Yawn. So, any planning in any facet of life is clearly a waste of time in your opinion?

Yawn back



Not at all, but planning based on proper evidence not on what people "think" may happen is probably a more sensible way to proceed. I think I might win the lottery tonight but going out and buying a Ferrari now wouldn't be right.



From your previous post - you think we have "a well established history of relative decline since...the start of the 20th century" - let's have a look at your evidence before we all start panicking.

Its the version of democracy that we've had for xxx hundred years.



HTH

So the future is known!

Whatever. You know what was meant

Quote ="Dally"In Croatia someone has published a website, that has become quite popular, that equates the national economy to a household position (ie numbers and concepts people can understand readily). So, in its simplest it might say the natiional position is equivalent to, say: Household annual income £13,500 Household expenditure £15,000 Shortfall added to credit card £1,500 Credit card total debt £18,000 The figures correspond to national revenues, expenditure, deficit and debt and relate directly and are updated. Apparently, the public can play about with policy assumptions / tough choices and learn how hard it is to get the deficit and debt figures down. Most people after having a go become fiscal conservatives. We need an academic to do this in this country so the public can make informed choices about the NHS and other government expenditure and the tax, etc ramifications of those choices. For those who understand Balkan languages: proracunskikalkulator.com'" I assume this system doesn't take into account such things as interest rates, currency devaluation, inflation and economic growth? Without those factors an assessment of debt and deficit is almost useless. Which begs the question as to why the Chancellor is always so keen to make a similar comparison of government debt/deficit to a household budget. Surely he should know better.

Quote ="Dally"In Croatia someone has published a website, that has become quite popular, that equates the national economy to a household position (ie numbers and concepts people can understand readily). So, in its simplest it might say the natiional position is equivalent to, say: Household annual income £13,500 Household expenditure £15,000 Shortfall added to credit card £1,500 Credit card total debt £18,000 The figures correspond to national revenues, expenditure, deficit and debt and relate directly and are updated. Apparently, the public can play about with policy assumptions / tough choices and learn how hard it is to get the deficit and debt figures down. Most people after having a go become fiscal conservatives. We need an academic to do this in this country so the public can make informed choices about the NHS and other government expenditure and the tax, etc ramifications of those choices. For those who understand Balkan languages: proracunskikalkulator.com'" I assume this system doesn't take into account such things as interest rates, currency devaluation, inflation and economic growth? Without those factors an assessment of debt and deficit is almost useless. Which begs the question as to why the Chancellor is always so keen to make a similar comparison of government debt/deficit to a household budget. Surely he should know better.

Gideon is fluent in Croatian, that may explain something about him and his policies

[url=http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/health-and-families/health-news/nhs-may-need-emergency-cash-bailout-7320518.htmlMore propaganda from the government.[/url



"The NHS is fooked, and only our reforms can save it."

Course, the best way to get the investment the NHS needs for its modernisation is to sell "shares" in it to well meaning private companies and investment businesses.



Nobody wants shares in an entity with shedloads of debt and no cash reserves, so pumping a few billion into the NHS should increase the value of these "shares" when they eventually go on sale.



Sound familiar to those who were around that the time the utilities were de-nationalised?

pity then that the previous government wasted a mere[size=150 £12.7 BILLION[/size through the scrapping of a computerised record system for the NHS then isn't it ?





Ye Gods !!!

True but is that a reason destroy the NHS now?

Of course he knows better but he knows Joe public will accept this simplistic and more importantly incorrect view. This cynical and deliberately misleading way of presenting the issue is part of the Tories strategy. If you look at the changes to child benefit which will see families with two earners on £25K each keep it where a family with one earner on £44K (soon to be £42K) will lose it you will see this is justified by going after higher rate tax payers and Joe public swallows that as well. Likewise the raising of tuition fees to £9K was justified by saying things like why should a Postman subsidise a student getting a degree with his taxes when in fact the proportion of the tax paid by [ianyone [/i that went towards the old tuition grant was tiny and more to the point the Postman's tax has not gone down despite the fees going up!



They latch onto very simple analogies that are designed to divide and rule that are in fact deliberately misleading and in some cases as you point out just plain wrong.

certainly not - but it doesn't exactly help,does it ?



I mean,which incompetant tool managed to dream up that mess ?



it just annoys and saddens me that (whichever government is responsable) that such a vast sum has been completely wated without anything at all coming out as an end product !



i'm sure the present bunch will manage to destroy the NHS by wasting as much money their own way, just give them time......

Then there's been the episodes of the likes of KPMG being called in by assorted hospital trusts (at a cost of millions) to work out how to save money, cut jobs, offshore jobs etc etc ...



In one case, in north London, the plan was to offshore the medical secretaries' jobs to the Indian sub-continent.



Now this sort of thing has been done before – in the US. And it was a disaster there. Audio files were sent around the world to be transcribed. Now, with the best will in the world and far, far better language skills than I could probably ever dream of having, mistakes were inevitable in the transcription process – unclear recordings, accents and dialects etc.



What happened were cases of notes coming back with the wrong medication listed – not by much in terms of letters, but by a lot in terms of the drugs in question.



Result – real problems in terms of patient care. And writs. Etc.



And there were also security issues that came as the transcribing businesses refused to send back notes etc – unless they were paid more.



Yet this was still, up to a couple of years ago at least, being seriously mooted in the UK. As if all that were not bad enough, if anything had gone wrong, even if it had been no fault of anyone in the NHS, the taxpayer would still have footed the bill. Which, of course, you potentially see now with the PIPs case.



My analysis?



We've had 30 years where the only thing that is regarded by government as important is, ultimately, big business and the orthodoxy of neo-liberalism.



That's brought us to a point where there are companies behind these NHS moves, waiting to pounce like vultures (which is perhaps a bit unfair to magnificent birds).



Just as you have companies making money out of unemployment – and then telling the government what to do about the schemes so that the public sill stop complaining but they can continue to benefit.



Just as you have bankers and financiers awarding themselves massive bonuses – even as the companies they head up are recording massive losses or failures. If you raise the question, they squeal that they'll leave the country.



Just as big business is allowed to decide that it won't pay its full tax bill – and so government departments do deal (presumably with the knowledge of government) to let them off.



Just as big business is able to run roughshod over local concerns on such matters as planning permission, because it has enough money simply to keep coming until it gets what it wants.



Three decades ago, Pandora's Box was opened. Trans and multi-national capital is now so large that, in many ways, it hardly has to worry about what you and I think. And governments – not just in the UK but elsewhere – behave as though they were elected not to serve us, but simply to service big business and finance.

Not least because vultures don't pounce. They swoop.

Crushed again!

































Big, big brownie points to anyone who recognises that quote.

Was it on the side of those Kia-Ora cartons in cinemas?

Nope.



Far, far more cultuwal like than that.

sounds like something that came from 1984 or similar maybe ?



it rings a bell from my Eng Lit classes forty odd years ago !

Before distracting this thread completely, I better say then: it's a line uttered by Lady Jane in [iPatience[/i by Gilbert & Sullivan.

thanks - could never get into light opera or any opera for that matter - sorry for being a heathen !

No apologies required.

What makes you think governments - to any serious degree of consistency - have [iever[/i behaved as though they were elected to serve the people?



Government has two indisputable roles:



1. To maintain the system of class control and class exploitation. It is prepared to grant concessions when pesky [iDemocracy[/i gets in the way. But purely on its own terms. Take the issue of gender politics. For years women fought for emancipation, universal suffrage etc. and through various forms of democratic pressure we arrived at a point where a woman was elected prime minister. But what [ikind[/i of woman? To what [iclass[/i did she identify? It's the same story with African Americans. Under Bush Jnr we saw a black Secretary of State. We now have a black President. But again, to whom do these people associate? Certainly not the working class.



2. To protect the owners of society from their own greed. Left unchecked a capitalist system must ultimately devour itself. We saw this several years ago when Enron, Halliburton and such started expropriating not just the workers and taxpayers' money but investments and investors. Why bother making televisions when you have to deal with stupid labour organisations, build expensive factories, spend a fortune on marketing etc. Far easier to siphon money from investment funds and pensions. They were caught red-handed stealing billions of dollars and - for the most part - got away with it.



Another good example of the perils of government kowtowing to the investor class is Argentina. An entire country that collapsed when government failed to protect capitalism from itself.



There's a perfectly rational and well thought out plan being executed here by the Tories. And they are going for broke. I mean, they're after the lot. Education. The NHS. Social Security. It's all up for grabs. Indeed, the label "Conservative" has now reached the point where it's become something of a sick joke. These people are anything but Tories. A true conservative resists change because of the inherent risk whereas Cameron and his lackeys are as radical as it gets. I guess they had good teachers in Blair and Brown.



Looking to government for salvation is a complete waste of time. The only answer lies with Democracy because the one thing all governments cannot ignore - no matter how much they'd like to - is public opinion. Which is why they spend so much time and effort manipulating it. Unfortunately the electorate has become so brainwashed by the media and political spin it sees democracy only as a procedural rather than a substantive process. A century ago people didn't vote because they thought it would make them better citizens. They voted because they had genuine grievances and were demanding reform. Unless we follow suit there won't be anything left to fight for.

you're not expecting the british people to actually stand up and protest are you ? it takes a war to do that FFS !



try the french approach,if you don't like the system,get out on the streets and burn sheep or blockade petrol depots etc it doesn't always work but it scares the out of the government !



sorry,the british 'reserve' won't allow that,will it ?

Well, the British certainly stood up and were counted in the run-up to the Iraq war. It didn't change the outcome of course (Blair showed that despite being an odious wretch he had bigger balls than any politician in the last fifty years) - but it mortally wounded the Blair presidency, which was never as effective thereafter.



The irony is the consequences of the Iraq invasion to British citizens were/are nowhere near as damaging as those the working and middle classes will suffer if the Tories get their way. It seems that we will not stand idly as people in faraway lands are shafted up one side and down the other but when it's us on the receiving end we suddenly develop a masochistic streak and become meek as lambs.