I want all those who think cuts in benefit are right to read this.

[Leithlurker]

blacktrianglecampaign.org/2012/05/24/mum-june-heaneys-response-to-idss-lies-in-our-letter-450-signatures-to-the-daily-telegraph-which-the-telegraphs-editor-studiously-ignored/#comments

Very sad, but this government's policies are killing people.

I agree it is very sad.

Please post the cuts that are acceptable to you? Shall we cut teachers, firefighters, pensions, schools, remove oversea aid, or increase tax for everyone? Nobody likes cuts and taxes but the country has run out of money. Look at Greece for evidence of what happens when we don't balance the books.

jollydiane-

Start with reclaiming the tens of billions per year lost in tax evasion from corporations and offshore tax accounts, institute the Financial Transactions Tax, start taxing wealth instead of income, and start investing in public infrastructure, bringing the UK out of recession and bringing in higher tax receipts.

Then, and only then, can we start talking about making the public pay for a financial crisis not of their own making,

ttosca

Start with reclaiming the tens of billions per year lost in tax evasion from corporations and offshore tax accounts, institute the Financial Transactions Tax, start taxing wealth instead of income, and start investing in public infrastructure, bringing the UK out of recession and bringing in higher tax receipts.

If that money was so amazingly easy to access don't you think Gordon Brown would have helped himself to it by now?

And you can't spend your way out of a debt crisis.

Yes it is sad, but there really is no money left. That huge spending bubble that happened under Labour was entirely funded through borrowing.

Yawn (not to op)

This is not a crisis brought about by overspending, it is caused by bailing out stupid banks that should have been left to fail, and private savers compensated, instead of propping up a disfunctional system

We just happened to have more of those crappy banks than some other countries

Yawn (not to op)

This is not a crisis brought about by overspending, it is caused by bailing out stupid banks that should have been left to fail, and private savers compensated, instead of propping up a disfunctional system

We just happened to have more of those crappy banks than some other countries

mercibucket

This is not a crisis brought about by overspending, it is caused by bailing out stupid banks that should have been left to fail, and private savers compensated, instead of propping up a disfunctional system

Are we talking about different crises? I'm talking about the massive debts Labour ran up from 2001 to 2007 which meant that, when the credit crunch hit, there was no surplus to take up the spending slack that occurred when tax receipts fell. Do you know about those massive debts? Would you like to? Here are the spending figures for all governments from 1901, but pay close attention to Labour from 2001 onwards. Note the deficit run every year from 2001.

I don't disagree that the banks should have been left to fail. In a free market economy that's exactly what should have happened, but as we all know, Gordon Brown was anything but a free marketeer.

David Cameron should realize that it wasn?t the money spent on these benefits that brought this country to its knees, but the Bankers.

I disagree about the bankers bit but can't be bothered to write yet another long reply about why it's not. The subject's been done to death.

The point I wanted to make was though that it's irrelevant who caused it. It really no longer matters whether it was Gordon Brown, [http://images3.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20110405021004/villains/images/d/d3/Michael_douglas_will_be_gordon_gekko_again_in_the_sequel_for_wall_street_movie_main_10567.jpg Gordon Gekko]] or Gordon the Gopher.

The fact remains that we're unable to fund everything we were spending money on. We were only able to for so long because the government borrowed hundreds of billions each year whilst we (the electorate) turned a blind eye to the fact our kids would have to pay this debt back with interest.

But now the tide has turned. The era of cheap and easy credit has gone. Even for sovereign nations.

So where do we cut? I can't think of any popular spending cut, let alone one which would not affect those less fortunate.

flatpack-

If that money was so amazingly easy to access don't you think Gordon Brown would have helped himself to it by now?

No. New Labour were almost as much wedded to big business, the city, and the rich as the Tories are (the Tories received 50% of their funds from the City of London corporation). It's not that tax isn't accessible, it's that it's not politically feasible without the press turning against you and corporate donations drying up.

And you can't spend your way out of a debt crisis.

Well, you can. Spending money to stimulate the economy, which will in turn bring in larger tax receipts is not a new or controversial phenomenon. It has been been practiced for most of 20th Century since Keynes.

Yes it is sad, but there really is no money left. That huge spending bubble that happened under Labour was entirely funded through borrowing.

New Labour didn't cause the financial crisis, sorry. You may have noticed that most of europe and America, and some of our trading partners are also experiencing a recession due to the crisis. Are you saying Labour's overspending caused the financial crisis everywhere else too?

flatpack-

Are we talking about different crises? I'm talking about the massive debts Labour ran up from 2001 to 2007 which meant that, when the credit crunch hit, there was no surplus to take up the spending slack that occurred when tax receipts fell.

If New Labour ran a balanced budget, we would still be over 8% in deficit since the financial crisis. We were vulnerable no matter what, because of the huge amount of tax receipts we get from the City of London and the fact that we don't manufacture anything.

Do you know about those massive debts? Would you like to? Here are the spending figures for all governments from 1901, but pay close attention to Labour from 2001 onwards. Note the deficit run every year from 2001.

Note how the Tory scum ran a deficit every year - bar two - from 1979 to 1996. That's a streak of running a deficit for 15 years.

In fact, since the 1950s, most governments ran deficits most of the time. The state of the economy in 2007 was roughly 3% - just over the EU threshold. If you compare the block from 2002-2007 where New Labour ran deficits, with the previous block run by Tory scum from 1991-1996, you see that the Tory scum ran a total cumulative deficit of £222K, and New Labour ran a total cumulative deficit of £201K.

I don't disagree that the banks should have been left to fail. In a free market economy that's exactly what should have happened, but as we all know, Gordon Brown was anything but a free marketeer.

He was too much of a free marketeer. He deregulated the banks and continued the neo-liberal policies of the previous Tory administrations. Perhaps if he had been more of a socialist, then the UK might have been in a better position now.

We can speculate either way, but we know for certain that public spending was not the cause of the crisis or subsequent recession. That lies squarely at the hands of gambling Capitalists.

"Perhaps if he had been more of a socialist, then the UK might have been in a better position now. "
Errm no. The UK would be in even more debt right now if we'd had socialists in charge for 13 years.

amic - even if you accept that in the height of the crisis, yes, we did have to bail out the banks, there's a hell of a lot wrong with everything that's been done since. They (senior bankers) have got away with their ill-gotten gains while everyone else suffers. QE is just pouring more money down their greedy throats - they sure as hell aren't doing anything useful with it by, for example, lending to actual businesses in the real economy. And for all the vague words about rebalancing the economy, the govt. has done feck all to reduce our dangerous dependence on financial services.

While we are about it, let's put the accountants back in their box, where they should be, doing sensible things like audit.

Perhaps I am going off the OP subject but you cannot just 'order', growth. Business dislikes uncertainty. We all share the responsibility of the financial crisis. People should have not have borrowed beyond their means just as governments should not have made promises to people that they could not fund. We are all paying the price. Anyone who says there is an easy answer to this is deluded.

Hundreds of billions of pounds of the debt created by the capitalist financial system transferred to the public sector when we undertook a bail out of the banks, in order to prevent the catastrophe engendered by the ?free market?; now people make out that the blame for the economic debacle is the public sector.

That is a miracle and a godsend to right wingers, who desire a continuation of Margaret Thatcher's project for unencumbered capitalism, not diluted or made more humane by having a welfare state. This crisis has presented them with just the excuse they need to shrink the state.

If the private sector is hit and private businesses will not take risks, will not employ, will not research and stimulate demand through innovation, if banks will not lend and JOe public will not spend, then in the past the public sector and welfare has buffeted and prevented further decline and shrinking of the economy. Even without a massive stimulus package it provides some insurance.

Just look at micro-economics for a minute, take just one area, the north west as an example, without welfare payments people can not spend in their local economy, if teachers wages are also reduced (through an end to national pay bargaining) then this will compound the problem. Then add, closing shops and local businesses, failing schools and lack of training opportunities, anti-social behaviour, drinking/drug taking and a whole host of other social and welfare needs. The obvious solution to welfare needs is to meet them through community investment and action. But is it? because if you tackle the root cause of the problem, low wages and unemployment you have less welfare needs. if you fail to meet those needs through employing people to work on community projects and you refuse to pay teachers the going rate you...... compound the problem.

Now short of marching mr fat cat up the M1 and making him set up his business there, what are you going to do? As a government which believes that the private sector has all the answer (which it doesn't) they should either march him up there and make him invest his surplus capital or they have to invest in public sector, welfare, community, health, education and public works.

The UK?s sovereign debt varied up and down prior to the mid 20th Century, according to the costs of wars. In the initial and classical capitalist period, there was little or no state welfare, and the income and wealth of the rich was barely taxed; British sovereign debt was over 100% of GDP from 1750 to 1850, spiking at 250% of GDP in 1815 following the war against France.

Early part of the 20th century saw falling public debt but UK?s sovereign debt crept up to two and a half times GDP at the close of the Second World War.

It was then that what could be decribed as ?big government? The utilities and much of industry was nationalised and the main institutions of the welfare state were set up, mid-1970s, government spending was almost half of national production. At the same time as this rapid growth in government the sovereign debt was reduced much quicker than at any ime in history, that between 1946 and 1975 it fell from 252% to 45% of GDP.

A similar story emerges when the combined national debt levels of the G8 major capitalist countries are considered; their gross sovereign debt fell from 80% of GDP in 1950 to 35% in 1974, although the state was increasingly involved in owning or otherwise directing the economy, and overall state spending rose very steeply during that period.

There is some conjecture about Keynes and the American spending before WW11 and whether this pulled them out of the depression or whether it was the fact that America put almost every man & women to work making munitions for the UK at the start of the WW11.

Which ever, what is very clear is that, if America broke the back of the depression through Government investment and extending government welfare, then they created a big state! if the war brought them out of the depression but meant the UK had a huge level of debt at the end of the war because of one thing, it is a zero sum game, they got rich, we got poor, thats capitalism and globalisation for you. Except now the south east asia and china get fat whilst we starve and the only way to keep a non manufacturing, non exporting country going is public spending.

to say capitalism is the problem, you have to ignore how bad life was in communist states.

Have you lived under communism?

I am always amazed by people using that argument against public spending, the two are not the same. During the period 1945-1975 we had higher levels of public funding, more social mobility, better education, good public services, improving transport networks and we still had the greatest growth in the private sector seen since the introduction of steam.

Since Thatcher rewrote history and schools, universities and the media have bludgeoned our brains into believing capitalist free market myths, no one seems willing to question the slightest thing. Why? Because the river burst it's banks but the water isn't lapping at your toes! well in 15 years from now, it very well might be. It won't end here. Once the new welfare/health care/ environmental doom bubble bursts there won't be anything left for capital to chase. What then?

i travelled in Russia during Glasnost and it was a very miserable place to live.

Going back to an earlier post, if the Government went after the corporations and cut off the tax evasion loop holes would there not be a danger that the companies would move out of Britain and set up somewhere where the local Government wouldn't tax them so much?

The first government to stop flapping about and simply say they're raising taxes to a manageable level will get my vote

I am rather sick of people assuming every socialist is a large state, top down communist. I am not.

Communism had to embed itself against stiff capitalist class antagonism and pressures from the free markets/global powers around it. Communism is not what happened in Russia over a sustained period. You should read up because the bedding in period is necessary only where there is opposition and only over a short period. Unless you read Trotsky who had a theory about constant revolution. (which may well be unavoidable esp in the face of selfishness and individualism) but Chomsky is far more interesting, having adopted Marx's critique of capital and understanding that we need more democracy, it is the closest ideology to Marx's own. For those people who believe in entrepreneurial spirit, creativity and equality an end to "the money economy" where commodities are valued against money and money against gold offers, democracy, people power, human advancement and cooperation. Instead of endless idleness for many and work for a few, wealth for a few and poverty for the many.

Whilst I always like to rehash the economic arguments, as well as laughing my socks off at the free market apologists who would see this mess be much worse in order to defend their idealogical points of view.

But the point of the post was to talk about humans not figures, not numbers, not what system would we be better under. People are dying, this mother is at the end of her physicle and mental tether, numbers of homeless are on the rise. People cannot feed themselves and families. If you want to debate which politicle party would have not made this situation happen go ahead, people will still die, people will still be homeless, people will still go hungry. We are beyond who did what and what system would be worse. Unless of course you beleive as the present government does that those such as the disabled are just a drain on resources and by dying will help ease the burden. Although that hardly explains how they think the mother in this letter is a burden seeing as she paid NI for years, and saves the state millions each year in being the carer for her soon.

The issue is are we all so self absorbed and a product of state sponsered individualism and greed that we accept that our country, one of the richest in the world treats it's people like criminals by forcing them to beg for benefits, food, and self worth.

we do not need diffrent versions of the same thing we need something radicle and that puts the care of our citezens first. Money is always the root of all eveil, unless you start from a diffrent place then that will always be.