The title of this blog is the message I hope I impart in this video by Ryan Chapman that's available on Facebook here.
SUB: Austerity Britain - Homelessness
Austerity Britain is a series of short films challenging the claim that "we're all in this together" and exposing the 'culture of cuts' as a counter-productive ideological obsession.Kicking off, is part one, focussing on the UK's homelessness epidemic.
Posted by SUB Productions on Freitag, 2. Juni 2017
We cannot afford austerity Britain.
We cannot afford the homelessness it has created.
Nor can we any longer afford its moral bankruptcy that corrupts our society.
For once I'll be candid: I would be really pleased if you would share this.
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Thank you Richard. Powerful and moving. I will share.
Thanks
Simon Wren-Lewis recently said : “I define austerity as fiscal consolidation that increases unemployment”. It’s an odd definition as it means there has been no austerity since 2012.
What’s your best practical definition of the term.
Austerity is deliberate reduction of state funding for essential public services for dogmatic reasons when there is capacity to supply them and for which need exists
That is much better Richard.
Debt consolidation is a service that is now widely offered by the financial services sector for household debt. It is all over the ‘Net. It is aimed at getting households out of excessive debt, making it more manageable but also puts an emphasis on making sure that the debts are paid. Accordingly household expenditure has to be prioritised and sacrifices made.
The use of debt consolidation in terms of fiscal policy is an example of Government (macro economic policy ) debt being misrepresented as similar to household debt (micro economic debt). But of course they are actually quite different.
The Government can effectively print money to clear its debt if it wants to.
It is much harder (impossible even) for most households to increase their income if they get into excessive debt to clear it – especially when you consider that debt can be symptom of low income in the first place.
Some economists like Wren Lewis and Wolfgang Streeck (who thinks that the EU is now a debt consolidation zone) whilst not advocating it as a policy use the consolidation theme to describe how politicians are actually destroying the economy because they ARE as Richard says dogmatically treating Government debt the same way as household debt – even though they do not have to.
It is in my view the biggest single lie told to the voter this past 30 years or so. And political adherence to it is doing nothing but prolonging the death of the totally discredited system of capitalism we have been operating.
Unsurprisingly I agree
Every so often, as in the York televised debate, as in today’s Telegraph, some idiot will always come up with “there no money left. We’ve run out of money”.
NOTICE TO THE ILL INFORMED
If you think the biggest risk to a sovereign country is that it will run out of money you presumably also think that the biggest risk of the obesity crisis is that we will run out of Kilograms! Doh!
It’s heartbreaking. When you see people on the streets like (even in wealthy blue Christchurch) this you don’t know what to do for them other than believe what they say and give them a bit of cash. You’re doing great work, Richard. Shared.
I was born shortly after the Second World War when this country , like much of Europe had suffered considerable physical destruction of it’s infrastructure and its commercial , industrial and residential buildings and a lack of maintenance due to resources going into the war effort. Austerity during that period meant a shortage of the physical resources – metal, timber and so on – necessary to rebuild . But it was done by a combination of public and private enterprise . We do not live in an age of shortages of materials or labour . The austerity being imposed on our country is – as this video makes clear – a choice, an idealogical choice being propagandised by the Conservative government which thinks that a country is like a business and if the country were to be run like a business all would be well. Well I run a business and have done for forty years and I can tell you it is nothing like a running a country. I have used my postal vote to vote for Mr Corbyn because something has to change and I can see no prospect of that with Mrs May and her colleagues.
Thank you
Keep it coming Richard… Concise, relevant, informed, relevant, and above all else, moving.
Consider post shared.
Extremely enlightening!
I’ve always thought the austerity measures didn’t ‘ring true’ but realise that I didn’t bother to research what it was really about. Just carried on (while working for a local council) accepting no (or virtually invisible) pay rises for years; cuts to hours; heavier work load; etc; etc and seeing others accepting the same in other employment sectors. What didn’t make sense was that some things seemed to carry on as normal or even in contradiction to the term ‘austerity’. Now I understand why.
Thanks for the clear explanations and relevant information.
Thanks for making a stand on all of our behalves.
Much love.
Barbara