The right wing global corporate elites see the opportunity to destroy welfare and health care world wide. Having created the economic meltdown through the actions of their greedy bank agents, they are now using the crises to go after the very systems that they have been against for the last 60 years. The people who caused this crises are now being given a pass and instead we are told by the right wing propaganda media that it is the public sector which created this mess, and it must be them and the poor who suffer.

The greed of these people knows no bounds. We really are returning to the ‘let them eat cake’ mentality.

The left’s worst nightmare is a world as prosperous as hong kong and Switzerland.

@2 The right’s worst nightmare is realising that the economic model of a tax haven and city state isn’t applicable to the rest of the world. I think you’ll find its a bit more complicated than that…

I’m not sure I’m really happy with the comparison between a developing country and a developed country. How much can the Netherland’s learn from Brazil?

The Netherlands don’t appear to have an onerous level of debt or a particularly overbearing deficit so I agree they probably don’t need austerity, but I don’t know enough to fully opine on the subject.

I don’t know what I’m meant to take from this post.

Sure its more complicated than that. It is a whole discipline!

But, at the same time, there are a set of neo-liberal reforms (which aren’t particularly threatening to state welfare provision depending on how they are implemented) which have benefited just about every nation that has adopted them: http://www.themoneyillusion.com/?p=4954

Switzerland

Don’t make me laugh. It is the bank of all the criminals in the world. Drug barons, corporate con merchants you name it.

But tell me again Conservatives are for law and order…..Ha ha ha.

The Right is making the same policy decisions that created the great depression. Cutting spending in a recession. Global Depression is coming , but the rich corporate elite don’t care because they got theirs and every one else can go F themselves.

Hong Kong, is a poor example to cite, Nick. If you have ever been there the poverty in the midst of opulence is disgusting.

‘ Tam Kin-wai’s home has a high ceiling. Unfortunately, the single room he occupies with his wife and 12-year-old son is higher than it is wide or long. At about 35 square feet, it has space for two wooden bunk beds fixed to the back wall, a small black-and-white television balanced precariously on a shelf and a little bedside table. Every inch of space in what feels more like a storage cupboard than a place of abode is piled high with clutter: clothes, chipped cups, bedding, an electric fan, a roll of white toilet paper. Guests can either stand just inside the doorway in the only vacant space, or (as I did) sit beside Mr Tam on the lower bunk bed.

Mr Tam, a retired light-bulb maker who came to Hong Kong from mainland China in the 1960s, is one of an estimated 100,000 people in the territory who reside in cubicle-sized apartments. A short taxi ride away (if you can afford it), Dai Yun-po, a hard-of-hearing 80-year-old, and Kong Siu-gau, 63, live in even more shocking conditions. Retired construction workers fallen on hard times, they sleep in cages with mesh walls and ceilings too low for them to stand up. To do so, they must join a dozen other caged men in a communal area. When I arrived they were all standing – since there were no seats – watching a television programme about the latest Forbes list of billionaires. If Mr Dai and Mr Kong were dogs, someone from animal rights would have taken up their case years ago.

These are extreme examples of Hong Kong poverty to be sure. Yet a territory better known for its breathtaking harbour-front skyline and its money-making possibilities has plenty of misery to go round. In a city of 7m people with an average per capita income of nearly US$30,000, 1.23m live below the poverty line, earning less than half of a desperately low median wage. The city’s Gini coefficient, which measures income inequality, is the worst in Asia (worse even than India and mainland China) before the limited effects of the city’s half-hearted income redistribution are counted.

The few hundred US dollars a month that many people live on do not get you very far in a cramped city-state with some of the world’s highest rents. Mr Kong pays US$160 a month for caged enclosure. Since there are no cooking facilities, he spends a good deal more on take-away food.

Widespread poverty is a largely untold story of Hong Kong. Were it not for subsidised public housing, where 40 per cent of Hong Kong residents live, conditions would be much worse. As it is, thousands of pensioners pick through garbage to make ends meet. How could things have come to this in one of Asia’s most prosperous and glittering cities? There are at least three reasons.

First, Hong Kong has been as badly hit as anywhere by low-cost competition from mainland China. In the 1980s, when many Chinese were drawn to the territory’s booming economy, there were an estimated 1m manufacturing jobs in Hong Kong, according to Chua Hoi Wai of Hong Kong’s Council of Social Service. That number has fallen to 200,000 as jobs have seeped across the border. Factory wages have fallen from US$1,300-US$2,500 a month in the heady 1980s to as little as US$700. The median wage has not budged in a decade, says Mr Chua, while those of the mid- and top-earners have soared.

Second, land prices are kept artificially high. Property tycoons and private property owners wield huge influence on an undemocratic legislature. The government auctions off parcels of land sparingly, since nothing upsets the powerful more than negative equity. A scheme to build new public housing for sale at below-market prices has been frozen. C.Y. Leung, a prominent politician, describes Hong Kong as being divided into those who own property and those who do not.

Third, Hong Kong has a tradition of small government and a credo of “positive non-interventionism”. A free-market philosophy lauded as key to Hong Kong’s success as a financial centre, positive non-interventionism has little to offer if you are living in a cage. The upshot is no public pension, no unemployment benefit or disability allowance. As yet, there is no minimum wage. Government expenditure is around 16 per cent of gross domestic product. Now you know what Sweden spends the other 34 per cent on.

Fernando Cheung, a pro-democracy activist and university lecturer, says many of Hong Kong’s poor are migrants from mainland China. They fled poverty, turmoil and tyranny and are used to being treated as “objects, not subjects”, he says. That makes them stoical and undemanding.

Mr Tam, the retired light-bulb maker, fits his description. He has no regrets about fleeing mainland China for Hong Kong despite the poverty and poor living conditions in which he now finds himself. But he does note, on occasional trips back to Guangdong province, that the country he left half a century ago grows every day richer. Most people over the border now live better than he does, he admits. “Even their kitchen is bigger than my house,” he says, in a voice miraculously devoid of envy. ‘

http://www.ftchinese.com/story/001031893/en/?print=y

‘ Official government statistics show that there are 150,000 Hong Kong people living in cages, cubicles, rooftop huts, hallways benches, parks and streets. In bureaucratic lingo this is called “inadequate housing.”

Government data for licensed cage homes (or “bedspaces”) put the number at 29 apartments providing 1,292 cages for 878 people.

http://shanghaiist.com/2006/06/20/hong_kong_home.php

http://www.sawfnews.com/Lifestyle/39233.aspx‘

Nowhere’s perfect and hong kong would be much better if land wasn’t so heavily regulated. It hasn’t stopped it from generating vast amounts of wealth, dramatically improving the lot of even it’s poorest inhabitants.

The Netherlands went through an austerity phase during the 1980s.

On Dutch disease, by the end of the 1970s, Dutch economists and policy makers were aware that the economy had become internationally uncompetitive through an appreciation of the exchange rate for the Guilder which followed discoveries of the gas fields off the Netherlands coast.

The adjustment process in the Netherlands to recover from the Dutch disease was far from painless. Try the review of the Netherlands economy by Bart van Ark and colleagues in Nicholas Crafts and Gianni Toniolo (eds): Economic Growth in Europe since 1945 (CUP, 1996) chp. 10.

Adjustment was achieved by maintaining a national consensus constraining growth in wages: ” . . the reduction in wage growth after 1973 – even to less than 1 per cent a year during the 1980s – is quite remarkable, although it should be added that between 1990 and 1992 real wages again rose by 3 to 4 per cent a year.” [p.297] The result was that the annual increase in unit labour costs 1979-90 was kept down to 0.6 per cent, in marked contrast to what happened elsewhere in western Europe at this time.

The question is how many other EU countries could have maintained such a ferocious but effective incomes policy through national consensus? “The polder model is the Dutch version of consensus policy in economics. . . ”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polder_Model

The left’s worst nightmare is a world as prosperous as hong kong and Switzerland.

I thought the left wanted the world to be full of northern european social democracies.

Well, one possible reason for that shocking stuff about schools and sewage is that, well, GDP per capita at PPP (ie, adjusting for different prices in different countries) is $10,500. In Holland it’s $39,000.

Roughly, round and about, four times richer.

To close the gap of course we would like to have more economic growth in Brazil (for of course, making the Dutch poorer in the name of equality isn’t going to go down very well with the Dutch).

And the one thing this neo-liberal mixture of capitalism and markets is very good at is producing growth. Not all that good at the distribution of it, sure, but letting markets rip: compare and contrast the economic performance through the 20th century without markets, like the Soviet Bloc, with those places with markets, like us.

And as to the Nordics? They’re rather more neo-liberal than we are in most ways. Neo-liberal economies with lots of redistribution on top actually. Higher consumption taxes and lower corporate and capital taxes….a standard neo-liberal set up….than we do for example.

And as to the No Shock Doctrine site:

“Britain has massive assets, long term debts, and very low taxes.”

Very low taxes? Seriously? On what planet? At around 38, 39% of GDP…..like Brazil on 38, 39% of GDP?

Although to be fair, Brazil’s government debt was only 6.9% of GDP in 2008, as compared to our, what, 40%, 50%?

The Nordic countries especially Denmark are a much better example than Hong Kong. Denmark’s success challenges a lot of assumptions of the left and the right. They manage to provide an excellent extensive social safety net financed by the highest income taxes in the world and a 25% VAT. Moreover, 30% of the workforce are state employees and they have one of the best Gini coefficients in the world. However, they score highly for economic freedom and are much more neo-liberal than the left in this country imagine. I guess their secret is they do not heavily tax capital.

The IMF don’t force anyone to borow money, perhaps “the developing world” should look at why it’s in such a mess. Little things like not producing anything the world wants to buy, not having any infrastructure, corruption on an endemic scale and tax evasion as a national pastime.

“I feel like sitting on my sofa, having a beer, watching the match to forget that the next generation of kids might go to a school run by Tesco where they are trained to work for Tesco, they will live in a Tesco housing estate and they will eat Tesco food.”

As opposed to a school run by the state, with an “eductation” system designed to produce workers for the state, living in a house owned by the state, and eating what the state tells you to.

“The greed of these people knows no bounds. We really are returning to the ‘let them eat cake’ mentality.”

The chavs of the world got very fat eating the cake that the socialist governments of Europe bought them with borrowed money, the same socialist governments who are squealing about how “unfair” it all is, now that it’s payback time

Tesco food is rather good, though I agree that Waitrose and (for ready meals) M&S are better.

I don’t believe that they have any plans to run schools, but is there any reason to believe that such schools would not be as well run as their well run stores?

And why the snobbishness about working for Tesco?

“The IMF don’t force anyone to borrow money,”

You really are very naive if you think that. The IMF work hand in glove with the rich corporate right wing elites. As soon as they tell these govts they can borrow money they then give the wink to all the corporate leeches to descend on that particular country. Accompanied by various CIA and shady characters who then arrive to sell piles of corporate shit that the country don’t need. The whole operation is done to force the country in to massive debt, which when they then default can allow Western countries to steal their natural resources.

Read Confessions of an economic hit man

The right wing trolls hate democracy, they want a country controlled and owned by corporate elites.

They are too stupid to understand that capitalist corporate leaders and communist dictators have one thing in common. They both hate and despise democracy and freedom.. They want power, of everything they survey.

Who needs Chairman Mao when you can have food giants like Monsanto telling us what we will eat and telling us what is safe. You will be free to buy whatever WE will think is best for you.

Good Gawd even William Huge complained about identikit private housing developments. Every where you go looks the same with the same bland shops, selling the same bland shit that people take back to and the same bland houses.

“Tesco food is rather good, though I agree that Waitrose and (for ready meals) M&S are better.”

I switched to Morrisons following a succession of rows over differences between posted shelf prices and what I was charged at checkouts. After months using Morrisons I’ve concluded it is a much better shopping experience. The prices of the items I tend to buy are often better and the store cafeteria is excellent in its class. What I miss from shopping at Tesco is the range of non-food products in Tesco Extra stores. Retail sales data show Morrisons is gaining market share so I guess other shoppers have similar perceptions.

“Morrisons beats Sainsbury and Tesco’s festive sales”
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/newsbysector/retailandconsumer/7047422/Morrisons-beats-Sainsbury-and-Tescos-festive-sales.htm

“They are too stupid to understand that capitalist corporate leaders and communist dictators have one thing in common”

No we are not, as I’ve said before – at least you know that a capitalist is trying to shaft you, it’s not admirable, but it’s understandable, who honestly doesn’t want to be rich ? It’s doubly hypocritical for many of the trustifarian protesters against “gloablisation” to do so knowing that their daddies can only afford to give them their comfortable and privelidged lives because they have facilitated the very capitalist system they (their kids) pretend they want to destroy.

……….”Who needs Chairman Mao when you can have food giants like Monsanto telling us what we will eat and telling us what is safe. You will be free to buy whatever WE will think is best for you”
.
With left wing dictators what you get is creepy social engineering and half baked attempts at thought control, dressed up as “equality” and exused with the old “my intentions are good” bollocks. You never know what their motivation is – and you therefore cannot trust them, at least you know monsanto want your money and fuck the consequences. It’s the lesser of two evils, that’s all.

@ 18 – Morrisons is for northerners, Waitrose is middle england, and I just refuse to go into M&S. Asda every time.

BTW charging a different price at the till is illegal.

Matt Munro: “The chavs of the world got very fat eating the cake”

I’ve long suspected that the reason libertarians are so keen on slashing benefits isn’t that they really believe benefits are counterproductive and bad for their recipients, but because they couldn’t give a s*** what happens to “chavs”.

Matt Munro: “who honestly doesn’t want to be rich?”

Loads of people. So long as I have enough to get by, I’m happy. If I wanted to be rich I would have gone into finance.

Matt Munro: “their daddies can only afford to give them their comfortable and privelidged lives because they have facilitated the very capitalist system they (their kids) pretend they want to destroy.”

Are people with “daddies” not allowed their own opinions? By the same token, British campaigners against slavery in previous centuries should all have been opposed, because no doubt they were given the luxury of time to campaign partly through the proceeds of slavery, too…

Matt Munro: “You never know what their motivation is – and you therefore cannot trust them, at least you know monsanto want your money and fuck the consequences. It’s the lesser of two evils, that’s all.”

That’s just flat-out nihilism.

“BTW charging a different price at the till is illegal.”

I know. There didn’t used to be a problem in Tesco stores IME but the managements evidently took to cutting corners in several stores, presumably to save the costs of checking shelf prices aginst the computer database serving the checkouts.

Looking back, a friendly “person” at the checkouts took to saying quietly to me: “check your bill”. Initially, I wondered why they had taken to saying this until I started to notice some price differences. I would check up on my memory by going back round the store before going to customer services to complain and getting paid back the difference between the shelf price and the price shown on my checkout bill. For comparison, I’ve only once experienced a similar problem at Morrisons.

Btw I see this in the news, which probably helps to explain why Tesco needs to scrimp on checking shelf prices:

“Tesco faced a furious backlash yesterday from shareholders angry about fat cat pay. The supermarket giant’s directors pocketed more than £32million last year – one of the biggest boardroom bonanzas.”
http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/city-news/2010/07/03/tesco-facing-shareholder-backlash-115875-22379232/#ixzz0sdkH8btn

@ 21 I happen to believe that above a certain level benefits are counterproductive, and lock people into poverty, in effect that making it easier to be “poor” (by global standards our benefit recipients live luxurious lives) locks in poverty. Some on the left beleive this also, and based on the last 10 years and the widening rich/poor gap, it’s not without credibility. Personally I think chavs should get off their fat arses, stop moaning, and get a job. I had to, why shouldn’t they ?

“So long as I have enough to get by, I’m happy. If I wanted to be rich I would have gone into finance.”

Fair enough but “enough to get by” means different things to different people. Your view might change when your responsibilities increase. Must be nice to be so sure you would have got into finance.

“Are people with “daddies” not allowed their own opinions?”

Provided they keep them to themselves and carry out their liberal guilt purging in private then yes. As Clint Eastwood said – opinions are like arseholes, everbody has one

“That’s just flat-out nihilism”. I’m Gex X, it’s what we do best

The chavs of the world got very fat eating the cake that the socialist governments of Europe bought them with borrowed money, the same socialist governments who are squealing about how “unfair” it all is, now that it’s payback time

Do you really believe this ?
You and cjcjc really hate don’t you.
You are both very unpleasant individuals.
I expect cjcjc is a journalist ans that is par for the course, you matt I think you are a man who has failed in life hence the irrational hate for the left and liberals.
That is probably the reason you post on a left of centre site.
Also why do you post on a site where you hate Sunny and most of the writers and posters.
Most of your comments are destructive not constructive.
Unlike watchman, John meredith, pagar and even flowerpower, who come from a right of centre perspective but are constructive.
Using comments like payback time shows a lack of humanity at poor individuals who are going to go through great hardships when they are put on the dole.
Whether the cuts are right or wrong, to enjoy the discomfort of others shows a serious lack of empathy.

Picture the scene. An ancient dojo. Two mortal enemies. It’s Left vs. Right in a battle, repeated since politics immemorial. A killing blow has never been struck, yet they both killed each other’s fathers.

The challengers appear. A gong echoes in the silent courtyard. The opponents face each other, seething. The time for retribution is now!

So they both promptly trot off to the sidelines and come back with little straw dolls, set them up in the middle of the ring, and proceed to beat them until the stuffing comes out, all the while studiously ignoring each other.

Very productive.