Margaret Thatcher dead...

Apart from all modern politicians.

 

Nope, I suggested she was a nationalist.

 

Correct. That is because incomes rose for all income groups, based on income.

Please be specific. We have established that after ''housing costs,'' real income for the poorest 10% fell by 2.4%.

If you are referring to some other statistics, please tell us what they are.

No, that is not evidence. As incomes for everyone increase, or as real incomes after ''housing costs'' increase for everyone but the poorest 10%, so too does the median income, even if more people drop below it.

Nope, that's not how it happened. The housing bubble started in 1988 because the Chancellor announced that mortgage tax relief was going to be cut, which resulted in a rush to buy before the cut-off date.

I notice you live in the US. Did you used to live in the UK? If not, I could understand why you would be unlikely to have known this.

You said: ''However, the majority of the people, who live in the rural areas, are not getting any of those benefits.''

You are still not addressing the fact that poverty has dropped in China from 85% of the population in 1981 to 16% by 2005.

Ok, so there's some debate on poverty reduction in India. I suppose their cast system might have something to do with it as well.

So now that I have addressed every point you have made, will you now address the fact that poverty has dropped in China from 85% of the population in 1981 to 16% by 2005, WRT your claim that the majority of the people are not getting any of the benefits of us having outsourced jobs?

 

I was quoting you when I used the word ''overshot.'' If you overshoot a monetary target, you go beyond what you intended to do.

Of course they were trying to limit the growth of the money supply. Increasing interest rates is all a government or central bank can to try to limit growth in the money supply, in order to bring inflation down

They increased interest rates, and inflation came down. Because inflation came down, we know the policy achieved it's objective. Having achieved it's objective, it was no longer necessary to pursue the same policy.

Job done!

 

What would your thoughts have been on a cremation, rather than a burial?

Cheaper.

More eco friendly.

And more fitting?

That is three strong selling points.

 

By suggesting that she was the one who painted us Red White and Blue then by implication you suggest we were not Red White and Blue before her paint job. Thus I take it that your definition of Nationalism is in fact Thatcherism.

 

Either her funeral should have been paid for privately, or it should have been put out to competitive tender. In which case, cheapest is best.

 

There you go again with your strawman arguments.

I am not suggesting by implication what you claim.

Nor do I define nationalism as Thatcherism.

But it doesn't bother me if that's what you want to believe.

 

It isn't a strawman, you said she painted us Red White and Blue, not I.

And so you, as she did and as Cameron does now by saying 'we are all Thatcherites now'. insult all of of us who despise the low levels, on every level, she bought us to.

Money ! How truly vulgar she was.

.

 

You claimed that I implied that we were not red white and blue before the paint job, and that I define nationalism as Thatcherism.

That is a strawman argument.

That is another strawman argument. I am not saying ''we are all Thatcherites now.''

 

She coloured us Red White and Blue you said. So what were we before then ?

I said Cameron said 'we are all Thatcherites now', not you, but that your implications of our being colourless before her 'coming' as his of us all being 'of hers' is an insult to us all. She did not colour me Red White and Blue, if I am or ever was such colours it would have been not of her doing but rather in spite of her 'doing'.


The trouble with all the Pro Thatcher arguments is that they are narrow, as if there were no choices but one, hers. There were many paths we could have taken hers was a rotten one.

 

I said she ''painted us,'' not ''coloured us.'' The Union Jack was red white and blue beforehand as well. Most other British politicians at the time would have had a blue flag with a ring of gold stars.

I misread what you said. But as I am not insulting anyone here, it's still a strawman argument.

But that's not what I said or implied. I suggest waiting to find out what my position is on any particular matter, before attempting to criticise me for doing something I am not doing.

She did not paint me magnolia.

Claiming that all the arguments for or against anything in particular, are narrow, is an outstanding example of a narrow argument

Among the problems with the anti-Thatcher arguments being presented here, is not only that they are not based on demonstrable facts, but they ignore the facts that are presented. They are not based on anything that can be measured, therefore they are impossible to prove. They are based on belief, which makes anti-Thatcherism seem like a religion. People want to believe it, and do believe it, but they cannot prove that what they believe is true.

A debate about colours could go on for ever, with no way of demonstrating which argument is correct. It's all a matter of opinion. Whereas in a debate about the decline in manufacturing for example, it can easily be demonstrated that manufacturing as a % of GDP fell twice as fast under the prior Labour government, and more than twice as fast under the Labour government that came after. That's not a matter of opinion, as it's something that can be measured. Same goes for income, inflation and government debt, to mention but a few examples.

The path we took was better than the path we were on, by most quantifiable measures.

 

Either you don't understand what 60% of the median is, are not paying attention to what I have said , or are engaging in a deliberate smoke blowing exercise. I am not talking about people going below the median, I am talking about a SIGNIFICANT INCREASE IN THE NUMBER OF PEOPLE DROPPING BELOW 60 PER CENT OF THE MEDIAN. This was due, in part, to a loss of over 1 million manufacturing jobs under Thatcher. You had people with good paying high skilled, secure jobs, who now could not find work at all or had to accept lowering paying jobs in the service sector. When they lost these higher wage jobs, it manifest itself in the statistics as an significant increase in the number of people falling below 60 PER CENT OF THE MEDIAN INCOME. This substantial increase was not a result in the median income rising. The 10 pecentile were already below 60 PER CENT OF THE MEDIAN. What this means is that a large group of people, who were not previously below 60 PER CENT OF THE MEDIAN, experienced a significant drop in wages. Which is exactly what happened as a result of the loss of loss higher paying manufacturing jobs. Those people who got lower paying service jobs or could not find a job, caused an increase in the number of people that were below 60 PER CENT OF THE MEDIAN.

You don't understand, even if you lived there. It's like this, Thatcher was warned in advanced, the MIRAS, would simply allow borrowers to pay more for their homes and drive prices up. Being ignorant, she did it anyway. And it resulted in, as people were trying to tell her, that prices would increase. Thatcher was just like a female Mr. Magoo.

I am addressing it. There is a big problem with income inequality in China, that has resulted from the globalization. There has much been written about it. It's a large separate discussion, but to give you an idea, here's something from Wiki:

 

Again, although you may have lived there, you don't appear to understand what happened at all. They were grossly missing the targets. Therefore they abandoned the policy. They simply stopped setting targets. I haven't seen where anyone disputes this.

 

Perhaps I could have worded that better, but the principle is perfectly straightforward. As the median income rises, so to does 60% of the median income. For example, if the median income rises from $100 to $200, then 60% of the median income rises from $60 to $120.

A ''significant increase in the number of people dropping below 60% of the median income, is not evidence that anyone got poorer at all. Here is an example consisting of ten income groups, who's incomes are as follows:

1 - $10
2 - $20
3 - $30
4 - $40
5 - $50
6 - $60
7 - $70
8 - $80
9 - $90
10 - $100

So the median income is $55, 60% of the median income is $33, and 30% of the population are below 60% of the median income. Clear enough so far?

After a period of time, incomes for the 10 groups are as follows:

1 - $15
2 - $30
3 - $45
4 - $60
5 - $90
6 - $130
7 - $170
8 - $200
9 - $300
10 - $400

So now, the median income has risen to $110, and 60% of the median income has risen to $66, but the 4th income group has dropped below 60% of the median income, even though everybody has got richer. Clear enough now?

60% of the median income being used as a measure of poverty allows the media to print headlines such as ''Poverty rises as a significant number of people drop below 60% of the median income - while the rich get richer!''

Which would be technically correct, but is not proof that anyone has got poorer. But because people associate the word ''poverty'' with ''poor,'' they arrive at the same conclusion as you did.

You're just repeating talking points here, while not realising that ''a significant number of people dropping below 60% of the median income'' is not evidence that anyone got poorer at all.

So I'll take it that you didn't used to live here, so I can understand why you don't know what you're talking about in this instance, either. I did, and still do, live here.

Here's something from wiki:

But even though that's generally accepted in the UK, there's nothing I can do stop you disagreeing. The increases in allowance in 1983 were intended to help more young people, particularly couples, to get onto the property ladder. Interest rates were still high, because inflation was still being brought under control. At that point in time, house prices were below their long-term trend, and the increases in allowances stabilised them. It was because of the increase in incomes, particularly disposable income, together with lower interest rates after having successfully tackled inflation, that house prices began to rise above their long term trend a couple of years later. This is all borne out in the chart below, as is the ''bubble'' in 1988, which unlike most folk in the UK, you don't accept was a result of the Chancellor's announcement.

You are addressing the increase in income inequality. That is not addressing the fact that poverty has reduced from 85% of the population in 1981, to 16% in 2005.

Why would an increase in income inequality be a ''problem,'' if everyone gets richer?

 

I'll spell this out as well.

1) The reason for the policy was to bring down inflation.

2) The means for doing this was to increase interest rates.

3) Interest rates were increased.

4) Inflation came down, therefore the goal of the policy had been achieved.

Which of the above points do you disagree with?

Once again, this is borne out by demonstrable facts. It should be perfectly clear that when inflation goes up, interest rate are put up - inflation comes down, interest rates are decreased, and so on and so forth. But I'm not sure how anyone can say this policy wasn't successful in getting inflation under control in the first place....





http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-22070491

 

At least you have convinced me that you understand what median income is. But what I find confusing about your response is that I have said that there was a huge loss in manufacturing jobs. Over one million manufacturing jobs were lost under Thatcher, that's a fact. So that, coupled with the fact that there was a huge increase in people dropping under 60% of the median income demonstrates that a significant portion of the population, were not helped by Thatcher's policies, but rather the opposite. I don't understand why you don't accept that those persons, who lost those higher paying jobs, contributed to that increase in the number of people falling under 60% of the median.

Since you live there and know so much, then why don't you know that Thatcher was told that by increasing the mortgage interest deduction, she would simply increase the price that people could pay for their homes, and cause an increase in home prices. She was warned not to do it, but did it anyway. And guess what? Prices increase. They doubled in that period. Why don't you know that?

It would be nice if everyone was getting richer. But to get richer, you have to rich in the first place. The way they are defining poverty is someone making less than one dollar a day. The problem with income inequality is that you have a situation where people from income groups of great disparity, are bidding for the same goods and services. It is especially problematic in urban areas where you see people, who can only get very low wage work, living in wretched conditions. But like I said, that's another long discussion. If you want to get into that, open another thread. I was just making the point that globalization is not making many people's lives better in places like China. Yeah they may be making more than a dollar a day, but they may be living in wretched conditions.

 

You need to go and educate yourself about what happened. Thatcher set specific targets for controlling the rate of the growth of money. She wanted to restrict it. However, twice, the rate that money actually expanded was much greater than the target. Yes they wanted to bring down inflation, but they did not want to do it by increasing unemployment at a fast rate. You can bring down inflation by putting lots of people out of work. They did not intend for unemployment to increase at the rate that it did. Because of this, it was apparent that they were not going to be able to target the rate of expansion of the money supply. Therefore they dropped the policy, not because inflation dropped. This has been well documented, and as I said before, I haven't seen anyone, including supporters of Thatcher who disagrees with this point.

 

All industrialised western economies suffered a similar decline in manufacturing, over the same period of time, with the exception of Germany.

Was that all Thatcher's fault too?

The fact remains that as a % of GDP, manufacturing declined twice as fast under the prior Labour government, and more than twice as fast under the Labour government that came after, than it did under Thatcher. Also, in 2012, the UK still had a larger industrial sector than France and the US, as a % of GDP.

What you said previously was :

Do you now understand that ''a significant increase in the number of people falling below 60% of the median income,'' does not necessarily mean that anyone's wages dropped at all, never mind significantly? And, that it could happen while the average income for every group actually increased? Because that's exactly what did happen, at least before deducting ''housing costs,'' as the numbers clearly show.

Just as a substantial number of people in the relevant income groups find better paying jobs, a substantial number will only be able to find worse paying jobs, and the latter will inevitably contribute to ''a substantial increase in the number falling below 60% of the median income.'' I'm not sure why you think I wouldn't accept that.

Pick any policy that any politician comes up with, and there will be people who say it's wrong.

When more people are able to buy homes, as was the intention of the policy, then demand for homes is going to increase. If you expect demand to increase, then you would also expect prices to increase. Are you seriously suggesting she didn't think that would be likely to happen?

Because we have inflation, house prices are supposed to increase. They didn't double in the period, if you account for inflation. They increased by more after the Chancellor announced in 1988 that he was going to cut mortgage tax relief, than they did from 1983 when mortgage tax relief was first increased, all the way through to 1988. As the chart I posted clearly shows.

China is still a very poor country by our standards, but the important thing is that conditions are improving fast. Every $1 (equivalent) earned in China, will go considerably further than it would in the US. Just last year, in real terms (i.e. after accounting for inflation), the average net income in rural China increased by a massive 10.7%.

http://www.clb.org.hk/en/content/wages-and-disposable-income-china-increase-about-ten-percent-2012

So I'm not sure why you think that the majority of people in rural China are not getting any of the benefits of outsourced jobs, given that the average income in rural China increased by almost 3% more than China's GDP for the same year.

What more would you expect?

 

It is impossible for the government or central bank to directly restrict the money supply. Adjusting the interest rate to influence it is all they can do.

I'm guessing you're repeating another talking point, while missing the thrux of the matter, again. Which is simply this: The point of having high interest rates, was to bring inflation down. Interest rates were raised, and inflation came down.

What logical reason do you think there could there be for not dropping interest rates, after inflation had dropped?

 

Comrades of the british section say:

[h=1]World Socialist Web Site[/h] wsws.org[h=2]Published by the International Committee of the Fourth International (ICFI)[/h]

[h=2]Thatcher’s funeral: Pomp in the service of political reaction[/h][h=5]18 April 2013[/h]Adjectives to describe yesterday’s funeral of former Conservative prime minister Margaret Thatcher are not hard to find: nauseating, obscene, provocative.
She was, after all, the most hated political figure in recent British history—an admirer of the Pinochet dictatorship in Chile and the racist apartheid regime in South Africa, who wrought destruction on working class communities throughout the UK.
Thatcher was given a state funeral in all but name, so that there could be no scrutiny of its total costs, estimated at £10 million—the most expensive ever staged.
The ceremony was so militaristic that some compared the scene in London, with armed police stationed every few hundred yards, to a coup. Her coffin set off from St. Clement Danes, the Central Church of the Royal Air Force and site of the statue to “Bomber” Harris—the architect of the fire-bombing of German cities in the Second World War. Mounted on a horse-drawn gun-carriage, draped in the union flag, it was accompanied by 700 armed forces personnel to St. Paul’s Cathedral.
There was more of the political sycophancy demonstrated in the specially recalled parliament last week, with Big Ben silenced for the duration of the funeral and parliament suspended to allow MPs to attend.
The Queen was present for the first time at the funeral of a former prime minister since Winston Churchill’s in 1965. Unlike then, however, Thatcher will not lay in state, precisely because she is so widely despised.
It is for this same reason that the mildest criticism of either Thatcher or the expense of her burial arrangements has been greeted with official howls of outrage and even threats of violence and police arrest.
Ruling circles are attempting to beatify the “Blessed Margaret” as a sort of secular patron saint of corruption and greed. Summed up by Prime Minister David Cameron’s declaration, “We are all Thatcherites now,” her political heritage is being proclaimed as the inviolable cornerstone of modern Britain. This includes her aggressive assertion of militarism over the Falklands, but centres on her gutting of the welfare state, union-busting, privatisation and deregulation of the City of London.
Manufacturing this myth demands the suppression of all popular opinion, given that her name is synonymous with policies that have resulted in an economic and social catastrophe for millions. So politically toxic is the Thatcher brand that fewer than a dozen international heads of state were in attendance.
The real social interests served by this propaganda offensive were exemplified by those who did show up. This was a global gathering of the political dregs of neo-conservatism in the United States and Britain, along with other arch-reactionaries.
Present were former US secretaries of state George Shultz and James Baker, former US vice president Dick Cheney and former US secretary of state Henry Kissinger. Newt Gingrich and “Tea Party” leader Michele Bachmann were also in attendance.
Israel’s Benjamin Netanyahu was joined by F.W. de Klerk, the last apartheid-era South African president, Australia’s John Howard, Canada’s Stephen Harper and, from Poland, Lech Walesa and Prime Minister Donald Tusk.
The presence of former Labour prime ministers Tony Blair and Gordon Brown completed the rogue’s gallery. Both are the political heirs of Thatcher and approved her funeral arrangements.
The aim may have been to demonstrate the unchallenged ascendancy of the right-wing economic nostrums from which those gathered have all benefited. However, the shrill and intimidatory tone adopted by the media and the bombast and hyperbole accompanying the funeral testify to the weakness, not the strength of the ruling elite.
No amount of official pageantry can conceal the fact that Thatcher is being buried amid the collapse of the entire political project with which she is associated.
In the final analysis, “Thatcherism” represented the desperate and rapacious efforts of the British bourgeoisie to stem its declining global position. But the means through which it sought to do so—imperialist wars, and an assault on the social position of the working class combined with rampant financial speculation, wholly unconnected to any economically productive activity—were themselves the reflection of its ongoing putrefaction.
The near collapse of this entire economic edifice in 2008 has produced only an extension of the same reactionary and bankrupt agenda. The process of self-enrichment of the few has continued, paid for through savage austerity measures for the many.
As Thatcher was laid to rest, the Conservative/Liberal Democrat coalition began the initial rolling out in four London boroughs of a national cap on welfare benefits that will make 80,000 people homeless in the capital alone. Figures released the same day showed that official UK unemployment rose by 70,000 in the last quarter to 2.56 million, while the number of unemployed 16- to 24-year-olds increased by 20,000 to 979,000.
Thatcher’s death alters nothing for working people because her nominal political opponents—the trade unions and the Labour Party—became the most enthusiastic converts to her agenda, so much so that she once joked that Tony Blair and “New Labour” were her greatest legacy.
That there is no change on this score was made clear by the effusive tributes to Thatcher paid by Labour leader Ed Miliband and the party’s agreement to suspend parliament for her funeral.
This state of affairs testifies to the fact that, in the two decades or so since Thatcher’s premiership, the bourgeois economic and political order has become even more rotten and sclerotic.
The extreme disjoint between the official presentation of Thatcher and the hatred and contempt in which she is held by working people is an ideological expression of a polarisation in class relations that is unsustainable. It points clearly to political storms that lie ahead.
Chris Marsden and Julie Hyland


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The decline in Britain were a direct result of Thatcher's policies. It was deliberate. Her idea to have an economy based more on services and finance. So what happened in Britain with regards to manufacturing, while Thatcher was in office, was her fault.

The fact remains that unemployment, in large measure due to the loss of manufacturing jobs, rose faster during the first years of Thatcher's time in office than anytime in British history since the 1930s. That's a fact. In 1979, manufacturing accounted for about 28% of total employment. Unemployment doubled under Thatcher, from the time she came into office until around the beginning of 1983. The number of people employed in manufacturing fell by 1.5 million. That's in just a little over three years. That's some serious decline. Has there been another three year period, since the 1930s, when so many manufacturing jobs were lost? Again, over 1.5 million. That's the legacy of Margaret Thatcher.

What you demonstrated was nothing new to me at all. I understand clearly what the median is. I have written software to calculate it. It's really rather simple. What was not clear to me, was that you understood what it was. So what was information, to me at least, from your response, is that YOU understand what the median is. As far as what is possible, it's possible that the median income could be below the poverty level. It all depends on how the income is distributed. For instance, here's a set of number's where there is a vast difference between the values at and below the median, and those above:

1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 22, 23, 24, 25

The median is 5, but in this sample, the values above the median are vastly different from those below. So, if poverty was at 20 in that sample, everyone at the median and below would be in poverty. So, just a demonstration that what's possible, is not necessarily what happened.

Now we are getting some where, because it seemed to me that the only way someone would not realize that is they didn't understand the statistics at all.

So that's what I'm saying. And the point is that there were many such persons who were far worse off under Thatcher. Furthermore, they fell from a position of having stable, well paying jobs. Also, it partly explains the increase in child poverty under Thatcher. Another abominable feature of her tenure. So while some may have seen their incomes rise, it came at the bitter expense of quite a few people, including children.

Another point on that is, how can someone merely making a few extra dollars be content knowing that it came at the expense of such a large group of people and casting so many children into poverty? Is such a society really better off?

The thing is that Thatcher's own advisors were telling her that increasing the cap would cause prices to increase, NOT SIMPLY because more people would be able to buy homes, BUT BECAUSE IT WOULD CAUSE AN INCREASE IN THE PRICE OF HOMES THAT PEOPLE COULD AFFORD. In other words, even the people who already afford to buy a home, could now buy a more expensive home. This in itself would put upward pressure on prices, and therefore they advised against it. But Thatcher didn't listen, and did it anyway.

I'm not going to dispute that the rate of increase was more in 1988. But again, I will say that to decision to increase the cap put upward pressure on the prices because it increased the amount that a home buyer could afford to pay for a house. Therefore home prices increased at a greater rate than if it had not been for the increase in the cap. One source says that she even wanted to increase it further in 1985 to 35,000, but apparently, that did not happen.

The reason is that it's creating greater income inequality. Income inequality has been correlated with all sorts of negative effects.

 

The point was that Thatcher didn't know what she were doing. You are right she wanted to slow inflation. But the idea was to do it by restricting the expansion of M3. That's a fact. And that was stupid. You a right, they used interest rates, but the stupidity was that the interest rates would limit the expansion of M3 to a particular level, and that in turn would cause inflation to slow. Well inflation did indeed slow, BUT M3 EXPANDED. Therefore, they abandoned targeting M3 because clearly that was failing. Like I said, it was stupid, and Thatcher was stupid to believe that targeting M3 would slow inflation.

 

Wow! Another brilliant post.

 

Thanx. Just trying to keep em honest.