As long as they get an education that gives them a return on their investment I'd say that's fine. Unfortunately many young people today (OK, I'm 34 so not that old but I've been working since I was 15) make bad choices and poor investments ending up with loans they often times never will be able to pay off. It puts them in a bad position and it limits their options.
Sorry, but whats wrong with making people fend for themselves? The benefit system should be there as a safety net so people don't descend out of society and end up destitute and homeless. It should never ever be a way of life, and it should never pay more than the lowest end job. I agree that system requires more low-skill jobs to come along, and you can't just magic those into existence, but people should want to work and want to better themselves, you shouldn't ever want to just 'exist'...
Silly me, I must be to blame because i should have known that just because there's nothing to say i couldn't, no rule, now law, nothing at all, that it was my fault for breaking those rules or laws that don't exist. Because not everyone can afford their own police force, fire service, rubbish collections, street lighting, roads, library', health care, and all those other public services.
Many of those being things that are primarily funded from NICs, which rich enough people (or those who know how to use the system to their best advantage) do not pay but still, when convenient, benefit greatly from.
QFT. The world is changing and many low skilled jobs wont be around forever, forklift drivers are already being replaced by robots and QR code readers, even some of the simpler parts of software development are being automated now (gulp). Unless nations want 50% homelessness we will have to come up with a new way of doing things, not everyone can have their own successful business.
This is always the bit that annoys me, Most welfare [JSA and whatnot] is supposedly the bare minimum the govt think you need to survive. So if jobs are paying less than what is supposed to be the bare minimum you need to survive then the problem is wages are ****, not that welfare is too high.
Not everybody can. And that is not necessarily through their own fault. I'm not just talking about benefits. I'm talking about affordable health care at the point of need, social care for the elderly, sick and disabled and good education because this is stuff everybody needs regardless of whether they can afford it. I'm talking about police and fire services and affordable public transport and all those mod cons that make a civilisation, well, a civilisation. The Conservatives want to privatise all these things and make them subject to market forces. But market forces are not compassionate, and a civilisation is supposed to be.
Over population is an issue but the birth rate is dropping in a lot of developed nations. Its in the poorest countries that you tend to get many 3+ children families, obviously that bastion of kindness the Catholic Church doesn't tend to help with the situation.
The main problem with overpopulation in developing countries is that so many children die before adulthood. Research shows that once you introduce the basics of clean drinking water, sewage and basic health care and child survival improves, childbirth rates drop drastically within less than one generation as parents can afford to invest more in fewer children.
Socio-economic factors are obviously the main problem, if you also believe every sperm is sacred that doesn't help.
Long time since I have been on here to comment with a long forgotten account on a long forgotten email address, anyway hi again. 1)To the OP Both is the answer. In economics Austerity in economic terms is usually styled as fiscal consolidation being the act of reducing government expenditures AND/OR raising taxes to reduce the cyclically adjusted budget deficit. It's a policy that especially shouldn't be employed at (or near) zero interest rates (as there is little monetary offset possible under current central banking regimes) in large developed countries with control over their own monetary policy. It is also often a second, third or 99th best policy even when one or more of these parameters doesn't apply. Politically If you look at what fighting austerity means to the Labour party it means protecting/increasing the size of the state and taxation. For the Tories it means decreasing the size of the state and reducing taxation. Though the fiscal balance from labour would be to reduce the overall deficit by less. Neither side has shouted from the rooftops that austerity has been largely curtailed following 2012 and has not re-emerged yet. (though some good old bust boom election strategy is not beyond Osborne.) The reason I suspect is both sides want each other to be the bogeyman "they'll (we wont) bankrupt us" or "they'll (we wont) kill our public services." Of which the latter is an important debating ground. The former is ********, which is a technical term The use of austerity is largely political. In the UK it is an opportunity to shrink the state (whilst reducing taxes), in the Eurozone it is primarily the EZ centre externalising the vast majority of the economic costs to the EZ periphery (in spite of the problem being mutually created) and in the USA it has been seen as an opportunity for republicans to shrink everything but defence. In the UK it has been consented to (sort of democratically if you count FPTP systems as democratic) on the pretence that we'd go bankrupt otherwise. Which is a very, very, very, hard thing to achieve. The truth is there are many economic issues far more important than the short run deficit, to the extent that I'd run out of issues I could remember before finding a less important issue than the short run deficit. 2) Saving pounds at Iceland Iceland is a really bad example of austerity working very well. Aside from the strange choice of a country that has a population smaller than the Sunderland built up area (although the president's middle name is Ragnar) there are several reasons why they are a bad example. 1. massive currency devaluation 2.capital controls 3. major mortgage debt relief 4. restructuring of banks 5. having serious scope to reduce interest rates (18% to 4% ). For varying reasons all of these either couldn't, shouldn't or wouldn't be used in the UK in 2008-10. In fact 1 and 5 created a big recovery post ERM for the UK but different economic problem, different medicine. On Dickensian saving tips Saving is generally a healthy thing to do, for the individual. Unfortunately saving runs afoul of the national income identity (Aggregate expenditures=Aggregate income) when engaged in by banks, consumers, business and the government all at once (Ceteris paribus). AE falls, AY falls. The difference in the effects of saving for individuals compared to a nation state, is like comparing the effects of gravity at a quantum scale to that on the planetary scale. An individual's spending does little to affect their own income, a government's does much. Entities The BOE has done well ,as is reasonably possible within its mandate, since independence. The problem with entities on the fiscal side going overboard is you can't trust muggles to elect a government to manage fiscal policy without bribing the electorate pre election, which is why the BoE is independent. Plus the extra special problem of fiscal policy (and many Micro policies for that matter) being used to create a client electorate. This is especially damaging in a FPTP system as you only need 36-38% for a majority, working for the (short term) good of the few not the good of the many and (long term) good of all. 3) The TEMs ***believes*** "Socialism never took root in America because the poor see themselves not as an exploited proletariat but as temporarily embarrassed millionaires." I think that has much relevance to the UK post Thatcher/Blair era. I rember someone once saying on here people elect the politicians they deserve. 4) Benefit bashing and The blame game Firstly universal credit is still a great step in the right direction (although Gov't IT projects ). Means tested benefits cause horrific marginal tax rates, not to mention the benefit gap i.e the possible £16bn of unclaimed benefits (2010) vastly dwarfing the £1.6bn in benefit fraud (2012). It's Doubtful much has changed in that respect. But simplifying the system is a good step in the right direction and one labour never had the balls to do. Secondly the banks. Banks are professional institutions they simply should know that self certifying mortgages contains stupendous moral hazards as does insurance of financial assets or liabilities (however needed: bank runs etc) I agree ratings agencies have been shown to be incredibly worthless, makes me cringe when politicians of both sides talk about the UK credit rating. I agree stupidity with individuals not just borrowing more than they can afford but even those who don't think "what if this all goes to ****." The government also holds a great portion of the blame also. However what simply needs to be done and has been done to a watered down extent is reintroduce legislation to control against these practices and moral hazards. The BoE controls quite strong macro prudential tools for this i.e mortgages to income ratios. The problem here is that those private companies and individuals make up a small percentage of the population. But when their unaffordable borrowing led to a recession, those in sustainable debt found themselves in unsustainable debt after job losses and wage drops. Problem is shouting that theses people idiots doesn't stop people being idiots, we have to legislate for idiots and for those working in their self interest purely i.e the banks. To protect the rest of us like the young people in the UK, USA and Europe whose future is forever scarred by long term unemployment when they left school in this mess. I fought the law and.... oh wait I won The other issue is the widespread practices of repackaging mortgage securities and selling junk, knowingly, or rigging rates etc should be criminal behaviour. Problem is no one would want to be the first financial sector to hang a proverbial sword of Damocles over the head of senior bankers. Also legislation is needed for unnecessary financial derivatives. 5) The gold standard of economic crises I agree that Glass–Steagall shouldn't have been repealed, however it would have needed to have been updated. The Gold standard was the policy that worsened the great depression. Like other currency pegs/fixes i.e. the ERM, euro, various countries pegged to dollar (Argentina) etc it means effectively giving up control of monetary policies and macroeconomic disequilibrium when something bad happens. Leaving the gold standard shown a permanent change in monetary policy which is specifically how monetary policy can still work at natural rates below zero. It would be like the BoE switching to a 3% implied inflation target from 2% through NGDP targeting, it would signal a permanent increase in the money supply. Fiat money is just as good a backer as gold. Why is fiat valued: because people believe it is. The same as gold (aside from oooh look at the shiny, shiny) it would be a lot less valuable just based on tech uses, much like those rocks that island population backed their currency against. 6) A short cut to mushrooms The problem is in managing the allocation of education. Firstly it is impossible to tell the ones who use say a media studies education to work hard and network to become an incredibly talented and productive member of a growing or innovative industry from the ones who will become part of the vast oversupply of liberal arts graduates. Not to mention that all that involves a lot of luck, people underestimate the role of luck. A lot on here will likely be one of the lucky people who through hard work and sheer determination were born in to this world by a vagina that belongs to a woman from the top ~20% of wealthiest families in the world that own ~80% of the global wealth. How much of a level playing field is that Well yes young people do make stupid choices, so do many older people. But the problem isn't going away by itself. Incentives matter, problem is delayed gratification and lack of risk awareness. STEM field salaries being high wont encourage all able 14/16/18 year olds to take the right GCSEs, A levels or Degrees to get such jobs so something more immediate needs delivering. I.e forms of monetary (grants ,fees etc) discrimination between educational paths. Obviously that comes with its own problems, like only the rich being able to follow their dreams. 7) The George Carlin problem Not just that but skilled professionals. Innovation is coming thick and fast. Driverless cars; it will be hard to argue against losing the majority of road deaths, costly accidents and labour costs. Automating more medical delivery, law work, army roles, finance jobs etc The usual idea has been that as technology advances is that productivity increases so prices fall and more money is spent in the general economy. This shifts jobs elsewhere and increases wages. However the issue comes back to the title "think how stupid the average person is and then realise half of 'em are stupider than that." When even the medium to high education level jobs are under threat then how is the population going to provide work for people who may never master the skills to be involved in a basic societal role, e.g. work, as remaining human dominated fields become high skilled. or creative. This could seriously drive inequality, it may either be low pay service sector jobs or unemployment for them. Then there's the other issue, even if they are capable of other jobs what about the retraining. This is a problem of structural unemployment. When big changes happen big misery can accompany it just ask 80s coal miners. Thatcher's problem wasn't shutting the mines it was not doing enough to retrain the workers. 8) Tick tick population boom Just to elaborate on this point the human population will reach 11bn without having more children born in the future than were born in the late 90s. We reached in that decade the never talked about peak child. When the number of children reached 2bn. The population projections expect that to remain the same for the next hundred years. It's just a matter of us all living longer and that 2bn kids becoming just under 2bn old people plus an extra billion extremely old people with 2 billion in every age group by the end of the century. So without industrial death camps, forced mass sterilization or serious disaster it's unlikely that we can change overpopulation. People just like having < 2 kids when their kids likely to grow up to have kids themselves. Good documentary in the linky
Politicians are representative of the largest individual group of voters, but not the majority of voters. So that definitely doesn't hold true. Group of voters being group A votes for politician A group B votes for politician B and so on.
Certainly you can find Conservatives in favour of privatising most anything, for that matter you can still find Labour supporters in favour of nationalising every whelk stall (or every GP's surgery for that matter). If it is Conservative intention to "Privatise the NHS" as you say, they're bloody slow at it having been in power for 23 of the last 36 years, during which the pace and direction of change in the NHS seemed little altered by 13 years of Labour government. Of course I note that you are trying to use the term privatisation meaning the sale of government owned assets to the private sector to refer to any private sector involvement in the provision of public services in order to try to confuse make the issue more emotive. But don't worry, I fully expect to see the "Last chance to save the NHS" posters up at the 2020 election.... and the one after that too.
FTFY as 5 of those years they were in coalition, granted little changed under a Labour government but to imply it's not Conservative intention to "Privatise the NHS" is perhaps a little disingenuous as during those 18 years they brought in the The Health Service Act 1980 that started a long process of reforming the NHS. That's not to say either party is without blame or praise depending on your view, just that it's a little more complicated.
I'm not sure it's privitsation in the traditional sense but trying to run it like a business which is always going to result in a poorer service. NHS is staff wages kind of prove this, it's pretty unbelievable a NHS accountant earns nearly double that of a junior doctor. So obviously the NHS thinks that managing the money is more important.
And that is, of course, what they would have you think. The NHS, for all its flaws and people complaining about it, has a huge goodwill from the British public. No government wants to go into history as the one that killed/abolished the NHS; it would be political suicide. Rather the strategy is to undermine its functioning and gradually deconstruct it, so that the government can turn around and say: "Hey, it was a great idea in its time, but it's obvious that it's not working anymore and we have to try something new". The idea is to make it look as if the NHS failed, so that it can be dismantled and rebuilt as an insurance-based privately provided enterprise. The NHS label will be the last thing to go; a stage curtain to be whipped away at the last moment to reveal the changes that have been happening behind it all along. Hence a long and systematic campaign of constantly changing its structure, devolving government accountability and imposing increasingly impossible targets while cutting its funding and repeatedly spreading the false message that it is becoming unaffordable --even though objectively its cost is rising in step with inflation and the country's GDP, and rising slightly less than the cost of health care in Europe or the US; and even though worldwide it is still the cheapest, most economical way of delivering good health care. As Corky42 says, it's complicated.
