Is slashing UK welfare benefits the answer to Britain's economic woes?

 

France and Germany are far more productive countries than Britain and also have higher levels of corporation tax and tax in general. Compared to Japan, Britain's national debt pales into insignificance, and Japan is a far richer and more technologically advanced country than Britain. Britain had a much higher national debt after WWII than it does today, but it didn't pay it off, by imposing austerity, it grew the economy. America is also massively in debt. 

Britain has been plagued with low investment and low productivity for decades. During the early 1970s, the Conservatives used to blame everything on Labour and socialism and not welfare spending. They were keen to join the Common Market and so was the Daily Mail. 

The Germans and French can produce more in four days than Britain can in five days. Their state pensions are far more generous than the British New State Pension which is about half the National Minimum Wage or £6 an hour for a 40 hour working week. The Old State Retirement Pension is even less generous. British workers often work longer before they retire than do French workers and have a longer working week. The French and Germans also have a more generous welfare state and so does Sweden and Norway, which have high levels of taxes and corporation tax. They're not what you would call poor countries. The Swedes and Norwegians probably enjoy a better standard of living than many British people. 

How much money have the British government saved by increasing the women's state retirement age from 60 to 67? How much money have they saved by increasing the male state retirement age from 65 to 67? How much money did they save by ending free TV licenses for the over 75s or linking free bus passes to the stage retirement age?  

I think many of us in Britain are quite appalled at the way in which British governments squander public money. During the COVID lockdown, the former Conservative government of Boris Johnson, dished out willy-nilly, tens of millions in government contracts to VIP Tories for faulty PPE equipment that was never used. How many millions have they recovered from PPE Medpro who were awarded £200 million in government contracts? The Conservative peer Baroness Michelle Mone and her husband Douglas Barrowman, were involved in this scandal. When they were ordered by a court to repay money, PPE Modpro, simply declared insolvency.

How many billions did the Johnson government squander on its abortive Rwanda scheme? No illegal migrant was ever sent there. How much public money are the British government spending to house and financially support illegal migrants who have come to Britain who haven't been granted asylum?  

It wasn't long ago that the Labour Chancellor, Rachel 'freeze' Reeves, told us that Britain couldn't afford the pensioners winter fuel allowance and she needed to save £5bn by means testing it. They then found £11bn to help foreign developing countries to cope with climate change. The Ukrainians are always being bunged money by the British government. The Ukrainians have every right to defend themselves, but it doesn't mean that the British have to pay for it or die for it. They're now talking up a war with Russia and telling us that we must do our duty to protect our country and that young people might have to die for their country. I'm sure they'll be happy to hear that.

Nowadays, many British people don't feel that they've got a country or one that's worth defending. They feel alienated and abandoned. And how are we going to pay for a war, if Britain's got no money and is massively in debt?

Margaret Thatcher and Irish economics.

 

Maggie Thatcher

The people in Britain are fed a lot of bullshit when it comes to economics, which most of them barely understand. How many times have we heard the saying there's no magic money tree or that Britain has run out of money?

Margaret Thatcher used what was called the "Household Myth" to compare the national economy with a domestic household or small business. She used to say that governments were no different than households or small businesses, in that they can't spend more than they can earn, or borrow. It was complete rubbish. The pound is a fiat currency and is not linked to precious metals or a currency regime like the Euro. You can run out of money, but there's a big difference between businesses, households, individuals and the national economy. The British government can print money or to be more precise, it orders the Bank of England to print it. If you tried to do it, you get locked up. Therefore, it can't run out money, or fail to pay its debts. 

If the British government wants to go to war, it will always find the money to do so, and it doesn't need to build up a war chest to pay for it. So why do politicians keep talking about there's no magic money tree or saying the country is running out of money as though there's only so much money in the pot? They do so because they're conning people and telling lies.

To a great extent money is an illusion. In itself it’s really a worthless piece of paper. What gives it value, is that it is endorsed by the head of state, and the government, as coin of the realm. It's merely a unit of account, a store of value and a means of exchange. 

Adam Smith, who wrote the book 'The Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations' in 1776, was convinced of the unimportance of money as such for the wealth of nations. He argued that there was no virtue in its accumulation as a commodity, but he believed that the real riches of a country lay in its raw materials, its people and their skills, all of which money merely measures as value. Money was not the wheels of trade but the oil that rendered the wheels smoother and easy. 

Smith points out that the Tartars were generally ignorant about the use of money. When the King of France sent an ambassador called Plano Carpino to meet one of the sons of Genghis Khan, he was asked if the Kingdom of France had plenty of sheep and oxen because that's how they measured wealth and determined whether a country was worth conquering. The Spanish conquistadors when they invaded Peru went there looking for gold and silver which they considered wealth but completely overlooked that the countries real wealth, lay in its natural resources, like fruits and vegetables. The humble potato has managed to feed a multitude since it arrived in Britain and Ireland. Gold and silver fed nobody but it drove up inflation.

Why is customer service in Britain so abysmal?

 

Kemi Badenoch

Welcome to the Tory nanny state. 

Tory leader, Kemi Badenoch, wants to stop the unemployed having a fag and a pint and wants to cut their benefits, if they don't get back into work within six months. Kemi calls this "tough love." I think people receiving state benefits, have been keeping the tobacco industry going for years. The higher you go up the income groups, the less likely they are to smoke cigarettes. 

Customer service in Britain is abysmal, appallingly bad, and the Americans would never stand for it. What I see in Britain today, is a lot of under-employment. I often leave food in supermarkets because they won't pay people to man the checkouts and I am loath to use self-service tills. It's a sort of protest against piss poor customer service. What supermarkets are aiming for is a completely automated supermarket that doesn't employ any floor staff. It will be a shop lifters paradise. 

Yesterday, I spent most of the morning failing to make contact by telephone with a human being at British Gas so I could query an electric bill. I found it impossible to get past the android or robot who was asking me totally irrelevant questions. I tried using their chat line and got no response. Unless I can get to speak somebody about this electric bill to query it, British Gas won't be getting paid. Capitalism is so inefficient.