cuts - preliminary skirmishes

[crackerjack]

Dunno is Mos Dan ever posts here anymore but he was in the kettle and has blogged on this.

One paper report also mentioned the older guys who turned up with speakers & a system losing control of the main jack, kids playing grime etc from their iPod.

Shouldn't be a surprise. Obviously there are people here better qualified to speak on modern schools than me, but seems kids from all walks are being given a university-or-bust message these days. Lack of reliable, decently paid manual labour is bound to have that effect.

 

[vimothy]

What with Wikileaks, war on the internets, and this, it's been an interesting week.

 

[Tentative Andy]

Andy--there are absurd levels of stereotyping going on on both sides, as far as I can see.

You could just as easily say, "When you put the two things together - the desire to use violence plus an image of the police as some mixture of uneducated thugs and jackbooted Nazis - it's no wonder that it kicks off."

Yeah I wouldn't really disagree with this, and I'm trying to be careful not to slip into those stereotypes myself. But one of the things that depressed about that blog post was witnessing so many officers living up to the stereotypes, you know what I mean?
(In fairness, I think part of the subtext of that blog is that it's a place to congregate for officers that have an axe to grind with senior police management, so that maybe explains in part why there's so much agressivity and, um, extreme/unusual views there. But on the other hand there were just so many bad comments there, including from officers directly involved with the protests, that it's hard for me to accept it as totally unrepresentative.)

Actually Vim, while you're here I was wondering if you have any ideas as to why the sort of macroeconomic views you've outlined hear in the past don't seem to be getting through to the government and their advisors at all? It seems all I ever here in statements is "We have to cut spending, it's tough but there's no other option' blah blah.

 

[vimothy]

Anonymous professional forums/blogs like that always have the same \b\-esque character, in my experience. This certainly isn't unique to the police, so I wonder about concluding that it is representative of them in some way.

No idea what the government is thinking. If anyone knows which blogs smart tories go to to argue about economics, I would like to hear it. Looks very back of the envelope. There are arguments for cutting the deficit, but they don't seem particularly persuasive and I don't really hear the govt making them. My feeling is that it's driven by the desire to put some ground between them and Labour, rather than any economic argument, but this is an uninformed guess.

 

[Mr. Tea]

With regard to this coppers' blog, I think you have to bear in mind that the more extreme end of any group or faction is almost invariably going to be the most vocal - there could well be plenty of police, perhaps even some who were on duty at the demo, whose attitude is more "Well there are bound to be a few hardcore troublemakers but on the whole I think they have a point" who either don't feel compelled to state a moderate position or would feel uncomfortable saying it in front of colleagues with a more straightforward let's-bash-the-lazy-privileged-wastrels attitude. Bearing in mind also that many of them must have kids themselves and will be feeling the full effects of these outrageous fees a few years down the line, if they aren't already.

 

[luka]

If you didn't already know some policemen relish violence then guess you've never seen them in action before, or even watched some of the videos of the protests where some are virtually salivating like attack dogs. i don't think it helps to dehumanise them or think of them as The Enemy really. to me that blog made it seem possible to get them on side to some degree. there was a lot of sympathy there and a lot of anger with the gov.

 

[luka]

vimothy im intersted in what you said about there being no need to cut the deficit. ive never heard that argument put foward before but then i dont read the buisness pages. can you tell me why its not necessary. im a bit thick but i will understand if i concentrate hard.

 

[vimothy]

Luka:

 

[luka]

thank you vimothy. i will concentrate hard and try to see what that represents. i think i can guess though.
edit. ok. yes that is very clear. thank you. can i ask where you got them so i can send the link to my dad who i think would find it interesting.

 

[vimothy]

No worries mate. Charts from here: http://www.ukpublicspending.co.uk/debt_brief.php

 

[droid]

Yeah, I have a lot of sympathy for these guys:

 

[luka]

droid dont be silly. you havent read what i've written and you havent taken a deep breath before answering. you know perfectly well im not going to sit here and defend police manhandling some poor cerebal palsy fucker.

 

[luka]

vim, my dad says thats irrelvant

The problem is not so much public debt as a proportion of GDP - our percentage is fairly OK by international standards. The problem is the deficit ie annual public expenditure is substantially greater than annual public income - I think the difference is about £12bn pa or 11%/12% of GDP. This is one of the higher deficits in the global economy and unsustainable.

is he right?

 

[Mr. Tea]

If you didn't already know some policemen relish violence then guess you've never seen them in action before, or even watched some of the videos of the protests where some are virtually salivating like attack dogs. i don't think it helps to dehumanise them or think of them as The Enemy really. to me that blog made it seem possible to get them on side to some degree. there was a lot of sympathy there and a lot of anger with the gov.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not trying to romanticise the police or pretend that none of them are thugs - I was just saying that there's bound to be a spectrum of good, bad and indifferent, and that a copper gleefully cracking skulls is a lot more conspicuous than a copper exercising restraint. That said, I guess the guys who really do love a ruck for its own sake are probably a lot more likely to end up policing an event like a big protest in Westminster.

Doesn't help that the wider legal system seems to consider the police as above the law much of the time, of course.

 

[luka]

i agree. its a terribly tough job at times and nothing is gained by pretnedning otherwise.

 

[vimothy]

vim, my dad says thats irrelvant

The problem is not so much public debt as a proportion of GDP - our percentage is fairly OK by international standards. The problem is the deficit ie annual public expenditure is substantially greater than annual public income - I think the difference is about £12bn pa or 11%/12% of GDP. This is one of the higher deficits in the global economy and unsustainable.

is he right?

Well, that depends on what he means. UK public debt to GDP is reasonably high by international standards (70% = 22nd highest in world), although it is low by historical standards. Looks like we both agree that a deficit is an excess of expenditure over revenue by definition, but I don’t know what to make of a statement like “the problem is the deficit, ie annual public expenditure is substantially greater than annual public income” In what sense is it the problem? In what sense does it make sense to think of a deficit in terms of sustainability? A deficit is a flow of net expenditure over time—it is transitory: next year it won’t exist. Problem disappears in a flash of smoke.

We do have one of the higher deficits as a % of GDP, he’s right about that. But otherwise, erm, no, in my opinion he’s talking arse. A strong recovery will eradicate the deficit. The real issue is how much of the national income (i.e. GDP) will we have to use up servicing the debt. You can think of the debt as the sum of all previous deficits, and the limiting case as the maximum debt burden you can carry while still making principal payments. The generic conservative fiscal Armageddon fantasy involves the interest payments exceeding our ability to pay, and consequently the debt spiraling out of control. Imagine a credit card where you can only afford to pay off half the interest payments every month. Every month the amount you owe is getting bigger and bigger. That is unsustainable.

Ireland is going to have to spend 10% of national income servicing its debt every year for decades. That is also unsustainable. We’re fine. Just a bit retarded.

 

[luka]

this is all in the context of an argument ive been having with him.

 

[vimothy]

Also, one of the unspoken truths in this whole debate is that if somebody saves, somebody else must dissave. If the government is going to save money then someone needs to spend it. E.g., collectively we aren’t necessarily going to save any money on tuition fees—we’re going to redistribute the costs away from the govt and towards individual students, but the actual costs haven’t changed.

 

[luka]

that seems like a very good point.

 

[vimothy]

Chris Dillow:

[A]rguments for higher fees [that] are just nonsense:
1. “The nation can’t afford it.” But if taxpayers as a whole cannot afford to fund university tuition, then a subset of taxpayers can’t afford it either, especially as they will be paying higher interest rates than taxpayers generally.