More Economics/Less Filth

Look, I didn’t want to have to do this. I really didn’t. It’s just, they’ve left me no choice. Along with the usual grab-bag of sweariness, tortured analogies and obtuse sesquipedalianism, this blog will, by necessity, contain several, many or more Very Boring Numbers.

Now, I don’t know about you, but I hate numbers. Four, for example, is a complete twat. But today I need their help in showing you the way that the Prime-Minister and his allies in the blogosphere have been lying about the budget.

A lot of you may already have seen the Guardian’s excellent expose on the real impact of coalition cuts on employment. Based on a leaked Treasury report that David Cameron is now refusing to release in full, it makes for stark reading. For those of you who haven’t seen it, here come a few numbers that are too scary to be boring:

• A loss of 500-600 thousand jobs from the public sector
• A loss of 600-700 thousand jobs from the private sector
• A total loss of 1.1-1.3 million jobs

Right wing bloggers have been apoplectic in their response. Their defence of the indefensible largely centres around the separate Office of Budget Responsibility pre-budget report, and another OBS report (conveniently published today, though seemingly not online) - which separately cite private sector job creation of 2-2.5 million over the next five years.

Highly successful, semi-literate professional cockbadger Guido Fawkes helpfully published the bullshit graphic below on his blog, which you may remember as the organ which helped popularise the bollocks claim that Gordon Brown was on anti-depressants in 2009.



Despite making several schoolboy errors (for example, marking down all 1.3 million disappearing jobs as ‘public sector’, despite the fact more than half will go from the private sector) the graph neatly summarises the arguments of both the right wing blogosphere and the prime-minister – namely, that the damage done by cuts will be more than offset by increases in private sector employment. There are a few problems with this argument, which I’ve summarised below.

A.)The increase in private sector employment will occur in spite of, not because of, the budget and is mainly down to two factors, specifically net migration pushing up the size of the Labour pool (See OBR report P.82 - an assumption based on the premise that the Conservatives will ditch their pre-election pledge to cap immigration at 100k per annum) and hilariously optimistic forecasts for economic growth. Speaking of which…

B.) The growth forecasts are complete wank, predicting UK GDP to rise at over a percentage point above the Euro Area trend every year of then next five, as well as assuming that every available economic indicator will turn from shit dust into flying gold over the next twelve months due to some kind of as-yet-to-be-identified magic. Finally…

C.) Even if the highly positive growth forecasts were somehow correct, it would have nothing to do with this budget, which has prescribed economic retrenchment over investment. Any economic growth will, by definition, be the product of external demand and the banks beginning to lend again due to the global economic bailout instituted by whatsisface – you know, the last bloke we had in charge.

In short, what Cameron et al are doing is committing murder and then pleading innocence because babies are being born all the time (see, there’s one of those tortured analogies I promised you). Here’s a quick chart summarising the reality of the situation.











In related news, I hate Excel.

Economics/Filth

Masochism is rarely an attractive quality. I don’t mean the pretend-coy, arse-slapping methinks-the-lady-doth-cum-too-much masochism most of us enjoy. I mean the woe-is-me, self-hating, auto-industrial-flagellation that our current coalition government loves.

Yes, - I know there’s a deficit. I saw a program about it and everything. We’ve all been very naughty boys and girls – and perhaps a few hard cracks with the economic cane wouldn’t go amiss. A severe increase in the top rate of income tax, or a crackdown on avoidance and evasion, might appropriately redden the national buttocks. But that’s not how this slutty little coalition has chosen to play it. Instead, they’ve left the UK prostrate and hog-tied, ball-gag already in our mouths, and a “Britain: Open For Business” sign proudly hanging above our gaping national arsehole.

Take two recent decisions by our cock-hungry government. First, the scrapping of a loan to Sheffield Forgemasters. Their business – building parts for nuclear power plants – is not one I feel totally comfortable with. But it would, doubtless, have been fantastically profitable over the next few decades. Yet the Government chose to scrap it. What other explanation, apart from balls-deep masochism, can there be for such deliberate economic mismanagement?

Or, take a more recent decision – the announcement by Vince Cable that we won’t “prop up” failing auto manufacturers. In reality, this is just a massive fuck-you to British Industry. It’s not as though our fellow G8, G20 or G195 nations are going to halt their subsidies in response. So all this does is send a big signal to global manufacturers that Britain’s Government has no faith in Britain. We’re just bending over, spreading and hoping the financiers see us as easy.

The sad reality is that, no matter how much Osbourne, Clegg, Cable and Campbell widen their mouths and beg for jizz, all we’re likely to get is a torrent of hot, steamy piss from money-markets who despise weakness above all else. The lesson from those states who’ve stood up to them – for example, Argentina – is that they are much more eager to climb into bed with a nation that maintains a little bit of self-respect.

The HTML gateway, not the deodorant.

Allo you lot. No time for wordsplurge today, but here's some yummy links to be getting on with.

For the best interview with a giant green feminist that you'll read today, check out:

http://msmagazine.com/blog/blog/2010/06/07/feminist-hulk-smash-exclusive-interview-with-ms/

If Feminist Hulk has inspired you,  why not get yourself a fistful of SMASH over at UKFeminista who are crowdsourcing ideas for a campaign against the Daily Mail's bullshit attitude to rape victims:

http://www.ukfeminista.org.uk/discussion-forum/4-feminist-issues/195-the-daily-mails-campaign-of-hate-against-women.html

And, for a highly entertaining deconstruction of something deeply anti-feminist, as well as a brief snatch of Mark Kermode singing the Internationale, go here:

http://dayandnightmag.ie/2010/06/02/mark-kermodes-wildly-entertaining-satc2-review/


The article he mentions in the Stranger is worth a look too:

http://www.thestranger.com/seattle/burkas-and-birkins/Content?oid=4132715

Be seeing you.    

Baddies Hurt Goodies On Boat

Some goodies got hurt by the baddies on Tuesday when the goodies fought with the baddies on a boat. The boat was in the bit of the sea which belongs to everyone.

The goodies didn’t want to have a fight and were only trying to stop the baddies from hurting people, but the baddies really wanted to keep on hurting people so they decided to fight with the goodies. In the fight, some people got killed.

Now everybody’s cross.

Even though it was OK for the goodies to hurt the baddies because of what the baddies were trying to do, it wasn't OK for the baddies to hurt the goodies back because the baddies were trying to do something bad. Some people who are friends with the baddies have been saying wrong things, like that the goodies were trying to do something they shouldn't have been, and that it’s the goodies' fault people died. At the special club were everyone is supposed to get together and sort things out nobody can agree on anything because the baddies friends keep telling lies and ruining things for the goodies.

The goodies don’t want to have fights, but everyone treats them very unfairly. This makes it really hard for the goodies to stay out of fights with the baddies, who treat them most unfairly of all. If only the baddies would stop doing bad things and stop trying to kill all the goodies, then it would all be OK.

But they won’t so the goodies have to keep trying to kill all the baddies until everything gets better.