Would you stay in a socialist country or emmigrate?

Voyager2002

penrhyn wrote: »

Indeed as Lenin says, if you will not work you will not eat.

Mili looked very nice in his Saville Row suit the other day, up the workers!

Get your source right: that thought actually came from Saint Paul.

As for Ed's dress sense, just what is your point? Had he not been dressed like a toff, he would have been in as much trouble as Michael Foot after the "donkey jacket" pictures.

penrhyn

Thought it was Phil Collins?

Voyager2002

CLAPTON wrote: »

There is general agreement by grand standing MPs, certain pressure groups and newspapers but no real objective facts that show the market is seriously overcharging.

One would have thought is pretty easy to produce facts and figures if there was serious evidence for monopoly overcharging.

Obviously neither the current government or previous government would welcome a real objective analysis which showed the true cost of all those 'green' measures so a bit of grandstanding is all a lot easier.

As a matter of fact, there is an enormous amount of solid, objective evidence: take a look at the work of my old friend (link to http://business.uea.ac.uk/prof-catherine-waddams ). It is fair to say that the evidence demonstrates that the system of regulation does not work: as to whether or not there is evidence of 'over-charging', that is a more difficult question and depends on how one defines over-charging.

Clearly, the cost of 'green' measures has been enormous. However, the cost of doing too little about climate change is already very much greater, and that is a price that we have only just begun to pay. A more reasonable question is whether these measures should be funded through energy bills; through general taxation; through levies on other purchases that have a particularly strong impact on the climate (imported vegetables and tropical fruit, for instance)); perhaps through all of these?

CLAPTON

Voyager2002 wrote: »

It depends on the situation...

During the 1930s, socialist-type policies worked far better at managing economies than did the form of capitalism currently practiced. Compare the success of Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union in building industry, powerful armed forces and a powerful military with the disastrous experience of the USA over the same period. In fact, the West later recovered because it took on board many of the policies and tools of economic management that had previously been seen as socialist: these approaches worked well at the time, but stopped working in the 1960s.

Sadly, socialism is far from popular. Consider the attitude of ordinary people in the USA to "socialised medicine". They really pity us because our health service is 'controlled' by the state, and think we are deluded for loving the NHS the way most of us do. British people suffer a similar degree of brain-washing about many things that the government could do to make our lives better by extending democratic control over certain aspects of the operation of the market.

I don't think that anyone doubts that socialists type states are good at killing people.

gadgetmind

Voyager2002 wrote: »

extending democratic control over certain aspects of the operation of the market.

I'm fine with the state ensuring competition but not at all with the state interfering with the market, threatening to confiscate private assets, price fixing, and generally behaving like a bunch of raving socialists.

these approaches worked well at the time

So do most forms of spending more than you can afford and expecting someone else to pick up the bill.

CLAPTON

Voyager2002 wrote: »

As a matter of fact, there is an enormous amount of solid, objective evidence: take a look at the work of my old friend (link to http://business.uea.ac.uk/prof-catherine-waddams ). It is fair to say that the evidence demonstrates that the system of regulation does not work: as to whether or not there is evidence of 'over-charging', that is a more difficult question and depends on how one defines over-charging.

Clearly, the cost of 'green' measures has been enormous. However, the cost of doing too little about climate change is already very much greater, and that is a price that we have only just begun to pay. A more reasonable question is whether these measures should be funded through energy bills; through general taxation; through levies on other purchases that have a particularly strong impact on the climate (imported vegetables and tropical fruit, for instance)); perhaps through all of these?

I'm not sure your reference is very helpful.


In any event, the key issue being discussed here is that of overcharging and the relevance of a price cap rather than 'regulation' per se.

As far a carbon reduction issues are concerned, we do indeed need a sensible discussion of

a. do we need to do anything now?
b. are any of our measures effective at reducing CO2 world wide
c. now much have we totally wasted and are continuing to waste?
d. if we agree that CO2 needs reducing what are the most cost effective ways of doing this
e. once we have agreed on a sensible set of principles then yes discussion of how to fund them (if at all) would be good too.

of course before even that list, security of supply needs a lot more consideration.

ILW

Voyager2002 wrote: »

As a matter of fact, there is an enormous amount of solid, objective evidence: take a look at the work of my old friend (link to http://business.uea.ac.uk/prof-catherine-waddams ). It is fair to say that the evidence demonstrates that the system of regulation does not work: as to whether or not there is evidence of 'over-charging', that is a more difficult question and depends on how one defines over-charging.

Clearly, the cost of 'green' measures has been enormous. However, the cost of doing too little about climate change is already very much greater, and that is a price that we have only just begun to pay. A more reasonable question is whether these measures should be funded through energy bills; through general taxation; through levies on other purchases that have a particularly strong impact on the climate (imported vegetables and tropical fruit, for instance)); perhaps through all of these?

Any examples of where and how much?

sabretoothtigger

Loughton_Monkey wrote: »

Of course the irony is that if it gets too Socialist - to the point of communism - then we probably wouldn't be allowed to leave the country. Or at least not with any wealth.

There is a slightly chilling point that as an Island we live surrounded by our own natural made and insurmountable Berlin wall. It would be fairly easy to contain this nation if that scenario should occur, except those channel swimmers would finally have a use to their skills


Without any wealth would mean breaking any communication which I guess is possible though much harder to disrupt.

Both scenarios are melodramatic. A socialist move any further then now will mean a debt default due to increasingly failed efficiency and inability to pay back imports. We are basically talking about a collapse into agrarian revolution like North Korea or such, its a bit extreme and pointless.

We'd be far worse off, the masses would revolt against it not for it. We will have a smaller or sectioned collapse of the present mess, not complete anarchy and then a revert to long term norms.
Most obviously a collapse in bond prices and/or currency worth would raise interest rates and return us back to the cycle of 5 to 10% which as a nightmare is far more likely then no open finance at all

This is revolutionary talk, the government can go bankrupt even if not it will be highly disruptive, volatile to ownerships of business, housing, etc.
Its more likely losses will distribute across many not a few with military dictatorship and/or communism, I think those scenarios rely on capturable value and assets in a country. So large amounts of concentrated wealth like gold reserves, which we sold or oil production which we used up.

What UK does have is a trading advantage in its skills and knowledge used throughout the world but by disrupting communication, transport and global trade we would be losing our wealth.
How does a ruling elte capture and control a sovereign wealth that elusive, they dont really or not any more then they presently have by debasing our currency and taxing gains which are merely inflationary offshoots of their own policys.
As said, this is already a large degree of socalism

antrobus

sabretoothtigger wrote: »

There is a slightly chilling point that as an Island we live surrounded by our own natural made and insurmountable Berlin wall.....

Mmmm...

Well the English, the Vikings, the Danish, and the Normans didn't seem to have much of a problem invading Britain. Not that "insurmountable" is it? :rotfl:

The_White_Horse

dryhat wrote: »

The biggest recipients of government handouts ( or welfare if you like) are the people that need it least.

We already have socialism... for the super-rich.

The rest of us have to embrace capitalism and rely on our own endeavours.

is this a joke of some kind? if so, it should be funny.