UKC

http://blogs.lse.ac.uk/politicsandpolicy/waiting-for-the-great-recession-tr...

I found this interesting reading.

In reply to Timmd:

When times are hard the poorest get hit hardest? We need a school of economics to tell us that?

Next up from the LSE;

"Pope suspected of Catholic tendencies. Bear excrement found in wooded area."

In reply to Timmd:


I found it interesting too. Thanks for posting.

In reply to stroppygob:

if you hadn't posted that I would have!

In reply to Timmd:
I can't believe how light the article is on solutions. It isn't even heavy on identifying the sources of the problems. I'm not saying I disagree with anything stated in the article, nor with the fact that much of it states the bleeding obvious. Governments like to have heavyweight academic research to underpin policy even when the answer is clear. It's just that, for the depth of expertise you might reasonably expect from an LSE professor, it would not be unreasonable to anticipate some constructive suggestions. As it is, the article seems to say nothing more than "society is broken and someone needs to fix it". I'm tempted to point out that my tax receipts were wasted on that facile conclusion and could have been put to better use but someone would miss the wink and accuse me of Thatcherite leanings for wanting more rigour

In reply to Timmd:

Interesting one........on one hand you need to encourage people into work and cutting welfare seems like the easiest way to do this for the government. That way you aren't better off on benefits than minimum wage. What they should really do is increase minimum wage, but will that cause us to loose foreign investment and in the end jobs making us worse of. The shame is that cutting benefits seems to have also affected those not able to work.

Channel 4's program last night on 'how the rich get richer' was interesting. They suggested that labours quantitive easing program devalued the currency making all assets (mostly owned by the wealthy like housing, art, cars) worth more and basically giving the rich free money that way. The poor saw no benefit and the rich poor divide worsened. So much for labour being for the people.

In reply to stroppygob:


Still, that doesn't stop biologists from studying bear excrement, does it?

In reply to stroppygob:


When the government are telling us the opposite, we probably do!

In reply to jasonpather:

Cutting welfare to encourage people into jobs requires there to be jobs for these people to go into.

In reply to BnB:

But the government would have us believe their policies are working. This article merely contradics that idea. The solution would lie in a followup article.

In reply to ByEek:


The policies are working. But not for everyone. That seems to be her point.

Any solution would appear in this article if she actually had one to offer. But the author is as lacking in vision as Her Majesty's opposition, for all her research and analysis.

It's easy to criticise. No government can please every segment of society at the same time. Indeed, the author happily acknowledges that the early impacts of the recession and its associated countermeasures were harder on the well-off. Of course, the well-off are better placed to deal with negative shifts, not just financially but in terms of socio-economic capital, so that is as it should be.

Perhaps UKIP has the answer?

In reply to Timmd:

Somebody needs to write a paper about cutting Corporate Welfare..... the sort that allows the likes of Sainsbury's et al to pay piss poor wages, zero hour contracts etc while doing everything they can to mitigate there Tax liabilities knowing that Her Majesty's Govt. will top up the wages for these workers via the welfare system.
This is the true scandal.

In reply to stroppygob:

beat me to it!

In reply to The New NickB:

Hi Nick, I've not seen any Government propaganda trying to convince me that when times are hard the poorest do not get hit hardest? Any chance you could point me at some?

In reply to stroppygob:

They are going to end child poverty by 2020. So that's going well.

They are going to increase social mobility. So that is going well.

Need I go on!

In reply to Indy:

I suppose you saw this?
http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/oct/06/benefits-corporate-wel...

More:
http://renewal.org.uk/articles/the-british-corporate-welfare-state

On US corporate welfare, there was a good book by Zepezauer (Take the Rich Off Welfare) that was updated in 2004. James T. Bennett has a book out next year, (forward by Ralph Nader), he is in this video a bit:

vimeo.com/98165217

People are very slowly waking up, even though 85 billion quid should be enough to get their attention in this country, you would think...

In reply to The New NickB:




Well, yes, if you are attempting to show that that is; "Government propaganda trying to convince me that when times are hard the poorest do not get hit hardest".

What you have posted are government promises, and who believes those?

In reply to BnB:




Definately not! I think they would make the problems significantly wrose.

They are however doing a very good job of persuading the average man that they are on their side when in reality most of the policies are of no help or benefit.

In reply to DaveN:

Relax Dave. Posted in jest. Or rather to point out that no one has an easy answer.