Something everybody does when they take over a job is blame anything bad on the last guy. Politicians are especially adept at it and who can blame them, its exactly what i would do.
'Sorry guys, you aren't going to like this but we have to do it because the last lot made such a mess of everything'.
The Coalition Government are making the most of the situation and putting on their most sympathetic faces while telling us they are going to cut and slash everything to make the books balance and remind us that it's all Labours fault.
Those of us who remember the Thatcher years know that the Conservatives are all about selling things off.
Gas, telephones, electric, council homes, water, trains, airlines and even rubbish collection were all privatised and their eyes were turning towards the NHS until they got turfed out.
Now they are back in again and it's looking as though the sell off was only temporarily paused until there was a blue backside on the seat again.
Most cause for concern is the National Health Service which is to be overhauled and Hospitals being allowed to opt out of Local Health Authority control, plum pickings for the private sector.
The same treatment is being mentioned for schools and even welfare with private companies taking over.
In the short term, it will boost the economy but with hindsight, the privatisation rush of the Thatcher years has been a disaster. Prices for the services of all the above now PLC's has gone through the roof.
Gas, water and electric bills are eye wateringly expensive and anyone who makes regular use of the trains knows that it has become almost untenable. The local councils housing stock is so low that any chance of renting an affordable home is stacked against them. My local council has a list of people waiting to join the actual waiting list for a home.
The Conservatives are the privatisation party and they will be on the television shrugging sympathetically and saying they have no choice but there must soon be a point where we say hang about, Labour did make a mess and yes you do have to make tough decisions to clean it up but your idea may make sense today but as we found out from Thatcher, the hurt comes later when the private companies now running these things decide there profit margin needs extending. That barrel they have you over is very uncomfortable.
Look at the extortionate cost of your electric bill and that's our future for receiving hospital treatment and the Conservatives solution to our problems.
3 comments:
You forget the fourth law of thermodynamics: TANSTAAFL. All that is gotten will be paid for as surely as any of the most sacred laws of mechanics must be obeyed.
If the better government services cost more than the government was getting through taxation then over the long term a combination of three things must happen:
1. The government must cut services
2. The government must raise taxes
3. The government must collapse
The world will be a much better place when an artful statesman discovers a nice way of saying "although everyone has come to expect this government service, there is no way to pay for it so everyone should not get angry at me when I eliminate it so that I do not nave to raise taxes." However this time has not yet come. Until then I would not be so hasty to judge the courageous politicians who take it upon themselves to bite the political bullet by raising taxes and cutting services for the greater good.
-Nog
An editorial in the New York Times sums up the coalition's doctrinaire budget quite well, I think:
"In the days since, the misguided nature of this budget has become clear. Some cutbacks were necessary, if only to reassure Europe's panicky bond markets. But the coalition's budget aims to cut too much too soon, in pursuit of a pointless structural budget surplus by 2015. Its real achievements are more likely to be drastically downsized public services and, if the fiscal austerity backfires, as it well might, a contribution to years of stagnation or worse in Britain and the rest of Europe."
And:
"No reputable economic theory justifies this bleeding. In fact, most mainstream economists have argued for delaying the most severe cuts until a more robust economic recovery has begun. The coalition budget reflects Conservative Party ideology, which asserts that as the government withdraws money from the economy, private businesses and consumers will step in to replace it. That won't happen if Britons see only hard times ahead."
hanz,
and you think that a bunch of government employees that dont have the guts and brains to run their own business can make "Gas, water and electric bills, trains and housing" better? Really?
here's an idea. if running those businesses is so lucrative then why dont you get in one of them? i'm serious. at the least you should be buying their stock.
Q
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