. Hell, I've just got a job in banking, and my family lived in one freezing cold room for about a year when we first came back to England from NI.
I'd make them earn their benefits, though not quite in the way that the current government is doing. I'd make them volunteer an equivalent number of hours in minimum wage to the amount they receive. If you want to take, you must give back to society in some other way. No-one, not even disabled people (unless they are utterly incapacitated) should be allowed to receive money for nothing. Or chicks for free.
Which reduces the amount of work available for anyone looking for a paid job, as can be seen currently.
Nope. I'd make them work in the voluntary sector.
Instead of expanding the TA, I'd bring back national service between 16 and 18 for all young people not in education or training. We don't need a huge standing army, but I would see a full-time, short-term length of service for young people as a happy medium between having large numbers of full-time serving soldiers on long contracts, and part-time weekend warriors. The inevitable reduction in youth crime and anti-social behaviour would go some way towards paying for it, too.
That makes some sense, I would like to see some level of choice though, perhaps extend it to include the police and other public services.
Agreed, although the police and fire service are massively over-subscribed, due in no small part to unions preventing those services getting rid of useless people squatting on jobs-for-life.
It depends what is meant by '100% employment'.
That everyone who can work, does.
I'm in favour of a flexible labour market, but yeah, why wouldn't anyone want everyone who is able to work, to do so?
I take it you missed the use of the word "utopically," then, or chose to ignore it? He knows it's unrealistic at very best, hence why he pointed out that this would only happen in a utopia.
'Utopian' doesn't mean 'immune from repudiation'. If we're wishing for 'ice-cream and rainbows'-type fantasy scenarios, why not give everyone £100k?
On the contrary, when someone says "in an ideal world," you don't immediately lay into whatever they say next. It's a fantasy, idle, and obviously meant as a non-serious point.
Really? Read his subsequent posts.
This message was edited 2 times. Last update was at 2013/04/11 16:16:30
I take it you missed the use of the word "utopically," then, or chose to ignore it? He knows it's unrealistic at very best, hence why he pointed out that this would only happen in a utopia.
'Utopian' doesn't mean 'immune from repudiation'. If we're wishing for 'ice-cream and rainbows'-type fantasy scenarios, why not give everyone £100k?
Because 100k would destroy any productivity and would never be economically possible. The idea of a guaranteed basic income has been around for centuries, it's not something I just dreamt up. Martin Luther King Jr once wrote "I am now convinced that the simplest approach will prove to be the most effective — the solution to poverty is to abolish it directly by a now widely discussed measure: the guaranteed income."
MeanGreenStompa wrote:
I found this article interesting.
See, I find it immoral to take money away from people who have honestly traded their labour at a value set by the market, not by themselves, and to give it to people who haven't earned it by the same methods and call it 'moral', especially when the motivation for doing so seems largely punitive, despite the declarations of compassion one hears from the Left. The Left in the UK is fairly transparently motivated by hatred and envy of the wealthy, much more so than compassion for the poor. It's like Mrs. T said, the left wing don't care if the poor get more poor as long as the rich get less rich and the gap narrows.
Well, that's hilariously oversimplified. Honestly, it's like you've decided that the best way to counter generalisations about Conservative politics is to make equally ridiculous statements regarding your supposed political opposites.
For someone who actually writes intelligently about the issues surrounding the divisive Baroness, this kind of thing is surprising.
The Left in Britain, for one thing, is a large and very loosely-connected body of people, certainly not some kind of monolithic organisation. It includes people from all walks of life, and debates on a huge variety of issues, not all of which are focussed on, or even include, the rich you seem to think we all hate with a passion. By definition in a pseudo-capitalist society, there will be different levels of earning depending on a person's position in society; to attempt to replace this with a utopic (used in the correct sense) system similar to that advocated by the Old Left is a dream at best.
On the subject of the rich, actually, whilst trading your labour on the market is hardly worth condemning - especially as that's how the economic system in the UK works - and there are certainly many wealthy people who have indeed legitimately earned their money, you have to question how the mega-rich, those who have stopped labouring at all in any real sense, can justify sitting on more money than they could ever spend, even adding to it with each passing year, when there are people who haven't enough money even with the jobs they hold down.
Perhaps I'm guilty of simplifying things too, but then, perhaps I was tired of seeing my position badly represented by someone who doesn't even share them, and a little irritated by having someone else define what I believed for me.
I take it you missed the use of the word "utopically," then, or chose to ignore it? He knows it's unrealistic at very best, hence why he pointed out that this would only happen in a utopia.
'Utopian' doesn't mean 'immune from repudiation'. If we're wishing for 'ice-cream and rainbows'-type fantasy scenarios, why not give everyone £100k?
On the contrary, when someone says "in an ideal world," you don't immediately lay into whatever they say next. It's a fantasy, idle, and obviously meant as a non-serious point.
Really? Read his subsequent posts.
Well, that is surprising. Fair enough.
This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2013/04/11 16:36:27
Melissia wrote:Stopping power IS a deterrent. The bigger a hole you put in them the more deterred they are.
Waaagh! Gorskar = 2050pts
Iron Warriors VII Company = 1850pts
Fjälnir Ironfist's Great Company = 1800pts
Guflag's Mercenary Ogres = 2000pts
I don't understand? Why is it not comforting to know noone will ever go hungry?
There were also massive reductions in domestic violence, alcohol and drug abuse, and road accidents. A similar scheme is being trialled currently in Namibia too. But, as I said, utopian, it's not going to happen for decades at the very least.
I hope it never happens at all, to be honest. In fact, I'd take up arms to stop it.
You would take up arms, and I assume kill people, to stop a system which treats everyone equally?
See, I find it immoral to take money away from people who have honestly traded their labour at a value set by the market, not by themselves, and to give it to people who haven't earned it by the same methods and call it 'moral', especially when the motivation for doing so seems largely punitive, despite the declarations of compassion one hears from the Left. The Left in the UK is fairly transparently motivated by hatred and envy of the wealthy, much more so than compassion for the poor. It's like Mrs. T said, the left wing don't care if the poor get more poor as long as the rich get less rich and the gap narrows.
You are reaching now, I expressly said I have no issues with how high the top wages go, only that the lowest reach a liveable level. Don't make the assumption that everyone only cares about themselves, people are capable of empathy. A study found in fact that those people more inclined to hate often sit on the right side of politics, not the left.
Also please don't treat me as some spokesman for the left, I claim to be no such thing and have treated you as an individual. Please extend me the same respect.
So throw more money at the problem and hope it goes away?
The current system is incredibly expensive, you pay a private contractor £500m and then still get lumbered with having to use tribunals for the 70% of people who appeal, it's hardly throwing more money at a problem to cut out £500m.
£500m is far from incredibly expensive, especially when you consider the billions frittered away by Labour on the failed NHS IT system.
So I am throwing money at a problem, until I show otherwise, and then money isn't an issue?
Reduction of spending is a massive motivation. We can't afford to pay out as much as we do now because we need to make urgent savings. If we don't do that we'll be storing up huge problems for future generations, and someone will have to deal with it eventually, except the situation will be even more dire. Have you not been watching the news for the last... I dunno, 4 years?
Reduction of spending doesn't seem such a motivation when it comes to pensions though does it? Pensions came to £74.2bn last year, while DLA came to £12.6bn.
Apples and oranges.
Yes, where the apple costs 6 times the orange, but the orange is the thing we can't afford for the fruit bowl.
It's not a silly idea at all. Some people don't deserve welfare. It's a fact.
So they starve on the streets or turn to crime, how does that help society?
There's a third option.
Which is?
Oh, here we go, that old 'economic determinism' chesnut. Are you aware of how insulting that is to someone from my background? It is always possible to transcend one's economic background in a free and democratic nation, to say anything else is the grossest paternalism. Hard work wins out in the end.
Really? Do you actually think you have more than an astronomically small chance to earn the sort of money that is handed out the children of the upper classes the moment they leave uni?
Right, I've tried to keep this polite, but you're talking absolute gak now. I genuinely don't know where to start with that statement. It's utter drivel. Do upper-class children enjoy greater advantages than poorer kids? Yes, of course. But those advantages aren't purely economic, and the idea that they are 'handed' huge salaries as soon as they leave university is nonsense. People from poorer backgrounds CAN succeed, just because it's more difficult doesn't mean they shouldn't try. I personally know a guy who works in pharmaceuticals who earns a six-figure salary, and he's from a similar background to me. I know solicitors, a stock-broker and PhDs, all of whom come from the same area, and who had the same disadvantages I did. Hell, I've just got a job in banking, and my family lived in one freezing cold room for about a year when we first came back to England from NI.
The OECD have shown that Britain has some of the lowest social mobility in the developed world, and no offence, but I trust their finding more than anecdotal evidence. If we using anecdotes though I know (as I am sure you do too) of many people who have worked their backsides off for years and never even reached the 40% tax bracket. This "master of your own fate" stuff is not helpful or realistic in making social policy.
I'd make them earn their benefits, though not quite in the way that the current government is doing. I'd make them volunteer an equivalent number of hours in minimum wage to the amount they receive. If you want to take, you must give back to society in some other way. No-one, not even disabled people (unless they are utterly incapacitated) should be allowed to receive money for nothing. Or chicks for free.
Which reduces the amount of work available for anyone looking for a paid job, as can be seen currently.
Nope. I'd make them work in the voluntary sector.
The voluntary sector isn't that large, there's what 2 million unemployed currently.
It depends what is meant by '100% employment'.
That everyone who can work, does.
I'm in favour of a flexible labour market, but yeah, why wouldn't anyone want everyone who is able to work, to do so?
I would love such a situation, but it is unrealistic. There aren't 40million jobs in Britain.
I take it you missed the use of the word "utopically," then, or chose to ignore it? He knows it's unrealistic at very best, hence why he pointed out that this would only happen in a utopia.
'Utopian' doesn't mean 'immune from repudiation'. If we're wishing for 'ice-cream and rainbows'-type fantasy scenarios, why not give everyone £100k?
On the contrary, when someone says "in an ideal world," you don't immediately lay into whatever they say next. It's a fantasy, idle, and obviously meant as a non-serious point.
Really? Read his subsequent posts.
Yes, I believe in the system, but I say utopically because I realise it is a system that our country isn't going to be implementing any time soon.
This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2013/04/11 16:52:39
I'd make them earn their benefits, though not quite in the way that the current government is doing. I'd make them volunteer an equivalent number of hours in minimum wage to the amount they receive. If you want to take, you must give back to society in some other way. No-one, not even disabled people (unless they are utterly incapacitated) should be allowed to receive money for nothing. Or chicks for free.
Which reduces the amount of work available for anyone looking for a paid job, as can be seen currently.
Nope. I'd make them work in the voluntary sector.
Sorry, but the "forced work" malarkey is a honking load of shash for a number of reasons. Starting with your voluntary idea...
First off, there are plenty of charities that would tell you where to shove your forced "volunteering". Oxfam, where I volunteer, refuses to accept "volunteers" from work scheme placements, because it's against their ethics. I think my local British Heart Foundation shop might be down with the scheme, but don't take my word for it.
Second, there's not even close to being enough places. Even if the charities were up for it, what would they do with all of these people? I know that having an entire army of 2 million "volunteers" battling to eradicate world hunger and child abuse and whatnot sounds like a pretty stirring image, but these people would all be new recruits. 2 million new recruits. To call it a logistical nightmare wouldn't even come close. The charities would be better off without them and they know it.
---
Now, as we'll have to come crawling back to the private or public sectors, let's just recap the reasons we're all aware of (including you, it seems) regarding why, exactly, it is a honking load of shash.
First off, if there are jobs available to be done, for the love common sense and all that is holy, open them up to the bloody public so we can all apply for them why in the hell would these jobs be ring-fenced like this who the hell would do something so moronic it makes no sense I can't even fathom it gaaaaah.
Second off... Actually that first point is all that is needed. Like, by an order of magnitude. Seriously, anything else I say at this point is just redundant. But... Free workers would have a massively negative impact on the wages, hours and job security of employees that companies actually have to pay.
---
Basically, the problem is thus: there needs to be more jobs. So long as people can prove that they're putting in adequate effort to find work, they should be entitled to benefits. End of story.
Maybe I'm not a vengeance-fuelled, hate-filled monster, but when I hear sensationalist headlines like "feckless scroungers get more than hard-working employees", my initial thought isn't "those fiends! throw them onto the streets!", it's "how in the hell can low-wage employees be getting treated so badly in this day and age?". But, because it's easier to punish than render assistance, nobody ever wants to talk about helping the hard done-by minimum wagers. ...Except to make their lot merely look impressive by making the jobless even worse off, of course. :p
See, I find it immoral to take money away from people who have honestly traded their labour at a value set by the market, not by themselves, and to give it to people who haven't earned it by the same methods and call it 'moral', especially when the motivation for doing so seems largely punitive, despite the declarations of compassion one hears from the Left. The Left in the UK is fairly transparently motivated by hatred and envy of the wealthy, much more so than compassion for the poor. It's like Mrs. T said, the left wing don't care if the poor get more poor as long as the rich get less rich and the gap narrows.
You are reaching now, I expressly said I have no issues with how high the top wages go, only that the lowest reach a liveable level. Don't make the assumption that everyone only cares about themselves, people are capable of empathy. A study found in fact that those people more inclined to hate often sit on the right side of politics, not the left.
Also please don't treat me as some spokesman for the left, I claim to be no such thing and have treated you as an individual. Please extend me the same respect.
Do you have any citation on "A study found in fact that those people more inclined to hate often sit on the right side of politics, not the left"??
That's hella flame bait there dude.
Oh, here we go, that old 'economic determinism' chesnut. Are you aware of how insulting that is to someone from my background? It is always possible to transcend one's economic background in a free and democratic nation, to say anything else is the grossest paternalism. Hard work wins out in the end.
Really? Do you actually think you have more than an astronomically small chance to earn the sort of money that is handed out the children of the upper classes the moment they leave uni?
Right, I've tried to keep this polite, but you're talking absolute gak now. I genuinely don't know where to start with that statement. It's utter drivel. Do upper-class children enjoy greater advantages than poorer kids? Yes, of course. But those advantages aren't purely economic, and the idea that they are 'handed' huge salaries as soon as they leave university is nonsense. People from poorer backgrounds CAN succeed, just because it's more difficult doesn't mean they shouldn't try. I personally know a guy who works in pharmaceuticals who earns a six-figure salary, and he's from a similar background to me. I know solicitors, a stock-broker and PhDs, all of whom come from the same area, and who had the same disadvantages I did. Hell, I've just got a job in banking, and my family lived in one freezing cold room for about a year when we first came back to England from NI.
The OECD have shown that Britain has some of the lowest social mobility in the developed world, and no offence, but I trust their finding more than anecdotal evidence. If we using anecdotes though I know (as I am sure you do too) of many people who have worked their backsides off for years and never even reached the 40% tax bracket. This "master of your own fate" stuff is not helpful or realistic in making social policy.
OECD is one of the more biased institution around... do you have any other source supporting that Britain has the lowest social mobility?
It is a truism that history is written by the victors. As Margaret Thatcher's economic policies were continued after she left office, culminating in economic catastrophe in 2008, it is necessary to throw out the myths peddled about her. The first is that she was popular. The second is that she delivered economic success.
Unlike previous governments, Thatcher's never commanded anything close to a majority in a general election. The Tories' biggest share of the vote under her was less than 44% in 1979, after which her vote fell. The false assertions about her popularity are used to insist that Labour can only succeed by carrying out Tory policies. But this is untrue.
The reason for the parliamentary landslide in 1983 was not Thatcher's popularity – her share of the vote fell to 42% – but the loss of votes to the defectors of the SDP and their alliance with the Liberals. Labour's voters did not defect to the Tories, whose long-term decline continued under Thatcher.
Nor did Thatcher deliver economic success, still less "save our country" in David Cameron's silly and overblown phrase-mongering. In much more difficult circumstances in 1945, the Labour government, despite war debt, set itself the task of economic regeneration, introduced social security and pensions, built hundreds of thousands of homes and created the NHS. In the 31 years before Thatcher came to office the economy grew by about 150%; in the 31 years since, it's grown by little more than 100%.
Thatcher believed that the creation of 3 million unemployed was a price worth paying for a free market in everything except labour. Thatcher's great friend Augusto Pinochet used machine guns to control labour, whereas Thatcher used the less drastic means of anti-union laws. But their goal was the same, to reduce the share of working class income in the economy. The economic results were the reason for Thatcher's falling popularity. As the authors of The Spirit Level point out, the inequality created led to huge social ills, increases in crime, addictions of all kinds and health epidemics including mental health issues.
Thatcher's destruction of industry, combined with financial deregulation and the "big bang", began the decline of saving and accumulation of private- and public-sector debt that led directly to the banking crisis of 2008. The idea that bankers would rationally allocate resources for all our benefit was always a huge lie. Now the overwhelming majority are directly paying the price for this failed experiment through the bailout of bank shareholders.
Thatcher was sustained only by one extraordinary piece of luck. Almost the moment she stepped over the threshold of Downing Street the economy was engulfed in an oil bonanza. During her time in office, government oil receipts amounted to 16% of GDP. But instead of using this windfall to boost investment for longer-term prosperity, it was used for tax cuts. Public investment was slashed. By the end of her time in office the military budget vastly exceeded net public investment.
This slump in investment, and the associated destruction of manufacturing and jobs, is the disastrous economic and social legacy of Thatcherism. Production was replaced by banking. House-building gave way to estate agency. The substitute for decent jobs was welfare. Until there is a break with that legacy there can be no serious rebuilding of Britain's economy.
The current economic crisis is already one year longer than the one Thatcher created in the early 1980s. In effect the policies are the same now, but there is no new oil to come to the rescue.
Labour will win the next election due to the decline in Tory support, which is even lower under Cameron than Thatcher. But Labour must come to office with an economic policy able to rebuild the British economy – which means a clean break with the economic policies of Thatcher. Labour can build an alliance of the overwhelming majority struggling under austerity: a political coalition to redirect resources towards investment and sustainable prosperity using all the available levers of government.
We can succeed by rejecting Thatcherism – the politics and economics of decline and failure.
This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2013/04/11 20:07:19
Ribon Fox wrote: Ordinarily I don't like a single thing that drips from Mr Ken Livingstone's But this time i do agree... dear god what have I become?
He's still being a wee bit hypocritical, though. I mean, even if Thatcher's government started the downfall as he sees it, Labour hardly stepped in and fixed these problems.
Perhaps that's what he's alluding to when he claims Labour need to step away from "Thatcherite" policies.
Melissia wrote:Stopping power IS a deterrent. The bigger a hole you put in them the more deterred they are.
Waaagh! Gorskar = 2050pts
Iron Warriors VII Company = 1850pts
Fjälnir Ironfist's Great Company = 1800pts
Guflag's Mercenary Ogres = 2000pts
Ribon Fox wrote: Ordinarily I don't like a single thing that drips from Mr Ken Livingstone's But this time i do agree... dear god what have I become?
He's still being a wee bit hypocritical, though. I mean, even if Thatcher's government started the downfall as he sees it, Labour hardly stepped in and fixed these problems.
Perhaps that's what he's alluding to when he claims Labour need to step away from "Thatcherite" policies.
I think his best point is the comparison between Attlee and Thatcher. Attlee was a quiet man who got gak done, he sorted out the economy and set up the NHS and welfare state, everything was about the country while he took a back seat and acted like a chairman rather than a president.
I don't understand? Why is it not comforting to know noone will ever go hungry?
Until inflation kicks in fr all the extra money that would need to be printed to follow up on this plan.
You would take up arms, and I assume kill people, to stop a system which treats everyone equally?
I wouldnt go so far as to take up arms... But i wouldnt hang around to see the vastly increased taxes on my hard earned pay, or the economic Quagmire that would follow. I work to provide for my family.
People do abuse the system... Iv seen it, im aware of it.... an example hasd even been on tv (on a regular basis), pick a video... probably any video.
Anecdotal I know. But illustrates a mentality out there that exists.
Why should hard working people constantly hand out for those that wont work.
I am also in favor of working for benefits, But not nesaceily for charities, but projects that benefit the community as a whole. Urban Regeneration projects, cleaning parks, fresh paint, cleaning graffitti, cleaning streets after public events like football matches, maintainence of school fields and childrens play areas on weekends.
Id also advocate the benefits system being a minimal cash sum, but should be lkargely in the form of 'vouchers'for food (not alcohol of cigarettes) utililities (gas, electric, water) travel (bus/public transport) basicly the benefits system is used to provide food and essentials for living but cannot be abused with unesssacery luxuries.
"Be extremely subtle, even to the point of formlessness. Be extremely mysterious, even to the point of soundlessness. Thereby you can be the director of the opponents fate."
Sun Tzu
http://s1.zetaboards.com/New_Badab/index/
JOIN THE ETERNAL WAR. SAY YOU FOLLOWED MY LINK IN YOUR INTRODUCTION TO HELP TZEENTCHS CAUSE.
I hardly think Jeremy Kyle is a good source for how people decide to use benefits.
I mean, the show is about the worst possible people placed in front of a camera for your entertainment.
This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2013/04/11 22:14:41
Melissia wrote:Stopping power IS a deterrent. The bigger a hole you put in them the more deterred they are.
Waaagh! Gorskar = 2050pts
Iron Warriors VII Company = 1850pts
Fjälnir Ironfist's Great Company = 1800pts
Guflag's Mercenary Ogres = 2000pts
I am also in favor of working for benefits, But not nesaceily for charities, but projects that benefit the community as a whole. Urban Regeneration projects, cleaning parks, fresh paint, cleaning graffitti, cleaning streets after public events like football matches, maintainence of school fields and childrens play areas on weekends.
Id also advocate the benefits system being a minimal cash sum, but should be lkargely in the form of 'vouchers'for food (not alcohol of cigarettes) utililities (gas, electric, water) travel (bus/public transport) basicly the benefits system is used to provide food and essentials for living but cannot be abused with unesssacery luxuries.
Vouchers? Uh... No, just no. Vouchers are universally hated amongst people that have to use them. Immigrants are given them by the government when they come to this country, as are those on benefits at times. However they're seen as only a way to control those that use them. The government's telling people that they have to spend x amount of money a week on certain things. The way you're saying it means that people wouldn't be allowed to buy anything that the government doesn't agree upon. I guess then people couldn't get their kids presents without petitioning to who dolls out their vouchers then? If there's one sure way of getting the poor to hate you then its to tell them what they can and can't do. =P
I don't understand? Why is it not comforting to know noone will ever go hungry?
Until inflation kicks in fr all the extra money that would need to be printed to follow up on this plan.
Why would there need to be an influx of new capital? There is more than enough in the system currently (a lot of which doesn't actually exist on paper, but that's for another topic)
Why should hard working people constantly hand out for those that wont work.
Because the alternative is worse, vast increases in crime, homelessness and other undesirable factors. Taxes are essentially a levy paid for upkeep of the society you live in. I would rather live in a society with less crime and as few tramps hassling me for 20p as possible, if that means paying higher taxes then so be it. Also, the state not paying for such things often ends up with them costing more, look at the health costs in the States compared to elsewhere.
I am also in favor of working for benefits, But not nesaceily for charities, but projects that benefit the community as a whole. Urban Regeneration projects, cleaning parks, fresh paint, cleaning graffitti, cleaning streets after public events like football matches, maintainence of school fields and childrens play areas on weekends.
Those are real jobs that someone is paid a wage for. Do we sack them and then send them straight back but without the wage?
Id also advocate the benefits system being a minimal cash sum, but should be lkargely in the form of 'vouchers'for food (not alcohol of cigarettes) utililities (gas, electric, water) travel (bus/public transport) basicly the benefits system is used to provide food and essentials for living but cannot be abused with unesssacery luxuries.
The practical application of food stamps and the like didn't really turn out that well in the US.
Waaagh! Gorskar = 2050pts
Iron Warriors VII Company = 1850pts
Fjälnir Ironfist's Great Company = 1800pts
Guflag's Mercenary Ogres = 2000pts
