Margaret Thatcher dies of a stroke.

[Xann]

Pure maths was the one where you moved the numbers around either a. To make things easier or b. For no apparent reason.

 

Applied maths was the one a bit like Physics, you could sort of picture where your vectors were off too or which way you were going to rotate.

 

I'm sticking with pure.

 

edit: oop multiple smiley deletion, hang on, b bracket turns into a smiley... f*ck, multiple edit...

Edited April 9, 2013 by Xann

[RunRickyRun]

Na. Pure is all about abstract mathematics. As soon as you find an application or a model to use it with it becomes applied.

 

I'll get my coat.

[chrisp65]

So, I've been reading about Thatcher in an attempt to understand the contempt that many have for her. I'm not politically inclined, I see little to no difference between one monkey to another. I believe politics is an elitist, closed shop and politicians are all in it for their own selfish purposes and their egos. 

 

With that in mind, please humour me and help me understand why:

 

1) Emasculating the trade unions was a bad thing.

 

2) Privatisation is an entirely bad thing.

 

well fwiw here's my two penneth:

 

1) Making the unions accountable to their members, making unions more democratic and getting rid of the closed shop were all undeniably good things. I've not seen many other than the tiny nutty minority likes of Scargill that think that could be a bad thing.

 

2) I don't know anyone that thinks privatisation or enterprise or pioneer spirit and hard work are automatically bad things.

 

Now, that's fairly common ground, and probably why she was voted in. What comes next, is why some get so excitable about the whole thing.

 

1) unions needed reform - this was done by smashing the lives and livelihoods of working class grafters, families and communities. This was done, at least in part by luring the egotistical Stalinist idiot Scargill into a trap. Scargill was persuaded (by the political mood music and by impromptu walk outs to declare a full blown strike. The battle was on. Unfortunately, the govt had stockpiled reserves of coal and it was Spring. So the miners went out on strike stopping production of winter heating fuel in the Spring, with stocks piled high. The result was pig headed male orientated union types found themselves on strike for 6 months before it even got cold. Massive tactical error.

 

2) For me personally, privatisation meant the low paid job I'd willingly done with a sense of public service and personal pride was privatised. This meant my low pay was due to get lower, my work conditions were to be reduced. At the same time, the actual cost of my services to the NHS were to rise. This meant that where I'd been a public servant working for peanuts I was now a privatised monkey, working for less peanuts for a private company making profit off my efforts at greater cost to my Client. Thanks but no thanks.

 

Changes were needed. The pornographic glee the tories took from butt **** whole communities was not needed.

Edited April 9, 2013 by chrisp65

[Xann]

Na. Pure is all about abstract mathematics. As soon as you find an application or a model to use it with it becomes applied.

 

I'll get my coat.

 

Is it a lab coat?

[peterms]

please humour me and help me understand why:

 

1) Emasculating the trade unions was a bad thing.

 

2) Privatisation is an entirely bad thing.

 

Reducing the power of the unions has played a big part in wages slipping back and income distribution becoming more unequal. Where decades ago it was common for the average family to have one wage-earner, now most families need two wage earners to have a roughly comparable position. (Leave aside advances in technology driving the cost of things down, I mean to remain in a roughly comparable position in relation to other people).

As well as wages, pensions are reducing. Both private sector and public sector pensions are less good than they were, and there seems to be a race to the bottom with people justifying further erosion of pensions by pointing to an area of the workforce which is worse, as though that makes it ok. Given that we are an ageing society and we seem to want to compound that problem by cutting immigration and so further unbalancing the age profile, that's seriously bad news for the future. Weakening trades unions was a key step in doing this. Of course this also means that future spending power will be less, so overall demand will be less. That means the overall national income will be relatively less than it would have been.

Most jobs are less secure than they were. That means more people losing work or having hours cut, more pressure on families with all that brings in its wake.

The arch-capitalist Henry Ford recognised that low wages meant lack of demand, and therefore an economy which bumps along at a lower level of activity. He therefore sought to pay higher wages than some others. It sounds counter-intuitive that a capitalist would do this, and of course most capitalists took the opposite view and still do, but he was looking at the effects at the level of the economy as a whole.

If you want a low wage, low skill, insecure workforce, with widespread poverty and massive disparities of income, then weakening unions is a good thing. If you'd rather be more like Germany or Scandinavia than Thailand or India, you might take a different view.

As for privatisation, its entire purpose is to direct part of the profits of an enterprise into private hands where previously there had been no profit distributed. The rhetoric is that this comes from "efficiency gains", but in fact it comes from price increases. Right now we are all paying more for our energy than we would have had it not been privatised. In the process, it creates and reinforces the notion that rentier profits are good (I mean profits drawn without doing anything for them, unearned income). We now have more people making more money from essentially parasitic activities than from things which create value, and that's not a good place to be. You can't base an economy on selling houses and shares to each other.

Privatisation isn't the only source of parasitic and unearned income, but it's one of them. Of course the people who profited from this unearned income don't complain, in fact they think it's brilliant. Imagine taking assets owned in common, passing them over to private hands with a far smaller ownership base, putting up prices, and getting an income stream for doing literally nothing. Talk about state handouts! Though I suppose they don't view themselves as having been given state handouts, and look down on those they consider do get handouts.

[markavfc40]

Peter that is an excellent post.

[WhatAboutTheFinish]

As for privatisation, its entire purpose is to direct part of the profits of an enterprise into private hands where previously there had been no profit distributed. The rhetoric is that this comes from "efficiency gains", but in fact it comes from price increases. Right now we are all paying more for our energy than we would have had it not been privatised.

 

Whilst the rhetoric of this statement might sound 'right on' there is absolutely nothing to support this notion. Your use of quotations marks around efficiency gains detracts from the reality that the nationalised industries were, in the main, remarkably inefficient, operating at a loss and propped up by premiums added to bills and the tax payer. The fact is in 1975 the UK consumer was paying more for their electricity and gas than any other Western European country, today it pays the least.

[Genie]

I had quite a strong dislike to the majority of students anyway, now they think they are clever dancing to the death of somebody in town centres.

Some people really are devoid of any class what so ever.

[NurembergVillan]

We truly are a classless society.

[rendelc]

I had quite a strong dislike to the majority of students anyway, now they think they are clever dancing to the death of somebody in town centres.

Some people really are devoid of any class what so ever.

 

Indeed. The majority were not even born when she left office let alone when she was in office. The far left are really showing their true colours now. Disgusting.

[Stevo985]

The bandwagon jumping is strengthening my sense of unease.

 

I can understand not liking her. In fact I can understand hating her.

 

But kids born after she was in power, dancing in the street to celebrate her death is disgusting.

[Jon]

Peter that is an excellent post.

Indeed it is.

 

As are most posts made by the Mountie.

[Jon]

The bandwagon jumping is strengthening my sense of unease.

 

I can understand not liking her. In fact I can understand hating her.

 

But kids born after she was in power, dancing in the street to celebrate her death is disgusting.

There are not THAT many though, are there Ben?

 

A bit of media coverage of some eejut students with half a brain. Then brand then lefties, lump them in with all left wing and scoailist thought and denigrate the genuine animosity many felt towards the Thatch.

 

We can see this already in an above post.

 

Thatch was genuinely and deeply despised, with good reason, by a great many.

 

A few childish eejuts dancing on pictures of her at her death should not detract from that.

I had quite a strong dislike to the majority of students anyway, now they think they are clever dancing to the death of somebody in town centres.

Some people really are devoid of any class what so ever.

 

Indeed. The majority were not even born when she left office let alone when she was in office. The far left are really showing their true colours now. Disgusting.

Like this Ben.

[CI]

please humour me and help me understand why:

 

1) Emasculating the trade unions was a bad thing.

 

2) Privatisation is an entirely bad thing.

 

. He therefore sought to pay higher wages than some others.

Do we have to bring MON into each and every thread on VT

[Stevo985]

I don't really care about all that. I'm the first to admit that my knowledge of politics is shamefully poor.

 

So 

 

 

Then brand then lefties, lump them in with all left wing and scoailist thought and denigrate the genuine animosity many felt towards the Thatch.

 

doesn't really mean anything to me.

 

I've already said people celebrating the death of a former leader makes me feel uneasy. People who probably don't even know what she did and just jumping on the bandwagon is just the icing on the cake. Whether it's 1 person or a million people, it's still disgusting.

 

The whole party (celebration party not political party) attitude towards her death is honestly making me feel a bit ashamed.

Mind you I could say the same about the (seemingly) faux outpouring of grief by people and other media sources who seem to be trying to make up for the celebrations by being overly mourning to make a point.

 

But still, having half the country chuffed to bits about an old woman dying just doesn't sit right with me, regardless of what she did.

Edited April 10, 2013 by Stevo985

[CI]

It's because what she did was so monumentally bad and catastrophic for so many. What people don't realise is we are still paying for it today and it's getting worse.

[Jon]

But still, having half the country chuffed to bits about an old woman dying just doesn't sit right with me, regardless of what she did.

 

Really?

 

I think you have to look at it in detail to make a truly informed judgement.

 

I thought she was quite a nasty piece of work TBH, and did an awful lot of harm to an awful lot of people and communities, whilst implementing policies to make the rich, richer.

 

When someone effectively ruins your life, which is what she did to a great many, then I can forgive a degree of 'happiness/celebration/rejoicing' when that person passes way.

 

I personally disliked both what she stood for, and what she did, but would not go so far as to 'celebrate' her death. I don't think i've 'celebrated' anyones death, TBH. But I can't knock many of those that feel more strongly, who have most probably been very, very badly affected by her 'reign'.

[CI]

Thatcher was out to look after herself and her cronies and the bankers and the so called fat cats of industry. No wonder bellends like Tony Blair (net worth £100m +) are on TV every 5 mins blowing smoke up her arse.

[Genie]

It's because what she did was so monumentally bad and catastrophic for so many. What people don't realise is we are still paying for it today and it's getting worse.

 

Do you have examples for these points? I'm very interested.

[Houlston]

who have most probably been very, very badly affected by her 'reign'.

I very much doubt anyone who wasn't born during her reign will have been very, very badly affected.