Margaret Thatcher has died.

  Quote

It’s said that Thatcher made the British people richer. She didn’t. In 1979 the poorest fifth of the population accounted for around 10 percent of after-tax income. By 1989 their share had fallen to 7 percent. Over the same period, the amount of income taken by the richest fifth rose from 37 percent to 43 percent. The rich got richer; the poor got poorer.

according to google public data: britain's gdp in 1979 - 422 billion $, britain's gdp in 1989 - 859 bil $

Superb summary !

she said aids was a gay plague i think lol she was a good person imo

  On 4/10/2013 at 1:43 PM, eugene said:

 

  Quote

It’s said that Thatcher made the British people richer. She didn’t. In 1979 the poorest fifth of the population accounted for around 10 percent of after-tax income. By 1989 their share had fallen to 7 percent. Over the same period, the amount of income taken by the richest fifth rose from 37 percent to 43 percent. The rich got richer; the poor got poorer.

according to google public data: britain's gdp in 1979 - 422 billion $, britain's gdp in 1989 - 859 bil $

 

Superb summary !

 

GDP and after-tax income are two very different things. This is basic economics.

And btw, that article accounts for the late-80s credit bubble. By the early 90s the UK was back in recession.

  On 4/10/2013 at 1:16 PM, keltoi said:

 

 

aye... you have to laugh at "she opposed sanctions against apartheid and called Nelson Mandela a ‘terrorist".

 

that's fantastic

  On 4/10/2013 at 1:30 PM, keltoi said:

 

  On 4/10/2013 at 12:48 PM, keltoi said:

 

  On 4/9/2013 at 12:12 AM, Ifeelspace said:

Please tell me how she made the world worse for the many?

 

she flushed the british manufacturing industry down the toilet.

 

 

and she stopped my (and many others) free milk at play time.

 

edit - if you're (lfeelspace) suggesting that she made the world a better place, i'd be interested to hear how.

 

Oh noes! No free milks at play tmes!

She modernised this country, gave the over-powered trade unions a kick in the butt (that they very much needed imo). Home ownership increased and privatisation did actually work (in most cases).

I understand that she made life a nightmare for Miners, but that was an archaic industry anyway. Do you think it would still be around today in the same way if she was never in power?

Also, she was PM for a reason. The British public voted! She was in power for three terms, so must have been doing something right according to the british public.

  On 4/10/2013 at 1:59 PM, Ifeelspace said:

 

Oh noes!

 

Today I discovered people still say this on the internet here in 2013.

Anyway - what Thatcher did to the unions was naked class warfare. She didn't give them "a kick in the butt" she ruthlessly attacked the principle that workers should be able to negotiate with the only, and I mean literally the only thing that the capitalist class values about them - their labour.

Home ownership increased - but absolutely no provision was made to replace the social housing that was lost. Successive (Thatcherite) governments have entirely failed to remedy this. And today, surprise surprise, so many of those sold-off council properties are in the hands not of families or individuals, but buy-to-let landlords, being rented back to the working classes at extortionate rates - which have to be subsidised with housing benefit because wages are so low (another consequence of the loss of well-paid manufacturing jobs). In this indirect way Thatcher can take the blame for so much of the so-called "welfare dependency" that Conservatives love to moan about.

If you think privatisation worked then I assume you haven't paid an energy bill or travelled by train recently.

  On 4/10/2013 at 1:59 PM, Ifeelspace said:

 

Also, she was PM for a reason. The British public voted! She was in power for three terms, so must have been doing something right according to the british public.

 

Our electoral system is badly broken, though. This is a decent article about how she got away with it: http://www.thenation.com/article/173732/how-did-margaret-thatcher-do-it#

  On 4/10/2013 at 1:51 PM, Iain C said:

 

  On 4/10/2013 at 1:43 PM, eugene said:

 

  Quote

It’s said that Thatcher made the British people richer. She didn’t. In 1979 the poorest fifth of the population accounted for around 10 percent of after-tax income. By 1989 their share had fallen to 7 percent. Over the same period, the amount of income taken by the richest fifth rose from 37 percent to 43 percent. The rich got richer; the poor got poorer.

according to google public data: britain's gdp in 1979 - 422 billion $, britain's gdp in 1989 - 859 bil $

 

Superb summary !

 

 

GDP and after-tax income are two very different things. This is basic economics.

 

And btw, that article accounts for the late-80s credit bubble. By the early 90s the UK was back in recession.

 

when the difference is that sharp you have to at least intuitively understand that the total income will be very affected as well.

http://www.ons.gov.uk/ons/about-ons/what-we-do/publication-scheme/published-ad-hoc-data/economy/july-2012/equivalised-original-gross-disposable-post-tax-income-for-all-households-1977-2010-11.xls

in 1979 post tax income of the bottom percentile household is 1244£, in 89 it's 2178£.

My maths isn't very good, but unless I've really fucked my calculator that's still a drop in income as a percentage of GDP. But I think the real point of the article is that she presided over a period of rising economic inequality.

ok, but the rise in economic inequality is not "The rich got richer; the poor got poorer.".

  On 4/10/2013 at 1:59 PM, Ifeelspace said:

 

  On 4/10/2013 at 1:30 PM, keltoi said:

 

  On 4/10/2013 at 12:48 PM, keltoi said:

 

  On 4/9/2013 at 12:12 AM, Ifeelspace said:

Please tell me how she made the world worse for the many?

 

she flushed the british manufacturing industry down the toilet.

 

 

and she stopped my (and many others) free milk at play time.

 

edit - if you're (lfeelspace) suggesting that she made the world a better place, i'd be interested to hear how.

 

 

Oh noes! No free milks at play tmes!

 

She modernised this country, gave the over-powered trade unions a kick in the butt (that they very much needed imo). Home ownership increased and privatisation did actually work (in most cases).

 

I understand that she made life a nightmare for Miners, but that was an archaic industry anyway. Do you think it would still be around today in the same way if she was never in power?

 

Also, she was PM for a reason. The British public voted! She was in power for three terms, so must have been doing something right according to the british public.

 

the milk thing was a (half)joke.

she screwed over all sorts before even starting on the miners... she had it in for british (and more often than not, scottish) industry in general... steel, ships, cars, engineering, electronics all shut down and sold off... the communities and towns which grew around these industries were left to rot while the well-off contributed to the home ownership boom you're so proud of... she pontificated about an honest day's work for an honest day's pay but robbed the working class people's ability to do exactly that. she had no compassion for the hard working people's lives she was destroying. and you're asking "where's the humanity?" when a few people on a forum don't show respect at the news of her death?

  On 4/10/2013 at 2:55 PM, eugene said:

ok, but the rise in economic inequality is not "The rich got richer; the poor got poorer.".

If your income falls as a percentage of GDP I'd say that's at least one metric by which you could call yourself poorer.

so did eugene think it was a 'superb summary' or not? i can't tell.

  On 4/10/2013 at 3:19 PM, Iain C said:

 

  On 4/10/2013 at 2:55 PM, eugene said:

ok, but the rise in economic inequality is not "The rich got richer; the poor got poorer.".

 

If your income falls as a percentage of GDP I'd say that's at least one metric by which you could call yourself poorer.

 

there's no need to go into abstractions here, you're poorer if one day (month/year/whatever) you could buy 10 apples with your salary and the day after only 7 apples. the data from ons shows the opposite, it's inflation adjusted and so on.

I don't think those figures are inflation-adjusted.

such studies are inflation adjusted by default, otherwise they would be almost pointless

Erm, no. They serve as records of what the average household income was, in actual pounds sterling, in a given year. That isn't pointless.

Unless you honestly believe that post-tax income more than doubled for the lowest-earners, in real, inflation-adjusted terms, between 1977 and 1987 to take just one crazy example.

I suspect that if these figures were inflation-adjusted it would say so at the top of the chart.

looks like you're right, this is not data from some comparative study so they don't adjust it.

according to this (http://safalra.com/other/historical-uk-inflation-price-conversion/) the inflation from 1979 to 89 is

110% so i adjusted the data from the ons table on household income post tax:

the table speaks for itself basically, the poorest did get shit from her but the rest 80% did fine.

  On 4/10/2013 at 3:31 PM, keltoi said:

so did eugene think it was a 'superb summary' or not? i can't tell.

  On 4/10/2013 at 5:12 PM, keltoi said:

 

  On 4/10/2013 at 3:31 PM, keltoi said:

so did eugene think it was a 'superb summary' or not? i can't tell.

 

i didn't read it all, i only address that paragraph about "poor getting poorer", it looks like it was right after all unless i fucked up my math/understanding of some concepts. the data (total income after tax and its percentage amongst the poor) is not suitable for determining whether the poor are indeed getting poorer (objectively, not relatively) because you have to know the total income, he simply presented rise in inequality as rise in impoverishment. overall thatcher (or at least policies and development during her reign) did make people richer, just not the bottom 20%.

Nice one Glenda.

  On 4/10/2013 at 2:11 PM, Iain C said:

 

  On 4/10/2013 at 1:59 PM, Ifeelspace said:

 

Oh noes!

 

 

 

Today I discovered people still say this on the internet here in 2013.

 

Anyway - what Thatcher did to the unions was naked class warfare. She didn't give them "a kick in the butt" she ruthlessly attacked the principle that workers should be able to negotiate with the only, and I mean literally the only thing that the capitalist class values about them - their labour.

 

Home ownership increased - but absolutely no provision was made to replace the social housing that was lost. Successive (Thatcherite) governments have entirely failed to remedy this. And today, surprise surprise, so many of those sold-off council properties are in the hands not of families or individuals, but buy-to-let landlords, being rented back to the working classes at extortionate rates - which have to be subsidised with housing benefit because wages are so low (another consequence of the loss of well-paid manufacturing jobs). In this indirect way Thatcher can take the blame for so much of the so-called "welfare dependency" that Conservatives love to moan about.

 

If you think privatisation worked then I assume you haven't paid an energy bill or travelled by train recently.

 

good post

  On 4/10/2013 at 9:21 PM, westhead said:

Nice one Glenda.

 

She talks a good game but she, like almost every other Labour MP, abstained from the vote on the workfare bill. She's complicit with the worst policies of the Tory government.

Ha, I didn't even know that her son was grotesque Blairite turd and Daily Telegraph blogger Dan Hodges. I know he searches his name quite a lot, so hi Dan if you're reading this.

Even the right-wing press are asking questions about the politicisation of Thatcher's funeral: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politics/margaret-thatcher/9984619/Margaret-Thatcher-This-is-a-state-funeral-and-thats-a-mistake.html