The point of my previous 3 posts is that perception and statistical reality are often different.
What has increased since then is the disparity of wealth and the means to escape poverty have been reduced. That dates back to the 1980s and the end of the post-war concensus.
Hear hear.
As I have made clear before, I believe that wealth inequality underpins pretty much all of the issues the UK is facing, hardly surprising when your family being mates with William the Conqueror means you are a billionaire today and large parts of the country revere a family with magic blood.
The arrogance from Farage here is so plain to seeâŚ
Itâs a pretty comprehensive dismantling of @jaffodâs point, but I think his opinion (which wonât have changed in the slightest) underpins my concern - that we are basically ungovernable as a nation.
By any objective measure, Labour left the country in a relatively healthy state in 2010, and the Tories left it figuratively on fire in 2024 - leading the country to and/or through such joys as Brexit, a catastrophically mismanaged Pandemic, and Liz fucking Truss. The damage to the country of these three episodes in incalculable. Labour have been back in for only a year, they have had an absolute shit show to deal with regarding the public finances, and yet their popularity is as low as the Tories ever was. Itâs absolutely mind bending how little slack and time they are getting.
A huge problem now is that the discourse is so dishonest, and so flooded with shit that itâs nigh on impossible to actually form a national consciousness based on evidence and facts. People are using social media as a primary news source, and the mainstream media is so dominated by the interests of the Uber wealthy that isnât much better. The media that is generally trustworthy is collapsing under the weight of economically unsustainability.
I have been wondering whether baling the banks out was ultimately the right thing to do. Kind of how we always socialise failure of the private sector yet never see any of the success. And whether that decision ultimately lead to Cameron / Osborne doing what they did afterwards?
Not really when you think thereâs a TV channel dedicated to taking this government down and installing one of their cronies. Thats before you look at social media as you rightly point out.
Exactly what I was trying to say earlier. Truth is gone. Itâs similar to Everton claiming transfer window victories.
If they had been left to go under, the government would have covered it up to ÂŁ50,000 per account at the time. The risk was that letting one bank go under would have resulted in a run on others. This may have ended up costing more as well as crashing the entire economy.
I think the real problems started with quantitative easing.
Brownâs handling of the financial crisis has been lauded in retrospect and itâs certainly true that he acted quickly while the rest of world was flapping about. It was probably his greatest moment.
But I think while bailing out the banks was the right thing to do (everyone pensions and savings would have gone down eventually) the banking infrastructure that came into public ownership should not have been so quickly put back in private hands. RBS at the very least should have been retained and repurposed as a national investment bank.
The Governmentâs approach was to get things back to how they were as quickly as possible, while it was an opportunity to make some really radical changes to his banking and finance work.
I used to think education was the way out of poverty, and it still can be, but we have turned education into a business and a product rather than something that can be used to elevate.
Do we have an education system that is fully fit for purpose or a society that cannot fully take advantage of it? Why not both some may sayâŚ
Yeah my memory is more than a little faded on it all to be honest. I do remember Iceland doing things differently though.
Just another one of my little thought experiments I guess. Was there a way that would have avoided austerity at all?
That said, I do believe the foundatiobs were laid before 2008 by several different governments. 2008 was the start of the collapse.
Youâre right about it not changing my opinion in the slightest. Youâre wrong about it âcompletely dismantlingâ my point.
Anecdotal I know. In early 2023 I suffered a medical problem, not an emergency but something that needed sorting straight away. I was seen by a doctor straight away and was in a hospital bed later that day. Tests, scans, treatments etc were all done and I was back out 4 days later. I couldnât have been treated any more efficiently if Iâd been a private patient.
Did I think the NHS was safe in Tory hands? Did I think it was a well run organisation going by own experience? Not a fucking chance. I was well aware that while I was well cared for you could find any number of people with horror stories to tell.
You can post all the graphs you want, ultimately they mean fuck all. Iâve no doubt someone could knock one up that shows Darwin Nunez is a more clinical striker than Isak.
Both Labour and Tory goverments have failed the eye test time and time again over the last 50 years. People have finally recognised that and have decided enough is enough and that will become evident in the next GE unless something drastic changes between now and then.
Is that a good thing? Almost certainly not but weâve been backed into a corner by 2 sets of incompetent clowns. Their motives may differ (although that is more and more debateable) but it amounts to the same thing.
Well using the quantitive easing money to fund public services rather than banks would have helped. Austerity is a political choice. It may be advisable to prevent inflation, but it is still a choice.
I think this is a huge tragedy. The UK is desperately short of people that need qualifications, or an education to a higher level (or both). And yet we have put obstacles in place of people achieving those levels. Itâs like you are deliberately washing out the soil beneath your foundations.
It was the deregulation of the financial sector started by Thatcher and Reagan, and continued by a succession of Prime ministers and Presidents in thrall to the financial markets.
I remember reading about the role derivatives trading, and in particular Credit Default Swaps, played in the financial crisis. They were the reason for the cascading effect. It was mostly banks obligations to pay out on CDS derivatives that led to it all spiralling out of control. Financial sector organisations selling products they didnât have the reserves to cover.
Some people got very, very wealthy off the back of the financial crash. That money went somewhere. And because of what happened when Cameron got in attacked the poorest people in society to claw back that money, the financial crash should actually be viewed as a massive transfer of wealth.
Why is this cunt in front of a committee in the US?
Another tour de force from Raskin. 
Of course you think that, and I refer you back to my previous point. Weâre ungovernable. Everyone is led by how they feel, and whatever opinion has popped into existence between our ears. Weâre conditioned be totally resistant to facts and evidence, and inured to believe not just that we are entitled to our opinion, but that our opinion is of greater value than the truth - no matter how ill-formed or ignorant that opinion is. No-one can ever acknowledge they are wrong.
Even in your post you are talking about âthe eye testâ and referring to a single anecdotal experience of using the NHS is 2023. This is piss poor, but to you it trumps all the data, all the facts, evidence, studies and so on.
The fact is that by every measure we have the NHS was much better under the Labour than the Tories. Patient satisfaction peaked around 2010 and plummeted under the Tories. Waiting times fell to a record low under Labour, and rose sharply under the Tories.
Thatâs could be the epithet for our civilisation.
Exactly⌠