Associated Press
David Cameron's economy still isn't pointing in the right direction.
The failures of British austerity offer lessons for the United States, if policymakers of a certain ideological persuasion care to listen.
Britain could be on course for its third recession in four years after the economy shrank 0.3% in the last three months of 2012.
The figures were worse than expected and could put pressure on the government to consider a "plan B" that would stimulate demand.
A fall in manufacturing output dragged down the economy, countering a small rise in construction between October and December, according to the Office for National Statistics. The economy achieved zero growth for the year as a whole.
After very modest growth in the fall of 2012, the British economy has now contracted in four of the last five quarters. No wonder officials are looking for a possible stimulus.
I keep an eye on this because of its political salience here in the U.S. Specifically, this offers a reminder about the misguided economic philosophy pushed by American conservatives.
As we discussed last summer, Republican policymakers in the U.S. spent quite a bit of time arguing that the United States should follow Europe's lead and impose austerity measures here at home. This is especially true of David Cameron's British austerity policies, which have drawn enthusiastic praise from Republicans.
In fact, it was exactly two years ago this week when Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-Ala.) wrote an op-ed urging U.S. policymakers to follow the lead set by our friends across the pond: "We need a budget with a bold vision -- like [the one] unveiled in Britain." Around the same time, as Paul Krugman reminds us, the late David Broder urged President Obama to "do a Cameron," praising the prime minister for "brushing aside the warnings of economists that the sudden, severe medicine could cut short Britain's economic recovery and throw the nation back into recession."
Oops.
We're now witnessing the effects of the Tories' conservative vision: a triple-dip recession. Will this deter Republicans? Probably not, but the American mainstream should take note.
In 2011, austerity's champions -- in Europe and the U.S. -- said taking money out of the economy and scaling back investments will lead to stronger growth and lower debts. It's time to ignore supply and demand, they said, and forget the successes of the Keynesian model altogether.
They were, of course, painfully wrong, but at least on this side of the pond, the same policymakers who got this backwards are still arguing that the nation should focus on the deficit, debt reduction, and slashing public investments.
The question isn't why so many Republicans believe such nonsense; the question is why anyone still takes them seriously.
It was nearly two years ago when Richard Portes, an economist at the London Business School, argued, "My view is that we are in serious danger of a double-dip recession. This is going to be a cautionary tale."
We now know Portes was exactly right. We also know that for Americans on the right, the lessons of this cautionary have been ignored.
Leave a Comment:
What - Republicans - see facts and learn lessons?!?!? Please....
Right-wing ideology is non-falsifiable. Britain just didn't screw the people enough.
And there are never any consequences for being 180 degrees wrong as a right-winger.
It cannot fail. It can only be failed.
Anyone who takes 10 minutes to look at the history of austerity measures around the world will come to one inescapable conclusion: if you want to destroy your economy as quickly as possible, implement austerity measures. Repubs, who are supposedly such geniuses in economics and business, always miss one central fact: we live in a consumer economy, with consumer spending making up over 2/3 of our economy. What you are seeing in the UK, and Spain, which yesterday announced it now has an unemployment rate of 26% thanks to their austerity program, is that when the government slashes its spending, it has a catastrophic effect on the entire economy. Despite the protestations from the right, the government DOES create jobs. In fact, our recovery would be even stronger, and unemployment lower, if it wasn't for the fact that state and local govermnents have slashed their workforces by large amounts over the past few years. Those people end up on unemployment, food stamps and other support programs just so they can literally stay alive. At the same time, they no longer have money to pay taxes or spend on consumer goods, which in turn cuts government revenues and hurts business incomes. This causes businesses to cut their workforces, accelerating the cycle. The repub response is to further cut spending, making the process work. They also demand tax cuts, further cutting government revenues, and doing nothing to stimulate the economy, as the folks who really need the help, the poor and unemployed, pay no taxes already. Austerity is the path to the next depression.
I think it's time for you folks on the left to understand that austerity isn't about being mean, it's about having run out of other people's money.
It's actually happened. You want to keep spending ever more, but your overseas financing has dried up. Nations are reducing the amounts of our debt in their bank account.
Meanwhile, you're trying to stimulate business, even as you raise taxes, issue regulations by the pound, and rail against the rich. You're going to have to decide what is more important, beating up business, or tax revenues. Your choice.
Re: #2.1
Was listening to some of those Financial "talking heads" this morning. They are very excited because the Stock Market is set to soar because of better than expected earnings reports.
So what is your point about "beating up business"?
Increased business profits will translate to an increase in workers' pay, right?
So all that prosperity back when the top marginal rate was more than 90% and effective rates were much higher as well, that was just a fluke, I guess. Or was it that people had so much more money then so the tax burden didn't hurt them?
The only "other people's money" we're running out of in this country is the money the top 1% has siphoned into its own pocket from the pockets of the middle and working classes over the last thirty years. For the last three decades, they've bled the lower and middle classes white by rigging the tax code, slashing education and infrastructure spending, and using outsourcing to beat down wages.
Whose "OPM" are we running out of? Here's a couple of graphs that should explain it to even to the most obdurately obtuse:
http://voices.washingtonpost.com/ezra-klein/incomgegainsstraight.jpg
http://voices.washingtonpost.com/ezra-klein/productivityincome.jpg
OK, Blanks, we ran out of other people's money. Let's immediately slash spending to balance the budget. That means cutting the Pentagon budget by at least 50%, because we just can't afford to waste hundreds of billions on weapons that don't work. Eliminate social security, because we don't give a damn about the people that paid into it for their entire lives. Eliminate unemployment and food stamps...those people cost too much, and their circumstances are all their fault. But please, please, let's make sure we keep the corporate welfare going, because corporations are people too, more important than mere individuals who can't buy their own pet congressmen and senators.
Folks like you make me absolutely sick...relentlessly ignorant and proud of it. The schools you attended did a horrible job of educating you, and should be ashamed of the product they turned out. The ironic part is, if all the austerity proposed by repubs were enacted, you'd be the first one whining about how badly it was hurting you, your family and your town. And to that, I'd be laughing my ass off!
Hysteria doesn't help.
Re: @2.3
The productivity/income graph you linked to is out-of-date - stops at 2006
Here are links to current data which show that it is even worse!
Labor Share
http://research.stlouisfed.org/fred2/series/COMPRNFB?cid=32351
Output per Hour of All Persons
http://research.stlouisfed.org/fred2/series/OPHNFB?cid=32351
Hysteria doesn't help? Better tell that to repubs who stoked the fear of non-existent death panels during the healthcare debate, or the righties who are out buying assault weapons because they believe that Obama is going to send in the UN troops to take them away. In the dictionary, under the definition of "hysteria", there is a picture of the repub logo. Of course, it gets pretty confusing, as the logo also appears under the definitions of "ignorant", "hypocrite", "liar" and "sociopath".
If investors in our debt had "dried up", the interest rate on our bonds would have risen in an attempt to make them more attractive. Instead they remain at the lowest levels we have seen in my more than half century.
Everyone "knows" that Obama has spent gazillions of dollars creating a massive debt. The point this article (from Bloomberg no less) is making is that *even including the stimulus package* the rate of debt *increase* has gone down under Obama - lower than it has been since Eisenhower. We do have a large debt, but not an unconscionable amount of debt - nothing like what the bogeyman Greece has measured as a % of GDP. Where does this debt come from? 4 places mainly: Bush tax cuts, 2 unpaid for wars, an unfunded mandate (Medicare drug benefit under Bush), and a recession caused by the crash. The first and the 4th put a big hole in revenues, the middle 2 (3 actually since there were two wars) added to the spending side. The point is, everything everyone "knows" (e.g., Obama is spending like crazy) ain't true.
Now, let's look at the stimulus: The goal was to stop revenue bleeding - and it has at least slowed it from "patient's gonna die" to "ok, get 'em out of triage and into a bed." If the bleeding stops (and it looks like, barring debt ceilings, etc, it might), then the revenue side will begin to be repaired given the new tax revenue.
Meanwhile, as the Affordable Care Act comes online, it will also reduce the bleeding, in part because the Medicare Part D *will for the first time be paid for.* There are other spending reductions in ACA, but these will mostly come later.
Finally, the Iraq war has been ended and our spending there reduced. The War in Afghanistan will be ended this year so that cost will drop significantly. In short, Obama has done what needed to be done: cut spending and increase revenue.
Could it have been done faster? Absolutely! Even at the time the stimulus was known to be too small for the size of the Great Recession. But there was no political will to put more into the stimulus ns heaven forbid it should be successful and Obama should get the credit!.
Uff, the NHS has real live death panels, it isn't a fantasy scenario. http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2255054/60-000-patients-death-pathway-told-minister-says-controversial-end-life-plan-fantastic.html#ixzz2Gkk59w62
And the Canadians took this exact path in confiscating guns. Registration first. Like I said hysteria isn't helping.
Funny, but the last time I checked, the NHS was the healthcare system in the UK, not the US. The so-called "death panels" actually only exist in one place here in the US, inside those good old capitalistic insurance companies, where entire departments are dedicated to finding ways to deny coverage to their clients. The whine from the right is always that Obamacare puts the government in between you and your doctor. Once again, the only one between you and your doctor is the good old capitalist insurance company, who tells doctors what they will and will not cover, and how much they will pay your doctor for each procedure they do cover.
I would think that repubs, especially those "people", the corporations, would be all for death panels. After all, people who are sick enough to die can't labor for the corporations, nor buy any of their wonderful products, therefore, they are non-productive members of society, and should be left to die, as they are a drag on the economy.
I started thinking like a repub, and I threw up a little in my mouth!
True, so the US has created it's own demand, by buying whatever isn't bought overseas. It's like writing a check and then depositing it in the same account. Or counterfeiting. But for Sec Treas it's legal. Same principle as counterfeiting, but legal.
So what? It's still increasing at over a trillion dollars a year. In some places that's sizeable money. Do you know how long it's been since total debt was actually reduced?
Where does that tax revenue come from? Business. Yet the administration is knee capping business in a myriad of ways. Why spend money to stimulate, while actively depressing the activity?
There is no stimulus large enough to overcome a debt driven recession.
Re: #2.11
Is it a debt driven recession?
Thirteen years, as a matter of fact. Before that, it was the Carter Administration.
Where does tax revenue come from? Actually, it comes from individuals. The amount brought in by taxes is as follows: Individual income taxes 47%; payroll taxes 33%, corporate income taxes 12%, for FY13, according to information from the National Priorities Project. In fact, the amount paid by corporations has been declining since the 1940's and individuals have been paying far more since that time. In other words, if you want the economy to grow, we should be looking at shifting more of the tax burden away from individuals and back to businesses. After all, corporations are people too, so either we people should get low taxes like the corporate "people", or corporations should pay taxes more like we individual people.
maphi, yes. Our recent prosperity was based on credit. Now, credit is difficult to get, (although Obama is resurrecting subprime mortgages) and people are working like mad to pay down their debt.
DC, according to this (Table 7.1) it was 1957. 1969 is there too, but that's the year LBJ added SS revenue to the general revenues. So it's been over half a century. http://www.whitehouse.gov/sites/default/files/omb/budget/fy2013/assets/hist.pdf
Uff, where do people get their money? Business. So does Govt. Business is the only entity that produces new economic wealth (goods and services). Business takes disparate elements and produces something that is greater than the sum of it's parts. (Added value)
Right, those sweet, benevolent businesses just "give" money to us poor, unworthy wretches. We give nothing to them in return for their largesse, other than our labor for 50 years of our lives. We should get down on our knees for the privilege of being allowed to labor for them for crappy wages and abuse. And while businesses may give money, (when they aren't dodging their taxes), government in turn gives them huge sums of money. Where would General Dynamics be without government defense money? Selling lemonade on the street, as few individuals need to go out and buy a fleet of F-16s or a navy destroyer. Your corporate masters have done an excellent job of convincing you that you need to devote your life to making them happy and profitable, and that you are willing to sacrifice your own well being to do so. Funny how similar that is to totalitarian regimes, such as Communist China, where the party is everything. Make sure you always adhere to the little red book of Chairman Trump! HA!
Austerity without tax relief is the main problem. The UK decided to only cut their spending, which automatically rendered any other investments impossible. Spain decided to "clean up" their finances, which also meant slapping a wealth tax again. The Eurozone countries are not doing this right, and the UK is basically leading the way (although they are not in the EU). Those countries that have used tax cuts to stem more investments (Sweden is an example, although they were in mint financial and economic shape before the crisis, but that's not a reason not to see this as a potable example) have had more economic growth, mostly through consumption, but hey, in times of crisis, any percent of growth is a miracle.
Well uff, I suppose you could always try to exist without a job, but that might be tough. Hunting and gathering doesn't pay at all.
As for Govt handing out money, where did that money come from? The private sector. Business provides the jobs and the tax revenue by virtue of being the only wealth creators. Business is a maker, Govt is a taker.
That sounds great on the surface, but unfortunately, the idea is to REDUCE the deficit. If you cut spending AND cut taxes, you are keeping the gap between income and expenses about the same, just moving the absolute levels lower. What you are hoping for, as repubs always do, is that cutting taxes will magically INCREASE tax revenues. Unfortunately, as decades of trickle down, supply side economics has proven, this produces nothing but bigger deficits. How did those Bush tax cuts do? If they had been as stimulative to the economy as advertised, we wouldn't have had the weakest job performance in modern times, and we wouldn't have had an economic collapse. The CBO reports that tax cuts are the LEAST stimulative measure available.
And I'm sure your beloved corporations would get along just fine without workers, right? Those iPads and BMWs and refrigerators and flat screen tvs would just magically appear straight from the fevered imaginations of the CEOs, right? My point is that workers need businesses, and businesses need workers. It's the old chicken and the egg dilemma. You seem to see people as nothing more than consumers. Sorry, but there are no consumers if there is no one to actually make the products to consume.
As for your tired assertion that only business creates wealth and gives money to government, my statistics I provided above prove that patently false. Corporations are by far the smallest contributor to tax revenue. If it weren't for government, many of your beloved corporations would not exist, or would be far smaller if they had to depend on consumer spending. Defense contractors would be SOL. Many high tech firms benefit from government research and spending. IBM became the giant it is on the back of military demand for computers and associated equipment. Individuals pay the majority of taxes in this country, and have since the 1940s. That money obviously came from their paychecks, given to them by corporations in return for their labor. It didn't magically appear from the largesse of the corporations. They paid for services that allowed their company to exist in the first place. As they say, you gotta pay money to make money.
Uff, the Bush cuts did very well for employment. You can see a steep rise in employment around 2003, right when the Bush cuts kicked in. http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_nSTO-vZpSgc/TUw6hMzI7OI/AAAAAAAAKdo/Lv53LLi50Cs/s1600/nonfarm-payroll-2011-01A.png
Business came first then workers. You can see this everyday in front of Home Depot. Labor is a bunch of people standing around with nothing to do until someone arrives with an idea and the money to pursue arrives.... needing help.
In that vein, it's corporations that pay the employees who then pay taxes on their salaries. So yes, taxes come from business. Govt can't pay business except with taxes from other business. Govt can't create jobs without money taken from someone else.
Govt doesn't create tangible wealth. Individuals don't create wealth unless they're craftsmen. Only business creates wealth, and that's what makes the economy go. Like it or not that's how it works.
What austerity? The Brits haven't cut back on spending.
http://www.nationalreview.com/corner/299233/show-me-savage-spending-cuts-europe-please-veronique-de-rugy#
Shooter, if you actually look at the graph it's clear they ABSOLUTELY reduced spending. Conventional wisdom tells you that in a recession the government needs to spend to stimulate economic growth. Ergo, a plateauing of spending as soon as a recession hits IS reducing spending. Just because it didn't dip below 2008 levels doesn't mean spending wasn't reduced/slowed. Just at the point that spending became crucial to recovery the Eurozone stopped spending.
Re: #3
I followed the link and because I practice "The Way of Skeptical Knowing" I have some questions.
The National Review Online is a conservative site. Can I be confident they are un-biased?
Who is Veronique de Rugy and why should I believe her?
From the graph (BTW the link to the actual Eurostat data doesn't work), it looks like overall spending did indeed not decrease.
Is there more to the story?
Just because overall spending did not go down, does not mean that critical spending that impacts individuals and the economy did not go down.
In an effort to find out more I googled and found this site:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/news/datablog/2013/jan/08/uk-benefit-welfare-spending
Near the bottom of the article is a table:
UK benefit spending by the Department for Work & Pensions
You can download the data file with LOTS of data.
The table compares 2010-2011 vs 2011-2012 spending.
Some lines that shows a decrease:
Employment Programmes -52.8%
Income Support -13.2%
Incapacity Benefit -13.3%
Note: I listed lines that showed a big decrease. There are also some that showed an increase so that overall spending did not decrease - in fact went up slightly.
But the three that I listed I think would have a dramatic impact if you happened to be unemployed or incapacitated.
MORE INFORMATION IS NEEDED
What are the spending differences from 2008-2009 and 2009-2010?
-------------------------
"Blur: How to Know What's True in the Age of Information Overload" by Bill Kovach and Tom Rosenstiel
Includes a section on "The Way of Skeptical Knowing...amounts to asking - and knowing how to answer - a series of systematic questions... including the following.
Here is another link that is informative:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/public-sector-cuts
Cuts: sector by sector
NHS cuts
Children's services cuts
Housing and regeneration cuts
Local government cuts
Social care cuts
Voluntary sector cuts
Yes, clearly, the problem isn't that the Brits cut spending. The problem is that just haven't cut spending enough. Austerity cannot fail, it can only be failed. Once government spending is at zero, prosperity must surely bloom.
Guys, austerity is less spending nationally. That isn't happening. What you're complaining about is where those nations spend. That is a very different topic.
maphi, "The Way of Skeptical Knowing" is spot on. Our problem is that EVERY number has to be vetted, and there simply isn't enough time and energy to cover them all. In this case, I check to see whether the chart numbers come from Govt, or a "model".
Consider the latest jobless claims number heralded at 330,000.... http://maddowblog.msnbc.com/_news/2013/01/24/16677836-jobless-claims-keep-improving-reach-five-year-low?lite
yet the real number is 436,766. http://www.dol.gov/opa/media/press/eta/ui/current.htm
I understand seasonal adjustments, but a full 30% variation doesn't pass the smell test. So now I have to assume every thing posted here is slanted. Sad but true. Tell if you find the same for Heritage.
Re: #3.5
"but a full 30% variation doesn't pass the smell test"
Remind me to never ask you if you think the milk is OK to drink.....
"yet the real number is 436,766" - until they get more data in and revise it - which happens all the time.
Compare these two charts:
Initial Claims Not Seasonally Adjusted
http://research.stlouisfed.org/fred2/series/ICNSA?cid=32240
Initial Claims Seasonally Adjusted
http://research.stlouisfed.org/fred2/series/ICSA?cid=32240
The NSA one looks like a heart-beat with very regular big spikes - and it looks like maybe we just passed a spike.
The SA one is much smoother.
After looking at this, I am kind of surprised that the NSA and SA numbers are that close.
Bottom line with these numbers is that focusing on week to week changes doesn't mean much.
What is more informative is the 4 week moving average:
http://research.stlouisfed.org/fred2/series/IC4WSA?cid=32240
If the Brits haven't cut on spending, then the Americans have kept their spending at the rate of inflation ever since 2009. Either that or there is something wrong.
Veronique DeRugy is a Mercatus Center (Koch Brothers) economist who has an extremely ideologically-based point of view.
It's simple common sense. If you give a tax break to a millionaire, he will put it in a savings account or invest it somewhere in the market. He won't spend it on real world items because he doesn't need to; he has all the money he needs. If you give a tax break, credit, or welfare check to someone who is unemployed or underemployed, that will immediately go into the economy and stimulate it. It will be spent right away on food, rent, and other bills, real world items that grow the economy.
Growth occurs from the ground up, not from the sky down. This is true in nature and it is true economics as well. When you hurt the lower middle class, working and unemployed poor, it has much more stark effects on the economy than all the Bush tax cuts ever did.
The rich will use their excess money to speculate (pressuring inflation). Of the money the poor get, section 8 money goes to landlords, medicare/medicaid goes to doctors and hospitals, and food stamp money ends up with Pepsi. Education loans go to,,, profs, books, and admins...
Nevertheless we should socialize higher education.
Well, you are right, but many politicians are thinking that giving more disposable income to the top percentile of moneymakers can make a difference. Cutting VAT or sales tax for everyone can help, since people will have more disposable income to spend (and increasing those taxes does not "encourage them to save", that's just nonsense, since it will force them to spend less, but not specifically to put in a retirement account, plus this will depress the economy).
People who don't get "reality" shouldn't get to make policy either.
I understand Cameron's promising to hold a vote on the UK's participation in the EU after the next election.
The thing is, Cameron is right to promise the referendum. The downside to that is: if the Scots vote for their independence in 2014, and if Cameron loses in 2015, what will be left to vote for then?
It's because they appeal to people who don't understand that balancing the budget of a nation and balancing their own checkbooks aren't exactly the same thing, and you can't just make everything better by simply spending less at the Walmart. But then, it's easy to convince these particular people of just about anything, except that the president wasn't born in Africa, women and minorities are equal to white males and don't require their blessings to be treated as such, and that not everyone needs to have an assault weapon to protect themselves from the hordes of "outsiders" trying to steal their jobs. It's how they manage to stay in office, after all.
Yea. That's right MSNBC. Our government should keep spending more than it takes in year after year until all the tax revenue taken in is needed just to pay the interest....
Seriously? What clear-thinking individual can honestly believe that will work? (Please note 'clear-thinking' - I fully understand how well programed sheep can believe it. - btw, that's a reference to the sheep in the book Animal Farm.... good read for current times. Which animal are you?)
Re: #7
Short-term stimulus / long-term deficit reduction
"Clear thinking" individuals know that we have done this in the past and it has worked.
Note:
The first is relatively easy and effective - and is what we have done in the past to address recessions.
The second part is more difficult and I don't think we have every done right.
Quark-248646,
You are most likely one of the individuals who claimed that they liked Romney so much because he was a business man and would run our govt like business.
Do you know what business's do when money is cheap to borrow, they borrow. To fund the r&d that is required to come up with the next big thing.
"there are some minds no argument can move."
c.v. wedgewood, 'william the silent' (1944)
start with a 5% reduction in all programs. govt. employees could cut waste to save their jobs. if not hand them a shovel for one of the shovel ready jobs.
Commenting on their bare backsides would be partisan.
Republicans are not stupid and they are fully aware of what austerity will do to our economy. The Republicans want the economy to tank real bad so that they can sweep the 2014 and 2016 elections with an economic message. It is all about politics and regaining control of Congress and the White House. God help us if they get complete control with the Tea Party faction.
Well, that and it makes for some real bargains on stuff that the riffraff sell to keep feeding their little brats.
Why not follow Sweden? OK, it's not the same rap, but they did cut their sales tax and VAT in order to stem more consumption. And that measure passed in 2010, just in time to give the economy an extra boost. They did suffer a tough recession in '09 (-4% of their GDP, mostly due to falling exports, since Sweden is an export-driven economy), but mostly recovered through giving their citizens more room to spend, which was necessary since their consumption rate fell ever since the 1990's and the near bankruptcy of the country. However, I can concede it may not work: Sweden is a transparent, relatively non-corrupt country, extremely well managed and with banks that have not fallen under the spell of sub-primes. Or the US can try and follow Eastern Europe and cut taxes... This might've been the error of Cameron: put all the effort on cuts and not giving many tax incentives, praying that the British people will transfer their spending from consuming to investing. And this did not happen, thus condemning the Cameron plan.
Again, tax cuts are the LEAST stimulative measure for an economy. As for wanting consumers to transfer their spending to consuming---you do realize that the US economy is based on consumer spending, with over 2/3 being consumer spending? Encouraging people to invest is to undercut the economy.
Besides the fact that the problem right now is not a lack of investment funds (businesses are sitting on something like $1.5T drawing minimal interest already) there's the tiny detail that people who are living on a the bare edge of subsistence tend to be a bit short on funds to invest.
Who is going to invest when there are no customers for the products being invested in? It makes no sense at all. When consumers have money to spend, then it makes sense to invest, but not before.
Steve, what you don't understand is that the European experience doesn't apply to us. Don't you know anything about American Exceptionalism™? Normal economic laws don't apply to us. Neither do normal moral laws like the "quaint" Geneva Conventions. Nor do such scientific concepts as greenhouse gases, evolution, cancer and other health problems from tobacco use, environmental contamination causing health problems, etc.
You need to get with the new "exceptionalism™" as promulgated from the depths of the repub stink tanks.
Tell me America also does not respect the laws of either physics, biology and math?
Desperate people calling from across the pond. Since the Conservatives took power in Britain they have made a bad recession ten times worse with their right wing ideology.
A. The first thing they did was throw sick and disabled people of something we call incapacity benefit by saying they were fit to work. So instead of a subsidence benefit of £105 a week. They get £30 a week to live on. To pay bills and buy food. Leaving the most vunerable destitute.
B
Cutting all spending on school redevelopment so they can privatise our childrens education.
C. Massively cutting the NHS budget which has caused thousands of job loses. (they said this wouldnt happen in their election manifesto)
D. Cutting all council budgets, hense causing further massive job losses and closing all social programs.
E. Privatised the Welfare program enabling private companies to profit from mass unemployment.
F. Cutting the highest rate of tax by 5% for the richest in the country while slashing all benefits for the remainder of the population.
Using the press, usually owned by Rupert Murdoch to blame it all on the poor.
The premise that it will cut the deficit. Which has gone up 20% since they took office.
They are a bunch of liars who are looting the British Economy. Praying for an English Obama.
Missed your chance when you didn't naturalize his Kenyan father.
"An English Obama". Just wait until Little Brother Miliband takes over...