Baroness Margaret Thatcher Has Died

[Matt Bawden]

 

 

back to Victorian times

You weren't paying proper attention. Our very plausible intellectual said it was a Dickensian picture...... It doesn't really matter if it's 101% bullshit, as long as you say it with enough gravitas, someone will believe it. I bet he's never even been to South Yorkshire let alone during the unfortunate Thatcher reign.

Ah, the Devil's is in the detail I guess. 'Tis true that you never fully understand something unless you experience it.

[Matt Bawden]

 

 

See, there you go again....in earlier posts you praise Thatcher for doing what was necessary and then in this one you post your hero (Chomsky) and then state she was wrong by putting the UK back to Victorian times.

I think she did what had to be done in relation to the unions, but she was very wrong when it came to financial deregulation, the shift in state expenditure from public services to state subsidisation of private business, and the immoral Ayn Rand type of individualism she espoused. I'm all for individual liberty, but we are also a community and we have a responsibility for each other.

I'm seriously glad I'm not an "intellectual" because it must be like a whole mental institution inside your head.

[Thomas Jefferson]

You are mistaken in thinking that everybody has rights, nobody really has any rights, you're born, you live and then you die what occurs in between is down to a lot of things and rights as you put it aren't there.

We do have rights.

 

 

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.--That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed...

[Thomas Jefferson]

I'm seriously glad I'm not an "intellectual" because it must be like a whole mental institution inside your head.

 

I'm not an intellectual.

[Thomas Jefferson]

I'll wager Chomsky's never even been to South Yorkshire let alone during the unfortunate Thatcher reign.

He lived in America under Reagan. Same shit, different country.

[Matt Bawden]

 

 

 

You are mistaken in thinking that everybody has rights, nobody really has any rights, you're born, you live and then you die what occurs in between is down to a lot of things and rights as you put it aren't there.

We do have rights.

 

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.--That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed...

Oh I see, because one person in another in another country got a constitution signed that means we have rights, silly me.

 

The truth is there can be a gazillion constitutions written and signed but they aren't worth the paper they're written on unless they are enforced. The fact of the matter is that when it comes to rights, imagined or otherwise, are gradually being eroded.

[mojomonkey]

 

I'll wager Chomsky's never even been to South Yorkshire let alone during the unfortunate Thatcher reign.

He lived in America under Reagan. Same shit, different country.

Well Barnsley is the Vegas of the North, and Sheffield has hills like San Francisco.

[Chinahand]

A good extract about Margaret Thatcher's fiscal policy, from a talk by Noam Chomsky:

 

 

State expenditure relative to GNP was the same at the end of her time in office as when she first took office; expenditure did not decrease, it merely shifted from welfare and public services to subsidisation of private enterprise. And poverty increased to Dickensian levels.

This is simply not true.

 

There is a very clear change in the UK's fiscal position under Thatcherism.

 

Tax Receipts

 

Government Spending

 

The state reached its largest in 1975-76 at 49.7% of GDP and was still 45.1% in 1978-79 - Thatcherism brought that down to 38.2% in 1997 and Blair then kept to Tory spending policies for the first 3 years of his premiership which meant it dropped further to just 34.5% in 2000-01

 

The difference is really clear when you look at the funding gap between spending and taxation.

 

 

 

There are 4 very distinct periods here - 1]the 1960s and 70s when both Tory and Labour governments targeted full employment and Keynesian policies. During this time the deficit tended to grow.

 

2]The Thatcher and Major years - plus the first 3 years of Blair. Deficits tend to reduce. This is mainly via reducing the state rather than tax rises - Tax as a portion of GDP was at its lowest in 1993-4 when it was 32.4% a level not seen since the 1960s.

 

3] Blair and Brown running up the deficit. After initially following Tory spending plans they then started to borrow and spend building up ever larger deficits which then spiralled out of control in 2008.

 

4] Cameron deficit reduction.

 

To me this really puts the lie that the problems of 2008 were laid down by Maggie - rot. She knew the importance of fiscal control and her influence is the only time in the last 50 years when deficits have consistently reduced.

 

Blair and Brown abandoned that prudence and the result is once again a Tory Government dedicated to deficit reduction.

 

As Maggie said the trouble with Socialism is they always run out of somebody else's money.

 

She knew that is unsustainable, and we are having to learn this lesson again today.

[ballaughbiker]

Sheffield has hills like San Francisco

Well it might have but the local saying is that Rome was built on 7 hills like Sheffield. Unfortunately Chesvegas (the one with the crooked spire) has now taken over the title from Barnsley despite not technically being part of the S.R.S.Y. And no, I haven't a clue what that has to do with Thatcher either.......was it children living in Dickensian conditions because of her?

[mojomonkey]

I wasn't being serious, just trying to lighten the mood. It was silly response to TJ's reference to South Yorkshire being the same shit as America.

 

Personally, I still haven't decided how I feel about the death of Thatcher. I was only 13 when she was ousted as Prime Minister, so whilst I am very much a child of the Thatcher era I really wasn't of an age to be politically aware of her time in charge. However, being from a northern town traditionally based on heavy industries of coal mining and shipbuilding it is safe to say that she wasn't popular in my home town and I doubt many there are mourning her death. I don't really remember it at the time but I do know that during the Miner's Strike my parents bought the Christmas presents for the kids of friends who were on strike and had no income. Thankfully my dad did an electrician's apprenticeship when he left school at 14 rather then going down the pit or into the shipyards. My own view is that miners were screwed by Thatcher, but that was probably inevitable as they were also screwed by Scargill.

 

I think the biggest thing to strike me is that back when she was in power you could easily identify the differences between the two main political parties, now I really struggle to see any real difference being Cameron's lot and Milliband's lot.

[ballaughbiker]

I wasn't being serious

Me neither. The mood needs lightening and that Chomsky clip certainly helped.

[Thomas Jefferson]

 

I wasn't being serious

Me neither. The mood needs lightening and that Chomsky clip certainly helped.

 

Listening to Chomsky always lightens my mood. It really makes me happy and restores my hope in humanity to hear someone like him saying all of this stuff, because on this Island of mainly Daily Mail reading ignorant w-nkers, you get looked at like you're a nutter if you say anything against the status quo. As Chomsky himself said: 'Either you repeat the same conventional doctrines everybody is saying, or else you say something true, and it will sound like it's from neptune.' People are so brainwashed that they think you're crazy for speaking the truth. I quite often listen to audio CD's of his lectures on my way to work in the morning. He has better vocals than Robert Plant.

[Albert Tatlock]

...on this Island of mainly Daily Mail reading ignorant w-nkers, you get looked at like you're a nutter if you say anything against the status quo.

Not by me...some of their songs were actually pretty shite.

[Thomas Jefferson]

 

...on this Island of mainly Daily Mail reading ignorant w-nkers, you get looked at like you're a nutter if you say anything against the status quo.

Not by me...some of their songs were actually pretty shite.

The only good song they did was the theme music to Local Hero.

[Matt Bawden]

 

 

 

...on this Island of mainly Daily Mail reading ignorant w-nkers, you get looked at like you're a nutter if you say anything against the status quo.

Not by me...some of their songs were actually pretty shite.

The only good song they did was the theme music to Local Hero.

I disagree, pictures of matchstick men but then they went in a different direction to perform the likes of in the army now wtf???