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Politics

The true reason for deficit cutting.

90 replies

ivanhoe · 21/05/2013 13:02

David Cameron is using the deficit as a cover to dismantle the welfare State and the role of the State for the above mentioned reasons, but none of this reality is being picked up by either Labour Ministers, Lib-Dem ministers, or the BBC Media. This reality is being dumbed down. The BBC media is compliant.

The very fabric of the role of what the State should provide in tax payers money to welfare, services and State pensions, is being whittled away under cover of reducing the deficit, and there is no opposition to it.

The Tory mantra of making painful cuts to reduce the deficit is little more than a smoke screen they hide behind to implement their ideology of reducing the size of the State, driving down wages, cutting benefits ect.

My guess is that they'd make pretty much the same decisions for ideological reasons even if there wasn't a deficit.

The cynic in me says how easy it is for the right wing comfortably well off, greed infested Tory supporters to ridicule and chastise people on the receiving end of Tory cuts in welfare. And how equally easy it is for the right wing press to encourage this, just to sell their papers.

The Thatcherist, hard line, anti social policies the Tories are forcing on us all makes them feel superior. And they perpetuate the suffering while living in their comfy homes without a conscience.

The Tories pretend to care about the pensioners having to choose between heating, or eating, the Tory's pretend to care about the family's wondering how they are going to feed their children today and tomorrow.

The Tories since Thatcher have been the same !

No longer a small "c" left of centre Conservative party with a good social conscience.
No, since the 80's they have been ultra right wing, hardnosed, and with no compassion but to condemn the poor to a life of misery and no hope so long as they can live in relative luxury.

This is how they want it, to keep the masses under their eternal control. The Tories only aim is power and control.

For that reason the Tories love it when the economy is bad, so bad that they blame the masses of poor for it. It is malicious and insidious.

And what makes it even more appalling is that the Tories actually do believe they are superior intellectually to everybody else.

This will be their downfall!, and I hope that this will be at the next general election in 2015.

The Tories deserve to be out of office for decades to come, if only to stop their bare faced arrogance.

Food banks in 21st century Britain, is as bad as the chronic homelessness we have, the awful old age poverty, and the low waged economy the Tories have nurtured throughout their 18 years of running Britain, 1979- 1997, and I might add, New Labour under Tony Blair and Gordon Brown, 1997- 2010, did nothing fundamental to reverse any of it.

Britain has suffered Thatcher's ideology for over 30 years.

Ivanhoe.

OP posts:
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MiniTheMinx · 21/05/2013 17:02

The elite right wing corporatists and their puppets are waging a class war.

They have spent three days deliberating over side show identity politics......gay marriage as a distraction and the right wing media are lapping it up.

We do not have a free press. In the states four major corporations own all media from news to kids TV. The picture is much the same here.

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sweetkitty · 21/05/2013 17:06

Agree with everything you have said Hmm

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ttosca · 21/05/2013 20:13

MPs Get 30% Pay Rise, Average Worker Gets 20% Pay Cut

It was announced yesterday that MPs could receive a 30% pay rise, seeing their wages rise £20,000 a year to £86,000. Meanwhile, the average wage earner in the UK has seen their wages drop 20% in real terms since 2008. The government is certainly Making Work Pay?just not for 99% of the population.

Increased access to personal debt (credit cards, loans, store cards, buy now pay later, hire purchase etc.) has been masking the expanding gulf between cost of living and wage inflation for decades.

In the ten years between 1999 and 2009, the annual salary rose 13.6%. During the same period, house prices went up 130%, a loaf of bread went up 147%, and a litre of petrol went up 42%. This goes some way to accounting for the fact that personal debt rose during this period by 158%.

In the last five years, wages have increased by just 10%. The UK Essentials Index which focuses on the kinds of everyday items which the UK?s working and non-working poor buy, showed an inflation rate of 33% during the same period. This means that for the poorest working people, their wages are worth 20% less than they were back in 2008.

It?s getting worse. In the UK today, the cost of living is rising at four times the rate of wages. In fact UK wages are falling faster than any other ?developed? country. As a result, the three most expensive benefit payments in the UK are not ?out of work? benefits. 65% of the total spent on working age benefits, is going to people in work.

Tax Credits, Housing Benefit and Child Benefit, totaling £56.4bn a year, have been set up for the taxpayer to subsidise poverty wages.

The non -poor are also facing cuts in their income under the guise of austerity, with the average disabled person in receipt of state support losing £4,600 a year.

The Wage Hike of the 1%

The same Executives cutting their employees? wages in the name of austerity were simultaneously approving inflation busting pay rises for themselves.

The average pay of Executives in the FTSE 100 rose an average of 12% in 2011 alone, with 25 companies boosting Executive pay by 41%.

The Banking Sector, whose excesses led to the banking bailout that triggered ?austerity? ? are enjoying bumper bonuses.

The aptly named Rich Ricci, Head of the Barclays Bank investment division, received a £17.5m bonus on budget day this year. It would take the average worker 656 years to earn this much.

RBS received £45bn from the UK taxpayer in bailouts after its investment division brought the bank to its knees. Yet, in 2010, RBS increased the bonus pool for its investment arm by 5%, despite making a loss that year.

The MPs who facilitated the lax regulatory system which allowed for both the bailout, the exorbitant bonuses and the executive pay rises, will now receive their own reward. As of 2015, MP pay will rise between £10,000 (15%) and £20,000 (30%) a year. On top of this, our 650 MPs claim almost £90m a year in expenses ? £138,461 each per year, no top of their salary.

We are not ?all in this together?.

The most important realisation the average UK citizen can make now, is that there is no such thing as austerity. What is actually underway is a transfer of wealth, from the have nots to the have lots. The government is not cutting spending, it is 4% higher now that in 2008. It is transferring spending from public services that help the poorest in the land, to tax cuts, wage hikes and privatisations that help wealthiest in the land.

One cannot simply wait this thing out. While the majority remain procrastinating moderates, the noose is simply tightened around our collective throats, choking off the possibility of a fight back. In the words of Mark McGowan, The Artist Taxi Driver ? even if you think you cannot stop this madness; as an absolute minimum you put up a resistance.

To quote an African Proverb, made famous by the Dalai Llama:

?If you think you are too small to change the world, try sharing a room with a mosquito.?

Be the mosquito.

Take Action

Sign the Petition ? for no MP pay rises while they continue with austerity.

The Artist Taxi Driver is making a movie called ?Its Not a Recession, It?s a Robbery? going around the country interviewing those being enriched and defrauded by austerity. You can sponsor the project here.

UK Uncut ? join the campaign to get wealthy people and corporations to pay their fair share.

Time Banking ? become a part of the new economy ? of time not money. You can use skills and talents to earn time bank credits, and cash them in for goods and services from others.

scriptonitedaily.wordpress.com/2013/05/20/mps-get-30-pay-rise-average-worker-gets-20-pay-cut/

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MiniTheMinx · 22/05/2013 09:18

Petition signed.

I agree, "What is actually underway is a transfer of wealth, from the have nots to the have lots"

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purits · 22/05/2013 09:42

My guess is that they'd make pretty much the same decisions for ideological reasons even if there wasn't a deficit.

Surely you cannot object to ideology.Shock What you really object to is that someone dares to have an ideology that differs from yours. Left wingers always want to force their views on others, they cannot abide free will.

Haven't read the rest of the thread. Too long and ranty. I stopped when I got to the bit where you frothed at others daring to have different views.

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wannabedomesticgoddess · 22/05/2013 10:02

When someones "different view" leaves families homeless and/or starving I think its fair to object.

The necessity for food banks in this country in this age is disgusting. Utterly disgusting.

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niceguy2 · 22/05/2013 10:12

Food banks are there to plug a short term gap usually caused by a specific reason such as a delay in getting benefits. Certainly the one I volunteer at, that is one of the common scenarios for the customers. They do not continually dole out food.

Their existence isn't as a result of ideology but the fact that our benefits system is complicated, bureaucratic and takes too long to process claims.

Yes the fact that more people needing them is sad but as Ttosca I'm sure will agree with me, this is as a result of the global recession.

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TheFallenNinja · 22/05/2013 10:16

What a fantastic conspiracy theory.

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wannabedomesticgoddess · 22/05/2013 10:20

So why are the richest in this country continuing to get richer? If theres a global recession and a deficit here, why are banks (that we bailed out) still paying out bonuses? Why are MPs salaries going up by 20%?

The global recession is now nothing more than something to hide behind. Its a poor excuse used to explain away the poverty in this country.

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ThreeDudesOnABus · 22/05/2013 10:23

So?

Why shouldn't we dismantle the welfare state? It'd make things interesting around here for one when the idle have to get off their fat arses and start working.

The left has this crazy idealogical idea that the state must provide employment and/or benefits for all. Idealogy gone mad.

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wannabedomesticgoddess · 22/05/2013 10:25

And thats me out.

Cannot be arsed trying to explain to another (insert bad word here) why they are full of shit.

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niceguy2 · 22/05/2013 10:30

Threedudes, you are simply trolling. No-one reasonably wants the welfare state to be dismantled. In reality it's nowhere near being 'dismantled' despite the left wing rhetoric.

Even IDS has admitted that despite all the changes and 'cuts'. That all the coalition have managed to do is slow the rate of growth.

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pumpkinsweetie · 22/05/2013 10:31

I agree with wannabe.
At this rate, next year it will be like old victorian times of many homeless living on the streets. Disease and malutrition sweeping through the uk, children without food or anywhere to sleep.
Yes cuts needed to be made, but i think David Cameron has gone too far-This will be the end of the conservatives, as nearly everyone is a loser under them, unless you have money flowing from your earholes.

Rant over

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Abra1d · 22/05/2013 10:35

We spent too much money over the last twenty years. Period. We can never ever return to those days of splashing it around. People like my husband, who will probably never work again, having been made redundant two years ago at the age of 57, are the victims, but there was something inevitable about it. Other cultures are hungry, do not have huge welfare budgets, and will work for less and now we are a global workplace there is no way of 'protecting' ourselves from them.

Very, very harsh times. And wait until interest rates go up. A lot of people have actually prospered in the last two years because mortgage rates have gone down. That will change at some point--they will shoot up.

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wannabedomesticgoddess · 22/05/2013 10:53

If "We" spent too much why is it only the poor who are suffering so badly?

Yes theres the "squeezed middle" but squeezed isnt the same as starved.

There is a whole section of people in this country who are not affected by the recession or the cuts, a large chunk of that group could even be blamed for the high spending etc. "We" are not in this together at all.

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pumpkinsweetie · 22/05/2013 11:00

It's all very well say "we spent too much money", but that isn't an excuse to throw people out on the streets and starve them is it?!

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pumpkinsweetie · 22/05/2013 11:03

And in answer to the ops question, the real reason for the cuts is a Class divide-Pure and simple.
The conservatives have always aired onside with the mega rich and always been at war with the poor.

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niceguy2 · 22/05/2013 11:03

The poor are 'suffering badly' because the money isn't there anymore to spend on them. For the last two decades the money spent hasn't come from tax revenues but instead from borrowed money.

If we want to improve the welfare state then the way to do it is to stimulate the economy. Get more people in work, get more tax revenues that way and spend less on stupid government projects.

We cannot and should not continue to fund our welfare state from borrowed money.

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wannabedomesticgoddess · 22/05/2013 11:11

I agree with you niceguy.

It just seems really off that millions are being paid out to bankers who work for banks that are making a loss, yet joe bloggs down the road is being demonised for relying on £71 a week to live on.

I am not against the cuts for the sake of it. I understand that the pot is running dry. What I am against is the cuts on the disabled and the vulnerable against a backdrop of pay rises for company directors and bonuses for reckless bankers.

The poison and lies that this government have spread has to stop.

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MiniTheMinx · 22/05/2013 11:24

The left has this crazy idealogical idea that the state must provide employment and/or benefits for all. Idealogy gone mad

P........lease.

Why do we have so much unemployment?

If you understand anything about economics understand this: The worker is free to contract with an employer to sell his labour. This process concentrates capital in the hands of the employer whilst only allowing the workers enough (or under neo-liberalism not enough) to reproduce that labour tomorrow. Workers lack the capital to create their own work under this system where monopoly banks ONLY lend to large businesses. Capitalism creates unemployment.

It creates unemployment through two main mechanisms. The first is material/economic the other is in the fact that the economic reality leads to a sort of cultural paralysis where the working class/wage slaves/unemployed become totally reliant upon wages or benefits.

I am way to the left of labour, closer to where left wing thinking originates!! and I am not in favour of creating/perpetuating welfare dependency. I can tell you who is though?

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niceguy2 · 22/05/2013 11:29

But payrises get taxed so in actual fact are good for tax revenues.

As for bankers, it's a tired & worn topic. If you look at the banks we actually had to bail out, none of them were actually as a result of the casino style investment schemes.

Northern Rock, B&B and HBOS all got into trouble because they lent too much money to too many business & homeowners and didn't have enough saver deposits to cover. Mortgages are long term loans, repayments are over decades.

RBS failed because they paid a ridiculous amount for ABN Amro.

Basic poor management rather than reckless gambling on the stock exchange. Those with large investment arms like Barclays (narrowly) avoided having to get a bailout.

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niceguy2 · 22/05/2013 11:32

Capitalism creates unemployment.

Yes, but only because socialism/communism creates fictious jobs which cannot otherwise be reasonably supported by the economy. And at some point these collapse under their own weight.

Look at socialist Britain in the 70's and look at how well China, USSR did following ultra left wing policies. Not to mention the stunning success of North Korea. I mean everyone there has a job. That must mean noone is starving right? Hmm

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MiniTheMinx · 22/05/2013 11:39

yawn.

No communism does not create factitious jobs. All work has social value, caring, education, nursing, child care, even housework. Capitalism obscures the social nature of labour through market mechanisms.

Banks create factitious capital that is not backed with any other commodities. This money actually has no value therefore save social power that people have over others.

What happens in the interim between capitalism and (real) communism has been in the past large state dominance of economics. The reasons for this are too complex to get into here.

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MiniTheMinx · 22/05/2013 11:41

North Korea.............just tell me how many military bases uncle Sam has spread all over the globe? and explain why we have a global economic system of exchange, where we take to the market jumpers for coffee, or wool for wheat? Might North Korea be starving because of trade sanctions?

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niceguy2 · 22/05/2013 12:32

As I've said before, communism & socialism are fine on paper. In reality they are crap because they go against human nature yet rely upon humans to make it work.

Capitalism isn't great but it's better than the above and works better in reality than any other system we've found to date.

The acid test really is this. How many 'successful' states pursue left wing policies? I can't think of any.

New Labour only won power again after Blair dragged them to the right. And due to the rise of UKIP we can see that the nation has stepped to the right, leaving very few (but vocal) people bleating on about what we should be doing (in their opinion)

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