Disaster socialism and disaster capitalism - opposite sides of the same coin

[notaclue]

The likelihood/prospect of a socialist government coming to power in the wake of economic collapse.

I covered it in the OP.

Here's a good example. And look who it is...

 

[Steven Toy]

Well, it was a promising start with a clever and thought provoking thread title. There are certainly unsavoury aspects to both of the political ideologies you cite which might have made for a good discussion.

By page two page however you are already coming out with clap trap like this and your real agenda is out in the open.

Thanks Vuk has got it back on track.

Ray

What agenda would that be?

I dont have the statistics at hand and it is too early in the day to use Google but stereotyping may seem unjust because there are always exceptions. However, there is a graph which shows the leave vote rising with age and a cut-off between majority remain and majority leave at age 45 to 50. This seems terribly ageist but it isn't.

It's a question of causation or correlation with the latter winning out.

It would seem that the causation is education.

If you have a degree you are more likely, although it is not certain, that yiu would have voted remain. Indeed, 68% of graduates did so.

Before I stoke even more moral outrage on your part, that leaves the 32% to include your friends.

There is a continuum extending downwards through the levels of educational attainment.

The generation of my father could leave school at 15 with nothing and most did. My father left at 16 with 5 O Levels. In his day he was comparatively well educated. He voted to leave but not for no deal.

Approximately 10% of his generation have degrees.

For my generation it is 20%.

For my wife, who is an early millenial it is 40% rising to nearly 50%.

Liverpool is a city which suffered heavily from de-industrialisation during the recessions at the beginning and end of the 80s. If it followed the trend of other Northern cities similarly afflicted it would have voted to leave.

But it didn't, it voted to remain. By this, and before you tell me that you know four Liverpudlians who voted to leave, I mean that a majority voted to remain and there were still Liverpudlians who voted to leave but they were a minority.

The question is why?

One strong causal factor is the Hillsborough disaster in 1989 when the Sun newspaper blamed the Liverpool fans for it and deflected the blame away from the police. As a result the Sun is widely boycotted in Liverpool.

Sun readers tend to.... (I'm being as careful.as I can here, I know that you finger is twitching on the moral outrage trigger. Statistics are dodgy and they lead to stereotyping. Facts have alternatives and all opinions are equally valid and all that, even the ones that the earth is flat and the moon made of Blue Stilton) Sun readers tend be leave voters because the owner instructs them to, an owner with a big ego, a bigger offshore trust and a dislike of Brussels because they treat him with the contempt he deserves unlike those in No 10 who have to do as he tells them if they want to win the next election.

The Express at the time was owned by Richard Desmond, another tax dodger with assets in an offshore shell company of that name. He sold it to Trinity Group who own the Mirror, a remain paper editorially, after 2016.

The Express continues to be pro-leave because changing its editorial stance now would be suicide. Its readership is mainly the cognitive dissonance-addled elderly. Although the newspaper no longer tells the utter porkies it once did under Desmond, the editors know that the lies can't be simply untold as they are etched in the minds of their readership.

The Daily Mail once supported Hitler. It hasn't really looked back since. Enough said there...

The Telegraph, owned by tax-dodging brothers, the Barclays.

I believe the Telegraph may be the actual source of the unreferenced fake Lisbon Treaty (the 2020 one not the 2009 one) which has been copied and pasted ad infinitum on FB.

I am going to stick my head above the parapet and say that the less well educated you are and the older you are, the more likely you are to read the shit in these four so-called newspapers.

I rarely read printed newspapers. I read the Guardian, online, the New European, the Beeb and the Independent mainly, plus I have the Huffpost app on my phone.

I don't read the Canary.

 

[matthewr]

Boom and bust only exist because the ultra-wealthy make money out of the turmoil.

A regulated market effectively ends boom and bust.

You still get fluctuations, for sure but they are manageable.

You are Gordon Brown and I claim my £5.

 

[Steven Toy]

You are Gordon Brown and I claim my £5.

The 2008 crash was caused by a lack of regulation, was it not? and yes, it was you who persuaded me as to the economic folly of austerity.

I needed to liken the country to a failing business in need of investment to pull through rather than a household on a fixed income spending beyond its means. I did and I got it.

I'd like to think that I don't suffer unduly from cognitive dissonance although I guess we all do as it is how we have evolved as social animals.

 

[matthewr]

The 2008 crash was caused by a lack of regulation, was it not?

Yes, although obviously it's not the whole story, and regulation only addresses the specific cause of this crash and not boom and bust in general. And you do get credit for not thinking that it was caused by Labour overspending.

But your point that I quoted is literally what Gordon Brown said. Which is not a bad thing, btw!

 

[thebigfredc]

You are Gordon Brown and I claim my £5.

You beat me to it.

 

[thebigfredc]

Steven Toy:

What agenda would that be?

Having bored the denizens of FB to death with you views on Brexit, now you want to do the same on PF.

Ray

 

[Steven Toy]

Steven Toy:

What agenda would that be?

Having bored the denizens of FB to death with you views on Brexit, now you want to do the same on PF.

Ray

Well done for conformity to stereotypes.

 

[Jim Audiomisc]

You are Gordon Brown and I claim my £5.

Indeed.

I spent some time many years ago studying the behaviour of nonlinear systems and that lead me into the maths of topics like 'Chaos' theory. To me, since then, the economic/political system shows all the features of a nonlinear system with multiple, varying, feedback loops, delays, and parameters. This makes it essentially inevitable that it isn't simply unstable, but some instabilities lead to what people would encounter as a 'crash' or 'crisis' of some kind or other.

And given the way *new* processes and feedback loops appear, whilst others lurk undetected, or even defended by special interest groups, the chance of 'regulation' *always* avoiding a crash or going to a pathalogical state is probaby nil.

The classic current example is the way FarceBook, etc, enables the large-scale 'targetting' of propaganda whilst hiding this from the view of everyone else. Thus corrupting democractic processes. That we now know about, what else is 'new' we may still have let to find hitting us.

As argued elsewhere on PFM, the best remedy seems to me to be transparency and accountability, and then regulating on the basis of the *real* state of things rather than a prettified view. Those with power tend to like evading this. However regardless of what mix of 'capitalism' and 'socialism' you like, this is needed if you don't want crashes, abrupt movements to unacceptable states, etc. Its in the nature of the math.

 

[roman]

What agenda would that be?

I dont have the statistics at hand and it is too early in the day to use Google but stereotyping may seem unjust because there are always exceptions. However, there is a graph which shows the leave vote rising with age and a cut-off between majority remain and majority leave at age 45 to 50. This seems terribly ageist but it isn't.

It's a question of causation or correlation with the latter winning out.

It would seem that the causation is education.

If you have a degree you are more likely, although it is not certain, that yiu would have voted remain. Indeed, 68% of graduates did so.

Before I stoke even more moral outrage on your part, that leaves the 32% to include your friends.

There is a continuum extending downwards through the levels of educational attainment.

The generation of my father could leave school at 15 with nothing and most did. My father left at 16 with 5 O Levels. In his day he was comparatively well educated. He voted to leave but not for no deal.

Approximately 10% of his generation have degrees.

For my generation it is 20%.

For my wife, who is an early millenial it is 40% rising to nearly 50%.

Liverpool is a city which suffered heavily from de-industrialisation during the recessions at the beginning and end of the 80s. If it followed the trend of other Northern cities similarly afflicted it would have voted to leave.

But it didn't, it voted to remain. By this, and before you tell me that you know four Liverpudlians who voted to leave, I mean that a majority voted to remain and there were still Liverpudlians who voted to leave but they were a minority.

The question is why?

One strong causal factor is the Hillsborough disaster in 1989 when the Sun newspaper blamed the Liverpool fans for it and deflected the blame away from the police. As a result the Sun is widely boycotted in Liverpool.

Sun readers tend to.... (I'm being as careful.as I can here, I know that you finger is twitching on the moral outrage trigger. Statistics are dodgy and they lead to stereotyping. Facts have alternatives and all opinions are equally valid and all that, even the ones that the earth is flat and the moon made of Blue Stilton) Sun readers tend be leave voters because the owner instructs them to, an owner with a big ego, a bigger offshore trust and a dislike of Brussels because they treat him with the contempt he deserves unlike those in No 10 who have to do as he tells them if they want to win the next election.

The Express at the time was owned by Richard Desmond, another tax dodger with assets in an offshore shell company of that name. He sold it to Trinity Group who own the Mirror, a remain paper editorially, after 2016.

The Express continues to be pro-leave because changing its editorial stance now would be suicide. Its readership is mainly the cognitive dissonance-addled elderly. Although the newspaper no longer tells the utter porkies it once did under Desmond, the editors know that the lies can't be simply untold as they are etched in the minds of their readership.

The Daily Mail once supported Hitler. It hasn't really looked back since. Enough said there...

The Telegraph, owned by tax-dodging brothers, the Barclays.

I believe the Telegraph may be the actual source of the unreferenced fake Lisbon Treaty (the 2020 one not the 2009 one) which has been copied and pasted ad infinitum on FB.

I am going to stick my head above the parapet and say that the less well educated you are and the older you are, the more likely you are to read the shit in these four so-called newspapers.

I rarely read printed newspapers. I read the Guardian, online, the New European, the Beeb and the Independent mainly, plus I have the Huffpost app on my phone.

I don't read the Canary.

I'm undecided about which fundamental change I most crave in this country. Leaving aside utopian ideals such as complete social equality, it's between electoral reform and some way of curbing the right wing press, (or at least levelling the playing field).

I think the latter as without the sinister manipulation of opinion I would trust politicians and the electorate rather more.

Some way back I alluded to the drip drip anti EU stories fed to readers for decades. Mostly discredited, but the readers have no knowledge or appetite for accurate, technical explanation.

In the last few years the drips have turned into a torrent and it's difficult to see how things might improve.

I thought the contraction in sales and readership would make a difference but it appears that online operations more than make up for this.

 

[Steven Toy]

Hypothetical but plausible scenario (sequence of events to unfold):

1) The Benn Act works its magic and a letter is sent to Brussels on 19th October, one way or another.

2) The UK is granted an extension until June next year.and Parliament accepts.

3) Johnson/Cummings threaten to defy the will of Parliament

3) A VoNC is called and it succeeds.

4) Johnson refuses to leave no 10.

5) He is dragged out in handcuffs but later released. He is now the Brexit martyr.

6) MPs are so outraged by Johndon's conduct that they manage to coalesce around a leader of a government of national unity. It doesn't matter who the leader is and I'm not going to say.

7) The unity government agrees to a referendum followed by a GE.

8) The referendum has 2 options on the ballot paper: Remain or No Deal. It takes place at the end of January. Remain wins by 59% to 41%. Article 50 is revoked.

9) The GE takes place in May. Johnson campaigns on a ticket of immediate withdrawal from the EU, no Articke 50 notice, no negotiations, nothing. Farage shuts down the Brexit company.

10) Johnson wins with a majority of 80 seats off only 34% of the electorate. Turnout was high - around 75%.

The Remain vote is split between the Lib-dems, Corbyn's Labour, SNP, Plaid Cymru and various independents.

11) The UK leaves the EU immediately upon Johnson returning to No 10. Martial law is invoked and Parliament is suspended indefinitely.

It's the will of the people.

 

[Jim Audiomisc]

A significant part of the problem is the media. The primary example for me wrt Brexit being the way they fail to challenge assertions that "17 million voted for Brexit. It's the will of the people." When the reality is that *50* million people did NOT vote for Brexit. Yet in the media this point never seems to be made. The implication is that most of that 50 million are not 'people'...

 

[Marky-Mark]

Politics was never meant to act as a unifying force. Its purpose is to be argued ad infinitum while pockets are picked and crumbs are disbursed. It is essentially rhetorical battlefield pornography for the assimilated.

 

[Steven Toy]

A significant part of the problem is the media. The primary example for me wrt Brexit being the way they fail to challenge assertions that "17 million voted for Brexit. It's the will of the people." When the reality is that *50* million people did NOT vote for Brexit. Yet in the media this point never seems to be made. The implication is that most of that 50 million are not 'people'...

I don't use this argument as it has been done to death. I prefer to say that democracy is a process not an outcome. It is a self-perpetuating process which ensures that we still have a vote in the future.

The existence of a bicameral legislature, an independent judiciary and an executive which is subservient to the two former ensures that continuity.

When you begin to attack the independence of the judiciary by accusing it of bias, or rather lack of bias in your preferred direction, when you prorogue Parliament in order to silence it and/or threaten to stuff the upper chamber in Parliament with yes-men thus undermining its function of scrutiny you are attacking democracy.

Scrutiny is important, it ensures that the will of the people is delivered in such a way that it is workable, fit for purpose and acts in their interests. It takes experienced and learned minds to spot flaws and potentiall loopholes in new legislation.

There is only one alternative:

Dictatorship.- it's the will of the people!

 

[Marky-Mark]

There's a cable thread (mains leads, specifically) smouldering away on Audio but I wouldn't bother. You can pretty much write all the contributions, and attribute them to the usual suspects.

This couldn't be less self-aware if it were made in the nude at a black tie event.

 

[thebigfredc]

Well done for conformity to stereotypes.

You know hardly anything about me and are making huge assumptions in your stereo-typing of me. It is your behaviour and comments which are similar to the processes of racism. Adding this to your earlier remarks about No deal Brexiters being semi-literate then I am afraid you just come across as smug. I'm not buying it.

 

[richardg]

Aye, there's no need for insults. They're not as indirect as you think. There are quite a few of leave voters on PFM. Tony pointed out to you that there are leave voters here, some are baby boomers too, I believe. And they do not seem semi-literate.

In other threads he seems to be getting more concerned about hate talk and a lot of aggression regarding politics. Insults don't help.

 

[Steven Toy]

You know hardly anything about me and are making huge assumptions in your stereo-typing of me. It is your behaviour and comments which are similar to the processes of racism. Adding this to your earlier remarks about No deal Brexiters being semi-literate then I am afraid you just come across as smug. I'm not buying it.

Have you seen how these people write on FB?

When they are not parroting slogans or copying and pasting unsourced and unreferenced shite they are rambling incoherently without punctuation.

What they lack in ability to think critically and order their thoughts in a coherent manner they make up for with enthusiasm which is expressed by leaving the caps lock on.

Unfortunately people stereotype themselves. I don't need to do it.

To the persons who say they knew what they were voting for and they want the 'clean break' Brexit with no deal I have the following question:

Presumably you want the UK to trade solely on default WTO terms. Can you tell me what those terns are? What are their rules?

I am not expecting them to demonstrate an understanding of the arbitration process or the difference between certified and uncertified schedules, just the basic stuff like MFN and Rules of Origin.

Not one single one of them can answer the question.

That is not knowing what you voted for, that is blind faith like signing a contract without reading it first.

And yes I do firmly believe that a decision of such complexity should not have been handed to the clueless and ignorant to make. Representative democracy works. Direct plebiscites do not.

The Germans learnt the hard way. Their constitution bans referendums and for all the reasons I've given here that I know will make your blood boil.

The moon really is made of Blue Stilton btw.

 

[lordsummit]

However who’s obnoxious post was it I deleted this morning in this very thread..?

Just saying.

One member is perilously close to being hoofed from this thread. Not for their political beliefs, but for their repeated ad hom and personal attacks. Any more and it will happen.

 

[Steven Toy]

Aye, there's no need for insults. They're not as indirect as you think. There are quite a few of leave voters on PFM. Tony pointed out to you that there are leave voters here, some are baby boomers too, I believe. And they do not seem semi-literate.

In other threads he seems to be getting more concerned about hate talk and a lot of aggression regarding politics. Insults don't help.

Many are semi-literate. The evidence is overwhelming but not all are and the ones on here certainly aren't.

Sometimes truths are difficult to swallow.

My wife told me that in Germany it is compulsory to undertake civic studies at school, to learn about the role of government, the constitution and even the EU.

Perhaps it should be compulsory here to enable our citizens to make informed choices. Perhaps younger generations are now sufficiently well informed despite Gove's best efforts.

I am allowed to say that, surely and yes, I know what the implication is.

Beware of falling into the trap of false equivalence when trying to moderate btw.

Facts are sometimes troublesome.