Posts by Angus Robertson
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tl;dr?
What was the alternative to what Thatcher did?
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Hard News: Thatcher, in reply to Russell Brown,
The monetarists came in everywhere -- and as Rob notes above, at the very least, they achieved much-needed price stability everywhere they had policy influence.
They did for a while, but then 5 years ago they disappeared - in the EU, the US and Japan current policy is to inflate the monetary supply. So its are back to square 1. The monetarists are no longer in power.
Maggie Thatcher had a country with an industrial base that was incompetent at being industrial. British cars of the period were crap. She recognised this sort of thing was a problem and decided the solution was to stop subsidising the production of crap cars. The end of subsidy destroyed the British industrial base and a lot of people involved have despised her ever since. She dies, is vented upon.
But its all just history right?
Except the sort of thing she stopped is happening again. Only this time it is mostly a financial sector which is incompetent at being a financial sector (ironically her reforms deregulating the sector contributed to this). Today the western financial sector is subsidised to the hilt. Bankers are Tories and the Tories are bankers. The Tories are going to go right on socialising the losses of a financial sector whose bankers take ever greater risks, because they literally cannot lose money. Maggie could not get near top of todays Tories.
So its up to the left to do something. Since what Maggie did was awful and horrible and the almost worst possible thing in the world (just marginally less so than torture) we can pretty much assume it isn't going to be - let the unprofitable banks go bust.
But fortunately....
Its been said the alternative to what Maggie did was so much better and she was just a total stuck up [insert gendered/neutered insult here]. It is assumed that everyone knows* what the alternative was. Well I don't know and would really like to know.
* possibly everybody knows nothing and just pretends to know. -
Hard News: Thatcher, in reply to Bart Janssen,
Yes some things were a mess, but it wasn't necessary to use the methods she and her government used in order to make the changes Britain did indeed need to make. They chose a path they knew would cause significant personal harm - and forty years later some of those people remember the very personal harm for which she was responsible. Yeah it's Ok that those people are still angry.
That might be a lesson that some of our current politicians might learn before they choose the path of most harm.
Our politicians have learnt the lesson.
The situation in Britain in the late 70s bears some pretty strong similarities to what exists in Britain (and Europe today). Both times there are institutions that are inefficiently crap at what they are supposed to do, but politically to big to fail.
Maggie Thatcher chose a neo-liberal remedy so is reviled by large numbers (and applauded by others). Francois Hollande now is trying a very different route and is also very unpopular. They are dammed for doing.
The only way to avoid being unpopular is to do nothing to solve the problem, kick the can. The problem gets worse, but the politicians are safe in mediocrity.
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Hard News: Thatcher, in reply to Graeme Edgeler,
Yeah, but you can't say it.
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Hard News: Thatcher, in reply to JacksonP,
As the pragmatism included the brain fart of floating the New Zealand dollar, yeah, if only there HAD been an alternative.
The main alternative is what just occurred in Cyprus, except more so.
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Some climate change considerations in play.
A - To produce aluminium from bauxite the most climate friendly way is a modern plant powered by nearby non-emitting generation - for example: Tiwai Point.
B - Lowering the cost of power to a western consumer society has in a climate change context been proven the worst possible thing that can be done to the planet ever.
In this choice between A (good for the planet) & B (insanely bad for the planet) congratulations to the government for making the right choice, for all the wrong reasons.
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Why don't we have free left turn on red?
Its a rule that would improve safety for pedestrians.
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Hard News: Done like a dinner, in reply to BenWilson,
Surprised that the supposed champions of the free-market, our neoliberal overlords, aren't all over making it as easy as possible. But that presumes they actually have any real talent for organizing even such a simple thing as this, a solution completely in line with their supposed economic theories.
You fail to appreciate the zen-like qualities of neoliberalism - that if the government doesn't build it, they will come. So that as people realise for themselves, with almost no assistance from the state, that something is worthwhile doing the neoliberals congratulate themselves and say "we made that happen, by doing nothing".
Not that we have neoliberal overlords in this country.
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Inside every pensioner, there is a teenager asking what the fuck just happened?
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Hard News: Fact and fantasy, in reply to Steve Barnes,
To deal with twatcock politicals, knee their idiosyncracies