Two million unemployed and one million under-employed people; a construction industry mired in deepening slump; green energy suppliers ignored; retailers with few customers coming through the door - all these listened to a British Chancellor carefully today, and heard only one thing.
There is no hope. Nothing can be done. The slump is 'permanent'. The only 'cure' is to hurt the poor, and deepen the crisis.
The Chancellor, backed by the vast majority of the British political and economic establishment, has capitulated to the bankers and to depression. He, the Treasury and the OBR have nothing to offer the British people but defeatism.
Labour is trapped and foolishly focusses on the deficit and debt - just as Mr Osborne wants them to frame it - instead of focussing on the nation's vast crater of economic inactivity.
Corporate tax receipts fell precipitously in October not because the tax is too high, but because economic activity is too low. And this is wrongly presented to the nation as inevitable, as a 'permanent' loss.
Not true. There is massive spare capacity. Ask the 3 million un- or under-employed. Ask the construction industry. Ask the engineering sector. Ask the alternative energy sector.
The Treasury's deliberate policy is not to utilise it.
Instead yet another £70bn of bank bailout costs are added to the burden to be carried by today's and future British taxpayers.
Instead of making Starbucks, Amazon etc., pay more, the Chancellor cut corporation tax - to increase competition with other countries, and hasten a 'global race' to the bottom.
Instead of making London's super-rich pay more in 'mansion taxes' the Chancellor chooses to cut benefits to the very poor.
This was not a budget statement. It was a cruel and defeatist political capitulation to despair.
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China's Foxconn is reportedly looking to build a plant in the US as it offers cheaper labour costs. As resources dwindle it becomes more expensive to dig stuff out the ground so the easy target is wage costs. Equally in this country as businesses transfer labour costs to the Asian regions there is less incentive for this and previous governments to invest in the labour force here hence the selling off of low rent council houses and cuts in benefits, NHS and education. No point in investing in the infrastructure that the working class population needs when the working class have been out sourced to Bangladesh or Cambodia. The bankers and deregulating governments deserve blame but remember these millionaire bankers are service providers for the real financial elite who pay them a small percentage and it is they who control the markets and in turn are our true political
Sad fact is the conservatives are best supported in cuts to welfare. What needs to be made clear is how much the working population relies on benefits, which is actually more in housing benefit and tax credits than the non working recieve.
Then their policy will unravel. Because they rely on the ignorance of a nation whose middle class thinks most if not all welfare is for people who don't work. We can't have overly strong unions again.
Ed Balls spoke well in parliament today, but Labour has not yet offered any new, radical thinking. And that is what we need.
we do need some original thinking though because this is clearly not working
I've suffered severe health issues as a result and am in no condition to return to work even if I could get an interview. This slump has consigned me to the scrapheap for no good reason. Why are my skills and experience not being utilised to help the economy grow?
This doing nothing consensus needs to be stopped before it does serious permanent damage to our country. Let's remember, all these decisions are politically motivated not economically.