MaizieD
FriedGreenTomatoes2
Been reading about Torsten Bell. I can’t quite believe what I've just read. So this self proclaimed genius from a revered think tank is just proposing higher benefits payments across the board! And taking it from pensions (but not public sector, natch).
If he's saying that then he has a slightly better grasp of how to encourage growth by the state spending more money into the economy, and how to slow the rate of wealth acquisition, than you do.
Ironically. the biggest criticism of Torsten Bell is that he's a neo-liberal - as are people such as FGT. That's why I wish people would rely on first-hand sources rather than second-hand smears. Unfortunately, that seems to be what counts as political discussion.
By all means criticise what he says (as Richard Murphy does) but do it from an informed perspective - not just because the name has been linked to "baddies" (although the smearer doesn't really know why).
). He points out that we have been a low growth economy with high inequality and that together this produces big problems. He suggests we look at the average GDP, and the average inequality of countries we used to consider similar to ourselves; so France, Germany, the Netherlands, Australia. Not rich America (remember this was 11 months ago) or the very equal Norway. All are richer and all more equal than us but he suggests we look at the overall average if income and inequality a typical household in Britain would be £8,300 better off. What I'm hearing from that is that there are sensible things we can aim for. He says "... becoming a more normal economy measuring ourselves against similar'ish' economies is transformational."
