Thatcher is to blame for the mess we are in now

[Mojocvh]

Puggit said:

The problem with mumsnet is that it's the northern mums who are running it - while living off benefits.

The southern mums are too busy making money!

Wot, on their backs?

[BOR]

Whatever Thatcher did, twenty years is long enough to have repaired, or at least, attempted to repair the damage.

With Blair's massive majority, LAB had a golden opportunity to really ram through a socialist agenda, but that was squandered. Fine, the New Labour / Cool Britania window dressing was probably necessary to remove the flat-cap image, but ultimately that era was a wasted opportunity.

In my opinion, the worst thing that Thatcher did, was to make greed acceptable and to push an "every man for themself" mentallity that remains today.

[Derek Smith]

BOR said:

With Blair's massive majority, LAB had a golden opportunity to really ram through a socialist agenda,

Blair was the archetypical straw man, bending this way and that depending on what he thought might give him an advantage, but he was never a socialist. And that goes for the way the word is used on this forum, i.e. anyone centre of centre and left of it, and, even less so, the real meaning, one of small government.

Blair's philosophy was obscrue, evenescent in fact, so more than a little difficult to pin down but in general he was right of centre.

[cymtriks]

BOR said:

In my opinion, the worst thing that Thatcher did, was to make greed acceptable and to push an "every man for themself" mentallity that remains today.

Did you become more greedy during the Thatcher years?
Did your family?
Did your friends?
Did your neighbours?
Did charities collapse as donations dried up?
Did people suddenly stop voluntering to help worthy causes?

I suspect the answer is "no".

On the other hand...

Selfishly and greedily expecting others to constantly bail out your hopeless employer is a thing of the past.
Selfishly and greedily expecting others to constantly bail out your mistakes and provide for you is now frowned upon even if it still persists.

I think that adds up to an improvement.

[Bing o]

BOR said:

Whatever Thatcher did, twenty years is long enough to have repaired, or at least, attempted to repair the damage.

With Blair's massive majority, LAB had a golden opportunity to really ram through a socialist agenda, but that was squandered. Fine, the New Labour / Cool Britania window dressing was probably necessary to remove the flat-cap image, but ultimately that era was a wasted opportunity.

In my opinion, the worst thing that Thatcher did, was to make greed acceptable and to push an "every man for themself" mentallity that remains today.

The mentality today is more 'what can I get for myself from everyone else'...

I don't see promoting self reliance and entrepeneurship as encouraging greed, as much as encouraging freedom from the state.

[Grayham]

Puggit said:

The problem with mumsnet is that it's the northern mums who are running it - while looking after their children.

The southern mums think their careers are mor important than their children!

A small correction was needed to your statement.

[hollydog]

Here we go again .
It's been claimed that obesity and and associated chronic health conditions such as high blood pressure and diabetes cost Britain £20B a year in terms of lost productivity alone.

So you are saying that thin people never have high blood pressure or diabetes . Sports injuries cost more the that per year so get a grip of real life . There is all different people out there if they are tax payers they have a right to the nhs .

[JontyR]

Troll duties done

[DonkeyApple]

crofty1984 said:

Ozzie Osmond said:

DonkeyApple said:

The retail debt spiral we are in, caused by excessive and deliberate de regulation of retail lending has hit middle England harder than anything since the decimation of Flanders.

So, unless you're saying the banks were forced to lend more than was sensible - which in a deregulated market cannot possibly have been the case - we see that the problems were caused by the banks' excessive lending.

Not the population's excessive borrowing then?

For me the key is that for centuries, if not millenia there have been two facts that we have all known:

1: The general public is not capable, en mass, of self regulation with regards to spending/saving etc.
2: Financial institutions will push risk as far as the boundaries will permit to create profits.

It is because of these two core bits of knowledge that governments create regulators, laws, restrictions, licenses, watchdogs etc etc.

A government knows very, very clearly what the result of removing or weakening these will be. In 1997 we began to de-regulate very quickly to fuel growth in financial services to raise tax reciepts and to increase retail spending via increasing personal debt to generate wealth and tax reciepts.

It is the job of government to regulate the financial industry and to protect consumers. To all intents and purposes for 10 years we had little to no regulation of either. This was not accidental but 100% a deliberate action of government.

Interestingly, all this de-regulation may not have been the total disaster that it has been if the wealth that it generated had been stored. When the bubble burst we would have been in the situation where we could have paid our way through, but instead Government chose to willfully no invest in the future but use these reciepts as margin deposits to borrow ever greater sums of money themselves.

[DJRC]

DonkeyApple said:

Derek Smith said:

Most PMs ran their time in charge as a sort of making do with what they had. Few gave us any form of legacy. There was the one who took us into the EEC. That is still with us now. Blair's legacy is still with us and likely to be so for some time.

Others have left a more positive legacy. Atlee gave us the welfare state and regardless of the fact that others following have not managed it at all well, the benefits are still with us in the sense that we have a healthy population.

Thatcher's legacy is a bit mixed. There is little doubt in my mind that we are still enjoying her victory over rampant unions. Those that are left are either more amenable or no one is willing to take them on. Hardly Thatcher's fault.

However, the changes to the banks and such is also still with us. Whether post Thatcher PMs should have done something about it is a moot point. Major, an underrated PM in my mind, spent long enough in position and then was followed by the man who had puppy dog eyes for Thatcher. Neither of these did anything about the lack of control on banks.

My belief is that the deregulation was a step too far. Banks should not be allowed to gamble with money without checks. So it was Thatcher who started it but there were others who had the opportunity to change things.

The de regulation under Thatcher was simplistic and essential. We are basically talking about the big bang here. Without that then all of our exchanges would have lost their volume and gone.

The problems we have now in the UK are a direct result of loony Brown's deregulation of the retail market. Everyone who has ever lived before Brown knew that it was essential to restrict retail access to debt as the masses will always borrow too much and cause massive asset inflation and subsequent collapse.

Brown knew this is well. What he did, he did deliberately. His actions were not about keeping the UK competitive against the world but all about opening the retail debt markets up to foreign players and dislocating debt from balance sheets.

Everyone remembers when their first MBNA mailshot appeared in the post or Ocean Finance appeared on TV. This is what has killed us. Pure and simple.

Our recession is not about global troubles. It is about excessive retail debt and tax receipts pre spent, based on the artificial asset inflation.

Look back to the last recession, the middle classes actually would not have been hit as hard as it was without the 30,000 top end tax payees being wiped out by Lloyds. They didn't have much debt and businesses weren't reliant on millions spending borrowed money.

The retail debt spiral we are in, caused by excessive and deliberate de regulation of retail lending has hit middle England harder than anything since the decimation of Flanders.

Excellent DA.

[crankedup]

If only the Lib-Dems had been in Government over the past forty years, none of this crisis stuff would have happened---------

[12gauge]

We went to the IMF before Thatcher, had debt problems before Thatcher. Country was going the wrong way since about 1969, not 79. She just made it worse by applying the same deficit spending that screwed the public sector in the 70s by allowing businesses and individuals to be similarly irresponsible through deregulating credit and so on.

I guess things got better under Major. Consumer debt/house prices seemed stable 1990-97, govt deficits were manageable/at a similar rate to the overall growth of the economy.

Then Brown came along...

Does any of this matter? I doubt it. Every country seems to have the same banking problems regardless of national regulations.

[s2art]

12gauge said:

We went to the IMF before Thatcher, had debt problems before Thatcher. Country was going the wrong way since about 1969, not 79. She just made it worse by applying the same deficit spending that screwed the public sector in the 70s by allowing businesses and individuals to be similarly irresponsible through deregulating credit and so on.

This is delusional, Britain's economy was completely turned around during the Thatcher years, to the extent that we were paying down the national debt. (got down to 28% IIRC)

[12gauge]

s2art said:

This is delusional, Britain's economy was completely turned around during the Thatcher years, to the extent that we were paying down the national debt. (got down to 28% IIRC)

Sigh. Before you start saying 'delusional' do realise the national debt does not include private debts, hence why I made the distinction.

[s2art]

12gauge said:

s2art said:

This is delusional, Britain's economy was completely turned around during the Thatcher years, to the extent that we were paying down the national debt. (got down to 28% IIRC)

Sigh. Before you start saying 'delusional' do realise the national debt does not include private debts, hence why I made the distinction.

OK, but explain how Thatcher 'made it worse'. Some people and/or businesses may have borrowed too much then, but not compared to the Blair/Brown years. Freeing up the credit market was part and parcel of an economic turnround, and it worked well.

[markcoznottz]

12gauge said:

We went to the IMF before Thatcher, had debt problems before Thatcher. Country was going the wrong way since about 1969, not 79. She just made it worse by applying the same deficit spending that screwed the public sector in the 70s by allowing businesses and individuals to be similarly irresponsible through deregulating credit and so on.

I guess things got better under Major. Consumer debt/house prices seemed stable 1990-97, govt deficits were manageable/at a similar rate to the overall growth of the economy.

Then Brown came along...

Does any of this matter? I doubt it. Every country seems to have the same banking problems regardless of national regulations.

Id go back to 1996 in a heart beat. Rose tinted spectacles on, but things were so benign. Money saved could earn interest, reasonable house prices, loads of jobs, no imported workforce, no minimum wage; if you wanted more pay you found a better job!. No agency workers, and loads of overtime. In fact the only thing we didnt have then that the boom gave us was fancy ikea stuff, kitchens, flatscreens, new cars on finance, designer clothes, ipods and phones. We didnt need that stuff because it doesnt enhance our lives,and we didnt miss what we didnt know about.

[DonkeyApple]

+

markcoznottz said:

12gauge said:

We went to the IMF before Thatcher, had debt problems before Thatcher. Country was going the wrong way since about 1969, not 79. She just made it worse by applying the same deficit spending that screwed the public sector in the 70s by allowing businesses and individuals to be similarly irresponsible through deregulating credit and so on.

I guess things got better under Major. Consumer debt/house prices seemed stable 1990-97, govt deficits were manageable/at a similar rate to the overall growth of the economy.

Then Brown came along...

Does any of this matter? I doubt it. Every country seems to have the same banking problems regardless of national regulations.

Id go back to 1996 in a heart beat. Rose tinted spectacles on, but things were so benign. Money saved could earn interest, reasonable house prices, loads of jobs, no imported workforce, no minimum wage; if you wanted more pay you found a better job!. No agency workers, and loads of overtime. In fact the only thing we didnt have then that the boom gave us was fancy ikea stuff, kitchens, flatscreens, new cars on finance, designer clothes, ipods and phones. We didnt need that stuff because it doesnt enhance our lives,and we didnt miss what we didnt know about.

Funnily enough, I was going to say 1996. +

[Bing o]

DonkeyApple said:

Funnily enough, I was going to say 1996. +

I'd go with that as well.

[DonkeyApple]

An interesting read for the uninnitiated: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/newsbysector/ba...

[Trommel]

The idea of a career in the pre-Big Bang City appeals greatly.