Recent posts

#1

Off the Record / Re: STAR TREK

Last post by Josquius - Today at 03:23:46 PM

So. 4 1/2 vulcans.
I usually like the comedic episodes.
But this one is just so bloody stupid.

#2

Off the Record / Re: Acts of Terrorism megathre...

Last post by Sheilbh - Today at 03:13:41 PM

I think that just suggests it is terrorism, no?

It's very grim.

#3

Off the Record / Re: What does a TRUMP presiden...

Last post by Razgovory - Today at 02:26:17 PM

The military is there to defend civilians, as far as I have understood. That is the basic principle.

The Geneva convention is pretty clear, but I suppose it is not very popular reading these days.

The military is there to execute the policies of their state.  I do not know of any military that was founded on the principle of defending the civilian population the enemy.

Oh my, no wonder you see no problem with what Israel is doing.

Just as you did not object to the war on ISIS.

#4

Off the Record / Re: Dead Pool 2025

Last post by Sheilbh - Today at 02:03:34 PM

Oh RIP

Loved her in Keeping Up Appearances and as Kitty for Victoria Wood:

#5

Off the Record / Re: Brexit and the waning days...

Last post by Sheilbh - Today at 01:38:35 PM

It is just so weird how it seems like we are so much more productive and have all this incredible technology compared to the old days yet we seem far less capable of solving problems and doing basic things like providing cheap food and housing and health care for our people that we have to keep slashing it...and never seem to reach a point where we can turn around and start trying to do something about it again.

I'll come back on some other points soon. But to be clear. We're not so much more productive

The US is so much more productive. The UK's economic model blows apart in financial crisis and we have not yet found an alternative (as with everything I think this is actually a wider European story). The UK isn't alone in this, but it is more severe here than elsewhere (as I say, for now as I think the wider European story is still unrolling):


That's the core of the growth challenge. The US has had relatively robust growth. The UK and much of Europe hasn't. I think that productivity gap is really key to understanding politics right now.

Like we are here talking about cuts but I thought local government and important services are already in a desperate state in the UK.

As with your comment on health - I think this is reading Britain as America. And in part this is because the Labour and the Guardian would absolutely love to be running against Republicans - but they're not.

There is austerity which is differently distributed in different parts of government.

However, when the Tories left office in 2024 after fourteen years in power the fiscal situation they handed to Labour was the highest tax share of GDP since the war and the highest level of public spending as a share of GDP since the war. Part of that is obviously relatively low growth.

But the other bit is that austerity hasn't been general (unlike, say, Greece - or as RH says if we have another IMF program). Growth and demographics are key on this. Healthcare spending has been below the post-war long-term average growing at around 2.4% per year compared to 3.6% per year. But as a share of GDP it has significantly increased and as a share of the budget it's also increased - in part that reflects the productivity point that we've stopped becoming more productive as we used to (and America has continued to). But on the age point it's also because we have an older population with more healthcare needs. The consequence of New Labour's focus on improving the NHS in particular and then the continual real terms growth while other bits of government was cut means that as a share of the general spending by government the NHS has gone from 26% of the budget in 1997 to 43% in 2024. It is increasing again relative to other bits of the state. There is a degree to which we are, increasingly, a healthcare system with a country attached.

The other side of ageing is the other big protection from austerity which was the "triple lock" introduced by the Coalition. This means that every year the state pension will increase by the greater of: inflation, average wage growth or 2%. This has helped (with previous changes under New Labour) hugely reduce pensioner poverty in the UK since I was great - which is good. But it does mean a huge chunk of our budget is broadly at making sure the elderly have their needs met at the expense of the young, the working, the disabled.

I'd add this is also a huge factor in local governments. The department that took the biggest hit in austerity was central government subsidies to local government. At the same time local government's statutory responsibilities grew - including, in particular, adult social care (things like care homes, looking after people with dementia etc). And with an ageing population that has become a bigger and bigger part of the pie. For the very good reason that councillors decide to protect the care budget over everything else - but everything else gets slashed to the bone (preventing homelessness, libraries, bin collection, road maintenance etc):

It is like our global community is collapsing despite all of our advances. How? How is this possible? It isn't like what is happening in the UK is some isolated situation created by the unique incompetence of Tories and the stupidity of Brexit or whatever. This seems to be a common story everywhere to some extent.

I mean my big picture on the global community is that the West built a world system based on American military muscle and Western economic muscle. The states that participated in the "global community" as opposed to those who were subject to it basically ran as far as NATO bases plus Japan and Australia etc. It was built on the lines of and entrenched post-war and colonial era hierarchies of the "West" in a particularly dominant position - which could be maintained (if not justified) with American unipolarity and Western economic dominance - but is now dead. We called that world order "liberal" and "rules-based" which it was, for us - but was not for anyone else. We didn't help anyone else develop and we did not democratise power to a more representative world. And that's over now - the world on which we built our comfort is dead.

And having said all that it was still a million miles better than previous eras of Cold War division and proxy wars or European imperialism - and may well be better than what comes next. But my view is that the big challenge is what comes next and building something (there is also the risk nothing is built and it is just more and more chaos).

At a more micro UK and Europe level (with exceptions of extremes like Greece which saw, for example, the funding for treating cancer cut by a third), austerity didn't cut the core functions of the welfare state. They've come under more pressure because we're getting older. But in the UK and across Europe we saved money by slashing capital budgets and investment. Whether that was capital spending in healthcare, whether it's physical infrastructure, but also whether it's defence infrastructure. Those were cut as part of austerity (for different ends) to preserve current budgets. We've taken a permanent hit to productivity growth, especially compared to the US. And in Europe we've now been hit by subsequent crises (covid, war, energy shocks) which have been intensified because of our lack of capital spending/investment and we're now still needing to run even more current spending (because we've been penny wise and pound foolish) while also trying to catch up on at least a lost decade of under-investment. It's not coincidental that Merz's proposal for massive capital spending in Germany is basically split 50/50 between the military and actual infrastructure.

But that decision to stop investing for a decade is huge. There's been, I suspect, a permanent hit to productivity and growth (which impacts everything else, including our budetary situation). It means we've not got the industry for defence or physical infrastructure capable of transporting arms (which is why we're using slow moving barges instead of trains and roads) when there's a war on our continent. We've lost the early European advantage of subsidising energy transition which means the need to move to net zero is actually going to also increase Chinese importance in Europe's economy and their own growth, but we also didn't even build up our own fossil fuels.

In the framing of austerity that's the challenge is that we went from slashing investment to balance slightly lower and unevenly distributed cuts to current spending (again there are exceptions which matter, like Greece). The challenge now is that it's really difficult to do the massive investment we need on infrastructure, defence, energy, while also not impacting current spending (and current spending needs to be higher to get the same output because of the last ten years of low capital spending).

#6

Off the Record / Re: The Off Topic Topic

Last post by crazy canuck - Today at 01:36:53 PM

I just read that New York schools offer gifted programs for kindergarten.

How precious

#7

Off the Record / Re: What does a TRUMP presiden...

Last post by crazy canuck - Today at 01:33:51 PM

The military is there to defend civilians, as far as I have understood. That is the basic principle.

The Geneva convention is pretty clear, but I suppose it is not very popular reading these days.

The military is there to execute the policies of their state.  I do not know of any military that was founded on the principle of defending the civilian population the enemy.

Oh my, no wonder you see no problem with what Israel is doing.

#8

Off the Record / Re: What does a TRUMP presiden...

Last post by Razgovory - Today at 01:27:29 PM

The military is there to defend civilians, as far as I have understood. That is the basic principle.

The Geneva convention is pretty clear, but I suppose it is not very popular reading these days.

The military is there to execute the policies of their state.  I do not know of any military that was founded on the principle of defending the civilian population the enemy.

#9

Off the Record / Re: What does a TRUMP presiden...

Last post by Razgovory - Today at 01:23:40 PM

But killing civilians isn't actually wrong.  It's part of warfare.  It is legal. 

As a general statement, applied to all circumstances, none of those statements are true. 

You would think that the State of Israel, of all nations in the world would be first to understand that.

I don't know where of any action that, as a general statement, applied to all circumstances, is legal.  But you can kill civilians in war.  I would think that the state of Israel would understand that they can't lose a war.  No country values the lives of the citizens of its enemies over the lives of its own people.  Judging from the reaction to the killings of Israeli Diplomatic staff and the murder of Charlie Kirk by people on this forum and else where the deaths of civilians is not the catastrophe that it is made out to be.  The hypocrisy in this is galling, which is why I bring it up sometimes and why, I believe, other people here are bothered by it.  Talking about Trump and MAGA racism is comforting.  There is a clear good and evil, we know we are right.  In Palestine so many leftists are promoting the cause of people who are so much worse than Trump or MAGA.  It is shocking to see people who denounce religious fundamentalism as fascist in the US silent when it comes to Palestine.

If it ever comes to war with MAGA, and who knows what the future holds anymore, I am sure that the bombing, deprivation, and hunger in the fly-over-states will not pull the heart strings of people.  The sympathy for suffering civilians will not be an impediment to victory.  It may even be praiseworthy.

#10

Off the Record / Re: Russo-Ukrainian War 2014-2...

Last post by crazy canuck - Today at 12:59:15 PM

I can't shake the feeling that there is something about the Western cultural vision that just isn't clicking with too many people.  Sure, Russians are spreading propaganda, but propaganda doesn't make something out of nothing, it needs to tap into an existing discontent.  It seems like many people are at least semi-knowingly voting to pare back democracy, and are indifferent about it.  Democracy weathered world wars, it should be able to weather the high price of eggs.

Liberal Democracy takes a lot of work to maintain. For example, it requires a commitment to public education. One of the reasons for that is so citizens don't think the reason why Liberal Democracy is fading in their country is because of the price of eggs.