On May 2, 5:53*pm, "BIG BIRD" wrote:
"??ö'???????" wrote in message
...
“While the US is focused on its own domestic dramas, Europe as the
Economist (UK) *puts it, ‘is bleeding out.’ Silently, exsanguinating
below the fold, but bleeding all the same.”
http://www.economist.com/blogs/freee.../euro-crisis-5
won't be long before they recognize what the conservative tactics do, and they
switch to socialism and go after them rich *******s with
torches and pitchforks,
could be. lets remember, the world saw the new deal for what it was,
and many countries not only embraced it, and emulated it, but even
expanded on it. this is what happens with education. and the results
were staggering. in america we went form a country ruled by wealthy
parasites with a very small middle class of around 15%, to a almost
all middle class population, other countries did even better.
that is why you see "THE CONSERVATIVES" desperate attack on schools,
"THE CONSERVATIVES" embrace fascism, and of course as the fascists
say, give me the schools, i will get the country. but it might not be
so easy these days. keynes spectacular achievement in economics, means
that in the modern world, demand for goods and services is wage
driven, and so far not one "CRANK CONSERVATIVE" has found a way around
that. so taking away today may not be so easy as time passes, and will
effect the wealthy parasites that "THE CONSERVATIVES" so feverishly
serve.
the youth of the world seem to despise "CONSERVATISM", and in the
u.k., they say ding dong the witch is dead
))
no wonder the worlds youth despise "CONSERVATISM" the Anglo-American
model, with a migration from manufacturing to finance and a big bet
placed on unfettering private sector titans, Young Britons (and young
Americans as well) have a lifetime of part time hustling for low pay
to look forward to. As one London fellow put it to me, “being born
next to the Baltic is like winning life’s lottery.”
The second model has been the Northern European one (by which I
include Germany and Holland), with a big bet placed on the wisdom of
massive long term investments in human capital by government. And
taxes high enough to pay for that human capital bet.
It is looking like the Norse/Teutonic instincts were better. Both
models have their problems, but in terms of business competitiveness,
health, and most importantly in terms of measured human happiness and
confidence in tomorrow, the Thatcher model has brought only tidings of
woe.
yea, she is so loved, even by that left wing bastion forbes. lets be
polite about a monster that destroyed her country.
http://www.forbes.com/sites/eamonnfi...the-iron-lady/
Eamonn Fingleton, Contributor
My beat is East Asia - and history's biggest industrial revolution
4/14/2013 @ 10:46AM |93,734 views
Thatcher's Last Wish: Another Clunker From The Iron Lady
The news today is that a group of supporters of Margaret Thatcher are
pushing a plan to build a museum and library as a permanent memorial
to her. It is clear that the plan, which would establish a first in
British politics, has been long in the making and that it not only had
Thatcher’s approval but she herself largely instigated the idea. This
is another clunker from the Iron Lady – a final terrible idea from a
woman who, pace all current hagiography, will *be remembered as one of
the worst political leaders in modern British history.
Let’s be clear first on the larger politics. As someone who served as
a Fleet Street commentator in the late 1970s, I fully recognize that
she made progress on some issues, not least trade union dominance of
the economy. But her predecessor Jim Callaghan would undoubtedly have
continued to focus on these same issues had he been reelected and he
would have dealt with them in a perhaps more effective, and certainly
less divisive, way.
The voters who elected Thatcher in 1979 were motivated powerfully by
humiliation at the UK economy’s constant loss of position in global
competition since the early 1950s. So how did Thatcher do in reversing
the trend and what in particular did she do to improve the UK’s trade
position? The eulogizers are quiet on the subject. Advisedly so. *The
fact is that under Thatcherism the UK’s trade position went from the
merely weak to the totally disastrous. The UK ran a current account
surplus of 0.6 percent of GDP in 1978, the last full year before
Thatcher came to office. As of 1989, the last full year before she was
ousted by her own party in May of 1990, the current account DEFICIT
had reached an appalling 3.9 percent of GDP. In the meantime Thatcher
presided over a savage program to destroy the UK’s core exporting
industries and, with wholesale financial deregulation, laid the
groundwork for *the catastrophic financial bubbles of more recent
times. She was smitten by the *erroneous notion that *advanced nations
should leave “rust bucket” industries behind and move to a
postindustrial model. Not a view shared by Germany, which has now long
eclipsed the UK as Europe’s premier economy. It is not shared either
in any of the most successful economies of East Asia (though they are
delighted if the English-speaking world continues to believe in
postindustrialism). *I have consistently attacked the
postindustrialist fallacy since the 1980s and indeed I devoted a whole
book to in 1999 (In Praise of Hard Industries: Why Manufacturing, Not
the Information Economy, Is the Key to Future Prosperity).
As for the Thatcher museum and library, this is a characteristically
egotistical Thatcherite project at odds with British tradition. *The
British after all put a high value on modesty — or at least the
appearance of it — and even the most capable of them have
traditionally left it to others to sing their praises.
The fear now is that she has established a precedent that *future
British political leaders will feel compelled to follow, and in so
doing will render politics in London as dysfunctionally money-ridden
as politics in Washington already is.
Thatcher apparently was much impressed with the Reagan Presidential
Library. But why? Such memorials typically involve pandering to
wealthy donors and transnational corporations — and the pandering
typically begins long before the honoree leaves office. Not the least
of the problems is that many of the corporations involved have at best
no loyalty to the nation and some are indeed foreign and almost by
definition have a clear conflict of interest.
What we know for sure is that the Reagan library was made possible in
large measure by *General Electric. Although it is not yet apparent to
most Americans, General Electric has played a starring role in the
enfeeblement of the United States. A key charge is that GE has led
corporate America in the torching of America’s once peerless
industrial base on the funeral pyre of globalism.* It has done this
principally by transferring many of America’s most advanced production
technologies, including aerospace technologies, to foreign production
partners. These partners, located mainly in East Asia, have undertaken
to low-ball their prices and have thereby boosted GE’s quarterly
earnings, but at the cost of hollowing out the American industrial
base. You may not have seen much written about this subject in recent
years but the trend is acutely apparent in U.S. trade figures. With
its industrial base almost gone, America has consistently in recent
years run a current account deficit of 4 to 6 percent of GDP – the
weakest trade performance of any major nation in history. The
geopolitical consequences could hardly be more disastrous as the
United States has come increasingly to depend on funding from such
creditor nations as*China and Japan. It is not an exaggeration to say
that America’s role now has been reduced to borrowing *from China to
save the world from China.
The concept of presidential libraries is actually quite modern. The
first was built by Franklin Delano Roosevelt. It was a relatively
modest affair and, more important, he had the decency to do it with
his own money. *In recent decades succeeding presidents have vied with
one another for the title of largest and most impressive presidential
library. For the record the title now seems to be held by Bill
Clinton.
As Winston Churchill once said, “The price of greatness is
responsibility.” Would Churchill be better regarded today had he run
around drumming up support for a memorial to himself?*For that that
matter, would George Washington?
POSTSCRIPT
As of this writing , this blog has already generated more than 170
comments, not all of them friendly….
I am the first to acknowledge that Margaret Thatcher’s legacy, in
common with that of most other human beings, is a mixed bag. Some of
the things she did were good but the further you are from the UK –and
the less you know about British politics — the more likely you are to
take a favorable view. Even David Cameron, the current Prime Minister
and central casting’s idea of a traditional British Conservative, is
not a Thatcherite. Hardly anyone else is either. The fact is that she
was ousted by her own senior colleagues, and they had good reason to
rise up against her.
Many readers of my commentary seem to think she played a vital role in
winning the Cold War. This gives no credit to the Soviets, who had
long known their system was not working. She and Ronald Reagan were
pushing on an open door. If Jim Callaghan and Jimmy Carter had been in
charge in 1989, the outcome in the East Bloc would have been the same.
Thatcher’s rhetoric may have been particularly shrill but what
demolished the Berlin Wall was a sober realization in Moscow that the
dogma-driven societies it had created were totally dysfunctional.
The point that concerns me most — and I happen to have the benefit of
*a special understanding of the facts — is that the British economy is
almost as hollowed out as the American one.*Remarkably virtually none
of *my critics has made any reference to this point. Just like the
United States, the UK must constantly borrow abroad — principally from
China and Japan. In an earlier era, British leaders would have
considered this an appalling fate. In a future era, when the East
Asians finally stop propping up the pound (they have good strategic
reasons for doing so for a few more years), it will be obvious to
everyone that Thatcher’s trade policy was catastrophic.
My larger point stands: it is at best unseemly for political leaders
to go around canvassing support for their memorials.
Below are three reader comments which I believe deserve wider
circulation. Unsurprisingly they happen to be favorable to my point of
view. But if my critics have a cogent argument against my thesis, they
have yet to make it.
From logic001 [9/4+ Member: logic001]
75.48.104.187
Submitted on
2013/04/14 at 3:10 pm
The article is correct on the major points.
Since the 1980′s I’ve witnessed up close and personally the paths
taken by two very different models for Western Civilization. One is
the Anglo-American model, with a migration from manufacturing to
finance and a big bet placed on unfettering private sector titans.
2
The second model has been the Northern European one (by which I
include Germany and Holland), with a big bet placed on the wisdom of
massive long term investments in human capital by government. And
taxes high enough to pay for that human capital bet.
It is looking like the Norse/Teutonic instincts were better. Both
models have their problems, but in terms of business competitiveness,
health, and most importantly in terms of measured human happiness and
confidence in tomorrow, the Thatcher model has brought only tidings of
woe.
This is most apparent over the course of decades. In the 1980s, the
life and dreams of a young man in the U.K. were broadly on par with
those of a young man in West Germany or Sweden. Today, it is not even
close. Young Britons (and young Americans as well) have a lifetime of
part time hustling for low pay to look forward to. As one London
fellow put it to me, “being born next to the Baltic is like winning
life’s lottery.”
That is Thatcher’s legacy.
From gladpick Marks [1/0+ Member: gladpick]