Quote: sglen @ October 31 2013, 10:59 PM GMTI know it's very unGuardian of me but it kind of annoys me when people complain they can't get the job they want straight away, as well.
How do you feel about people apparently being priced out of the expensive areas (say, the unemployed pushed out of Kensington or Islington) they wish to live in?
Quote: Aaron @ October 31 2013, 11:04 PM GMTA pig with a pair of underpants tied to the end of a muddy stick is a better alternative to the current US system.
It's pretty scary debate-blocking when pro-NHS campaigners present the US model as the only alternative, isn't it? Scum.
Well tragic in the microcsm in the NHS of care for the learning disabled, opening the system upto market forces has created a massive inarguable improvement.
The NHS proved it's self simply incapable of looking after vulnerable people long term.
I mean voting with the red button on my remote, or by text message.
No tricks, maybe just a karaoke sing-off in the event of a tie?
Quote: sootyj @ October 31 2013, 11:07 PM GMTWell tragic in the microcsm in the NHS of care for the learning disabled, opening the system upto market forces has created a massive inarguable improvement.
The NHS proved it's self simply incapable of looking after vulnerable people long term.
Hardly a surprise to some of us that a state-provided one-size-fits-all system proves incompetent and incapable, particularly in the hugely complex and delicate area of mental health... 
One thing I would like to add is that the post-war economic miracle in Germany occurred with Social Democracy. Brandt in particular was a very kind and brilliant man. I find it hard to think of any better leader. In Scandinavia, it was Social Democracy and the success there was stunning. In Germany now, we think not incorrectly of Merkel as right wing but she is very keen indeed to work with trade unions. The culture there is certainly not like the French with a Socialist Government but it is entirely different to what is now this little America. So the idea that Everything Friedman is the only answer is a myth and it's unravelling.
Quote: Aaron @ October 31 2013, 11:06 PM GMTHow do you feel about people apparently being priced out of the expensive areas (say, the unemployed pushed out of Kensington or Islington) they wish to live in?
Housing benefits a fascinating benefit, by giving the needy control of the funding for their own housing. It wiped years of slum landlords and bad housing, not to mention gave back real control to the recipient.
The problem is it's an open ended benefit based on market forces. So it's become economically unsustainable, not to mention creating a disasterous imbalance between wages and benefits.
And the money for that pot is being sucked out of other benefits and services.
I think it could have been done better, but the government of either party was going to have to restrict it.
The NHS is one of the things that makes me most proud to be British, I would really hate to see it go.
Quote: AngieBaby @ October 31 2013, 11:01 PM GMTMaybe politics needs to become more like BGT!
Put the politicians on prime time TV on a Saturday, give the public the chance to vote. We've only ourselves to blame then.
It tends to be grey, drab, detail orientated bores who are the quiet people that make real change in government.
Plodding from debate to debate, slowly building consensus.
The idea of more Boris Johnsons outside of light entertainment should be genuinely scary.
Quote: Horseradish @ October 31 2013, 11:09 PM GMTOne thing I would like to add is that the post-war economic miracle in Germany occurred with Social Democracy. Brandt in particular was a very kind and brilliant man. I find it hard to think of any better leader. In Scandinavia, it was Social Democracy and the success there was stunning. In Germany now, we think not incorrectly of Merkel as right wing but she is very keen indeed to work with trade unions. The culture there is certainly not like the French with a Socialist Government but it is entirely different to what is now this little America. So the idea that Everything Friedman is the only answer is a myth and it's unravelling.
And, having experienced the horrors of hyper-inflation, the trade unions are equally eager to work in conjunction with businesses and politicians to keep wages and costs reasonable. That's a massive and hugely underrated factor in Germany's success in recent decades.
Quote: Stylee TingTing @ October 31 2013, 11:21 PM GMTAaron? The money supply?
What's gonna happen when people get educated about the impossible equation of paying back loans + interest?
The bankers loan the world x and demand back x + interest. There isn't enough money in the global money supply for everyone to pay back the loans + interest, without MORE loans + interest being 'granted'.
When the poorer get educated to this scam, someone's gonna be hanging up by the ankles.
And that's the magic of national debt.
Of course, since grammar schools were abolished, you can rest safe in your beds that very few people will ever come close to realising this, certainly not the poorest, working class types at the bottom of the shit heap.
Quote: Stylee TingTing @ October 31 2013, 11:31 PM GMTYes, but what about the liberal lefties? Will they remain content just to post on here?
They already control most of the media in this country and its narratives. I don't think we need worry much about them.
Quote: Aaron @ October 31 2013, 11:16 PM GMTAnd, having experienced the horrors of hyper-inflation, the trade unions are equally eager to work in conjunction with businesses and politicians to keep wages and costs reasonable. That's a massive and hugely underrated factor in Germany's success in recent decades.
Well, there are comments that could be made. The British guys came back from the war and insisted rightly on change. The different classes had been in battle together. The perspectives today of dinosaurs are typically modish. At the time, it was all unquestionably modern. Churchill - who I rate quite highly - was already getting on a bit and initially resistant but even he accepted it. He was sufficiently pragmatic to get re-elected in the early 1950s. He continued with the reformed systems that Labour had introduced after 1945. Labour had been kicked out in 1950-1951 essentially because they were knackered. Nearly all of the Cabinet were old men who had waited ages for their moment, done what they could and run out of steam.
Neither Labour or the Conservatives did badly in the period 1945-1966. Back in 1945, Cabinet Ministers had been panicking privately. We were truly bankrupt. There were exchanges about the very real prospect of mass starvation. The public weren't told because the extent of national instability that would have caused would have done what the Germans hadn't succeeded in doing. So it was that Maynard Keynes, an ill man, went to the States for a loan and was rejected. Churchill then had to use his American connections to get a loan. And within years we had the NHS and eventually after a decade the end of rationing. A minor miracle.
But it was largely built on consumer demand. Industry was depleted so perhaps it had to be. There were few alternatives. Around 1960, so wonderful was it all that we didn't have enough people to do the jobs, hence greater immigration. Houses were bought. Car ownership rocketed. The workers had been told to consume. Consequently they wanted to consume more. Demands were ultimately outlandish because of that encouragement and were even giving Barbara Castle a headache by the late 1960s. The oil crisis in 1973 changed things dramatically. It was the key factor. I think the price quadrupled overnight. Between 1973 and 1979 many demands were to maintain a standard of living rather than to improve it. But they could be painted as feckless because of what had occurred immediately before and their actions became desperate.
It all could have been avoided. Had people been given more political power rather than economic carrots, the story would have been very different. There are arguments for and against PR but the absolute resistance to it within the Establishment is telling. So too the way the public utilities were then run. It is that lack of people power - I prefer to describe it as an ability to assume greater management responsibility - which is fundamental to the unions' focus on money and Margaret Thatcher's subsequent clampdown.
This is a few pages long.
It did remind me of an argument I had with the landlord of a pub I was working in.
I was saying that I didn't want to vote.
He was going mad saying that people had died for the right to vote & that I had to.
And I was trying to argue that people died for the right to vote, not for being forced to vote.
But I think I mostly voted when I had the chance.
92 Green
97 Labour
01 Didn't vote
05 Conservative
10 Conservative
Does no one else think that Labour were awful during that time?
Apart from the Iraqi's obviously.
I voted in an election that made a difference, in 1994 in South Africa, I know how important voting is. But when you don't identify with any of the parties on offer, what difference can you make?
