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!)

'But Claig they really are'

When you say that, do you mean that the people are really stupid? I linked earlier to a socialist New Statesman article which asked "Why we don't believe it?" about global warming. It was wringing its hands asking what could policy makers do to convince the people that global warming is real.

Despite all of the think tanks, the Oxbridge brains, the BBC and the media conditioning and shock tactic adverts, the people (not as stupid as Marx thought) still don't believe the great and the good.

Capitalist are in favour of green taxes because the costs will be met by consumers and the need for new technologies open up new areas of market exploitation. Incl in areas such as the financial markets in derivatives etc,

"There is a need to tackle environmental degradation, such as pollution of rivers and seas due to industrial chemicals or nuclear waste. Dropping depleted uranium doesn't help the environment. There is a need to rein in the GM frankenfood enthusiasts"

Who caused this as yet unmet need? who will profit from the need to create new technologies and new markets?

Yes you are right about the derivatives trading of carbon credit.

The green taxes on business are slowing growth and increasing energy prices for consumers, which prevents them buying other goods to keep the wheels of teh economy growing. That is why, fortunately, Osborne has slowed some of the drive to green taxes down, despite the much of the media and political class howling him down. He even said something like we will not bankrupt Britain to save the planet.

We need growth, we need prosperity. People are suffering, and some people would like zero growth.

"The green taxes on business are slowing growth and increasing energy prices for consumers, which prevents them buying other goods to keep the wheels of teh economy growing" and that is a very interesting dialectic and one of the major flaws in capitalism, a complete contradiction and irrationality.

Competition for consumers is at the heart of how we live now, generally speaking a need will be made from the servicing of another and companies are competing and are not inclined to act rationally, its what some economists call rational irrationality. They do not act in accord they act independently and in competition, whilst one pollutes the rivers, another makes a new technology that will mop up the mess.

Whilst the worker/consumer is paid low wages which makes greater surplus capital for his employer, the employer competes to offer his commodity at a lower price. (this makes ever greater surplus capital that must find new markets to invest in) Whilst the worker/consumer is screwed financially and can not meet his unmet need for commodities (except through credit/as in this crisis) and pulls back from buying some things, the capitalist will find a new market/a new commodity where the consumer has little choice but to purchase. This is being seen with the public/private nexus in health and welfare as well as new green technologies.

But not all capitalists are in effective monopoly areas such as energy. For instance, delivery companies are hurt by increasing fuel prices and they can't just put up their prices because the big suppliers squeeze them and force them to be competitive with the thousands of other delivery companies.

Increased energy and water prices (some caused by green regulations) are like a tax on the public, and that tax harms consumption and the economy as there is less money in people's pockets.

You have hit the nail on the head and somehow still fail to understand please............

The market is irrational and competitive. Capitalism is a whole made up of individual competing interests.

In driving up costs in land, natural resources, petrol, rent, interest rates etc... the business must find other ways to compete on price, this may be lower wages, fewer hrs, less regulated labour markets, pension rights, shorter breaks, greater production/out put either per worker or use of new technologies/machines, relocating nearer to the inputs of a business such as water, workers, lower taxation etc. This in turn brings down the price of a commodity but it is a no win situation for the consumer/worker who is constantly squeezed by new markets/goods/taxes and lower wages. The oil company doesn't give a fig if food prices rise in much the same way that the green tech company rejoices when another river gets polluted.

A really good read that will explain this much better than me is the Enigma of capital and the crisis of capitalism.

Yes, the market doesn't work like a clockwork system, like a planner's dream or a socialist's scheme. The market is just like people. People have different, conflicting, competing opinions. That is freedom and democracy. A planner cannot force people to follow their plan and scheme.

The market allows companies to fail if they do not provide services for people at a price that they wish to pay. The market is the board on which companies play, but the market is not planned, it cannot save companies from failure.

The beauty of the market, just as teh beauty of people and elections, is that the results are unplanned and that governments or companies who do not listen to the people get voted out or go bust. There is a wisdom in the market, which is the voice of the people and not the planner.

Markets need to be regulated and policed; there must be rules, just as there are rules in society for people. But companies, just like people, should not be excessively squeezed or over regulated or over taxed, since then they will not be able to grow.

People need an environment in which to grow and so do companies. That is why parties that are business friendly are good for business,

Thanks, I will look at the book, "The Enigma of Capital"

Yes and indeed if you cannot fail you don't do much. If you have your job in the Soviet toilets whether you turn up or not and keep your job at Heathrow as an additional immigration inspection even though the routine is first spend 45 minutes at a breakfast, then tour the airport, 3 or 4 additional meal breaks a day...Give people an inch and they take a mile as they are made that way.

Failure and risk of failure is good. It's why we get out of bed in the morning and seek to feed our families. If the state provided all people would do nothing, just as if you give everything to children on a plate they go wrong, why millionaires ensure their children are not given large sums early on.

"A planner cannot force people to follow their plan and scheme"

No but countries do, the financialization of imperialist expansionism has led to a huge military threat and financial threat to other countries in our race to command natural resources. We have made a consumer society in the west reliant upon the exploitation and imposed poverty of the global south & African countries. This is seen through the oil and ownership of the means of production in Nigeria and the rebuilding of Iraq, the IMF conditionality attached to the loans to poorer states and the way in which the WTO polices trade between nations. Of course it's becoming inverse and turning upon itself now because the EU is also in hock to the IMF and the banks which shows that the system is deeply flawed, a consumer can not be just a producer and vice versa.

The book is brilliant and very clearly written and raises a lot of very interesting points about global capital and about how finance is pushing poverty aside both geographically and socially, how it moves it's problems around the system and around the world.

But we know what the plan of the planners is. It is to impoverish us and move oiur jobs abroad through globalisation. It is to harm the growth of our businesses by green taxes which we are told will "save the planet". It is to create low growth, zero growth and even negative growth and to transfer wealth to poorer countries to create a balanced world which is easily manageable.

We know that living standards have declined, that we have to work longer, retire later and will receive worse services as welfare is cut. We know that we are in decline and we know that that is part of the plan to slow our growth. And some newspapers tell us that it is because capitalism has failed. It hasn't failed, we are just subject to the plan.

I don't agree there are global forces at work. Most countries want their own to do well. Most of us are in a much better state than in say the 1920s in the UK. if we end up with less in 2012 than say 2000 does that matter? If the less is stioll being fed and watered and given money does not bring personal happiness should it really matter if one nation is better off in money terms than another?

"the market doesn't work like a clockwork system, like a planner's dream which is exactly why we have competition and the interesting contradictory and unintended outcomes. That was discussed up thread, I thought everyone understood this to mean that the markets are free.

And yet Claig you go on to tell us that some mysterious power is at work behind the scenes that "plans" austerity and poverty, decline and the movement of capital to poorer countries. Could this be what Ricardo refered to as the hidden hand! or simply a consequence of allowing the markets to dictate and individual investors/businesses to decide where to go in search of untapped potential.

I don't know about Ricardo. What does he mean by "hidden hand"?
I think it is planned by planners and is not just a coincidence.

Sorry, no it wasn't David Ricardo, it was adam smith, but the term relates to his idea that the markets regulate themselves.

Do you believe that Thatcher planned to take on the miners and that Thatcher planned to increase unemployment to break the unions and bring inflation down?

I think it's very important people are open minded to consider that there may be more international co-operation between people or nations than perhaps we think. I am not sure there is any evidence for it and it would be great if we could get more women up there with influence and power and money.

We do have more of a rule of law here and in many places including Russia and we are lucky to live in a relatively free society here in the UK.

Yes, she did, one of her ministers of that time admitted that was the case.

Exactly. And do you think that teh Greens are joking when they say they want an "optimum population" for the UK and the world?

Do you believe that some policies are ideological and that people and parties have agendas?

Do you think that powerful people implement their agendas and create crises which will bring about their agendas?

Do you think that Thatcher accelerated her plan to take the miners on in order to get them to strike early, after she had stockpiled extra coal?

Powerful people don't react to events, they plan ahead and create events that lead to the outcomes that they want.

Whgen you watch events unfold on the news, you need to ask whether they were accidental or planned?

The Euro crisis and the austerity is no accident.

A lot us feel hugely grateful to Lady Thatcher of couse.... but let us leave that to another thread. She has a huge fan base including amongst women.

I suppose the most green solution to this planet is not to have humans on it but humans can be so full of themselves they seem to think our continuing to be here is something we should all work towards. I am sure mother earth doesn't think like that.

I am a fan of Thatcher.

Yes, that type of thinking is becoming partially more prevalent.
But Mother Earth or the green Gaia doesn't actually think, it is us humans who think.

Sir Ken Robinson, the creativity guru, quotes Jonas Salk, discoverer of thr Polio vaccine, in one of his speeches on education.

'If all the insects on earth disappeared, within 50 years all life on earth would disappear. If all humans disappeared, within 50 years all species would flourish as never before.'

This type of thinking is slowly becoming more prevalent.

The Club of Rome, the elite group which produced the 'Limits to Growth' document which has influenced much green thought, have the following mention on wikipedia

In 1993, the Club published The First Global Revolution.[5] According to this book, divided nations require common enemies to unite them, "either a real one or else one invented for the purpose."[6] Because of the sudden absence of traditional enemies, "new enemies must be identified."[6] "In searching for a new enemy to unite us, we came up with the idea that pollution, the threat of global warming, water shortages, famine and the like would fit the bill....All these dangers are caused by human intervention, and it is only through changed attitudes and behavior that they can be overcome. The real enemy then, is humanity itself."[7]

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Club_of_Rome

Your information seems to have been taken out of context. Having read all of it and had a look around on the Club or Rome website it seems that what is actually meant is that states will find an enemy because history tells us they will. It is better to try and create a GLOBAL threat that will unite nations.

I agree some of the people that belong to the Club seem to be members of other groups but do I think it's part of a conspiracy to prevent growth, no.

This is from their document on the prospect for full global employment.

"In an increasingly globalized labor market,
current nation-centric theories and models of employment need to be
replaced with a human-centered global perspective complemented by
new indicators that recognize the central and essential contribution of
employment to human economic welfare. Employment and economy are
subsets of society and their growth is driven by the more fundamental
process of social development. A vast array of unmet social needs combined with an enormous reservoir of underutilized social resources ?
technological, scientific, educational, organizational, cultural and psychological ? can be harnessed to dramatically expand employment
opportunities and achieve full employment on a global basis"

The above doesn't sound like a manifesto for no growth. In fact much of what it says (utopian maybe) makes a lot of sense except for the fact that it's aims can't be achieved through our current system of production and exchange.

Their book 'Limits To Growth' is teh best selling environmental book of all time.

This is from wikipedia

'Soon after publication prominent economists, scientists and political figures criticized the Limits to Growth. They attacked the methodology, the computer, the conclusions, the rhetoric and the people behind the project.[19] Yale economist Henry C. Wallich agreed that growth could not continue indefinitely, but that a natural end to growth was preferable to intervention. Wallich stated that technology could solve all the problems the Meadows were concerned about, but only if growth continued apace. By stopping growth too soon, Wallich warned, the world would be "consigning billions to permanent poverty".[19]'

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Limits_to_Growth