Treasures from the threads - Number fifty-six
A comment to a Simon Heffer column in the Daily Telegraph, on the disastrous mess that is England today, linked here:
Ptolomaeus
“A country is of course the sum of its people, but also of its institutions. Since 1945, the institution that has come to characterize Britain is not our disciplined and professional Armed Forces, but the welfare state. It is what Peter Lilley called "the something for nothing society". Welfarism has always had at its core the sentimental belief that living beyond our means is simply something that a humane society has to do.”
That is the point, a nation is the sum of its people and for the last decade and a half the core of this nation has been undermined and diluted by a policy of unfettered immigration, from all former British colonies and latterly for the last decade from any and all EU member nations, and the whole exacerbated by a policy of enforced integration based on multiculturalism. England is now the most densely population nation in Europe and the number is increasing unnecessary and unwanted stresses and strains on all public services especially health, education and housing.
Successive governments, since the 1960’s, have watered down the state education system and examinations such that senior business figures make matters worse by stating they choose to recruit foreign educated and trained people rather than young people emerging from state education, but they do not way why and what is wrong with education in Britain. To make matters worse those same business leaders have, for at least a decade, pursued a deliberate policy of outsourcing, off-shoring and exporting millions of jobs to China, India and Malaya thus increasing the numbers in UK who are unemployed and economically inactive and based on the confused political notion that industry and manufacturing are not important.
That is why, in 2011, the UK is, after Ireland, now the world’s second biggest debtor nation with, according to The World Bank, a gross external debt of US$9.12 Trillion which amounts to 428.8% of the nation’s GDP. Put bluntly we are right up sh*t creek without any means of propulsion.
For years both sides of the political divide have gerrymandered statistics and figures to meet their own political ends. First we had Mrs Thatcher’s campaign cry of “Labour isn’t working”, prior to the 1979 election, when in fact only 1.7 million were officially unemployed. But then unemployment in UK reached 3.5 million, or 12 per cent of the working age population, between 1981 and 1987 with the loss of Britain’s industrial and manufacturing base, declining slightly between 1988 and 1990 and then rose again to 11 per cent between 1991 and 1994 with the second wave of job losses associated with the second recession in a decade and further loss of Britain’s industry and manufacturing base.
Despite political spin and rhetoric unemployment in UK has been rising steadily since 1970, reaching a peak in the mid 1980’s and early 1990’s and is now set to reach another peak at the beginning of the second decade of the 21st century with, according to ONS figures, not only 2.5 million unemployed but 9.3 million people of working age classed as ‘economically inactive. No nation can afford to have 29.3% of its working age population not in work and contributing to nation and society.
Over the last decade some 963,000 more public sector jobs were created (sic) as a means of off-setting rising unemployment, but that is what caused the increase in the cost of the public sector and the considerable public sector debt. However, little or nothing was done in those previous recessions, or during this present recession, by the private sector to create jobs and employment opportunities to replace the ones lost from industry and manufacturing and those lost from the public sector.
It is almost as if there has been a deliberate ploy, by incompetent and uncaring and mostly spineless politicians, bankers and big business, to gradually undermine this nation and force us into full political, economic and social mess that is the EU where most member nations have enormous national debts. We are at a watershed with the process of globalization because so much has gone that there is little left that we manufacture or produce that the rest of the world wants and merger and acquisition activity has flogged off the family silver and once it is gone it is gone and so are the jobs, skills, knowledge and experience. That is why we suck in more and more manufactured products and why we are now running a £90bn a year trade deficit.
It is time that the UK government got a firm grip of the demands for economic, employment, energy and education systems for the future, without transferring everything under the control of the private sector that continually fails to deliver, based on the confused notion that private is good whilst public is bad because, thus far, private also means transferring many millions of jobs from western nations to eastern nations with lower labour costs in order to boost bottom line profits; and, got a firm grip on immigration to control the numbers arriving on this small island. Otherwise the end result will be continuing economic decline whilst the developing nations will continue to surge ahead. Despite global warming there is a cold wind blowing from east to west.
Ptolomaeus
“A country is of course the sum of its people, but also of its institutions. Since 1945, the institution that has come to characterize Britain is not our disciplined and professional Armed Forces, but the welfare state. It is what Peter Lilley called "the something for nothing society". Welfarism has always had at its core the sentimental belief that living beyond our means is simply something that a humane society has to do.”
That is the point, a nation is the sum of its people and for the last decade and a half the core of this nation has been undermined and diluted by a policy of unfettered immigration, from all former British colonies and latterly for the last decade from any and all EU member nations, and the whole exacerbated by a policy of enforced integration based on multiculturalism. England is now the most densely population nation in Europe and the number is increasing unnecessary and unwanted stresses and strains on all public services especially health, education and housing.
Successive governments, since the 1960’s, have watered down the state education system and examinations such that senior business figures make matters worse by stating they choose to recruit foreign educated and trained people rather than young people emerging from state education, but they do not way why and what is wrong with education in Britain. To make matters worse those same business leaders have, for at least a decade, pursued a deliberate policy of outsourcing, off-shoring and exporting millions of jobs to China, India and Malaya thus increasing the numbers in UK who are unemployed and economically inactive and based on the confused political notion that industry and manufacturing are not important.
That is why, in 2011, the UK is, after Ireland, now the world’s second biggest debtor nation with, according to The World Bank, a gross external debt of US$9.12 Trillion which amounts to 428.8% of the nation’s GDP. Put bluntly we are right up sh*t creek without any means of propulsion.
For years both sides of the political divide have gerrymandered statistics and figures to meet their own political ends. First we had Mrs Thatcher’s campaign cry of “Labour isn’t working”, prior to the 1979 election, when in fact only 1.7 million were officially unemployed. But then unemployment in UK reached 3.5 million, or 12 per cent of the working age population, between 1981 and 1987 with the loss of Britain’s industrial and manufacturing base, declining slightly between 1988 and 1990 and then rose again to 11 per cent between 1991 and 1994 with the second wave of job losses associated with the second recession in a decade and further loss of Britain’s industry and manufacturing base.
Despite political spin and rhetoric unemployment in UK has been rising steadily since 1970, reaching a peak in the mid 1980’s and early 1990’s and is now set to reach another peak at the beginning of the second decade of the 21st century with, according to ONS figures, not only 2.5 million unemployed but 9.3 million people of working age classed as ‘economically inactive. No nation can afford to have 29.3% of its working age population not in work and contributing to nation and society.
Over the last decade some 963,000 more public sector jobs were created (sic) as a means of off-setting rising unemployment, but that is what caused the increase in the cost of the public sector and the considerable public sector debt. However, little or nothing was done in those previous recessions, or during this present recession, by the private sector to create jobs and employment opportunities to replace the ones lost from industry and manufacturing and those lost from the public sector.
It is almost as if there has been a deliberate ploy, by incompetent and uncaring and mostly spineless politicians, bankers and big business, to gradually undermine this nation and force us into full political, economic and social mess that is the EU where most member nations have enormous national debts. We are at a watershed with the process of globalization because so much has gone that there is little left that we manufacture or produce that the rest of the world wants and merger and acquisition activity has flogged off the family silver and once it is gone it is gone and so are the jobs, skills, knowledge and experience. That is why we suck in more and more manufactured products and why we are now running a £90bn a year trade deficit.
It is time that the UK government got a firm grip of the demands for economic, employment, energy and education systems for the future, without transferring everything under the control of the private sector that continually fails to deliver, based on the confused notion that private is good whilst public is bad because, thus far, private also means transferring many millions of jobs from western nations to eastern nations with lower labour costs in order to boost bottom line profits; and, got a firm grip on immigration to control the numbers arriving on this small island. Otherwise the end result will be continuing economic decline whilst the developing nations will continue to surge ahead. Despite global warming there is a cold wind blowing from east to west.
Labels: Atlas Shrugged, John Galt
posted by Martin at 7:29 AM
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