Double Dip Recession

[Voidka]

So if the Tories dont have a Plan B, what are they going to do now? (Not including blaming the last government even though they have been in power themselves for 2 years!)

Well of course the wealthy billionnaire should write the austerity plan - only someone as far removed as possible from the reality of it could possibly make the difficult decisions. Just as it's so much easier for us to contemplate starvation in Africa than it is to contemplate it in the UK. If it isn't you, it's all theoretical. Might as well turn running the country into a fun board game for all to play. The winner can be Prime Minister for a year.

'Might as well turn running the country into a fun board game for all to play'

But haven't we had enough of socialist snakes and ladders. Was it fun to kick the ladder out from under the feet of the bourgeois and send them back down everytime they managed to get their foot on the ladder?

That may have amused Red Robbo, but that is the politics of the Yobbo.

Claig, this thread was/is about the double dip recession, do you have any ideas about how we can climb out of the recession or indeed any great insights about economics and how we can reform the system so that so many people are not thrown into penury every time crisis hits.

Wasn't it fun to kick the ladder out from under everyone's feet and send them back down when individuals in banks got reckless and the powers that be wined and dined them?

And now all the wealth is readjusting so that... oh, let me see, now... the richest before the crash are even richer still after it, but everyone else is considerably poorer and there aren't any ladders left on the board.

The ladders were all sold for scrap as nobody was actually using them for work any more, and the proceeds were given to the banks to pay off debts.

Our absolute poverty levels in the UK are much much better than in the 1920s. I was reading our family letters yesterday from that time. Whether of the right or left msst of us are glad of the welfare state provision that we now have. The poor are not considerably poorer than historicaly they have been. We have always had recessions and this one will pass. Markets move in cycles. Anyone who doesn't like capitalism is free to move to North Korea or Cuba or even China.

'do you have any ideas about how we can climb out of the recession or indeed any great insights about economics'

Yes nationalise the banks that are bust and force them to invest in businesses and public works. Tax any idle capital that is being sat on by companies so that they are forced to insert it back into the economy.

claig - I can never quite work out whether you are really really left wing or moderately right-wing. Am I confused or are you?

But the markets won't be happy, so none of it will happen.

I am a bit of both. I take the best of both, because I am for the 99%, not the 1%.

That's why I am not a Green.

Thanks Xenia,I like the idea of a commune, somewhere away from all the crap.

Whether of the right or left msst of us are glad of the welfare state provision that we now have is this thanks to rising prosperity or the weird dialectic that means that our deeply flawed system creates a need for welfare? Why is welfare being attacked under neo-liberalism and the need for austerity. Funny how in times of crisis even the fire dept is under more pressure, let alone police/justice but what do we do, cut services.

'is this thanks to rising prosperity or the weird dialectic that means that our deeply flawed system creates a need for welfare?'

It is due to the success of capitalism, which has created teh wealth to pay for welfare. Many third world countries have no welfare, no safety net.

Capitalism is the goose that lays the golden egg. Regulate it, but don't kill it. Don't vote for zero growth and even negative growth which is against capitalism and is the policy of the elites.

I am with the merchants, the traders, the workers, with commerce and trade. I am with the people who were looked down on throughout history by the aristocratic non-working elite. I am with the 99%. I am for capitalism and growth, not zero growth and even negative growth.

You still can't explain how a compound 3% growth can be achieved , because it can't. Do you want a McRipOff on every street corner, do we want uncle sam to keep up his hungry imperialistic war on the middle east? I bet you think 10oz steaks are great for cows

If you kill it you are stuck. Look at the Greeks, some on the streets because after 4 years all your benefits stop, even if you need money for your diabetes and your food. If the poor are not careful in the UK and if tax rates go up too much the rich will feel so put upon they will simply move elsewhere which is pretty easy to do for many of us. 75% of people in the UK take from the system and 25% of us pay in more than we take out. The 25% are getting a bit fed up from all this public criticism. I could not work 6 or 7 days a week. I could sit around but I have all my benefit claimants to support not they appreciate me or may efforts, they just sit there green with envy whilst castigating me.

"If the poor are not careful in the UK and if tax rates go up too much the rich will feel so put upon they will simply move elsewhere"

Why, because they want to find other workers and markets to exploit, so go right ahead, oh........that's globalisation. So what's new. Have you read any of this thread Xenia.

'I bet you think 10oz steaks are great for cows'

I think 10oz steaks are great for people. I believe in feeding starving people. I don't believe that people will need to start eating ants in the future as Newsnight was reporting on recently. I think that is a lie of the elite, unlike them I believe in the value of meat.

I don't believe that cows' methane is harming the planet and has caused us to pass the "tipping point" and that we should cut down on eating healthy meat. I think that is another lie of the elite.

Unlike so many socialist campaigners, I don't think that there are any McRipoffs. They provide food at a relatively cheap price to people who want to buy it and they provide tens of thousands of jobs and give money to education and charity.

Regulate food to remove transfats and GM etc., but don't kill the people's golden goose by letting elite socialists on the loose (who look down on the people's choice for McRipoffs just as the aristocrats looked down on the workers and merchants).

Right now at this later hour in McRipoffs up and down the land, ordinary people can drive through and buy meat. That is great. There was a time when shops all shut at 5, when the nation didn't thrive. But now workers are busy working, and people are spending and eating. But the elite call these facilities ripoffs, because they don't need or use them. They are anti the prosperity of the 99%.

As Xenia says. Setting up businesses and taking risks and investing capital and working 6 or 7 day weeks is not easy and doesn't necessarily lead to success, but business people take those risks and create employment for millions of others.

Don't deprive people of employment, don't promote zero growth, don't kill the golden goose. Don't fall for the media propaganda of the 1% who don't struggle to pay the rent.

Don't think that 10z steaks are not good enough for you. Don't welcome the elite's austerity and zero growth, don't believe their lies that one day we will all have to eat ants.

Don't start claig on the eating ants thing or this thread will go right off course...