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Who remembers the bad old days?
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Picking up a comment By DerbyDalesCplFind posts by DerbyDalesCpl Couple in the Mann thread...
"Dennis has always been against the EU, not like most because he thinks it is too socialist, but because he thinks it is too capitalist. The EUropean would prevent him renationalising everything and pumping them full of state subsidies."
Who remembers those bad old days when we had a mixed economy with public ownership of industries of strategic importance to the country like, coal mining, steel production, ship building, power supply, communications and education? I do! They were awful, we had strikes and disruptions that made national headlines! We are so much better off today with our market led non-nationalised industries, free market Thatcherite economy.
Of course in the bad old days we had an NHS that worked and was the envy of the world, with family doctors available 24/7 and hospitals had enough beds and ambulances cope at all times. We had a selective state secondary education system that ensured the poorest had the same educational chances as the most privileged. We also had a higher education that was free to all with support grants to cover living expenses of those from poor backgrounds and only the wealthy had to subsidise their childrens higher education. We near full employment and had a progressive income tax system where the more you earned the more you paid in income tax to a point that if your earned income was excessive you payed most of it out in income tax, we had very little in the way of spending taxes (except on luxury goods) we British owned businesses making British profits also paying taxes. It was these taxes that paid for everything.
Now we have laws banning strikes. A semi privatised 'free market' failing NHS where ambulances queue outside full hospitals and patients have to travel hundreds of miles to get treatment or find an empty bed, where the target (missed regularly) is to have admitted or discharged after treatment 95% patients in under 4 hours from A&E and a GP service that is about to collapse. We have a tax system that has moved from a progressive income based tax system to a regressive spending based system, and a private sector that is mainly owned by foreign corporations who make profits here that are transferred to other countries without paying any taxes. Result we have doubled our deficit since 2010.
In my opinion the bad old days were not that bad and this brave new capitalist world is not quite so good as many seem to think.
Am I in a minority in my thinking? |
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By (user no longer on site)
over a year ago
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"Picking up a comment By DerbyDalesCplFind posts by DerbyDalesCpl Couple in the Mann thread...
Dennis has always been against the EU, not like most because he thinks it is too socialist, but because he thinks it is too capitalist. The EUropean would prevent him renationalising everything and pumping them full of state subsidies.
Who remembers those bad old days when we had a mixed economy with public ownership of industries of strategic importance to the country like, coal mining, steel production, ship building, power supply, communications and education? I do! They were awful, we had strikes and disruptions that made national headlines! We are so much better off today with our market led non-nationalised industries, free market Thatcherite economy.
Of course in the bad old days we had an NHS that worked and was the envy of the world, with family doctors available 24/7 and hospitals had enough beds and ambulances cope at all times. We had a selective state secondary education system that ensured the poorest had the same educational chances as the most privileged. We also had a higher education that was free to all with support grants to cover living expenses of those from poor backgrounds and only the wealthy had to subsidise their childrens higher education. We near full employment and had a progressive income tax system where the more you earned the more you paid in income tax to a point that if your earned income was excessive you payed most of it out in income tax, we had very little in the way of spending taxes (except on luxury goods) we British owned businesses making British profits also paying taxes. It was these taxes that paid for everything.
Now we have laws banning strikes. A semi privatised 'free market' failing NHS where ambulances queue outside full hospitals and patients have to travel hundreds of miles to get treatment or find an empty bed, where the target (missed regularly) is to have admitted or discharged after treatment 95% patients in under 4 hours from A&E and a GP service that is about to collapse. We have a tax system that has moved from a progressive income based tax system to a regressive spending based system, and a private sector that is mainly owned by foreign corporations who make profits here that are transferred to other countries without paying any taxes. Result we have doubled our deficit since 2010.
In my opinion the bad old days were not that bad and this brave new capitalist world is not quite so good as many seem to think.
Am I in a minority in my thinking?"
We were poor.....but happy. |
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The finances of NHS worked just fine while the only treatment available was either a couple of asperin or a pat on the head as you died from something that now is treatable (albeit at vast expense)
And pensions for all were affordable while most of us happily died young after a hard life of toil, or were killed young by industrial accidents or industrial diseases.
But the songs were better back then, and Legs and Co always brightened up the week.
(When the power was on, and the BBC weren't on strike that is)
Mr ddc |
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By *arry247Couple
over a year ago
Wakefield |
As a couple who lived through those "bad old days" we have mixed feelings.
There was a lot to be said about nationalised industries like British Railways but also a lot that was wrong with them.
The management were not really bothered with providing a good service or produces and the unions were simply pushing for more wages and got too powerful.
I remember chatting to a miner in 1972 who worked 4 days a week as according to him he could not get by on 3 days wage.
The NHS was good partly because there was less demand for hospitals, mothers had babies at home, GPs were on call 24 hours a day, immigration was around 30-40 thousand rather than 500 thousand of today, therefore less demand for houses and schools etc.
Yes we get far higher wages today and there are more electronic commodities, TVs computers, mobile phones, etc, but we are not better off and do not have a higher quality of life than we had back then.
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"The finances of NHS worked just fine while the only treatment available was either a couple of asperin or a pat on the head as you died from something that now is treatable (albeit at vast expense)
And pensions for all were affordable while most of us happily died young after a hard life of toil, or were killed young by industrial accidents or industrial diseases.
But the songs were better back then, and Legs and Co always brightened up the week.
(When the power was on, and the BBC weren't on strike that is)
Mr ddc"
So you see no link between the movement of capital and assets from public to private hands, from UK to foreign control and from the majority to an elite minority while transferring the burden of tax from earnings based taxes to spending based taxes for our fiscal problems?
That is interesting. Would you like to explain how we benefit from a system where taxes are only for the prols and small businesses to pay? |
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By *eccymanMan
over a year ago
Gateshead |
"OP. You forgot to mention what is happening with the school education system now ... they are close to being privatised too. Strikes aren't too far away under this regime"
There is absolutely no evidence of school privatisation. No government would even dare to try it. |
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"OP. You forgot to mention what is happening with the school education system now ... they are close to being privatised too. Strikes aren't too far away under this regime
There is absolutely no evidence of school privatisation. No government would even dare to try it."
Ah yes, their policy if compulsory academisation was rapidly U turned .... but they have made it clear in numerous communications that its their intention. |
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"Turning schools into academies isn't turning them out to the private sector as they are still centrally funded. "
Do some research on it. Including the control of the curriculum and what children are learning ... I dont usually get involved in any political threads on here, so I am out of this one. |
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"OP. You forgot to mention what is happening with the school education system now ... they are close to being privatised too. Strikes aren't too far away under this regime"
I didn't mention the state of the roads or the numbers of homeless to be found throughout the country either. This is not because I was ignoring them, it was in the hope that others, will start thinking and linking how going back to a pre WW2 small government free market economy also means going back to a country dominated by abject poverty and debt for the majority to support and subsidise an uber wealth corrupt and slothful elite. |
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"Mr ddc
So you see no link between the movement of capital and assets from public to private hands, from UK to foreign control and from the majority to an elite minority while transferring the burden of tax from earnings based taxes to spending based taxes for our fiscal problems?
That is interesting. Would you like to explain how we benefit from a system where taxes are only for the prols and small businesses to pay? "
But that really isn't an honest summary of our tax and welfare system, is it? |
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