The Lady's not returningFollow

So Margaret Thatcher died today.




Mixed emotions from people I know. Mostly people celebrating, but a smattering of indignant postings expressing outrage that people would celebrate the death of a "sick old woman".




Edited, Apr 8th 2013 8:49am by Nilatai

Did she at least save us from a meteor?

I can't say I agree with political ideologies, but she forged out a new leadership pathway that wasn't there before her reign. And she wasn't totally evil or anything.

....rip Iron Lady.

Huh, you too then?

May she rest in peace, what a wonderful lady. Love her or hate her, she was great and I was shocked to come home from work today and see the news on the BBC.

You were shocked? She was almost 90 years old.

Indeed it is. Ill forget this by the time I post again.

Time to put my tramping boots on.

I think this is exactly why. I've heard her being called an English Ronald Reagan. So if you are somebody who thinks that Reagan was horrible for the economy loltrickledown (which you personally don't) then that could explain the view of her being ruinous to the nation.

It explains why people might speculate and/or fear that said economic policies would be ruinous (future tense) if implemented, but not why someone would say (past tense) that they were ruinous. Was the UK economy (again assuming that the original comments were about economics) actually ruined? I don't recall the UK spiraling into disaster economically speaking during or immediately after she was running things. Which makes one think this kind of comment is less about what the actual effects of any given economic policies *are* and more about eternally trying to convince oneself and others that an opposed policy is to be avoided by sheer repetition of "this is bad"/"this was bad" language even when the facts don't match.


I guess (and I'll fully admit I'm biased here), I find it really strange to hear people say "trickle down cant work", complete with dire predictions of what will happen, then it's tried and it works and none of the dire predictions happen, but for the next 3 decades all we hear is "trickle down didn't work" and "it was a disaster", and (in this case) "it was ruinous". It just smacks of repeating the assumption and hoping people don't notice that it doesn't match reality.

Edited, Apr 8th 2013 7:46pm by gbaji

To gbaji:

I think NO system is empirically able to perfectly address all problems. There are always going to be pros and cons, and thus it becomes a question of finding a system where the desirability of the pros outweigh the cons. Cons which are real cons, but are put up with in order for long term gain. For example, take the normal economic growth and recession cycle. I think it is desirable for governments to run a surplus in growth years, and run a deficit in recession years. There are people/politicians in Australia who think government should never ever run a deficit. During a recession, I think a deficit should be run, focussing on infrastructure, especially on educational, health, transportation and military infrastructure.

Leaving aside the Thatcherite butchering of the unions and gutting of healthcare, she, like Reagen, was madly into de-regulation for de-regulation's sake. I think her de-regulation went way too far, as the banking and economic collapse of 2009, which we are still suffering the outcomes of, would not have been possible in the UK if some prudent regulations remained in place. And yes, of course political actions taken 20 years ago can have massive effects in the present.

I guess (and I'll fully admit I'm biased here), I find it really strange to hear people say "trickle down cant work", complete with dire predictions of what will happen, then it's tried and it works and none of the dire predictions happen,

It's never worked, not once. Why? Oh right, fucking math. If the math worked and the ideology sucked, I'd support it. I support lots of things that have unfortunate ideological implications. I think "the bailout" math only worked one way, while at the same time finding supporting the failure of an industry controlled by the super wealthy with middle class tax dollars morally repugnant. The math though, matters. The math behind "trickle down" leads to less tax revenue, a hollowed out middle class and movement of wealth to the already wealthy. Which is the point, of course, but the argument that it leads to broad economic growth is thoroughly disproved at any sort of serious intellectual level, leading to comic slogans like "it's never good for the economy to raise taxes" instead of an actual economic argument. Because there isn't one.

The good news, for you, is that the vast majority of people don't understand the math (you know how that is, eh?) so the fact that it's not a viable economic model won't stop policy based on the idea. The good news for me is that the Fed can do the math, so we're on our third round of quantitative easing, likely rescuing us from the crushing depression we'd have experienced if austerity hawks had been able to accomplish anything they claim to believe in.

I c wut u did ther.

A system that is empirically able to perfectly effect all problems!