Au Revoir SARKOZY

dandelion

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Tell me about the Tories in the 80's.
Created the British property boom/disaster. Started bank deregulation and closed down socially owned financial institutions (building societies, friendly societies). Took an extreme line on non intervention in the private sector which was understandable as a reaction to the previous 'subsidise everything' line, but equally bad. Sold off natural monopolies such as utilities to the private sector. I find it ludicrous that water companies were sold 20 years ago with 20 year plans to invest in the infrastructure and fix the massive leakage rate....but its just as bad as ever and new 20 year plans have been introduce. Solved absolutely nothing. Introduced the poll tax to discourage poor peole from voting and cut property taxes on the rich (removed millions from the voting register), and we still have poll tax light and capped property taxes. Started a war with Argentina which has cost a fortune over the subsequent years. off the top of my head...


In what you quoted, I was talking about the debt crisis.
So was I. Private individuals may vote for spending policies whichrun up debt, but the politicians have told them it will be fine. are you saying the people are to blame because they have not spent the time necessary to work out the politicians are lying?

I don't buy the blame game, I think everyone has responsibility to burden.
Ok, next time your house gets burgled, you go to jail because you failed to make it secure enough and so encouraged crime.
 
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Jason

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I don't have to be nice when I'm arguing. Nobody ever is going to admit their wrong, so why don't I have fun with it?

People on this thread have admitted they are wrong, changed their views, found more sophisticated views. People are learning on this thread. Yes it is fun, but it is more than just that.

Most people using this thread are polite and considerate to other users. The general rule of polite debate is that posters may criticise an idea, but not a person.
 

dandelion

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In what you quoted, I was talking about the debt crisis.
So was I. Private individuals may vote for spending policies whichrun up debt, but the politicians have told them it will be fine. are you saying the people are to blame because they have not spent the time necessary to work out the politicians are lying?

I don't buy the blame game, I think everyone has responsibility to burden.
Ok, next time your house gets burgled, you go to jail because you failed to make it secure enough and so encouraged crime.

Debt is a gamble with someone else's money, only we have a banking system in which that money doesn't have to exist. Until of course the bet goes bad, then suddenly it becomes real and causes the liquidity problems that drive up the value and cost of real money.
And who was explaining that to the voters before 2008?


People on this thread have admitted they are wrong, changed their views, found more sophisticated views. People are learning on this thread. Yes it is fun, but it is more than just that.

Most people using this thread are polite and considerate to other users. The general rule of polite debate is that posters may criticise an idea, but not a person.
See, our Jase has got it.
 

Jason

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Created the British property boom/disaster. Started bank deregulation and closed down socially owned financial institutions (building societies, friendly societies). Took an extreme line on non intervention in the private sector which was understandable as a reaction to the previous 'subsidise everything' line, but equally bad. Sold off natural monopolies such as utilities to the private sector. I find it ludicrous that water companies were sold 20 years ago with 20 year plans to invest in the infrastructure and fix the massive leakage rate....but its just as bad as ever and new 20 year plans have been introduce. Solved absolutely nothing. Introduced the poll tax to discourage poor peole from voting and cut property taxes on the rich (removed millions from the voting register), and we still have poll tax light and capped property taxes. Started a war with Argentina which has cost a fortune over the subsequent years. off the top of my head...

Dandelion, I know you are not Maggie's number one fan, and I certainly agree the Thatcher/Major years got things wrong. But the UK of 1979 had recently had an IMF bailout and was a bit of a basket case. That Thatcher got the nation back on it's feet and able to deliver goodies to most was quite an achievement. Both the achievements and the problems have to be remembered.
 

ConanTheBarber

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Taibbi is probably the best and most visible writer on the finance industry right now, and he is very good.

I'm quite aware of that, boy.

I don't know that you've read enough of him, though, if you think he's above being rude and insulting.

I've read quite a bit of him.
What you needed to pay attention to is the word "gratuitously."
Taibbi is good enough to write his own rules.
You are not.
You are simply a pain in the ass, in thread after thread.

I wasn't dissing Taibbi.

Obviously. But then our little friend would have nothing to get petty about.


If you treated these threads as a discussion rather than an argument (that you wish to win for some reason), then everyone would be a lot happier.

Again, obviously. But we are fighting the wind.
Some very difficult and very deeply patterned personality issues, I'd say.
 
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D_Davy_Downspout

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Most people using this thread are polite and considerate to other users. The general rule of polite debate is that posters may criticise an idea, but not a person.

Ah yes, people in this thread are above getting personal:

I'm quite aware of that, boy.

You are simply a pain in the ass, in thread after thread.

Obviously. But then our little friend would have nothing to get petty about.

Some very difficult and very deeply patterned personality issues, I'd say.

:rolleyes:

And lets not forgot the many Perados comments as well.


Anyhow, I use this forum for blowing off steam. I'm not going to take the time to craft huge effort posts with piles of links, because we still have all the people who argue in bad faith, type huge all caps shit-and-run posts, or just post racist shit.

I'm polite until people are not, generally, but tone doesn't really matter. If I'm a dick and right, and you're very polite but saying awful, awful things, you're still an awful person. I've read plenty of forums where people very nicely said unbelievably misogynist and racist things, and that's totally cool because they said them nice. Tone is irrelevant.
 

ConanTheBarber

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Anyhow, I use this forum for blowing off steam.

Well, that's not what people do in this thread, so why don't you post elsewhere?
You can post many places, as you know.

I'm not going to take the time to craft huge effort posts with piles of links, because we still have all the people who argue in bad faith, type huge all caps shit-and-run posts, or just post racist shit.

Well, that's a good argument for not posting at all.

I'm polite until people are not, generally ....

There's no sign of this.

.... but tone doesn't really matter.

Of course tone matters.

If I'm a dick and right, and you're very polite but saying awful, awful things, you're still an awful person.

"If" is a big word.
Who says you're right?
What in this thread can be called misogynist or racist?

I've read plenty of forums where people very nicely said unbelievably misogynist and racist things, and that's totally cool because they said them nice.

Maybe you should go read a book.
Or maybe get some manners. Just a few.
 

dandelion

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Dandelion, I know you are not Maggie's number one fan, and I certainly agree the Thatcher/Major years got things wrong. But the UK of 1979 had recently had an IMF bailout and was a bit of a basket case. That Thatcher got the nation back on it's feet and able to deliver goodies to most was quite an achievement. Both the achievements and the problems have to be remembered.
The question was about what bad things happened at that time. At that time these things did not seem so bad, nor might they have been bad had things later been done differently. But as it did turn out, Thatcher oversaw a total turnaround in perceptions of how things should be done, and these have led us to where we are now. As I remember it, Thatcher's first term covered essential changes in the UK where the relationship between unions and companies and regarding state subsidies for bankrupt companies fundamentally changed. Successive following Thatcher parliaments increasingly were looking for new ideas about what to do next and produced more extreme results. Tony Blair seems to have been a great fan of Thatchers. Possibly he admired her abilities as a politician and at getting her way, but her policies too rubbed off on labour. Anyone arguing labour failed to control the banks over the last 20 years has to accept that labour was still following the Thatcher policy.

Views tend to swing from one extreme to the other. Neither extreme has produced good results. Thatcher herself was perhaps more careful and cautious than she is given credit for. She might have surprised us by doing things differently and better had she remained in power, but equally she was the leader and as such presenting the collective policies of her party. cameron too has problems with his right wing clamouring for extreme actions.
 
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ConanTheBarber

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The question was about what bad things happened at that time. At that time these things did not seem so bad ....

Do you think? 1978-79 was the Winter of Discontent. Gravediggers, refuse collectors, lorry drivers and rail workers were at various times on strike. Picket lines prevented hospitals from taking any other than emergency patients. (Some cancer patients were not getting essential, life-saving treatment. There was even musing that, lacking graves, the dead should be buried at sea.)
At the beginning of 1979, you had the biggest labour action since the general strike of 1926.

It seems to me that if things didn't seem so bad, then it was because the British public, three years after the UK government had had to take a £2.3 billion loan from the IMF and confronted on all sides by signs of decline, were inured to all the bad news.

They were almost like the frog who, being boiled to death slowly, sits in nonchalant bliss, unaware that he has a problem and will soon have no problems.

That said, your opinion columns were full of gloomy prognostications, and I think polls showed many British were "maturely" accepting that history had assigned them to a pronounced and permanent downward slope.

Anyone arguing labour failed to control the banks over the last 20 years has to accept that labour was still following the Thatcher policy.

As you know, we don't quite agree on this. If I were prime minister (heaven forfend), I would feel very weak if I had to defend policies that were becoming a demonstrable mismatch to current problems on the mere basis that my predecessor had followed them.
And most especially if the predecessor I had in mind had left office two decades earlier.
(Of course, I can't deny that general policy directions do gather momentum, sometimes a great deal of it. There's something to be said on that side. But that's nobody's fault ... simply an effect of personal and group psychology.)

Views tend to swing from one extreme to the other. Neither extreme has produced good results. Thatcher herself was perhaps more careful and cautious than she is given credit for. She might have surprised us by doing things differently and better had she remained in power ....

We'll never know, but I think that could well be true.
 
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dandelion

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Do you think? 1978-79 was the Winter of Discontent....
Misunderstanding. If you read the past posts, the question asked was what bad actions the Thatcher government took itself.

If I were prime minister (heaven forfend), I would feel very weak if I had to defend policies that were becoming a demonstrable mismatch to current problems on the mere basis that my predecessor had followed them.
hmm. Cameron's argument seems to be that labour got everything wrong but he does not plan to change much.
 

ConanTheBarber

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Misunderstanding. If you read the past posts, the question asked was what bad actions the Thatcher government took itself.

Oh. Okay. I was confused by the fact that you were responding to this post from Jason:

Dandelion, I know you are not Maggie's number one fan, and I certainly agree the Thatcher/Major years got things wrong. But the UK of 1979 had recently had an IMF bailout and was a bit of a basket case. That Thatcher got the nation back on it's feet and able to deliver goodies to most was quite an achievement. Both the achievements and the problems have to be remembered.

To which you responded:

The question was about what bad things happened at that time.

But you meant in the ensuing years. Okay.

hmm. Cameron's argument seems to be that labour got everything wrong but he does not plan to change much.

Now that's momentum run amuck.
But you like interesting times, don't you, Dandy?
 

Ryan10

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Sarkozy was an hopeless president, austerity doesn't work. Socialism is the way forward for Europe.

I just hope the British public see sense in 2015 by electing Milliband. Cameron and the Tory's cut backs have been a disaster for the country.
 

Jason

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The point is that in the present mess the ONLY alternative to austerity is financial meltdown on a scale never before seen. The concept of growing our way out of this particular mess is fantasy.

We've seen the Troika dictate to Greece and an unelected technocrat rule in Italy. If Hollande pursues his threatened policies he will drive France into bankruptcy - no hedging, no ifs, it's a certainty. In the world that is now emerging the international financial community will step in. A failed France cannot be tolerated.

The same goes if the UK public are daft enough to vote in Labour - national bankruptcy followed by an imposed technocrat to run the country.
 

dandelion

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Oh. Okay. I was confused by the fact that you were responding to this post from Jason:
No I wasnt, someone elses if I recall. 'The Question' was literally a question someone asked and I replied.

Now that's momentum run amuck.
But you like interesting times, don't you, Dandy?
I think thats politics, criticising your enemies for doing what you do too.

I just hope the British public see sense in 2015 by electing Milliband.
Last estimate i saw I think said the local election result would have equated with a 93 labour majority. Conservatives brush this off as 'mid term blues', but more like mid term reds. They didnt win the last election and have gone down.

Drifter, today someone on R4 was talking about whether managers of big companies effectiveness is related to their pay. Might have been on 'More or less', which is a program which discusses topical statistics and whether they are true or not. A swiss study of the top american companies found no relation between how much money the directors were paid and how much money the company made. A similar result was found for FT 100 UK companies. The investigators did find that privately owned companies paid lower wages. They attributed this to better shareholder control over pay levels.

The point is that in the present mess the ONLY alternative to austerity is financial meltdown on a scale never before seen. The concept of growing our way out of this particular mess is fantasy.
Sounds more like hyperbole? However, I am very sceptical whether growth is likely. Apparently UK government prediction currently is that borrowing can be brought down to pre-crash levels by 2035. I dont know if they mean as a proportion of GDP, which seems the most popular way to express debt nowadays, which would mean a numerical figure somewhat higher than 2007.

If Hollande pursues his threatened policies he will drive France into bankruptcy - no hedging, no ifs, it's a certainty. In the world that is now emerging the international financial community will step in.
The impression I got was that what the financial community likes is a plan. They may like his plan when it gets announced.
 

Drifterwood

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Sarkozy was an hopeless president, austerity doesn't work. Socialism is the way forward for Europe.

I just hope the British public see sense in 2015 by electing Milliband. Cameron and the Tory's cut backs have been a disaster for the country.

I'm not sure that I would vote for anyone whose sole achievement in life is playing the political corporate ladder.

Do you think that what you see and have in Europe was in any way a benefit derived from socialism? As far as I can see, socialism has never created a wealth foundation from which welfare benefits are afforded.

So was I. Private individuals may vote for spending policies which run up debt, but the politicians have told them it will be fine. are you saying the people are to blame because they have not spent the time necessary to work out the politicians are lying?

Ok, next time your house gets burgled, you go to jail because you failed to make it secure enough and so encouraged crime.

And who was explaining that to the voters before 2008?

If you didn't make it secure, you may find that your insurance won't pay out.

Regarding responsibility for ignorance, you will have to ask Gordon Brown. The debt boom and bust rests wholly at his door. I have been alive during two periods of Labour Government (admitedly I was only 10 when maggie came in) and both have near bankrupted the country.

Sadly the nature of our politics is short termism and so sadly is the mentality of many perhaps most voters. I am not sure which is the chicken and which is the egg. Germany's success by contrast is rooted in key long term policies and practices from which nearly all benefit.
 

dandelion

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I'm not sure that I would vote for anyone whose sole achievement in life is playing the political corporate ladder.
Then you want to ban career politicians from standing at elections?

Do you think that what you see and have in Europe was in any way a benefit derived from socialism?
We come back to what is the definition of socialism. Undoubtedly, yes. Without socialism it would not matter how much money companies or individuals made because none of it would have gone to the majority of the population who would still be serfs. But also the amount of money made by these lucky individuals would have been much much less because unless there is a market with money to buy your goods, you cannot sell them. It doesnt matter how fantastic a washing machine you design if no one can afford electricity.

Regarding responsibility for ignorance, you will have to ask Gordon Brown. The debt boom and bust rests wholly at his door.
Why? Exactly what did any of the several leaders of the conservative party say about this at the time? Did any one of them say banks were out of control and needed reigning in? Did any of them call for massive government cuts? Why would I blame him if even his opponents did not suggest he was wrong?

I have been alive during two periods of Labour Government (admitedly I was only 10 when maggie came in) and both have near bankrupted the country.
So you blame the labour government in the Uk for the collapse of the US banking system? How exactly does that work?

Do you accept yet that there is no link between pay and performance (as has been found to be the fact of the matter in actual big companies)?
 

Drifterwood

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Then you want to ban career politicians from standing at elections?

When there are several potential conclusions, you always seem to pick the least logical one Dandy.

We come back to what is the definition of socialism. Undoubtedly, yes. Without socialism it would not matter how much money companies or individuals made because none of it would have gone to the majority of the population who would still be serfs. But also the amount of money made by these lucky individuals would have been much much less because unless there is a market with money to buy your goods, you cannot sell them. It doesnt matter how fantastic a washing machine you design if no one can afford electricity.

The Black death put an end to Serfdom. A simple matter of supply and demand in the labour market.

Why? Exactly what did any of the several leaders of the conservative party say about this at the time? Did any one of them say banks were out of control and needed reigning in? Did any of them call for massive government cuts? Why would I blame him if even his opponents did not suggest he was wrong?

You would blame him because his policies allowed it and he didn't regualte it. Simples.

So you blame the labour government in the Uk for the collapse of the US banking system? How exactly does that work?

Gordon allowed banks to lend at 8 times people's unproven salaries. We have our own toxic debt, we are just managing it by subsidising .5% base rates.

Do you accept yet that there is no link between pay and performance (as has been found to be the fact of the matter in actual big companies)?

Again, you take half the information and make a cock-eyed conclusion.

Pay over a certain amount doesn't affect performance. You may be surprised that there are people who like to achieve.
 

dandelion

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The problems we have are not political in their nature. However, attempting to solve them via politics will undoubtedly make things worse IMHO.

They are, you know.There are lost of different countries around the world with different ideas about government. Some of these have weathered the collapse much better than us. The obvious example is Germany.Why is germany doing beter than the US or UK? I suggest the answer is not about technical detail but about the mindset and ideology of the people. This is the sphere of politics. So, how do we learn to be more German?