Peter Hitchen's Article

[Trampa501]

Someone passed this link to me, and I believe it's been mentioned already on this site

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-3520932/PETER-HITCHENS-Privatisation-Free-trade-Shares-great-ruined-Britain.html

He must read this site

Sure, some things have got cheaper, and there are a lot more little treats and luxuries available.

The coffee and the restaurants are better – but the essentials of life are harder to find than ever: a good life and an honest place; a solid, modest home big enough to house a small family in a peaceful, orderly landscape; good local schools open to all who need them; reasonably paid secure work for this generation and the next; competent government and wise laws.

These have become luxuries, unattainable for millions who once took them for granted.

[@contradevian]

100% Spot on IMO

The economy wasn't subject to 'reforms.' It was just handed over to rentiers

[oracle]

Someone passed this link to me, and I believe it's been mentioned already on this site

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-3520932/PETER-HITCHENS-Privatisation-Free-trade-Shares-great-ruined-Britain.html

He must read this site

he never used to.

he was far too busy making the workers paradise for his revolutionary brothers.

then he had an epiphany,and realised his revolutionary brothers would only succeed in turning the UK into some kind of hellspawn hybrid of venezuela and nazi germany...when the elite were overthrown,and a new council put in, they eshcewed to themselves positions of power and authority over the little people...just like the aristocracy did before.

doesn't mean that the present elite were right...they did overstep the mark.The powers that be have appropriated to themselves gain that was not honestly made,or rightfully theirs..so a redress is correct.

but be careful in what you wish for as a replacement.

we have got a choice,unlike europe.

we can choose to have properly decent leadership with a conscience(a la cromwell revolt and 1776 US style)

or we can boot it all out and follow the example of revolutionary france a la 1782.

[200p]

Hmm. We're at just one of the cycle. Look through the things which are cheap now, and see if any are assets. Are they cheap now? Should we look at putting some money into them or less? In 20 years time, we'll kick ourselves for missing the opportunity.

Property, Land

Shares

Cash

Commodities

Ipads

Spot the odd one out.

[Executive Sadman]

Mate of a mate just dropped 300k on a flat in what was once the 'cheap' bit of Cambridge. Above a Kebab shop, dual carriageway below too. You can sometimes hear people fighting, streets often smell of urine.

Its like peoples standards have gone out the window over the past 15 decades. Some of this I blame on foreigners lowering the standard of living. They dont tend to have high expectations, and so drag down what providers can get away with. But its also that native people cant remember how things were pre-new labour that gets me.

Not having to run a daily gauntlet of gypsy beggars and hustlers for starters. Not getting endless scam phone calls from India or Nigeria. I honestly struggle to see how, other for the elite jet-setting few, globalization has benefitted the 80%+ born and 90%+ of us who will die in this country.

[billybong]

The coffee and the restaurants are better

I don't think that's true. The ones he frequents might be and as for the coffee it's very variable with some quite good but quite a lot of coffee outlets with coffee tasting like one imagines ersatz coffee to have tasted during WW2.

More takeways of course but any reasonable restaurant if you can find one costs far more than in those days.

Accepted it's not the main point of his article.

Edited April 4, 2016 by billybong

[Tresbon]

Mate of a mate just dropped 300k on a flat in what was once the 'cheap' bit of Cambridge. Above a Kebab shop, dual carriageway below too. You can sometimes hear people fighting, streets often smell of urine.

Its like peoples standards have gone out the window over the past 15 decades. Some of this I blame on foreigners lowering the standard of living. They dont tend to have high expectations, and so drag down what providers can get away with. But its also that native people cant remember how things were pre-new labour that gets me.

Not having to run a daily gauntlet of gypsy beggars and hustlers for starters. Not getting endless scam phone calls from India or Nigeria. I honestly struggle to see how, other for the elite jet-setting few, globalization has benefitted the 80%+ born and 90%+ of us who will die in this country.

Because it hasn't. James Goldsmith spelled it all out back in 1994 and was ignored. Due to working in international supply chains since graduating in 1999, the penny dropped for me in about 2003. The decline of Western living standards (bar the few), will just continue. Don't you just love a happy Monday :-)

[R K]

Partly true but excludes rise in living standards for Chinese (for example).

Also ignores counter factual - what would have happened if China was excluded from global economy. War?

But one does have to question who UK (& other) governments work for. Apart from global super rich.

[zugzwang]

Because it hasn't. James Goldsmith spelled it all out back in 1994 and was ignored. Due to working in international supply chains since graduating in 1999, the penny dropped for me in about 2003. The decline of Western living standards (bar the few), will just continue. Don't you just love a happy Monday :-)

Globalisation. We export our jobs and houses to the Third World and import their living standards and unskilled labour by return.

Nondemocratic, supra-national institutions such as the IMF, the EU, World Bank and WTO promote and enforce said trade practices in accordance with neoclassical equilibrium theory, which maintains, without empirical evidence, that deregulated markets are supremely efficient and guaranteed to deliver optimal economic outcomes. Recent experience suggesting instead that financial markets in particular, and highly liquid markets in general, are dynamically unstable and incapable of admitting equilibrium of any kind, has been systematically ignored.

[frederico]

They didn't say it wouldn't take while...

[Bear Goggles]

He used a bad example with British Telecom. BT is actually probably the best example of a successful privatisation (which is probably why it was one of the first). A previous public monopoly opened up into a competitive market that was just about to be exposed to new communication technologies - mobile phones, cable TV and the internet. There's a bit of private monopoly there - Openreach etc, but it's about as good as it gets as a privatisation of a public utility.

Turning public monopolies into private monopolies is where neoliberal ideology has really taken the biscuit.

[Big Orange]

I thought the proper recruitment and training of a proper workforce in the UK was starting to permenantly cave in by 2006. Outsourcing sounded like a receipe for disaster for mature Western economies, brought about by the hubris, complacency and avarice clouding out the thoughts of UK plutocrats.

One of the few businesses like Amazon that effectively expanded in the past decade was on the back of a transient workforce and increasingly effective automation.

Edited April 6, 2016 by Big Orange

[crashmonitor]

The UK is a great place if you don't have to work, with the rest of the world slaving away to produce stuff for you at diddly squat prices......but a bad place to live if you need to work and compete with those third world slaves. Manna from heaven for pensioners and the early retired...I guess that's why the triple lock and other benefits of modern life have been given to them by holy dispensation .

My advice is don't buy stuff and get out of the working environment as soon as you can to enjoy the privileged lifestyle of pensioners.

Edited April 6, 2016 by crashmonitor

[@contradevian]

Partly true but excludes rise in living standards for Chinese (for example).

Also ignores counter factual - what would have happened if China was excluded from global economy. War?

But one does have to question who UK (& other) governments work for. Apart from global super rich.

Agree with a lot you say, but can't see sharing the pool of diminishing spoils with home owners, being politically acceptable for much longer.

Then again I have been wrong before (last 10 years it seems!)

[shindigger]

He used a bad example with British Telecom. BT is actually probably the best example of a successful privatisation (which is probably why it was one of the first). A previous public monopoly opened up into a competitive market that was just about to be exposed to new communication technologies - mobile phones, cable TV and the internet. There's a bit of private monopoly there - Openreach etc, but it's about as good as it gets as a privatisation of a public utility.

Turning public monopolies into private monopolies is where neoliberal ideology has really taken the biscuit.

BT are an atrocious company.

[Motor_Blade]

The UK is a great place if you don't have to work, with the rest of the world slaving away to produce stuff for you at diddly squat prices......but a bad place to live if you need to work and compete with those third world slaves. Manna from heaven for pensioners and the early retired...I guess that's why the triple lock and other benefits of modern life have been given to them by holy dispensation .

My advice is don't buy stuff and get out of the working environment as soon as you can to enjoy the privileged lifestyle of pensioners.

A nail on the head post, the old ideas about working hard to enjoy conspicuous consumption no longer work.

[shindigger]

The UK is a great place if you don't have to work, with the rest of the world slaving away to produce stuff for you at diddly squat prices......but a bad place to live if you need to work and compete with those third world slaves. Manna from heaven for pensioners and the early retired...I guess that's why the triple lock and other benefits of modern life have been given to them by holy dispensation .

My advice is don't buy stuff and get out of the working environment as soon as you can to enjoy the privileged lifestyle of pensioners.

Or, live with a pensioner. Even better. No TV licence for a start.

[spunko2010]

No TV license can be done by anyone. Just ignore their letters

[Austin Allegro]

The UK is a terrible place to live if you still believe hard work = good lifestyle. That was the norm for most of the twentieth century but by the 21st that went out of the window. It's not such a bad place if you're willing and able to opt out of the consumer madness and live frugally.

[Bear Goggles]

BT are an atrocious company.

Yeah, but you don't have to use them (I don't). However, try changing water companies, or travelling to work using a different train company.

The creation of private monopolies from public utilities is the real travesty of privatisation, selling off essential services to a captive audience with no realistic ability to shop around. That fails even on its own terms. To be fair, most of the worst of that happened in the post-Reagan-Thatcher era, but the ideology was clearly established during that time.

[South Lorne]

Or, live with a pensioner. Even better. No TV licence for a start.

...pensioner has to be 75....may be one and the same soon.....

[dryrot]

He used a bad example with British Telecom. BT is actually probably the best example of a successful privatisation (which is probably why it was one of the first). A previous public monopoly opened up into a competitive market that was just about to be exposed to new communication technologies - mobile phones, cable TV and the internet. There's a bit of private monopoly there - Openreach etc, but it's about as good as it gets as a privatisation of a public utility.

Turning public monopolies into private monopolies is where neoliberal ideology has really taken the biscuit.

%^&ing Peter Hitchens. I suppose I'm a slightly dopey conservative-stylee - always have been - and I cant stand Peter Hitchens. He used to be a foaming Trotskyite and now drivels from a more conservative slant. Hes all for freedom, except drugs and self-defence, and always criticises from a far-left or -right viewpoint, Getting sh*t done is'nt his bag.BT, BA, all great privatisations. In this article he even praises british leyland! Sheesh. I'm old enough to remember the 70s. No thanks

[EUBanana]

BT are an atrocious company.

They are, but you are not forced to use them any more.

[Snugglybear]

They are, but you are not forced to use them any more.

Up to a point, Lord Copper.

Lots of people still have to use BT / Openreach infrastructure, unless they can access Virgin's services. Mobile broadband is expensive and doesn't work in lots of places, including inside many homes.

[Agentimmo]

Agree.

I once tried to get broadband for a flat I was renting temporarily in London. They , and all other providers, still wanted to charge me £17/mo for a phone line that I never needed. The line was already in the flat and just needed to be switched on to allow broadband.

Pirates. Every last one of them.

Their customer service was atrocious.

The only people that got rich our of the 80s privatisations were the clubs in the City and their political friends.

France Telecom remained in public hands , yet still delivered a similar service (good and bad). In some cases better , with their pre-internet service for all, Minitel. Privatisation didn't have much to do with the telecoms boom....but they peddle the same old story.