Mainly in reply to Dandelion:
Have we all woken up to the horrible reality of Labour's privatisation of Higher Education? Under Thatcher and Major it was free - free places plus grants. Now after the Blair-Brown years we have students taking on very big debts. Labour has increased inequality, hurt the poorest, denied education to the poorest. Thatcher's higher educational policies were a socialist utopia compared with the Labour policy of kicking students in the balls (well this is lpsg!), the Labour policy where the poorest are screwed though the rich may flourish.
Are you a conservative supporter by any chance? You seem to be working to perfect the con's election manifesto.
Ok, your post was written earlier, but for the third time correcting this point about education, THATCHER (and major) were the people who started cutting state support for university students. The original grant was supposed to be equivalent to a working wage, so a working man with family could afford to go to university. The claimed intent of labour's position on higher education is to increase the nubers of people going to university. This they have done. Whether this is a good thing is quite another matter, and in the process they have refused to spend any more money... passing on the additional cost to the students. The conservatives have no plans to restore pre-Thatcher student grants or abolish tuition fees, so essentially they agree with the policy.
By and large I would say Labour has increased equality of education. Before, a much smaller number got a much better education and a larger number got as bad or worse education. This is circa prime minister Harold Wilson we are talking about. The conservatives, under Margaret Thatcher, endorsed these changes. Which is not say this change was good either.
There is an Irish reply to someone asking for directions "if you want to get to there you don't start from here". This is the economic position that Club Med and Ireland are in. In order to get their economies into the position they should be in in order to be part of the Euro they shouldn't be where they are right now. If they were outside the Euro right now and applied to join they would be refused.
In theory internal devaluation will work. This is what Ireland is trying. If you can get your people behind you so that there is a broad consensus in favour then in theory it will work. Ireland might pull it off - lets hope they do. They certainly dserve a lot of credit for the reasonably broad consensus.
Greece lacks such a consensus ......They don't have consensus for internal devaluation so either it will fail or it will be pushed through by putting the army on the streets to break strikes and protests. Yes of course devaluation of a currency makes a nation poorer, but it holds the nation together.
Britain was in exactly this same position in the 1970-1980s (roughly). debt out of control. wage strikes because wages were too low and unrealistic expectations. Devaluation caused inflation...which just led to even bigger wage rises. It solved nothing. The matter was only resolved when things became so bad that the public as a whole realised it had to stop. The fuss just now about the british airways strike is peanuts compared to what happened back them. We had candles at school because there were regular power cuts.
So it may be the sooner there gets to be a real mess in Greece the better. All this talk of devaluation and soft landings is useless if the Greeks do not use the breathing space to make changes. devaluation is not a solution, just a stopgap. It would gain nothing except give the government more time to rack up even bigger debts. Once a situation gets so bad it is hopeless, then the sooner there is a crisis which knocks sense into people, the better. The day the government stops paying because it has run out of money, will be the day people agree to changes. That will be the time for emergency loans once they agree to the way out.
The whole business did enormous damage to british industry, the current restored affluence of the country is probably only due to windfall north sea oil. But all the time it went on just made matters worse.
Spain's approach is different. They are not launching a Greek-style austerity programme, and so unemployment is at astronomic levels. The reality for Spain is that the government could not carry through an austerity policy. There just isn't the popular appreciation of its need. Rather Spain awaits a change in public sentiment which will only happen when the markets move against Spain (by which time it will be too late). Spain is making the decisions it is making because it has no choice. Ditto Portugal and Italy.
We seem to have a fundamentally different approach. You say 'devalue' and the market will automatically correct. I say 'that never worked for us'. Until whichever country accepts that it is paying itself too much, nothing can be done. The reality is that countries need to adjust to the real world as is, as represented by the euro. They have to adapt to the euro, not the euro adapting to them. The euro is not outrageously overvalued. It stands at a reasonable rate for a modern european country which aspires to remain a modern european country. Once they do this, in the long run they will be better off.
"Vote Conservative or become a lot poorer".... Vote Conservatives for hope. Vote anyone else for inevitable poverty that will hit the poorest in our society hardest.
Did you paste this from a draft speech? Ok, maybe thats a bit unfair but I don't go on about how much better this country would be if the lib dems win the next election (and it would!). If you want to debate a point don't talk in slogans?
Even if Brown et al have the best possible economic policies and Cameron et al the worst possible this situation will still apply - the markets will support Cameron and dump Brown.
here you go again. Thats bull. If the markets prefer Cameron that is only because they think they will make more money with him in charge. I don't see that as a good reason to go for Cameron.
There's nothing democratic or fair about markets. And the ones who are set to get screwed are the poorest, the very ones who might work for bully Brown.
So Cameron is proposing a major boost in house building and restoration of council house construction? That is a clearcut way of helping the poor (aside from also rescuing the economy).
Spain cannot get real - the people are not behind austerity. And in the end why should they?
well of course its their funeral, not ours. But a siesta lifestyle sound to me it is one which accepts a lower standard of living for a quieter life. Thats what I do.:smile: