Did you know there was a huge demonstration in Manchester??

dandelion

Superior Member
Verified
Gold
Joined
Sep 25, 2009
Posts
13,297
Media
21
Likes
2,705
Points
358
Location
UK
Verification
View
Sexuality
100% Gay, 0% Straight
Gender
Male
sorry? what were we talking about? It was a couple of hours ago and i cant remember. Oh, luckily I can read the thread.

There was a chap on the radio just now, a retired businessman by the sound of it, who said he had asked his bank what return they could give on a large sum of money. 0.5%. Then he asked how much it would cost to borrow that same amount of money, 10% or more. He said the bank manager said he had never known a time when the bank was earning such a high margin between what it paid and borrowers paid.

Now, I understand why banks want to do this. They are bust! They need as much money as they can claw from anywhere. But their gain, on the strength of money we have given them, is our loss because it is the people who actually have a use for this money, which might help this current disaster, who are being punished and prevented from having it.
 

Jason

Superior Member
Verified
Gold
Joined
Aug 26, 2004
Posts
15,639
Media
62
Likes
5,013
Points
433
Location
London (Greater London, England)
Verification
View
Sexuality
90% Gay, 10% Straight
Gender
Male
the paradigm is that only left wing parties make bold right wing actions and only right wing parties make left wing acts. The right can behave socialist bcause there is nowehere for offended voters to go and vice versa. So there is still hope that the conservatives will introduce measures to cut the banks down to size, wheres the left wouldnt dare.

I'm less and less convinced that the left/right paradigm is useful in politics. What is useful is the economic policy split between Euro-Socialist Keynesian and Anglosphere Anglo-Saxon/Austrian. In France for example all major parties appear to be Euro-Socialist Keynesian. In the USA both parties seem ideologically Anglo-Saxon but capable of a bit of Keynesian heresy when elections get close. In the UK the Conservatives have been Anglo-Saxon since Thatcher (Heath was Keynesian), while all UK Labour governments have been Keynesian (though Blair started off Anglo-Saxon before relapsing). Curiously the LibDems in government have accepted the Anglo-Saxon model, and some comments out of their conference suggest that they could not go into coalition with a Keynesian Labour party.

Broadly Anglo-Saxon policies are being followed in Ireland, Nordic, Canada, Australia, NZ, Japan. Germany is conflicted. France, PIGS are broadly Keynesian.
 

dandelion

Superior Member
Verified
Gold
Joined
Sep 25, 2009
Posts
13,297
Media
21
Likes
2,705
Points
358
Location
UK
Verification
View
Sexuality
100% Gay, 0% Straight
Gender
Male
I'm glad you left the UK off your list of countries following anglo-saxon policies. Britain is currently following a Keynsian path of borrowing in bad times and repaying in good. Greece would seem to be the one seriously trying to become Anglo-Saxon and it isnt going very well.