NHS

[BillyStubbsTears]

Hound.

We've had a tepid recovery in wages since 2014.

If economies are managed well, you come out of recession roaring. Because there is so much suppressed demand waiting to be unleashed.

Why to people on the Right refuse to see this? That wages graph shows the fact. That we've had a horrifically mismanaged economy for a decade. It's THERE!

[BillyStubbsTears]

Also, why personalise this? What I earn is utterly irrelevant. If I am or am not doing OK,that is irrelevant. This is about the country as a whole. And the country as a whole has been through the mill under these bas**rds,while the richest have been let off the leash to fill their boots.

Why don't you see that?

[SydneyRover]

play the man not the ball

[BillyStubbsTears]

Hound.

The Great Financial Crash was the biggest hit to capitalist economies since the 1930s.

No one survives a shock like that without damage. It was inevitable that wages would take a hit.

But look at the graph from mid-2008 to mid-2010. Wages stabilised.

That was because the economy turned a corner. That was because Labour implemented classic Keynesian stimulus policies.

Govt increases spending to support the economy while private industry is still reeling from the haymaker it's just taken.

We've known that is the way out of recession since before the War. It has worked every single time.

It was working in 08-10. But Cameron and Osborne screamed that Govt should be tightening it's belt like industry and individuals were. They screamed that it was all about the deficit.

So, when they won in 2010, they immediately cut back Govt spending. Against the advice of the vast majority of economists.

And look what happened. The economic recovery juddered to a standstill. Wages plunged again. Not because of a global shock this time. Because of the most stupid economic decision of our lifetimes.

By the way. Osborne did quietly increase Govt spending in 2014 because he was panicking that the economic slump was going to cost him the election. Look what happened. Just like textbook economics says.

[SydneyRover]

Classic tory dna instead of stimulus to break out of a recession use it to break the welfare state and the unionised workforce. Tax breaks for the already rich, empty the coffers then claim the country can't afford penalty rates, sell off the family silver to the rent seekers and carpetbaggers, spiral the economy down so selling the NHS seems like a good idea, but call it outsourcing so no one notices, and all the time you are weakening your political opposition but blame on the weakest and the poorest for not having a go.

Those with real money survive to clean up.

[BillyStubbsTears]

Hound.

Oh aye. And your comment that the fall in wages was needed to "fix the damage" is deeply depressing.

There is no economic theory or practical experience that says that depressing wages is necessary to "fix the damage" after a recession. It's actually quite the reverse. The way you come out of a recession is by encouraging economic activity to grow. And you don't do that by screwing people down.

I'll tell you why it's so depressing. That decision,to implement Austerity in 2010 had nothing whatsoever to do with economics. It was all about shrinking the size and scope of Govt. For right wing ideological purposes. But it was dressed up as inevitable because people put on serious faces and said "we have to fix the damage".

There's only two groups in the country who have been isolated from the effects of that catastrophic decision. That's the very wealthiest, who have seen tax rates slashed, and pensioners who have seen consistent above-average pe Sion increases. The rest of the country has been screwed down.

[drfchound]

Hound.

Oh aye. And your comment that the fall in wages was needed to "fix the damage" is deeply depressing.

There is no economic theory or practical experience that says that depressing wages is necessary to "fix the damage" after a recession. It's actually quite the reverse. The way you come out of a recession is by encouraging economic activity to grow. And you don't do that by screwing people down.

I'll tell you why it's so depressing. That decision,to implement Austerity in 2010 had nothing whatsoever to do with economics. It was all about shrinking the size and scope of Govt. For right wing ideological purposes. But it was dressed up as inevitable because people put on serious faces and said "we have to fix the damage".

There's only two groups in the country who have been isolated from the effects of that catastrophic decision. That's the very wealthiest, who have seen tax rates slashed, and pensioners who have seen consistent above-average pe Sion increases. The rest of the country has been screwed down.

My post must have been eating away at you BST for you to come back today about it.

However, can you tell me where I said “a fall in wages was needed to fix the damage”.
You are seriously twisting what I actually said.

[BillyStubbsTears]

Hound.

Of course your post is eating at me. For two reasons.

1) it's emblematic of the way in which people are refusing to look at evidence which goes against what they want to believe. That concerns me. A lot.

You say "The graph shows a fall in average wages lasting around three years before Labour were voted out".

But it doesn't. At all. It shows a severe drop when the Global Financial Crisis hit in 2008 followed by a year of stabilisation in 09/10. That is as clear as a bell.

You say, "am I right in saying that whoever was in power after the global crash would have had difficulty in stabilising the fall." But it's there in front of your nose. The situation WAS stabilised. By Labour. By early 2010, economic growth had come roaring back. We were growing at pre-recession levels, due to the drastic action Labour had taken to address the crisis. Then the rug was pulled from under the legs of the economy by Austerity. The economy flatlined for 4 years and wages fell drastically. It's all there. On that graph.

2) Which brings me to the second point. There's a determined insistence, much of it from people if your generation, not to hold the Tories to account for the damage that Austerity has done. It has done horrific damage to our economy and to our social fabric. You want to know why so many working people are so f**ked off these days? Look at that graph. A decade of working damned hard and seeing living standards fall.


By the way, you accuse me if twisting your words in saying that a fall in wages was needed to fix the damage. How else am I supposed to interpret "The graph shows a fall in average wages lasting around three years before Labour were voted out and a further three to four years to fix the damage."

And THAT is what really tweaks my tail. Because intelligent people have swallowed the lie that we somehow needed this decade of horrific economic performance to fix something. We didn't, and if we don't understand that and start taking down that lie, we are fated to fall for it again. Especially with such a consummately easy liar as Johnson at the helm. And that scares me. A lot.

[drfchound]

Hound.

Of course your post is eating at me. For two reasons.

1) it's emblematic of the way in which people are refusing to look at evidence which goes against what they want to believe. That concerns me. A lot.

You say "The graph shows a fall in average wages lasting around three years before Labour were voted out".

But it doesn't. At all. It shows a severe drop when the Global Financial Crisis hit in 2008 followed by a year of stabilisation in 09/10. That is as clear as a bell.

You say, "am I right in saying that whoever was in power after the global crash would have had difficulty in stabilising the fall." But it's there in front of your nose. The situation WAS stabilised. By Labour. By early 2010, economic growth had come roaring back. We were growing at pre-recession levels, due to the drastic action Labour had taken to address the crisis. Then the rug was pulled from under the legs of the economy by Austerity. The economy flatlined for 4 years and wages fell drastically. It's all there. On that graph.

2) Which brings me to the second point. There's a determined insistence, much of it from people if your generation, not to hold the Tories to account for the damage that Austerity has done. It has done horrific damage to our economy and to our social fabric. You want to know why so many working people are so f**ked off these days? Look at that graph. A decade of working damned hard and seeing living standards fall.


By the way, you accuse me if twisting your words in saying that a fall in wages was needed to fix the damage. How else am I supposed to interpret "The graph shows a fall in average wages lasting around three years before Labour were voted out and a further three to four years to fix the damage."

And THAT is what really tweaks my tail. Because intelligent people have swallowed the lie that we somehow needed this decade of horrific economic performance to fix something. We didn't, and if we don't understand that and start taking down that lie, we are fated to fall for it again. Especially with such a consummately easy liar as Johnson at the helm. And that scares me. A lot.

But you said that I had said “a fall in wages was needed to fix the damage”.

I clearly did not say that at all.

The words I used, that you highlight above, do not indicate that I suggested a fall in wages was needed at all.
That may be your interpretation but it isn’t mine and certainly wasn’t intended that way.

Anyway, because of your a Labour roots you are always going to argue the point to suit your view that anything the Tories do is wrong and abhorrent.

My original post on the subject following your graphs is my interpretation of what they show me.
Your view is different so we disagree.
Nothing wrong with that is there?

[BillyStubbsTears]

Right Hound.

So you accept that that prolonged fall in wages due to Austerity was entirely unnecessary? That's good. That puts you in the side of the overwhelming majority of economics experts.

So. Why do you think it happened?

As for the way you read evidence, I'm lost. Is there or is there not a clear 12-18 month period in the run up to the 2010 election in which wages had stabilised, followed by a clear and prolonged drop afterwards?

I'm not reading the evidence that way because I support Labour. I support Labour because the evidence always says they handle the economy for the average person better than the Tories do. It's there. In front of your eyes.

[drfchound]

Right Hound.

So you accept that that prolonged fall in wages due to Austerity was entirely unnecessary? That's good. That puts you in the side of the overwhelming majority of economics experts.

So. Why do you think it happened?

As for the way you read evidence, I'm lost. Is there or is there not a clear 12-18 month period in the run up to the 2010 election in which wages had stabilised, followed by a clear and prolonged drop afterwards?

I'm not reading the evidence that way because I support Labour. I support Labour because the evidence always says they handle the economy for the average person better than the Tories do. It's there. In front of your eyes.

Again, you interpret my words differently to what I actually said.
But, on another point,  yes there is a short period of stabilisation leading to the 2010 election, wouldn’t any government do that leading into an election?
Similarly, since 2014 wage growth has been improving according to the graphs but as a Labour Party member you find reasons why it isn’t so good this time.
Ah well, only to be expected I suppose.

To save this becoming boring for other posters I won’t prolong this discussion.

[BillyStubbsTears]

Yes Hound. I see that wage growth has been improving since 2014. At about 1/3rd of the rate that it was growing before. It's increased by around 1% per year since then. Compared to a growth of 2.5-3% per year on average since the War. And THAT comes after the worst sustained period of wage reduction on record. So, over the entire spell of the Tories being in power, average wage growth has been ZERO %.

That hasn't happened o er such a long period since before the Industrial Revolution. That's how awful this lot has been at managing the economy.

And folk here say Labour always hits the working man. Enough to make you weep...

[BillyStubbsTears]

Also, clearly NO, not every Govt would have done that. Cameron and Osborne spent 2009 screaming that the Govt was spending too much and that Brown was a Deficit Denier. So obviously they would have slashed Govt spending in 2009/10 if they'd been in power.

[drfchound]

Also, clearly NO, not every Govt would have done that. Cameron and Osborne spent 2009 screaming that the Govt was spending too much and that Brown was a Deficit Denier. So obviously they would have slashed Govt spending in 2009/10 if they'd been in power.

Well, for a man who likes to deal in facts, that last sentence is based on opinion isn’t it.

[Hounslowrover]

I think it's an opinion based on what happened when they got a majority to carry it out later

[BillyStubbsTears]

And what they were screaming every day on the news and from the front pages of the Tory papers.

[wilts rover]

Cut debt now or face economic disaster said George Osborne on 3rd February 2010.

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/election-2010/7309703/George-Osborne-cut-debt-now-or-face-economic-disaster.html

The General Election was on 6th May.

The National Debt has of course nearly doubled since Mr Osborne gave that warning.

https://www.ons.gov.uk/economy/governmentpublicsectorandtaxes/publicsectorfinance/bulletins/publicsectorfinances/march2019

[BillyStubbsTears]

It has Wilts.

And the date when they were saying they'd eliminate the structural deficit has slipped from 2015 to 2025.

Meantime, we've had the worst decade of economic growth since the 1870s. Just like sensible economists said would happen under Austerity.

[wilts rover]

Yet on that bar chart I posted the other day (the one showing NHS funding had stagnated) it showed the wealth of the richest people in this country had more than doubled in that period. How can that be?

Surely in period of economic stagnation, nil wage growth, austerity designed to cut national debt, we would have all been 'in it together'?

It's almost as if the voters were lied to so as to mask policies that were never intended to cut the national debt but only increase the wealth of the already wealthy at the cost of ordinary workers and the most vulnerable in society.

I'm sure we must have got this mixed up and some proper Tory analyst will be along shortly to explain it to us properly.

[SydneyRover]

ere Marge wot's an economist? it's a bit of a fog George nothing to worry abart.

[BillyStubbsTears]

It's an odd one Wilts isn't it?

The then economics editor of The Telegraph, Jeremy Warner threw some light on it a few years ago.

He had a testy exchange with Prof Simon Wren-Lewis of Oxford University, the world-renown macroeconomics expert.

Wren-Lewis had written on his blog that the claims that labour massively overspent before the Great Financial Crash were nonsense. Warner wrote a piece in The Telegraph, taking the piss out of such a ridiculous claim and saying it showed the arrogance and out of touch attitude of academics (note that he didn't actually question the facts that SW-L set out but there you go. Common approach these days.)

SW-L replied politely but firmly and they had a set to about the effects of Austerity. SW-L set out a clear case that Austerity was hurting the economy, just as textbook economic theory said it should.

And then Warner lost it. He wrote a piece in The Telegraph where he said he was sick of talking about the economics (he was the Economics Editor think on...) and that in any case, Austerity wasn't about economics. He said (and the words were seared onto my mind) he said that Austerity was about shrinking the role of Govt. He said the only time there was an appetite to do that was in a crisis like the Great Financial Crash aftermath, and that the Tories were right to do it.

That's the Economics Editor of the leading Tory-supporting national broadsheet saying it didn't matter if Austerity was hammering the economy. It was all about the ideology.

Funnily enough, although there are plenty of articles from that time still up online on The Telegraph website, that little outburst has vanished.

But there you go. One of the High Priests of Toryism telling it like it truly was. And still there are folk in Donny prepared to ignore the evidence and support the Tories.

[SydneyRover]

ere Marge, you ordered the turkey yet!

[BillyStubbsTears]

Got it!

The Telegraph may have taken down Warner's post, but the internet tends not to forget.

Here are his precise words, quoted back by Barry Eichengreen, another world-leading macroeconomist.

https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=QecwBQAAQBAJ&pg=PT361&lpg=PT361&dq=In+the+end,+you+are+either+a+big-state+person,+or+a+small-state+person,+and+what+big-state+people+hate+about+austerity+is+that+its+primary+purpose+is+to+shrink+the+size+of+government+spending&source=bl&ots=nEcAfmmcPv&sig=ACfU3U276ZZc1ndFXAIcnh0uVp4w3ZS9xg&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwjSgOD0jc_lAhWlSxUIHb9dDrkQ6AEwC3oECAkQAQ#v=onepage&q=jeremy%20warner&f=false

What he means in that quote by "pro cyclical" is key. Pro cyclical means Govt policy that accentuates the effects of the private sector. THE most important thing in Govt economic policy is not to be pro cyclical. That would mean boosting an economy that's already overheating, or, as in this case, sucking more money out of an economy that's on its knees.

What sensible Govt economic policy should be is anti-cyclical. When the private sector is booming too strongly, take the heat out by reducing Govt spending and increasing interest rates. Slow stuff down before it explodes. And when the economy is struggling (like in 2008- onwards) it is vital that Govt steps in and supports business by spending heavily and cutting taxes. That's what Labour did in 2008-10. That's what Austerity put an end to in 2010.

Warner, by admitting that Austerity was pro cyclical is admitting that the Right KNEW Austerity was hammering the economy. But they didn't care. Because it was all about an ideological drive to shrink the state.

People were conned about Austerity. The same people are being conned by the same people about Brexit. In both cases, intelligent people have been encouraged to support a policy that will hurt them badly, by people who have an ideological incentive to see that happen. What a deeply depressing decade.

[SydneyRover]

The mirror image was run in Oz starting off with Abbott's reign, dimmest of the dimmies getting into to power with the help of Murdoch to frame climate action as the great big new tax and then cutting everything he said he wouldn't whilst taking joy in 'cutting red tape'

Look at Oz now absolute ramshackle/zero energy policy.

Now we have state and fed gov'ts that are advised by contract accounting firms like PWC (pricks with calculators) and the like and accepting 'unsolicited bids' to build bad infrastructure on the pubic purse which 'pays for itself' via asset recycling which is the new name for carpetbagging.

[SydneyRover]

''Labour promises to remove all traces of privatisation from NHS''

I suppose you will have to look at the past records of the main parties to make a judgement of how things will turn out esp' when the economy comes under any pressure to know which party to trust with the NHS.

''The shadow chancellor, John McDonnell, has warned the public not to trust Donald Trump’s assurance that the NHS will not form part of post-Brexit trade deals as he committed Labour to eradicating all traces of privatisation from the service.''

there people in the UK that would trust Trump? nearly forgot for a sec there are people in Britain that trust Johnson 

''The number of operations cancelled because of staffing issues and equipment failures have each increased by a third in the last two years. In 2018-19, 10,900 were cancelled because of staffing issues, while 4,800 were cancelled because of equipment failures.''

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2019/nov/03/labour-promises-remove-privatisation-nhs-mcdonnell-trump

[big fat yorkshire pudding]

Interesting statistics Sydney.  I mean a better statistic would be the proportion % cancelled and looking at that trend over time. It may well tell a different story....

[SydneyRover]

Interesting statistics Sydney.  I mean a better statistic would be the proportion % cancelled and looking at that trend over time. It may well tell a different story....

Every piece of reliable data helps with the jigsaw bfyp

[big fat yorkshire pudding]

Interesting statistics Sydney.  I mean a better statistic would be the proportion % cancelled and looking at that trend over time. It may well tell a different story....

Every piece of reliable data helps with the jigsaw bfyp

Indeed, I'll find a link but I did see it was about 1%.  10 years ago it was 3ish.  There are now more operations thus the stats can be easily skewed. If you went the other way on a % so small you would be able to claim a huge success using actual numbers delivered successfully, thus a little misleading the article.

However, i assume they still strive for zero. As any cancellation is an issue, I just dont like the statistic and lack of context around it.

[BillyStubbsTears]

BFYP

You'll be wanting this link I guess.

https://www.nuffieldtrust.org.uk/resource/cancelled-operations#background

Percentage  of operations being cancelled has gone up by half under the Tories, after Labour spent a decade bringing it down.

Fascinating how often the facts support the argument that the Tories have systematically f**ked things up from the economy, to prisons, to the NHS, to social care, to poverty.

But folk still cling to this myth that the Tories are the competent ones. Because ...well I've no idea to be honest.

[SydneyRover]

bit like whackamole