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privatisation: ‘britain’s public finances worse than gambia – uganda and kenya’..

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(excerpt..)

Britain’s underlying public finances are among the worst in the world – behind Gambia – Uganda and Kenya – a new study has concluded.

International Monetary Fund (IMF) economists found that £1 trillion had been wiped off UK public sector net wealth since the 2008 financial crisis – largely thanks to bank bailouts and increasing pension liabilities.

The IMF looked at the assets and liabilities of 31 countries and found the UK was in a worse position than every other country apart from Portugal.

This surprising conclusion came from using a different approach to the public finances to the one favoured by the government.

Rather than looking at each country’s debt and the deficit – a government’s income minus its expenditure – the IMF’s approach takes into account the benefit of assets such as publicly owned corporations and natural resources.

These figures more closely resemble a company’s balance sheet.

The IMF said the cost of bailing out banks had been a significant factor dragging the UK down the rankings.

The UK also has one of the largest pension liabilities of any nation in the study but is towards the bottom of the pile when it comes to public assets.

Using the public sector balance sheet method – countries such as Gambia – Uganda and Kenya rank above the UK because while they have smaller assets and liabilities than Britain they have a higher net wealth relative to GDP.

The IMF’s report takes particular aim at the privatisation of public assets – the benefits of which it says are often merely an ‘illusion’.

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Source: Britain’s public finances worse than Gambia, Uganda and Kenya, because of privatisation, IMF finds | The Independent

‘why privatisation is a disaster for any democratic society’.. 

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(excerpt..)

Most people looking to make big money are eager to disparage public systems as inefficient – wasteful – inferior.

Many of those people are in a position to starve the public systems of funding – thereby making them less functional and making the private options look more appealing.

But privatisation is not the solution; it is the problem.

Properly supported public systems serve more people in a more efficient and less costly way.

(cont..)

Source: Why Privatization Is a Disaster for Any Democratic Society | Alternet

‘There’s no reason to accept austerity. It can be defeated’.. 

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The Tories don’t have a mandate for what they’re set to unleash. Opposition has to go beyond parliament.

It would hardly be surprising if the large majority of British people who didn’t vote for the Conservatives were daunted at the prospect of what’s now in store for us. David Cameron and George Osborne can hardly contain their enthusiasm for the torrent of cuts and privatisations they are about to unleash.

But indefinite austerity – which transfers wealth from public to private and poor to rich – is Osborne’s aim. Under the coalition it brought economic recovery to a halt and had to be quietly shelved even to achieve the faltering growth of the past couple of years. But now they’re going to kick it all off again – just as the Greek crisis is engulfing the eurozone.

Powerful Tory figures and the OECD are warning Osborne to slow down his planned cuts – or risk stifling growth and hitting workers dependent on tax credits and housing benefit. But instead he’s plunging into a fire sale of government assets: £23bn worth of privatisations – from the huge public stakes in RBS, Lloyds, Royal Mail, the Royal Mint, Met Office and Channel 4.

Not only did the Tories fail to mention most of these privatisations – opposed by the public in repeated polling – before the election – but RBS alone is to be sold at a £13bn loss – throwing away the chance of a publicly owned bank that could help rebuild the economy. And their exchange of long-term revenues for short-term cash injections will do nothing to reduce the deficit.

But then that’s not really the point. The idea is to hand over anything and everything to the City while massaging next year’s borrowing figures. The same determination to enrich their friends while disabling opponents is evidently what also drives Cameron’s plans to make most strikes illegal. And he’s planning to slash Labour party funding by forcing trade unionists to jump an extra legal hurdle to assign their political levy.

(cont..)

Source: There’s no reason to accept austerity. It can be defeated | Seumas Milne | Comment is free | The Guardian

‘How Did We Come to This?’.. 

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How did we come to this? When did New Zealanders become convinced that the care of the most vulnerable in our society – and particularly of those suffering mental illness and disability – should be treated as an opportunity to make a profit rather than as a community responsibility?

Nothing more clearly demonstrates the mindset of the government we re-elected just a few months ago than this stark assertion that it is the quest for money that alone motivates us. We now know beyond doubt that our government is convinced that the only way to persuade people to care for others is to encourage them to make money from other people’s desperation.

There will of course be those who will respond immediately with the argument that – distasteful though it may be – it is simply a recognition of what really drives people, -and that we should welcome anything that produce better outcomes – however they are motivated.

Those of us who still retain a belief in the inherent attachment of New Zealanders to this country’s traditional values will reject that argument. But even if we were to overlook the moral bankruptcy of such a contention – we would still be entitled to show that the basic premise that we will thereby get better provision has no foundation.

We are by now familiar with the consequences – in many areas of our public life – of entrusting important interests to the tender mercies of those whose sole interest is the search for profit.

Is Sky City concerned about the damage to problem gamblers from more pokies and gaming tables? Is Petrobras worried about the impact on our marine environment of deep-sea drilling off our coast? Was Pike River alert to the need to look after the safety of their miners?

We know from experience that the first concerns to fly out the window when the profit motive is at stake are the well-being of others – service to the community – and the conservation of scarce resources.

(cont..)

Source: How Did We Come to This? « The Standard