The end of Thatcherism

[DodgyAgent]

You talk about Thatcher like she was the creator of a political mantra. She was the follower of a mantra i.e. Monetarism and the ideas of Milton Friedman. Monetarism is a flawed, boom and bust philosophy, as has been repeatedly observed over the last 3 decades. It matters not who is in power, the fault lies with the system.

Is there anything wrong with such a cyclical system? If anything the long "boom" has created a complacency that may not have happened had we had a few more downturns.
Complacency is that the markets have now made or are making the harsh corrections. The important thing is that we now learn from these errors.

[sasguru]

Who buys the "mittlestand" products? who raises the funds which:

a. To build the manufacturing plants and

b. To buy the goods in the first place?

and whilst we are at it

where does the money come from to pay you?

Who buys them? - we do because we can't create anything ourselves
Who raises the funds? - mainly re-investment of profits and German banks generally taking a long-term approach
Where does the money come to pay me - from the profits I generate (non financial product related BTW)
I'm not knocking capitalism which should be about competition between small firms - I'm knocking large corporate and financial firms who have distorted capitalism as we can all see.
As I noted in another post - in large corporates reward has become divorced from risk, with the result that we see today.

[Old Greg]

Whilst you may be right about the end of Thatcherism (certainly as we know it) the wealth that has been created would not have happened without her reforms. The question of course is will economies roll back to what they were in the dark ages of socialism? We will see. At the moment the net gain is still in her favour by a long way.

I'm not sure where that wealth is - much of it is the result of a big debt bubble, presided over by Thatcher / Blair / Brown - imprudent lending etc.

Where we end up is the question. I suspect it will be back to Keynesian economics. We've never been a socialist country, but there were more checks and balances between the power of capital and the public interest - state interference or democratic intervention, call it what you will according to your ideology. It's interesting that the dominant ideologies of Friedman, Tatcher and Reagan are so pervasive that anything to the the left of them is now labelled socialist - I expect one-nation conservativism would fall into that. Socailaism is the common ownership of the means of production and the removal of the power of capital. Nobody is looking at that, despite the bank business today. We're just returning to the old status quo, where the balance between the public interest and the free market has been reset..

[Cyberman]

Is there anything wrong with such a cyclical system? If anything the long "boom" has created a complacency that may not have happened had we had a few more downturns.
Complacency is that the markets have now made or are making the harsh corrections. The important thing is that we now learn from these errors.

Sorry, but I am fed up with Gordon Brown learning from his errors, but ruining us. Pensions knackered, housing knackered, Northern Rock nationalised, B&B broken up, debt totally out of control. Roll on 2010 !!

[AlfredJPruffock]

As I noted in another post - in large corporates reward has become divorced from risk, with the result that we see today.

And this is the very crux of the matter.

Its not a competitive market - its a glorfied pig-trough and for the past year I have been complaining about Sven-Erikson's reward for Englands appaling perfromance during the World Cup - a million quid a year for five yeara - this epitomises the sheer greed and distortion within the UK economy.

The elite just want to get their nose into the pig-trough and know , irrespective of their performance they're laughing all the way to the bank.

I give up.

[SandyDown]

Is the government also going to nationalise the whole of NHS including eye tests/glasses and dental care ( I know there is an element of it left, but will it be the way it used to be before Thatcher??)

[The Lone Gunman]

As I noted in another post - in large corporates reward has become divorced from risk, with the result that we see today.

And this is the very crux of the matter.

Its not a competitive market - its a glorfied pig-trough and for the past year I have been complaining about Sven-Erikson's reward for Englands appaling perfromance during the World Cup - a million quid a year for five yeara - this epitomises the sheer greed and distortion within the UK economy.

The elite just want to get their nose into the pig-trough and know , irrespective of their performance they're laughing all the way to the bank.

I give up.

I wrote to the FA and told them for 5 mill I would fail to get us into the next Euro championship. They haven't replied yet though.

[TimberWolf]

You are all off the mark with regard to what wealth is IMO and will only succeed in tying yourselves in knots thinking in terms of money and monetary policy. Wealth comes from energy and from an excess empires are built. This will be more true tomorrow than today as more sophisticated machinery is devised to convert energy to useful work (modern slaves) and devices of low probability/entropy (BMWs) and raw materials for these (the elements, infinitely reusable) are spread more evenly around the world.

[expat]

Sorry, but I am fed up with Gordon Brown learning from his errors, but ruining us. Pensions knackered, housing knackered, Northern Rock nationalised, B&B broken up, debt totally out of control. Roll on 2010 !!

Fannie Mae, Lehman, Bear Sterns, all, all Gordon Brown's fault!

And the Reichsmark!!!!

IT'S ALL BROWN'S FAULT!!!!!!!!!!!

[expat]

There has been no wealth created. The illusion of wealth came from easy credit.
Rising house prices are not "wealth" - as we are going to see, easy come, easy go.
True wealth creation would be one or more of improving productivity, creating new products that we can sell to the world (clearly not financial products ), having a very high skilled technical workforce compared to the countries, increasing exports etc.
None of these things have happened.

I'm just waiting now for someone to refute that.

Someone?
Anyone?