As a prime minister, Margaret Thatcher had two full terms and was then ousted while in her third, not by the country who had by then voted over 50% of votes cast against her government, but by her own party. A betrayal but just like tackling the overly powerful unions of the late 70s, the overly powerful "female Fuhrer" had to be toppled because she had become an obstacle to policy making and progressive governance.
This is what really points to the symbolic Boadecia she was: a great figure head, great at showing the decisions the back room wanted to make, great at doing what her city advisors asked as long as she understood it in the context of a small british business. When the Frankenstein of education minister to party leader to PM began to show she was coming off her own rails, she was elbowed by the gray non event that was John Major, the only man who ever ran away FROM the circus to live a very dull life indeed.
Her legacy is like a glowing memory for many as we wade in the ashes of a Britain which is now based on funny "fictitious trading" money, power companies who cheat the public, and keynsian circles which help float the British Isles still owned by London.
Put another way, fewer people were on government benefits when in 1979 than when she left office in 1990. Britain entered full recession in the early 80s and it was more private companies who went bust than the public "failures" of mining, steel and car production. Companies which had never been propped up by the government and which had never had large scale industrial relations issues. It was biscuit bakeries, tyre plants and toy factories I remember on the ITN weekly toll and when ever we drove past Drumchapel in west Glasgow.
Just as now that an ambitious, high income, high spending Labour party get the blame for the ills of an equity trader's construct, the finance crisis, the biggest recession since the 30s, in fact a depression in most of southern europe, so did all this get blamed on the unions. Like the jews in 1920 and 30s Germany they became the scapegoat for the ills of a wider econo-cultural malaise.
Back to more on benefits once she left office: Big Bang and the relaxation of personal consumer credit, was of course going to both inject huge amounts of money into the south eastern economy of England and create a long term monster of paper-card-house building and legalised, neigh encouraged pyramid-selling. In the period 1980-1983 the UK did not fair well at all, when compared to socialist France and the centre right Germans. As I say, this wasn't because of the terrible public owned industries, it was that the old capitalist ways of unde-rinvesting, under-training, unmodernised and basically mediocre quality production had come to a crashing end as world demand for British products dived. Domestic demand also crashed. Without the Falklands War, Maggie may have lost to a lib-lab pact or at least been ousted. Public spending went UP as a proportion of GDP but the public sector borrowing requirement was addressed by selling off BA and shares in Rolls Royce amongst other tactics to pay off and restructure national debt.
So the Thatcher government set about firstly having to pay the dole bill for hundreds of thousands of workers from failing private industries which had collapsed under their own inertia. Also the government had to fund the Falklands war. First term Thatcher years: High public spending and Keynesian circles floating the country.
Second term: This is when the back room boys from the Adam Smith Inst, and the city got their way. Firstly, big bang would be allowed to go ahead and even accelerated. Also then consumer credit would be liberalised. More debt would be paid by further sales of public shares in "nationalised" companies and it was clear that GDP would swell from the City getting deregulated and of course yes, by the few strong industries enjoying less strikes, union disruptions and government intervention. Trident was also on the order books of Barrow in Furnace, Rolls Royce and Tarmac amongst many others as the biggest single spend in renewal of "assets" since WWII. Canary Wharf, at least a billion pounds of tax payers money, and more over, ideologically motivated public funds into an empty office block post black monday and the right sizing of the later eighties.
From a purely Nationalist right wing point of view, a UKIP stand point: what did Thatcher actually leave as her legacy? Well all that stock market freedom which helped investment in UK industry, also meant of course that UK brands- the embodiment of wealth creation, the big value-add to the bottom line, could be sold off to the Germans, the japanese and later of course, the Chinese - a crypto capitalist dicatatorship.
Also all that sabre rattling at Europe and the castration of Strasbourg as a potential democratic tool for harmony: She got her way, that strong national interests represented through Brussels and not Strasbourg, would get their way as we see today in 2013, five years into international crisis. So now that monster is eating away at the meaning of the EU: Germany is the strongest caller and the pied piper for now, with little Davey Cameron cocking his hat to that, while in fact a democratic body in Strasbourg with real powers and real accountability may have laid enough in the way of Eurozone to slow the introduction of the Euro, in so many lands, in terms of questions like those...well....those now actually answered - yes it can ruin your health. Strasbourg then could have tempered the ideology and put in place controls, rather than playing to the big drum beat of the dominant national governments.
Now we stand again on a knife edge and the end of an old epoch, with the old epochers standing there like the Unions of the late 70s, and saying " we need more of the same!! Yes !! More disease is the cure for the disease!!" in otherwords, we need less regulation of financial markets and businesses, we need less democratic accountability and we need more divide between rich and poor by tax breaks to the wealthy and cuts in wages, welfare, schooling and state benefits to the masses.
Like 1979, we stand in need for leaders who will say no, more disease is not the cure, we need a new epoch with some bitter pills for some people to swallow in terms of credit and regulation.
Saturday, 13 April 2013
Critics of Thatcher Cast into Being Marxist Leninists! Nonsense!
To further perpetuate the 'cult of the Female Fuhrer', it seems any criticism of Maggie marks the opponent out as a supporter of the marxist unions of the later 70s in the Uk.
You could equally say that opponents of the Male Fuhrer, Hitler, were then all Bolshevik revolutionaries hell bent on the destruction of democracy.
The fact is that of course the Unions of the late 70s would have destroyed the British economy in the recession of 1980 to 1985, and brought the UK to the IMF in the same way as Greece, Spain, Portugal and more recently, Cyprus have had to doth cap and beg to the 'Fuhrer-land'.
In the end of course, Thatcher became a burden on the Tory party itself, with the cult of the leader going to far such that once the beast they had created and nurtured began to not make the right noises in 1989, and started talking in the Royal "We", then her critics became her cabinet and groups of back benchers. They ushered in the "non governance" of the 1990s with privatisation of the railways and power industries as their supposed successes that lead to super inflationary pet gargoyles which are grossly unpopular with most customers on or below average incomes.
You could equally say that opponents of the Male Fuhrer, Hitler, were then all Bolshevik revolutionaries hell bent on the destruction of democracy.
The fact is that of course the Unions of the late 70s would have destroyed the British economy in the recession of 1980 to 1985, and brought the UK to the IMF in the same way as Greece, Spain, Portugal and more recently, Cyprus have had to doth cap and beg to the 'Fuhrer-land'.
In the end of course, Thatcher became a burden on the Tory party itself, with the cult of the leader going to far such that once the beast they had created and nurtured began to not make the right noises in 1989, and started talking in the Royal "We", then her critics became her cabinet and groups of back benchers. They ushered in the "non governance" of the 1990s with privatisation of the railways and power industries as their supposed successes that lead to super inflationary pet gargoyles which are grossly unpopular with most customers on or below average incomes.
Wednesday, 10 April 2013
The New Epoch, like the late Seventies to Late Eighties Paradigm Movement
I believe now that we stand at a point which can be very much compared to that of the mid to late 70s.
A previous epoch has run its course. In the 70s, unions and governance became too strong and old capital became too lazy to modernise economies. More than just the seeds were there for the new Epoch: it was not like Thatcher and Reagan waived a wand: their economic policies were a result of the best post-post war economists thinking up solutions in the 1970s which found voice in a former actor and a former house wife oddly enough.
As in the 70s when the unions became too powerful and hindered economic growth, and the rich too complacent and detached from managing production and value creation, we now have a stage where the bankers have become too powerful and there is still too much money locked up in property.
There has to be some tough, uncompromising decisions and one thing is certain: we do not need more anarchy! We do not need to liberalise a broken liberal banking system anymore. Like the Unions they have become arrogant and detached from the public and act in self interest. Like the unionised industries they can hold a gun to the head of government and demand money while insisting their way is essential and their members should be untouchable.
There are other areas of the markets which need to be liberalised before anyone injects more governless road maps to the banking sector; American and European agriculture for a start. Also the housing market and "real estate" : governments need to both free up ground for building but also coax the market into building affordable homes instead of the now obsolete yuppie rabbit cages which promised maximum ROI before for all concerned.
A top Norwegian economist shares some of these views, but goes further: he means like many market fundamentalists and Marxist-socialists, that the banks should have been allowed to fail. Yes it would have devastated value and savings and pensions, but it would reduce the sector to having investors who are cautious of where they place their money, and conscious that money which is nearer value creation pays better than money which is based on a house-of-cards.
Which ever way it went, we would have seen socialism: bail outs for banks and key industries, taxation for the rich (investors in Cyprus the current flavour-of-month) some more poverty for a while and then a resurgence after fundamental value creation and human interaction gets money flowing out of pockets, personal equity and the safe havens where so much money is now lingering.
We have by in large conquered high , uncontrollable inflation! Just think, we may say in our lives now for the next 20 years, that market mechanisms and judicious governance will result in less than 5% inflation. After that there will be a huge energy crisis and possibly a "perfect storm" of an unpredictable fluctuating climate coupled to the oil and coal crisis. Governments need to act to day in fundamental R&D and legislation to enable this to be a transition in 20 years time, and not a market mechanism "correction" because the market by in large so short sighted that there will be catastrophe before it adjusts the world.
That is the key point; that governments have the role to plan and tackle longer term, spread cost issues: like roads, other infrastructure, education and basic R&D. To legislate for movements to more desirable market conditions. To also create those conditions were market supply can operate to solve future problems, the two biggest being climate change and the energy crisis with other resource crises plural being a natural fall out of poor planning and a market which cannot then respond to the conditions quickly enough.
A previous epoch has run its course. In the 70s, unions and governance became too strong and old capital became too lazy to modernise economies. More than just the seeds were there for the new Epoch: it was not like Thatcher and Reagan waived a wand: their economic policies were a result of the best post-post war economists thinking up solutions in the 1970s which found voice in a former actor and a former house wife oddly enough.
As in the 70s when the unions became too powerful and hindered economic growth, and the rich too complacent and detached from managing production and value creation, we now have a stage where the bankers have become too powerful and there is still too much money locked up in property.
There has to be some tough, uncompromising decisions and one thing is certain: we do not need more anarchy! We do not need to liberalise a broken liberal banking system anymore. Like the Unions they have become arrogant and detached from the public and act in self interest. Like the unionised industries they can hold a gun to the head of government and demand money while insisting their way is essential and their members should be untouchable.
There are other areas of the markets which need to be liberalised before anyone injects more governless road maps to the banking sector; American and European agriculture for a start. Also the housing market and "real estate" : governments need to both free up ground for building but also coax the market into building affordable homes instead of the now obsolete yuppie rabbit cages which promised maximum ROI before for all concerned.
A top Norwegian economist shares some of these views, but goes further: he means like many market fundamentalists and Marxist-socialists, that the banks should have been allowed to fail. Yes it would have devastated value and savings and pensions, but it would reduce the sector to having investors who are cautious of where they place their money, and conscious that money which is nearer value creation pays better than money which is based on a house-of-cards.
Which ever way it went, we would have seen socialism: bail outs for banks and key industries, taxation for the rich (investors in Cyprus the current flavour-of-month) some more poverty for a while and then a resurgence after fundamental value creation and human interaction gets money flowing out of pockets, personal equity and the safe havens where so much money is now lingering.
We have by in large conquered high , uncontrollable inflation! Just think, we may say in our lives now for the next 20 years, that market mechanisms and judicious governance will result in less than 5% inflation. After that there will be a huge energy crisis and possibly a "perfect storm" of an unpredictable fluctuating climate coupled to the oil and coal crisis. Governments need to act to day in fundamental R&D and legislation to enable this to be a transition in 20 years time, and not a market mechanism "correction" because the market by in large so short sighted that there will be catastrophe before it adjusts the world.
That is the key point; that governments have the role to plan and tackle longer term, spread cost issues: like roads, other infrastructure, education and basic R&D. To legislate for movements to more desirable market conditions. To also create those conditions were market supply can operate to solve future problems, the two biggest being climate change and the energy crisis with other resource crises plural being a natural fall out of poor planning and a market which cannot then respond to the conditions quickly enough.
Thatcher: The Female Führer
Looking back at the rhetoric and actions of Mrs T, one side of me and many respects the tackling of man ills in Britain and the rise of meritocracy she was both a symbol and protagonist for. The other side of me now remembers the bitterness she spoke of many landsmen and the lack of compassion for those once called " the enemy within"
"We had to fight the enemy without in the Falklands. We always have to be aware of the enemy within, which is much more difficult to fight and more dangerous to liberty"
which coupled to her middle-class-bourgeois "kulturkampf" can be easily likened to :
"Those nations who are still opposed to us will some day recognize the greater enemy within"
: from another democratically elected leader, who also chose to demonise an otherwise productive sector of society, Adolf Hitler.
So in remembering her rhetoric and lack of respect for communities which had once paved London streets with golden stock traders salaries,
I think of her also then as the Female Führer, with the miners and steel workers as her enemy within, her Jews and gypsies.
A culture of a life and family commitment to the two industries which subsidies or not, had built Britains wealth: the raw supply for value conversion which finds reward on the stock market. Only the investment-. ROI was biased. The industries weren't modernised. The ironies are abundant: we imported subsidised coal from New Zealand and from the then communist Poland during the miners strike. After the planned downsizing, the command economy of reducing world capacity for steel closed one of the most productive mills in the world, Ravenscraig, it took only a few years for there to be a shortage of steel and a protected market in the US conserving its own capacity. That the union jack waving privatisations of Rover, and the stock market freedoms lead to the Germans and Chinese raking out our brands and technologies.
In the same way as Jewish citizens in 1920s Germany were often the most productive and enterprising peoples, who made many Christian Germans wary and lead to them being an easy target, so the steel and coal workers were a productive backbone from the indsutrial revolution, through the war years and into the last great epoch of Britain as an manufacturing giant from the 50s to the early 70s. She demonised this class of workers who were dependent on their pits and mills, letting her own "
"We had to fight the enemy without in the Falklands. We always have to be aware of the enemy within, which is much more difficult to fight and more dangerous to liberty"
which coupled to her middle-class-bourgeois "kulturkampf" can be easily likened to :
"Those nations who are still opposed to us will some day recognize the greater enemy within"
: from another democratically elected leader, who also chose to demonise an otherwise productive sector of society, Adolf Hitler.
So in remembering her rhetoric and lack of respect for communities which had once paved London streets with golden stock traders salaries,
I think of her also then as the Female Führer, with the miners and steel workers as her enemy within, her Jews and gypsies.
A culture of a life and family commitment to the two industries which subsidies or not, had built Britains wealth: the raw supply for value conversion which finds reward on the stock market. Only the investment-. ROI was biased. The industries weren't modernised. The ironies are abundant: we imported subsidised coal from New Zealand and from the then communist Poland during the miners strike. After the planned downsizing, the command economy of reducing world capacity for steel closed one of the most productive mills in the world, Ravenscraig, it took only a few years for there to be a shortage of steel and a protected market in the US conserving its own capacity. That the union jack waving privatisations of Rover, and the stock market freedoms lead to the Germans and Chinese raking out our brands and technologies.
In the same way as Jewish citizens in 1920s Germany were often the most productive and enterprising peoples, who made many Christian Germans wary and lead to them being an easy target, so the steel and coal workers were a productive backbone from the indsutrial revolution, through the war years and into the last great epoch of Britain as an manufacturing giant from the 50s to the early 70s. She demonised this class of workers who were dependent on their pits and mills, letting her own "
Tuesday, 9 April 2013
What did Maggie Thatcher think of The Bank Bail Outs post 2008?
The banks suceeded where 20 years of conservative policy had prevented it: a failed industry, crippled by weak management and chaotic structuring of products was bailed out lock stocks and barrells of bonuses.
Thatcher tried to reverse propping up industries, which somehow ended up in a bizarre situation the UK finds itself in now: both the lowest unemployment rates yet the highest poverty rates of the big 3 economies.
20 Billion was the bail out to HBOS. Failure would have been unthinkable: just as the failure of the privately owned, listed company British Leyland was unthinkable in the mid 70s when in fact the private management of BMC had still wanted to market 1950s models into the 1970s. 180,000 direct employees. Toyota; VW and even BMW made mostly small, rather odd cars. BL made some turkeys but made some great cars: the maxi, the mini, the marina, the TR6, the sptifire, the MGB/C, landrover, the big SD1 so iconic of late 70s traffic police and senior managers.
Why is the "bail out" of banks not seen as the same old socialism as the "nationalisation" of BL which is what it was in fact, not really full nationalisation like the airports, and only using limited involvement in the running of BL . It was a share purchase bail out for a failing private company which made some damn good products.
Britain has such high employment and high poverty because it is in effect still a subsidy junky. Instead of letting the banks fail they bailed them out, so the casino royale can play again knowing that mummy state will wipe their bums again.
Also take housing benefit: a massive subsidy to private property developers and rachmans. Then of course working family benefits: an excuse to allow service industry to pay as little as possible to employees and let the state bail them out with indirect subsidy as opposed to trade unions offering a natural, devolved means of fighting for the balance to feed families.
Are you that proud to be British when the Germans, Indians and Chinese own our old brand and command many of the new brands ?
Is this the natural end of the bullshit show of personal credit and house price equity release which the UK has been living off for 20 years ?
Thatcher tried to reverse propping up industries, which somehow ended up in a bizarre situation the UK finds itself in now: both the lowest unemployment rates yet the highest poverty rates of the big 3 economies.
20 Billion was the bail out to HBOS. Failure would have been unthinkable: just as the failure of the privately owned, listed company British Leyland was unthinkable in the mid 70s when in fact the private management of BMC had still wanted to market 1950s models into the 1970s. 180,000 direct employees. Toyota; VW and even BMW made mostly small, rather odd cars. BL made some turkeys but made some great cars: the maxi, the mini, the marina, the TR6, the sptifire, the MGB/C, landrover, the big SD1 so iconic of late 70s traffic police and senior managers.
Why is the "bail out" of banks not seen as the same old socialism as the "nationalisation" of BL which is what it was in fact, not really full nationalisation like the airports, and only using limited involvement in the running of BL . It was a share purchase bail out for a failing private company which made some damn good products.
Britain has such high employment and high poverty because it is in effect still a subsidy junky. Instead of letting the banks fail they bailed them out, so the casino royale can play again knowing that mummy state will wipe their bums again.
Also take housing benefit: a massive subsidy to private property developers and rachmans. Then of course working family benefits: an excuse to allow service industry to pay as little as possible to employees and let the state bail them out with indirect subsidy as opposed to trade unions offering a natural, devolved means of fighting for the balance to feed families.
Are you that proud to be British when the Germans, Indians and Chinese own our old brand and command many of the new brands ?
Is this the natural end of the bullshit show of personal credit and house price equity release which the UK has been living off for 20 years ?
Monday, 8 April 2013
Thatcher: The Messiah of the Bourgeois
Maggie, the Iron Ladette, is gone.
She was most of all a Messiah for the Bourgeios. A kind of figure head against the old stodgy conservatism and inverted snobbery and a champion against the overly powerful unions.
The public had no stomach for the excesses of the unions, whose members paid a huge price
for their own arrogance. Unions now do not command the respect they deserve and de-unionisation is still seen as a goal for companies in the UK.
The first "monetarist" was in fact not a tory. It was Dennis Healy. He said infront of the labour conference, that Britain would have to balance its books and tackle inflation in order to be on a better economic footing. The former communist leaned too far to the right now, and this one speech is probably the one turning point to the winter of discontent in 1978.
It was the end for Old Labour , Old Liberals and Old School Tie Conservatives in one day at the ballot box then in 1979.
Strange that of course the Thatcher years did touch my life too, in mildly positive ways directly too.
Thatcher got lucky : first the biggest nationalist party political broadcast in history: The Falklands War, fought quite rightly and bravely. But with no Falklands war there could have been a chance, god help us, that Michael foot and Lib-Lab pact of CND duffle coaters could have got in.
The labour party fell into a CND campaign back room of a dusty oxfam shop: a rabble of former Callaghan cronies and academics. Also then, with the liberalisation of the markets in full swing, the anarchy of black monday in 1987 came with a storm on the other side of the election.
So Thatcher got lucky and eventually her extremes and personality got in the way, allowing for the wilderness years of John Major, which went full term and did little more than take teachers and nurses away from doing their jobs, and privatised the railway.
Gorbachev fell to the hawks and democracy withered in Russia to the state it is in today. The Iron curtain lifted though on eastern europe which is one very positive thing about the fall of communism. Unemployment black spots created in the 80s remain so, and inner city youff are still bored petty criminals.
The irony is how little changed after her stormy three terms in the UK. Change then was needed in 1979 and it was a hard act to follow for John Major because the big plus sides of the freedoms unleashed in the UK though the three previous terms, were done and dusted and showing some down sides already.
She was most of all a Messiah for the Bourgeios. A kind of figure head against the old stodgy conservatism and inverted snobbery and a champion against the overly powerful unions.
The public had no stomach for the excesses of the unions, whose members paid a huge price
for their own arrogance. Unions now do not command the respect they deserve and de-unionisation is still seen as a goal for companies in the UK.
The first "monetarist" was in fact not a tory. It was Dennis Healy. He said infront of the labour conference, that Britain would have to balance its books and tackle inflation in order to be on a better economic footing. The former communist leaned too far to the right now, and this one speech is probably the one turning point to the winter of discontent in 1978.
It was the end for Old Labour , Old Liberals and Old School Tie Conservatives in one day at the ballot box then in 1979.
Strange that of course the Thatcher years did touch my life too, in mildly positive ways directly too.
Thatcher got lucky : first the biggest nationalist party political broadcast in history: The Falklands War, fought quite rightly and bravely. But with no Falklands war there could have been a chance, god help us, that Michael foot and Lib-Lab pact of CND duffle coaters could have got in.
The labour party fell into a CND campaign back room of a dusty oxfam shop: a rabble of former Callaghan cronies and academics. Also then, with the liberalisation of the markets in full swing, the anarchy of black monday in 1987 came with a storm on the other side of the election.
So Thatcher got lucky and eventually her extremes and personality got in the way, allowing for the wilderness years of John Major, which went full term and did little more than take teachers and nurses away from doing their jobs, and privatised the railway.
Gorbachev fell to the hawks and democracy withered in Russia to the state it is in today. The Iron curtain lifted though on eastern europe which is one very positive thing about the fall of communism. Unemployment black spots created in the 80s remain so, and inner city youff are still bored petty criminals.
The irony is how little changed after her stormy three terms in the UK. Change then was needed in 1979 and it was a hard act to follow for John Major because the big plus sides of the freedoms unleashed in the UK though the three previous terms, were done and dusted and showing some down sides already.
Wednesday, 3 April 2013
The Cost of Managerialism in Public Services
"bring in a good dose of private management" was the mantra.
That and the marketism .
Wonder how much money is spent on creating wholly artificial markets within the health and welfare sectors and what decline in front line delivery this has lead to? No doubt managerialism either
1) finds some stats to show how successful they have actually NOT been
2) change the goal posts and find new challenges and use positive buzz words, to promote more reorganising, reporting, tender process dogmatism and above all, more non delivery management
The problem is that the core delivery expertise is lacking in management and this is by design.
By all means contract out ancilliary services: Accounting, goods purchasing, personnel administration and development, management best-practic-auditing, iso9000/9003 implementation, measurement of effectiveness and of course consultants to police the actual subcontractors in terms of bids, performance and claims. But retain the core management as people experienced at the delivery end.
Render these auxiliary support functions to the private free market where administration enjoys economies of scale, qaulity-best-practice and a legacy of expertise. There will be winners and losers, but washing these people out to contract will allow for the management focus to be with the professionals who choose to go forward to manage the public services.
That and the marketism .
Wonder how much money is spent on creating wholly artificial markets within the health and welfare sectors and what decline in front line delivery this has lead to? No doubt managerialism either
1) finds some stats to show how successful they have actually NOT been
2) change the goal posts and find new challenges and use positive buzz words, to promote more reorganising, reporting, tender process dogmatism and above all, more non delivery management
The problem is that the core delivery expertise is lacking in management and this is by design.
By all means contract out ancilliary services: Accounting, goods purchasing, personnel administration and development, management best-practic-auditing, iso9000/9003 implementation, measurement of effectiveness and of course consultants to police the actual subcontractors in terms of bids, performance and claims. But retain the core management as people experienced at the delivery end.
Render these auxiliary support functions to the private free market where administration enjoys economies of scale, qaulity-best-practice and a legacy of expertise. There will be winners and losers, but washing these people out to contract will allow for the management focus to be with the professionals who choose to go forward to manage the public services.
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