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UK austerity has inflicted 'great misery' on citizens, UN says

theguardian.com

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Re: UK austerity has inflicted 'great misery' on citizens, UN says

#41

Post by beaconstudios »

raesene9 wrote: post #17
matthewmacleod wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is that really the only choice? The UK is one of the richest countries in the world. Part of the reason for that is a long period of generally pro-business, economically conservative government. That's good in many ways, because in a modern economy, business and investment is needed to drive improvements in individual living standards. But doing that relies on a sensible long-term strategy that can be used to achieve…

it's a real shame that the concept of raising certain taxes in the UK (specifically income tax and corporation tax) has become an anathema to british politicians. We still need to get the money from somewhere, so instead of fairly increasing progressive taxes, we get lots of little (often unfair) hidden tax rises and huge cuts in public spending. The weird part is, the british public go along with this. The Conservat…

it's not so much Conservatism as Britain having a strongly individualist, liberal (as in liberty) political history.

Re: UK austerity has inflicted 'great misery' on citizens, UN says

#42

Post by matthewmacleod »

yardstick wrote: post #27
raesene9 wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

it's a real shame that the concept of raising certain taxes in the UK (specifically income tax and corporation tax) has become an anathema to british politicians. We still need to get the money from somewhere, so instead of fairly increasing progressive taxes, we get lots of little (often unfair) hidden tax rises and huge cuts in public spending. The weird part is, the british public go along with this. The Conservat…

My local (Labour, not that it really matters) council has taken pride in not raising council tax for the last 5+ years. Yet inflation has pushed up wages and expenses and somehow they expect to maintain the same quality of local government. Impossible!

That's a valid objection, though I think council tax is a particularly tricky issue to deal with in the UK – it's a highly regressive tax, but reform is difficult to achieve while the people who would be most affected by a proper reform would be Conservative voters.

Re: UK austerity has inflicted 'great misery' on citizens, UN says

#43

Post by sonnyblarney »

YeGoblynQueenne wrote: post #21
tonyedgecombe wrote: post #2

I'd take a little belt tightening over the youth unemployment Greece or Spain has any day.

In Greece and Spain, the youth unemployment goes hand to hand with the belt tightening.

Youth unemployment goes hand in hand with dysfunctional economies. The government does not create jobs by mass spending.

In Canada we have marginally less 'government spending' and lower taxes and we have a very low unemployment rate.

Now, a country certainly could operate effectively with higher rates of government spending, but my point is that this is not really the factor.

Spain does not have a competitive economy and that's that.

Re: UK austerity has inflicted 'great misery' on citizens, UN says

#44

Post by chrisseaton »

raesene9 wrote: post #33
chrisseaton wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The weird part is, the British public go along with this. I don't think they're 'going along with it' - you're making it sound like they don't know what they want. UK society doesn't have much of an anti-government movement like in the US, but low taxation and leaner governance is a pretty common, mainstream preference here. I think if you speak to a diverse group of voters in the UK you will find a lot of support…

Well I'd argue they don't know what they want really, in that they want two divergent things, "better public services" and "low taxation" Personally I didn't mention Social security, I know the attitude to people claiming benefits from those not on them in the UK I was thinking of the problems in local gov. spending where the central grant has radically decreased, the problems in police spending with far fewer front…

> in that they want two divergent things, "better public services" and "low taxation"

They think this can be achieved be being more efficient (all the newspaper articles about NHS wastage and middle managers), and spending less money on things they don't want (overseas aid is a common example.) So the two things aren't necessarily at odds.

> unless you believe in trickle down economics!

I think a lot of people do.

> A more rational approach would be to want lower personal taxes surely?

I think a lot of British people see a large successful business as a virtuous success story, and so want them 'punished' less with less taxes.

(I'm not saying any of this is my opinion, but it's definitely what a lot of people here think.)

Re: UK austerity has inflicted 'great misery' on citizens, UN says

#45

Post by jahaja »

sonnyblarney wrote: post #31
jahaja wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But it's the same belt for all three? I find it both fascinating and unsettling that there seem to be so many smart people that prefer and defends punitive action so reflexively that they will go to great lengths to give it the benefit of the doubt, even without ever doing some background research. Austerity is a great example of this. They intentionally starved the Greek economy to make a political point rather than…

Austerity is not 'punitive', nor is your assessment of the OP's comment as 'reflective' necessarily correct. "They intentionally starved the Greek economy to make a political point" Greeks are smart people, that they are begging for free money from Germany does not mean that Germany is 'starving' anyone. "parrot obvious propaganda about the lazy, barely working, tax-dodging Greeks that's applied to them all, bottom-u…

> The Greeks have nobody to blame but themselves.

Thanks for confirming my point so well. It's lovely how bottom-up democratic everything becomes as soon as blame and punishment are being thrown about.

> The Germans would in fact, do a deal with the Greeks if they instituted proper economic reforms

What do you think austerity is if not widespread drastic "reforms" among other things? The Greeks did go to great lengths to appease the eurogroup but still needed a fundamental debt trimming.

Re: UK austerity has inflicted 'great misery' on citizens, UN says

#46

Post by throw2016 »

Wonder how long before he is sacked. Rare instance of establishment official bucking the narrative. These kind of reports are usually made about 'inconvenient regimes'.

Austerity [1] is a dubious predatory ideology pushed by neoliberal economists parroting the mantra of freemarkets, privatization while pushing crude policies that benefit special interests. The modus operandi is defund public services, raise a ruckus about ensuing chaos and build the rationale for privatization.

A country with its own currency is a not a household. In the case of the US the dollar being the global reserve currency provides even more freedom compared to any other country. Simplistic household type comparisons by agenda driven economists about complex modern economies are grossly misleading.

You cannot bailout banks to the tune of trillions and them impose austerity on the population, this is not capitalism or freemarkets, its gross corruption. Where did this money come from? What about all the scares of 'runway inflation' by such massive injections, why were creditors bailed out and not debtors? Why shouldn't these funds be spent on the people the government represent and not special interests?

Mark Blyth [1], Michael Hudson [2], Steve Keen and Joseph Stiglitz [3] are doing a lot of work on neoliberal economics and dubious policies like austerity.

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JQuHSQXxsjM

[2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YBi00-LBUnQ

[3] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HzCRCX_gwII

Re: UK austerity has inflicted 'great misery' on citizens, UN says

#47

Post by Nimitz14 »

DuskStar wrote: post #30

This report is so horribly biased. The "austerity" in question is a decline in spending as a proportion of GDP since 2009, NOT actual cuts. That's normal when recovering from a recession!

When you're in recession you're supposed to stimulate growth by increasing spending. So no, you're wrong, it's the opposite of normal.

Re: UK austerity has inflicted 'great misery' on citizens, UN says

#48

Post by matthewmacleod »

gaius wrote: post #40
matthewmacleod wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is that really the only choice? The UK is one of the richest countries in the world. Part of the reason for that is a long period of generally pro-business, economically conservative government. That's good in many ways, because in a modern economy, business and investment is needed to drive improvements in individual living standards. But doing that relies on a sensible long-term strategy that can be used to achieve…

The UK is one of the richest countries in the world. Yes but you are neglecting to mention the other side of this coin: also one of the most expensive countries in the world. Look at purchasing power parity and the UK doesn’t seem rich at all, it’s all on paper only. Housing, fuel, transportation etc are all disproportionately expensive here.

Okay, sure – if you rank by per-capita PPP then the UK slides down the chart further than you might expect. That doesn't in any way make it a poor country or change the point at all.

Re: UK austerity has inflicted 'great misery' on citizens, UN says

#49

Post by atoav »

em500 wrote: post #14
ubernostrum wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Considering that the youth unemployment rates there correlate with policies that didn't just involve "tightening" the belt but arguably cutting off all circulation, you might want to re-think that. (much of Europe has been victimized by the cult of "austerity", and several countries have probably lost an entire generation's productivity thanks to these policies)

"Victimized by 'austerity'" is heavily overplayed. Even with 'austerity' policies, government spending in Greece is still around 50% of national income. Neither their own citizens (via taxes) nor foreigners (via lending) are willing to finance such spending, so what alternatives to decreasing spending would you suggest?

Isn't it weird how austerity often targets the poor, while e.g. salaries of bureaucrats or politicians, as well as military and police spending are rarely part of these strategies.

One can discuss about austerity as an effective strategy to slim-fit a nation. Making the government and public processes more effective, streamlined and effective, using less manpower to reach the same goal and increasing the efficency, speed and simplicity at the same time – this is a good goal. BUT this is definitly not what usually happens when governments say they need to save money, because those who know how to make the processes more efficient usually don't like to cut their own jobs/salaries/responsibilities.

So they just cut some public service that affects nobody meaning-/powerful instead and sell it as a big reform.

Re: UK austerity has inflicted 'great misery' on citizens, UN says

#50

Post by RobertoG »

DuskStar wrote: post #30

This report is so horribly biased. The "austerity" in question is a decline in spending as a proportion of GDP since 2009, NOT actual cuts. That's normal when recovering from a recession!

A recession means that not enough money is spent in the economy.

In that situation, a government should increase the spending, not use the situation as an excuse for cutting the public sector because ideological reasons.

Or do you think that the intention is to restore those services when the economy goes better?

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