The Good News Keeps On Coming

[BillyStubbsTears]

Mick.

What did you think of the match tonight mate?

[RedJ]

You know, it's funny how he never makes a football thread or post until someone mentions it. Then he goes and does a couple just to show them up.

Besides, I thought multiple accounts was a banning offence anyway?

[big fat yorkshire pudding]

Eh there's nothing wrong with PFI initiatives.  Well not in my line of work anyway   Plenty of benefits out of them that's for sure.

[BigColSutherland]

I have to comend Mick for his persistence and his ability to continue to infuriate people but keep them coming back for more.
I find it astonishing that people just cannot resist replying. Billy the case in point - says "bye bye" then comes back a couple of days later. What on earth is the point.

[IC1967]

Eh there's nothing wrong with PFI initiatives.  Well not in my line of work anyway   Plenty of benefits out of them that's for sure.

No doubt you and your company are making a nice fat profit out of PFI. Good luck to you. It's the taxpayer I feel sorry for. Labour didn't care how much things cost in the long run. They were all about short-term political gain. Well unfortunately for them, people like me have a long memory. No doubt there are many more people on this forum who also now have a dim view of what they did in power after reading my eloquent posts.

The good news is my good work will continue.

[IC1967]

What did you think of the match tonight mate?

Welcome back Billy, even if you are a bit off topic. I understand though. You are obviously unable to refute my excellent points so have resorted to diversionary tactics. As someone who always answers everything that is thrown at him (unlike others I could mention) I will answer your question.

I thought we played very well and were worthy of the 3 points. Its great to have Billy back. He's obviously given the club a big boost. I'm confident we will now stay up.

[IC1967]

Cameron and the tory party backed labour

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/5108584.stm

Is that the best you can do out of all the excellent points I've made? Not good enough. I've not read the link, but I'd be pretty sure that they only backed the war because they thought it was about weapons of mass destruction, which it clearly was not about.

Anyway, you can't absolve Labour of blame even if other parties supported what they were doing. They were the party in power. They take the credit or otherwise for what they did. Unfortunately for them it is almost all 'otherwise'.

[IC1967]

Meanwhile the rich get richer and the poor stay poor. Brilliant.

I have to disagree with you there. It's not brilliant. You are obviously rich.

Given the horrific mess Labour left behind, is it any wonder it's taking time for the poor to feel the full benefit of the upturn in the economy? People just need to be patient and the poor will get their just rewards in time.

[IC1967]

Number 16.

Abolished MIRAS (mortgage interest relief at source) making it even more difficult for youngsters to be able to afford home ownership.

Number 17.

Failed to build enough houses leading to prices going up exponentially.

[IC1967]

Linked to Number 17.

UK home building hits highest since 2007.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-25982505

[River Don]

Meanwhile the rich get richer and the poor stay poor. Brilliant.

I have to disagree with you there. It's not brilliant. You are obviously rich.

Given the horrific mess Labour left behind, is it any wonder it's taking time for the poor to feel the full benefit of the upturn in the economy? People just need to be patient and the poor will get their just rewards in time.

The 7 Walmart heirs are worth more than the lowest earning 40% of the American population. I see stats like that and wonder if capitalism works.

[BillyStubbsTears]

RD

That's the logical conclusion of the neo-liberal economic model that we all bought into under Thatcher, and that Brown and Blair kept going. We used to have a society that placed limits on how rich the very rich could get. We removed those limits over the past 30 years and we end up with stats like the ones you post.

The Right tell us that we have to let the very rich off the leash, because it's vital to incentivise them to make the economy work. There are two counters to that argument. The moral one is that, at the very top, is it an incentive to have 4 ocean going yachts instead of 3? But the practical argument is the killer. The simple, establish able fact is that economic growth in the UK and USA (the countries who most wholeheartedly embraced the neo-liberal agenda) has been LOWER over the past 30 years than it was in the previous 30 years. The argument that incentivising the rich will make us all richer is demonstrably false.

Some time over this next decade, the pendulum will swing back. We'll start reining in the bastatds who stole our economy in the 80s and 90s. We'll start to move back towards a fairer, more equitable society, where rewards are shared out a little more equally, instead of being obscenely concentrated at the very top.

It'll take ordinary folk like us realising that there was a revolution in the 1980s that gave unprecedented power and wealth to the richest.  If Capitalism is going to work for ordinary folk, there needs to be a counter-revolution. It's possible. It happened in the decades after WWII. There is no reason why it cannot happen again.

[IC1967]

Give me unbridled capitalism over unbridled socialism any day. If you like equality so much why don't you go and live in Russia? Eastern Europe flourished much more than the West under socialism didn't it. Whenever Labour have pursued even the mildest form of socialism they've always ruined the economy.

Anyway we have a more current example of where socialism gets you. It's called France. No doubt you'd rather we were pursuing the policies of their socialist president. Thankfully England is not socialist. It's Wales and Scotland that are and keep dragging us down. Surprise, surprise these countries are Labour leaning rather than Tory.

Anyway, what's wrong with getting fabulously wealthy. You talk as though the rich only spend their money on yachts. What about the likes of Bill Gates who spends a vast amount of his wealth on charitable works, as do the vast majority of the wealthy. Closer to home you only have to look at JR, TB and DW to find wealthy people who put their wealth to good use.

So take my advice, and take off those rose tinted socialist glasses and come into the real world.

http://taylormia.wordpress.com/2008/02/10/wal-mart-heir-leaves-home-to-local-charity/

[River Don]

I'm not anti capitalist, I recognise it delivers innovation and generates wealth like no other system we know.

However it's only working if it's raising all boats, so while the rich get fabulously rich the lives of the poorest are improving...

For the last five years that hasn't been the case, only the one percent have been benefitting and much of the reason for that is they have been bailed out by the rest of us. Socialism for the rich.

I wonder if capitalism can only work for the benefit of all in times of growth, what we are facing in the now are times of very minimal growth and probably given the pressure on oil supply a future where growth is a thing of the past. In such a future can capitalism still deliver for the greater benefit of the population or only for the few?

I suspect it won't deliver.

[IC1967]

Capitalism is far from perfect but it's much better than socialism. The problem with socialism is that it is a system that removes the incentive to work hard. Why would you work hard if others reap the same benefits with little or no effort? Socialism discourages productivity and innovation and works on dragging everybody down to the lowest common denominator. The only people that get rich with socialism are the people running the system.

[River Don]

I understand what you are getting at but I not a black or white person. I believe we live in an imperfect world and there is no perfect or pure system. Capitalist or socialist.

As it is we have to balance the two, which is probably the best we can hope for.

My worry is our whole society and political system is built on a notion of endless growth. It is all politicians on both sides offer, the imperative of a return to growth.

The problem is finding new growth is becoming quite a challenge.

[BillyStubbsTears]

RD

There's a far bigger story than just the last 5 years. There's been a similar theme for the past 35 years, with median wages rising at a fraction if the rate that the top few percent of earners have seen.

It didn't used to be like that. Between 1945-1975, we had perfectly respectable growth in a culture whereby it was considered unacceptable for the very richest to apportion the majority of the proceeds of that growth to themselves. That was the era of Social Democratic Capitalism in the West.

It worked perfectly well. It wasn't perfect of course. Many complained that Government was too interfering. They complained that entrepreneurialism was hampered by the fact that top tax rates were so high. They complained that unions were too strong.

We changed all of those features of capitalism in the 1980s. The result has been LOWER growth and more damaging recessions than we had in the previous era. But, crucially, those at the very top have seen a spectacular explosion in their wealth. Because they have been encouraged and allowed by the rest of us to keep the proceeds of growth for themselves.

A return to the politico-economic approach of the 1950s or 60s is not impossible. That was hardly "socialism". What it was was a more equitable and controlled form of capitalism. It seems to me to be infinitely preferable to the unchained capitalism of the past 35 years that lined the pockets of the wealthy, encouraged them to take ever wilder risks and left the rest of us to pick up the tab.

It's not impossible for us to change Capitalism.  But it is while ever the useful idiots who supported the neo-liberal revolution of the 80s without realising that they themselves were the losers, finally wise up.

[IC1967]

Come on all you lefties out there. Aren't you at least going to try to argue against the excellent points I've made on Labour's miserable record when in power. So far the effort has been abysmal.

By the way I've got plenty more examples over the coming days and weeks.

[IC1967]

It just keeps on coming that good news. UK construction sector sees rapid growth.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-26030086

[IC1967]

Alleged cost of living crisis to turn around this year, IFS says.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-26048205

By the time of the next election Labour will have nothing to moan about.

[IC1967]

Number 18.

Ruined final salary pension schemes.

Number 19.

Sold off our gold reserves at the bottom of the market.

Number 20.

Brought in a target led culture into the NHS which led to the scandals at Mid Staffs NHS Trust and other hospitals.

[IC1967]

Another one of Labour's foxes has been shot. The UK is seeing the right kind of growth. At the rate the good news keeps on coming Labour are looking set for a devastating defeat at the general election.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-26128700