The big argument between Labour and the Tories during the election was whether to cut spending immediately or wait a bit. The Labour party argument was that cutting spending now may harm the "recovery" while the Tories claimed it was vital to make cuts at the earliest opportunity to boost confidence.
To be honest, my own personal views crossed into both camps. Cuts in public spending are absolutely essential if we are ever going to get out of this economic mire the Labour Party have landed us in, but you either cut hard or don't bother - and a measly £6 billion off of a deficit of £165 billion is not going to make a blind bit of difference.
Remember, this is not making any difference to our growing debt problem - we're talking about the budget deficit here, not the national debt. In other words, we're talking about knocking a tiny off of the amount we're overspending. The 6 billion quid that Osborne hopes to save will be swallowed up by interest payments on the amount he is still having to borrow.
Think of it this way - your credit cards are almost maxed out, but each month you are still putting another £165 on them and all you resolve to do is cut that to £159 a month - and you still get clobbered for another £80 in interest.
It's as pointless spending £6 billion less in the government terms as it is spending £6 less in that scenario I just mentioned - it is nothing, It is a feeble and pointless amount and Osborne may as well not bother. And thanks to the coalition with the Lib Dems, the Tories have abandoned their plans to cut the taxes that might have given some stimulation to the economy (the £10,000 tax threshold will not make a difference if employers are still getting hammered on National Insurance).
My view is that you either cut now and cut substantially - I mean 50% or more not 3,5% - and plough many of those savings into tax cuts or you leave alone and take the opportunity to borrow money while you can to start investing in the things that will ensure your future - industry, infrastructure and energy - because, sooner or later, Britain will default on that debt or face hyper inflation (or both) and then nothing will make a difference.
Showing posts with label Poverty. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Poverty. Show all posts
Monday, May 17, 2010
Wednesday, April 22, 2009
The measure of society
One of the things that annoys me most about progressive liberals is the way they claim that the old traditional ways of doing things had to be dismantled in the interests of society.
They readily admit that - yes, it is true that Britain before progressive liberalism was a more law-abiding society with safer streets, but there was also all that grinding poverty, domestic violence, low educational achievement and child abuse going on too - and that is what progressive liberalism was about eradicating.
My argument is that - even supposing the tales of grinding poverty, domestic violence and child abuse were true (more about that in a bit) - after 50 years of progressive liberalism they are at least as bad if not worse. In addition to which we now have dangerous streets and lawlessness. So clearly, if the true intention of social liberalism was to eradicate these things, it didn't work - not only that, but it made society generally worse overall.
If society has been made worse, then how can they claim that it was done in the interest of society? It just doesn't make sense. I've also had social liberals complain that although a socially conservative Britain had an ordered and law-abiding society, it also had polio - as if this had anything to do with social conservatism or liberalism!
The poverty claim is one of the most commonly applied misconceptions of pre-social liberal Britain. Of course poverty existed - as it still does - but compared to the poverty of Victorian Britain fifty years earlier the poor of fifties Britain were positively affluent. Progress - real measured and sustainable progress - had been made on alleviating the problems associated with being poor - far more than has been made in the fifty years since.
The biggest difference between then and now is that, although the poor of today have more "things", they are blighted by a moral poverty which largely did not exist fifty years ago - primarily brought about by social liberalism. We may not have had the latest pair of trainers, but we had the love and comfort of a married mum and dad and knew the difference between right and wrong.
Domestic violence is another one of their favourite anthems - although there is little evidence that domestic violence was any where near as prevalent as the progressives claim it was (most evidence to support the claim is anecdotal - i.e. some social liberal feminist tells how her mum used to be browbeaten and whipped by their dad when they were growing up).
Despite all that, and fifty years of progressive liberalism, feminism and social reforms designed to favour women the evidence suggests that domestic violence is far more prevalent now than it has ever been. No one is suggesting that domestic violence didn't exist - but the idea that progressive liberalism has solved it is patently ludicrous.
The same for child abuse - it is at least as prevalent today as it has always been - quite possibly more so given that so many children end up in single mother households where they then have to watch mummy go through several "boyfriends" who might occasionally kick, hit or otherwise abuse the kids in one of their periodic drug enhanced rages.
By every valid measure, society is worse or no better now than it was when Britain was socially conservative. Fifty years of progressive liberalism has not solved the problems it claims to have been interested in solving - and in many cases has actually made it worse.
But still our politicians insist that social liberalism is the panacea! Can anything be more obviously wrong? Why can't they see it?
I'm not advocating returning to 1950's Britain in terms of material or medical progress - just a return to the social conservatism and values that were once the foundations of our stable and much admired society. Society was far from perfect then, but it was considerably more ordered and law-abiding than it is today - and the problems of those times are still as much a problem today if not more so.
As the old saying goes - when you're in a hole, the first thing to do is stop digging.
They readily admit that - yes, it is true that Britain before progressive liberalism was a more law-abiding society with safer streets, but there was also all that grinding poverty, domestic violence, low educational achievement and child abuse going on too - and that is what progressive liberalism was about eradicating.
My argument is that - even supposing the tales of grinding poverty, domestic violence and child abuse were true (more about that in a bit) - after 50 years of progressive liberalism they are at least as bad if not worse. In addition to which we now have dangerous streets and lawlessness. So clearly, if the true intention of social liberalism was to eradicate these things, it didn't work - not only that, but it made society generally worse overall.
If society has been made worse, then how can they claim that it was done in the interest of society? It just doesn't make sense. I've also had social liberals complain that although a socially conservative Britain had an ordered and law-abiding society, it also had polio - as if this had anything to do with social conservatism or liberalism!
The poverty claim is one of the most commonly applied misconceptions of pre-social liberal Britain. Of course poverty existed - as it still does - but compared to the poverty of Victorian Britain fifty years earlier the poor of fifties Britain were positively affluent. Progress - real measured and sustainable progress - had been made on alleviating the problems associated with being poor - far more than has been made in the fifty years since.
The biggest difference between then and now is that, although the poor of today have more "things", they are blighted by a moral poverty which largely did not exist fifty years ago - primarily brought about by social liberalism. We may not have had the latest pair of trainers, but we had the love and comfort of a married mum and dad and knew the difference between right and wrong.
Domestic violence is another one of their favourite anthems - although there is little evidence that domestic violence was any where near as prevalent as the progressives claim it was (most evidence to support the claim is anecdotal - i.e. some social liberal feminist tells how her mum used to be browbeaten and whipped by their dad when they were growing up).
Despite all that, and fifty years of progressive liberalism, feminism and social reforms designed to favour women the evidence suggests that domestic violence is far more prevalent now than it has ever been. No one is suggesting that domestic violence didn't exist - but the idea that progressive liberalism has solved it is patently ludicrous.
The same for child abuse - it is at least as prevalent today as it has always been - quite possibly more so given that so many children end up in single mother households where they then have to watch mummy go through several "boyfriends" who might occasionally kick, hit or otherwise abuse the kids in one of their periodic drug enhanced rages.
By every valid measure, society is worse or no better now than it was when Britain was socially conservative. Fifty years of progressive liberalism has not solved the problems it claims to have been interested in solving - and in many cases has actually made it worse.
But still our politicians insist that social liberalism is the panacea! Can anything be more obviously wrong? Why can't they see it?
I'm not advocating returning to 1950's Britain in terms of material or medical progress - just a return to the social conservatism and values that were once the foundations of our stable and much admired society. Society was far from perfect then, but it was considerably more ordered and law-abiding than it is today - and the problems of those times are still as much a problem today if not more so.
As the old saying goes - when you're in a hole, the first thing to do is stop digging.
Monday, July 14, 2008
Tackling global warming and ending global poverty are mutually exclusive
There is an excellent comment piece in today's Telegraph by Janet Daley that spells out the stark choice we have - or rather the stark choice our politicians are failing to grasp.
You can choose to tackle the imagined problem of "global warming" or you can choose to tackle the real problem of global poverty - but you can not do both.
There are two prevailing fashions dominating the political scene, whose aims and effects are in direct contradiction with one another. But that does not prevent virtually all of the political parties in the Western democracies from attempting to embrace both at the same time.
They are global warming and the mission to eradicate poverty. What scarcely any leader seems prepared to admit (although they are all coming bang up against the reality of it) is that the objectives and tactics involved in forwarding the cause of preventing global warming are inimical to the cause of fighting poverty on a national and an international level.
Absolutely right. Daley goes on to strengthen her argument by pointing out that "green" taxes hit the poorest far harder than it hits the wealthy - but what she fails to understand is that our politicians can not grasp the connection for one simple reason.
They are all socialist.
You see, any conservative knows that ending poverty means creating sustainable prosperity through a capitalist economy. That's how it was done here and in the USA (I'm talking real poverty by the way - not relative poverty which, by definition, is impossible to eradicate) and now they are finding it works just as well in China and India. There are a number of things a capitalist economy requires to be successful, but there is one thing that stands out above all others - energy. Power is the lifeblood of a capitalist economy.
But our politicians - along with the unelected bureaucrats of the EU and UN - don't see it that way. They believe that ending poverty can be achieved through "wealth distribution" - or "aid" as they call it - that tired old socialist doctrine which has failed again and again wherever it has been used on any significant scale.
They continue to labour under the illusion that poverty can be relieved by aid, but the only thing it will do in the longer term is entrench the very poverty it is supposed to alleviate.
Nevertheless, they still think it will work - so they believe you can tackle poverty and global warming at the same time by redistributing wealth. In our post-modern, socialist dominated world we tend to forget about the original point of taxation.
The point of taxation is that the we give the government money in return for providing services that we require. The point of "green" taxation is to take your money and give it to someone else.
Of course it will fail. Without energy our own economy will collapse - then what? We start hoping that China and India will send us aid?
Don't bank on it.
You can choose to tackle the imagined problem of "global warming" or you can choose to tackle the real problem of global poverty - but you can not do both.
There are two prevailing fashions dominating the political scene, whose aims and effects are in direct contradiction with one another. But that does not prevent virtually all of the political parties in the Western democracies from attempting to embrace both at the same time.
They are global warming and the mission to eradicate poverty. What scarcely any leader seems prepared to admit (although they are all coming bang up against the reality of it) is that the objectives and tactics involved in forwarding the cause of preventing global warming are inimical to the cause of fighting poverty on a national and an international level.
Absolutely right. Daley goes on to strengthen her argument by pointing out that "green" taxes hit the poorest far harder than it hits the wealthy - but what she fails to understand is that our politicians can not grasp the connection for one simple reason.
They are all socialist.
You see, any conservative knows that ending poverty means creating sustainable prosperity through a capitalist economy. That's how it was done here and in the USA (I'm talking real poverty by the way - not relative poverty which, by definition, is impossible to eradicate) and now they are finding it works just as well in China and India. There are a number of things a capitalist economy requires to be successful, but there is one thing that stands out above all others - energy. Power is the lifeblood of a capitalist economy.
But our politicians - along with the unelected bureaucrats of the EU and UN - don't see it that way. They believe that ending poverty can be achieved through "wealth distribution" - or "aid" as they call it - that tired old socialist doctrine which has failed again and again wherever it has been used on any significant scale.
They continue to labour under the illusion that poverty can be relieved by aid, but the only thing it will do in the longer term is entrench the very poverty it is supposed to alleviate.
Nevertheless, they still think it will work - so they believe you can tackle poverty and global warming at the same time by redistributing wealth. In our post-modern, socialist dominated world we tend to forget about the original point of taxation.
The point of taxation is that the we give the government money in return for providing services that we require. The point of "green" taxation is to take your money and give it to someone else.
Of course it will fail. Without energy our own economy will collapse - then what? We start hoping that China and India will send us aid?
Don't bank on it.
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