Re: [Economy 101] I'd Love To Change The World

On Sun, 27 Sep 2009 11:58:28 +0100, Robert Sneddon
<fred@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

"David Loewe, Jr." <dloewe@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx> writes
On Sat, 26 Sep 2009 13:16:23 +0100, Robert Sneddon
<fred@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

The concensus is yes, very much so. The NHS is supported widely by all
the population and is a third-rail for any political party here much as
the defence budget is in the US.

Defense spending is not a the third-rail of US politics. That would be
Social Security.

President GW Bush spent a large part of his first term in office making
great efforts to try and privatise Social Security, to hand the funds
and future contributions over to Wall Street investors

That is just wrong.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_Security_privatization#George_W._Bush.27s_privatization_proposal

"On February 2, 2005, Bush made Social Security a prominent theme of his
State of the Union Address. In this speech, which sparked the debate, it
was Plan II of CSSS's report that Bush outlined as the starting point
for changes in Social Security. He outlined, in general terms, a
proposal based on partial privatization. After a phase-in period,
workers currently less than 55 years old would have the option to set
aside four percentage points of their payroll taxes in individual
accounts that could be invested in the private sector, in "a
conservative mix of bonds and stock funds"."

And so we see that W was going to allow a *portion* (thus *partial*
privatization) of the funds *if the individual account holder wanted to
do so* to be handed "over to Wall Street investors."

with the whole-hearted support of the Republican Party in Congress and
he then went on to win a second term with a clear popular majority.

....from the previously cited URL...

"President George W. Bush discussed the "partial privatization" of
Social Security since the beginning of his presidency in 2001. But only
after winning re-election in 2004 did he begin to invest his "political
capital" in pursuing changes in earnest."

So, no, not until after he had faced the voters for the last time did he
really try to do anything about it.

Nobody threatens to cut the defense budget and survives and prospers in
US politics. Guns are infinitely more important than butter in the
American psyche.

As an American voter much closer to the issue than you are, I call
"Bull***!" Remember the "Peace Dividend"?

http://www.nationalpriorities.org/u_s_military_spending

Look at that graph and note how defense spending declines from 1985
until 1997 or so?

And why didn't the same thing happen after the previous war?

The Labour party was not as strong then as it was after WW2 and WW1 was
neither as harsh

Excuse me?

Battle Of The Somme, anyone? Didn't the entire population of young men
in certain villages disappear?

WW1 killed about half the number of British soldiers that WWII did
(going from memory) and it killed a handful of civilians in Britain. The
war monument in my home town (population 10,000 when I was born there in
1955, a bit less earlier) had a couple of hundred names on it. Most of
them were from WWII, not the Great War. Remember we were also fighting
in Asia after Japan attacked British interests there.

And this is wrong as well.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_War_I_casualties#Casualties_by_1914_borders

UK Military deaths: 885,138
UK Civilian deaths: 109,000

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_War_II_casualties#Human_losses_by_country

UK Military deaths: 382,700
UK Civilian deaths: 67,100
--
"Does any one know where the love of God goes
When the waves turn the minutes to hours?"
Gordon Lightfoot
.

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