Margaret Thatcher is dead

[Walsingham]

If you want to know what would have happened to Britain without Thatcher <so sez my mate> look at France.

[Nonek]

What makes the mine closures even more tragic is that half the workforce never voted for a general strike, Arthur Scargill did not even have a majority when he chose to try and oust the democratically elected government, many pits were never balloted. The miners who refused to accept his unvoted for action, and returned to work suffered intimidation, violence and social pariah-hood, and a lot of them squarely blame old shredded wheat head even over Mrs T.

 

It's an extremely sad and far from simple tragedy, that resulted in cultural wastelands, and allthough her role was significant Mrs Thatcher cannot be portrayed as the only instigator of it. Mr Scargill and the NUM had overthrown one government, and were intent on doing so again.

[Malcador]

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2307480/Ding-Dong-The-Witch-Is-Dead-Well-play-5-seconds-say-bungling-BBC-Margaret-Thatcher-protest-song.html

 

If you're not getting your RDI of outrage.

[Zoraptor]

Reading the Dailyfail- even just one article- gives you more than the WHO approved amount of outrage for a whole month, let alone a day.

[PK htiw klaw eriF]

If you want to know what would have happened to Britain without Thatcher <so sez my mate> look at France.

I don't think that is exactly true. We don't know what would have happened to the world without Thatcher.

 

I really dislike "what would have happened with/without X arguments.

[alanschu]

Yeah, but I think it's more the fact that those mines she closed were the only industry in the area for the men who worked there, so the inhabitants lost everything in the loss of that one job.

 

Just to be clear, were the mines owned by the government?

 

I'm just catching up now, and need some additional infos before I start posting my thoughts.

[Nonek]

Well nationalised a fair while ago, but though technically under the governments auspices it was mostly the NUM (national union of mineworkers) who ran the show in reality through striking and picketing. Some attribute the fall of Mr Heaths government to their industrial action, can't remember whether that was 73 or 74. 

Edited April 13, 2013 by Nonek

[alanschu]

Oh I'm not a big fan of Unions, whom (today) I feel don't really do too much to support many of their employees by any means.

 

I just see allegations that she closed down the only industry in town (one that perhaps wasn't even working, which muddies things up even worse).  Should the government have kept it open and running even if it wasn't doing anything (and costing the government money)?

 

I'm not a huge fan of governments owning businesses, but in the events that they do it's the responsibility of the government to run it responsibly.  Keeping it open simply for the sake of paying the workers employed is not responsible.  It should not be run to lose money either.  Occasionally an essential good may be run "at a loss" but due to its essential nature (i.e. basic utilities) it could be subsidized via taxes - although I'd prefer it to not be run that way as it complicates accountability for that division.

 

Had the mine been privately owned and some chap just decided to close up shop because of workers that aren't working, the people of that town would still be pretty screwed.

[Nonek]

Mrs Thatcher was doing just that with all of the nationalised industries, which were mostly running at a loss. Her hatchet man in the steel industry had for the first time in years made it profitable, but cut jobs massively in the process. As I remember he was then appointed to oversee the mining industry and came into immediate conflict with the unions. When it finally all boiled over into the general strike it was revealed that Mrs Thatcher had been stockpiling coal in case of just such an action, and the unions lost their ability to blackmail the government through energy cuts via their striking.

[Zoraptor]

I do find the parallels between the mines in the 80's and the banks today rather amusing. The Tories have nationalised- effectively or literally- a bunch of banks, so in 30 years and with all their ideological shouting all they've really done is go from subsidising loss making mines to subsidising loss making banks, and those banks held the government to ransom every bit as much as the NUM did in its heyday, and the Tories baulk at anything which can hurt them just as much as pre 79 parties baulked at taking on the unions. Plus ça change...

 

We had almost exactly the same process happen here from 1984 on. It was nowhere near as confrontational, probably because most of it was done by the Labour Party and there was a general acceptance that things Had To Change even amongst those effected.

[Drowsy Emperor]

I don't know what the real state of affairs was in those industries in the UK but I do know how the process of grabbing up state assets worked in the former Yugoslavian states during and post collapse.

 

In short, its the result of a collusion between business circles (that wanted to privatize everything) and political circles which, if they weren't one and the same, did it for the equivalent of petty change.

 

It goes like this:  the process starts by appointing a co-opted individual to a top managerial position. This was done by the party which had the last say of who ran state owned industries. That individual would proceed to ruin the industry so its supposed value drops to nothing. I say supposed because the real value of a monopolistic, well developed industry is still obviously huge - even when its systematically operating at a loss. Then a foreign businessman or a domestic one would step in to "save" the industry by buying it for peanuts. Since its now their private property even a modicum of effort is enough to get the industry is running again and presto! Behold the wonders of privatization and technocratic rule! What the politicians mismanaged we'll fix! Etc. etc.

 

That's one option. Its possible the foreign business buys the industry only to shut it down and destroy its competition. This is worse, obviously - because it ruins the country's overall wealth and people lose their jobs.

Another option is that the domestic competition conspires to destroy the industry for reasons of its own. Example: If your company can import cheaper coal from China, you want to make sure all the domestic coal mines are ruined so that you're left as the major or only importer of coal. Why bother with buying out the industry and trying to make it work (which includes large expenses) when you can import the finished product? 

It seems like a plausible strategy, but the end result is dependency on foreign sources and prices, leaving people jobless and of course - all the money no longer fills the state budget but goes straight to private hands, of which very little makes it back to the state through taxes.

 

This is why I despise the entire privatization mantra. Its nothing but a fictional story intended to sell the end effect, which is transferring state goods to private hands for a pittance. Another side effect is that politicians (which are blamed for everything) end up having less effective power and more open to bullying from the private sector - since they don't have effective control over any aspect of economic life. And the  economy drives everything. In the end privatization makes the average person poorer while making a select few people richer. Which is what it was all about from the beginning.

Edited April 13, 2013 by Drowsy Emperor

[Nepenthe]

Yeah, let's not assume that the kleptocratic post-collapse redistribution of wealth in former communist countries is a standard for the behaviour political leadership.

[Drowsy Emperor]

Yeah, let's not assume that the kleptocratic post-collapse redistribution of wealth in former communist countries is a standard for the behaviour political leadership.

 

People are the same everywhere. Businessmen and politicians in particular. Its just a question of how likely they are to get away with something.

 

Believe whatever you want to believe.

[Malcador]

Corruption in the West is just done with a bit more style and grace.

[Nonek]

Well there are a number of reasons for the state owned banks being bailed out in the UK, not least among them being the fact that the politicians (of either side) and the bankers went to school together, mix in the same social circles and any MP can usually retire into a comfy executive position at such institutions come the end of their tenure so long as they've not rocked the gravy boat. Politicians of any party are fairly much in the business of perpetuating parliament, not representing the will of the people, and if they've not got their noses in the trough over here they've usually got a position in Europe where they can lap up the cream of unaudited expenses.

 

In a rather cynical mood today, sounding a bit preachy as well, sorry about that the subject always gets my dander up. You'd think i'd be old and wise enough to not care any more.

 

Edit: Zoraptor makes a brilliant point in that while Labour over here has fairly much divorced itself from the unions, the Tories have become the lapdogs of the banks, a vicious circle of alliances and cronyism.

Edited April 13, 2013 by Nonek

[Drowsy Emperor]

Corruption in the West is just done with a bit more style and grace.

 

I'll give you that much... if it makes you feel any better?   

[Calax]

 

Corruption in the West is just done with a bit more style and grace.

 

I'll give you that much... if it makes you feel any better?   

Yes, because if it gets to blatant it's forcibly shut down.

[Drowsy Emperor]

 

 

Corruption in the West is just done with a bit more style and grace.

 

I'll give you that much... if it makes you feel any better?   

Yes, because if it gets to blatant it's forcibly shut down.

 

So all we need is a cunning plan, huh. That'll give the rest of you piece of mind, right, Baldrick?

 

Edited April 13, 2013 by Drowsy Emperor

[Darth InSidious]

So that is why the British keep posting "Ding Dong the Witch is dead" on twitter.

 

I agree with their sentiment.

 

 

From your intimate knowledge of the subject, living halfway around the world and an ocean away from the United Kingdom.

 

 

I knew she was disliked, but I'm surprised by the vehemence seen from people on her passing.

 

 

It's particularly... interesting to note in those too young to have even seen her resign. The word indoctrination might seem a little extreme, but then, so is the reaction on both the Left and the Right. Particularly given that, you know, she resigned in nineteen-ninety.

 

The only person who still cared about Stanley Baldwin in 1950 was Churchill.

 

 

Slashdot had a good joke about installing a pay toilet above her grace as a way to pay for it.

 

 

Her ladyship. She was given a barony, not a dukedom.

 

 

 

Every whine and piece of childish vitriol just reinforces how much she eviscerated the Left. Good.

 

I am old enough to remember the three day week, electricity cuts, unburied bodies and no bread in the shops in the 1970's under the Socialist grip of the Labour Government, who couldn't do anything without the agreement of the Trades Unions. Besides, some of the most egregious bull**** about Margaret Thatcher is from kids who probably don't even remember her time in office.

 

This is the woman who recognised Gorbachov as a man the West could do business with. Some of the intellectual pygmies attacking her legacy are beneath contempt.

 

RIP Baroness Thatcher.

 

3 day week?

 

 

The Three-Day Week. A Conservative screw-up, but still illustrative of the chokehold the union leaders possessed.

 

 

After reading a bit of Wiki, I feel like the problems she had to deal with were more to do with the fact that the nation still had a Royal Family and less that they were "moving into the 21st century!"

 

What on Earth does the royal family have to do with it?

 

Well nationalised a fair while ago, but though technically under the governments auspices it was mostly the NUM (national union of mineworkers) who ran the show in reality through striking and picketing. Some attribute the fall of Mr Heaths government to their industrial action, can't remember whether that was 73 or 74. 

 

The second election of (October) '74. "Who governs Britain?", and all that.

[Gorgon]

I hope the plan isn't to turn anyone into a silent film slapstick retard, beause that already happened to Lord Blackadder.

[Calax]

 

After reading a bit of Wiki, I feel like the problems she had to deal with were more to do with the fact that the nation still had a Royal Family and less that they were "moving into the 21st century!"

 

What on Earth does the royal family have to do with it?

It's the reason those mines were part of the government. The Royal Family technically owns(or owned) all of the governments lands, so the reason that those mines were government institutions in the first place was because they were on Royal territories. In America the land would have mostly been under private control, and the owner given an "offer [they] can't refuse" so that the land gets kicked to a mining company.

[Malcador]

The grace was a typo, meant grave.

[Nepenthe]

 

 

 

Yeah, let's not assume that the kleptocratic post-collapse redistribution of wealth in former communist countries is a standard for the behaviour political leadership.

 

People are the same everywhere. Businessmen and politicians in particular. Its just a question of how likely they are to get away with something.

 

Believe whatever you want to believe.

Exactly, it's a question of how likely anybody is to get away with anything, including the "vanguard of the proletariat", the Skorpioni and whoever, certainly not limited to politicians or "businessmen".

Edited April 13, 2013 by Nepenthe

[Drowsy Emperor]

 

 

Yeah, let's not assume that the kleptocratic post-collapse redistribution of wealth in former communist countries is a standard for the behaviour political leadership.

 

People are the same everywhere. Businessmen and politicians in particular. Its just a question of how likely they are to get away with something.

 

Believe whatever you want to believe.

Exactly, it's a question of how likely anybody is to get away with anything, including the "vanguard of the proletariat", the Skorpioni and whoever, certainly not limited to politicians or "businessmen".

 

The problem with you, judging by the example you picked is that you're convinced of your own cultural superiority in the matter. The only place that will lead you to is ignorance.

[ShadySands]

long live Margaret Thatcher? 

 

No? Maybe???

 

Sorry, it was the first thing that came to mind when I saw the title.