The Last Ditch by Tom Paine

7 responses to “Say it ain’t so”

1. 

   Diogenes

   October 8, 2013

   If you can control the survey question you can achieve any result you want.
   e.g. ‘Do you think services provided to the public should be publicly owned or would you rather they were controlled by profit making corporations?’
   You will note that the link to the Survation poll is not working, so there is no way to check the wording.

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2. 

   john miller

   October 8, 2013

   The most telling response to Milliband’s Marxism was the announcement by Cameron.
   He thought it was a jolly good idea because Lab went up in the opinion polls, so he’s looking round for a bit of Marxist policy of his own.

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3. 

   MickC

   October 8, 2013

   I don’t think this is surprising-and probably does accurately reflect public opinion.
   The problem is that many people believe that what were state owned companies, in particular the utilities, are now effectively privately owned cartels. There is no true competition to keep prices down-which are seen as only going up.
   The banking sector and the City in general is seen as a set of rogues where profit is private but the losses are everyones. And misbehaviour, far fom being punished, is seen to be rewarded.
   Those being the generally held views, why not have state ownership?
   The answer is, of course, because it is inefficient and corrupt. But the reply will come-“so is the present system”.
   And unless something is done to address the failings of the current system (which it won’t), state ownership we will have.

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4. 

   James Strong

   October 9, 2013

   ‘profit is private but losses are everyones’.
   On a number of occasions in his writings Chomsky drew attention to this. His solution may well not have been the same as yours, of course.
   My solution would be never to bail out failing businesses. The insolvent banks should have been allowed to fail. It might have been awful in the short term, but we’d have stronger banks, and more prudent banks, in the future and the entire economy would benefit from knowing that businesses and individuals carry the consequences of their decisions, whether those consequences are good or bad.

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5. 

   Tom

   October 9, 2013

   I could not agree more and not only about Chomsky’s solution to anything not being the same as mine. Profits should belong entirely to businesses (with no corporate taxation – an economic nonsense as the costs find their way to customers) but the losses should belong to them too. Our immoral society is a direct product of ‘moral jeopardy’ in business and personal life. In business it’s ‘too big to fail.’ In personal life it’s ‘I don’t need to save to pay for my children’s education, to support my family in possible periods of unemployment, to meet my health care costs or fund my retirement because the government will steal money from others for me’

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6. 

   MickC

   October 9, 2013

   Yes, I entirely agree with James Strong.
   But, of course, allowing the banks to fail quite simply didn’t happen. The then Opposition started from the premise that is what should happen-but then did a volte face of astonishing proportions.
   Again, I agree with regard to saving-but look what has happened to those who have saved. Interest rates are suppressed to abysmal levels (unless you want to borrow!), and the value of money is being inflated away!
   More fool those who actually saved appears to be the attitude of our rulers-let’s just skin them!
   Meanwhile it looks as if Royal Mail is going to be sold on the cheap for the benefit of the City.
   All of the above contributes to the feeling of “if we aren’t going to be allowed to win, then “they” shouldn’t either-let’s have state ownership”.
   This can only be countered by a government of free market principle and backbone.
   And we haven’t got one-or are likely to have one.

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7. 

   MickC

   October 9, 2013

   Sorry, bit of a rant, really.
   Paying for an education for one’s own children (err, who else should be responsible for offspring but the parents?) is now seen as a crime. Indeed, Ofsted apparently consider that “public schools” should offer more to the “community”.
   Presumably more than taking the burden off the state system-which would collapse under the weight of numbers if the independent sector was abolished.
   And not a word spoken by our rulers against such Stalinist nonsense.
   Like Tom recently, I am pretty despairing about the future in this country.

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