green Posted June 16, 2012 Share Posted June 16, 2012 Golems blog on the corrupt politicians and bankers in Spain, who are now in the IMF makes good reading.... http://www.golemxiv.co.uk/2012/06/the-eurofiscal-corruption-contest-the-spanish-entry/ Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jim Graham Posted June 16, 2012 Share Posted June 16, 2012 Both Labour & Conservative believe in bailing out the banks. Both believe in Neo Liberalism. Both have & will continue to lead us down a path of Austerity. Neither of them believe in bailing out the people. Its all about "the markets". Whilst we continue to battle with Labour vs Tory arguments they continue to fleece us. They are no less corrupt than the politicians we read about in Greece or Ireland or Spain. The only difference is, we just haven't realised it collectively yet. I am pretty sure that historically economic messes of this magnitude end in war more often than not. If it takes a decade of austerity and government learn to live within their means and people learn we can't afford what politicians promise and we learn not to believe in the something for nothing culture and we don't end up burning the continent to the ground yet again I'm all for a bit of austerity. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
epiphany Posted June 16, 2012 Share Posted June 16, 2012 Both Labour & Conservative believe in bailing out the banks. Both believe in Neo Liberalism. Both have & will continue to lead us down a path of Austerity. Neither of them believe in bailing out the people. Its all about "the markets". And not the markets as envisioned by Adam Smith, who it seems had more in common with Marx and Proudhon than the current neoliberal doctrinaires. Osborne is only a conservative in the sense that he is conserving the corporate nanny state. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
chem1st Posted June 16, 2012 Share Posted June 16, 2012 And not the markets as envisioned by Adam Smith, who it seems had more in common with Marx and Proudhon than the current neoliberal doctrinaires. Osborne is only a conservative in the sense that he is conserving the corporate nanny state. Marx failed when it came to property. He comes across as a spokesman for the land monopolists, Smith and Proudhon favoured equality of opportunity. Have you ever read of Silvio Gesell? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
epiphany Posted June 16, 2012 Share Posted June 16, 2012 Marx failed when it came to property. He comes across as a spokesman for the land monopolists, Smith and Proudhon favoured equality of opportunity. Have you ever read of Silvio Gesell? Perhaps I should correct that comparison to "the young Karl Marx", for what it's worth. I have read bits and pieces on Gesell, mostly as an after thought to Henry George's work, but nothing substantial. Some homework for me... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
grafikhaus74 Posted June 17, 2012 Share Posted June 17, 2012 Sorry Tory Boy, you haven't given ANY examples of corruption, please come back when you have found some. 'Tory Boy' ,eh? A quick scan of my posts would tell you that I loathe the bloody lot of them but, if it's a choice I'll take Tory Boy over a Wednesday-supporting Labourite anytime. (Oh, BTW, I hope Syriza win today - it's the left-wing party in the Greek elections, not Wednesday's opponents in a pre-season friendly). So what is it you're burbling about now? Oh yeah, you want me to spend time providing you with links to prove what a shocker Brown was (try Googling - it's full of examples), and then you'll decide whether these links are suitable or not. Life's too short. Only a fool would deny the massive damage Brown (and his colleagues) did while in power. Graffikhaus was one of the Tory toads like serapis who was always on here whinging about this, that and the other when Labour were in. Now the ConDems have caused another recession, he isn't quite as selective in whom he castigates! Here's Phase 2 of the standard lefty response -the insults. (Phase 3 is forcing the debate to degenerate so much, the thread gets closed down - classic commie tactics). I'll readily admit that I was fullsome in my criticism of Labour when they took a wrecking ball to our economy. The reason I am 'not so selective in whom I castigate' now is that, even at my age, I expected much more from the Tories. I was wrong (my opinion changes when the facts change). There's really no point going on about politics any more as, over the last two-and-a-bit years we've had a unique chance to see all three 'major' parties in power and they're all the same. It was to Cameron's eternal shame that he couldn't manage a clear majority at the last election when, as most observers could see, we'd endured possibly the most damaging Govt. in memory. Now he and his coalition of closet lefties cling on to power before delivering us back into the hands of Labour (and we all know what to expect there...) So that's my stance, WOne. An utter loathing of the crowd who control us - left, right, 'centre' and especially those who are rubbing our noses in it by awarding gongs to the usual collection of bootlickers and toadies. (Real toadies, WOne, not somebody who differs from your pig-headed othodoxy.) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
grafikhaus74 Posted June 17, 2012 Share Posted June 17, 2012 I am pretty sure that historically economic messes of this magnitude end in war more often than not. If it takes a decade of austerity and government learn to live within their means and people learn we can't afford what politicians promise and we learn not to believe in the something for nothing culture and we don't end up burning the continent to the ground yet again I'm all for a bit of austerity. Do you think it'll end in war, Jim? (Serious request for opinion, not a snide ****-take like some on here). I must admit, the ducks are all lining up for, if not a war, then major civil unrest which we should resist at all costs. The parallels with Greece are becoming obvious - from the bloated public sector to tax avoidance (there it's taxi drivers. Here it's the mega rich and corporations). Throw in a vainglorious Olympics (now playing to derelict stadia and the odd dog in Greece), 'leaders' caught like rabbits in headlights and the comparisons are there. We're almost certainly more broke than Greece, but they haven't been able to print billions of Monopoly money to hide the fact. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
I1L2T3 Posted June 17, 2012 Share Posted June 17, 2012 We're almost certainly more broke than Greece, but they haven't been able to print billions of Monopoly money to hide the fact. We're not more broke than Greece. We never were. And we were never going to be. Our public debt as a % of GDP is around 85%, very similar to Germany. Greece is at 170%. We have our own currency. We have an excellent debt management department. We are able to take out long-dated debt at very low yields and in fact have been able to do so for a long time. Most of our debt is indeed long dated. For the moment we have a reasonably high % of our public debt held domestically. The Greece thing was an Osborne/Cameron scare story predicated on their belief that enough of the public were ill-informed enough to belive it. They succeeded with you. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MrSmith Posted June 17, 2012 Share Posted June 17, 2012 UK's debts 'biggest in the world' According to the consulting firm, by the end of March this year, the aggregate indebtedness of the UK - that's the sum of household debts, company debts, government debts and bank debts - had risen to 492% of GDP, or almost five times the value of everything we produce in a single year. That compares with 481% at the end of 2008. So the UK's total indebtedness has increased, and is still the biggest relative to GDP of any of the big economies. US indebtedness is less, at 282% of GDP by the middle of this year, down from 296% in December 2008 UK Public Debt Is 240 percent of GDP: The UK’s true national debt is now £3,617 billion ($5,930 billion) or £138,359 ($226,807) per household, according to the latest figures from the Centre for Policy Studies, a center-right think tank. Our updated figures show that the true public sector debt is a shocking 240 percent of GDP Its not so good when you look at the overall debts of the UK. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
I1L2T3 Posted June 17, 2012 Share Posted June 17, 2012 Its not so good when you look at the overall debts of the UK. It's all about whether we can service the debt. And we can. And it depends how much you want to believe in right-wing think tanks. The ones that complain about unfunded pension liabilities then keep quiet when Osborne turns the Royal Mail pension scheme from a funded to a unfunded scheme so he could use the assets to prop up the treasury in a one-off boost. So he could piddle more up the wall on his very expensive austerity that costs rather than saves money. Double-standards all the way, making it up as they go along. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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