1716: Hello and welcome to our rolling news coverage of the London riots.

I think a lot of people outside my country don't realise what's been happening. For the last 14 years we had a government who thought the best way to stay in power was to make as many people as possible reliant on state handouts of money in the misguided view that any other party subsequently elected would stop these handouts. If they had bothered to consult a psychiatrist, they would have discovered that the worst thing you could do to any human being would be to take away their self-esteem because soon or later the situation would explode. Well, it did explode. Many of these young people come from gangs and homes that receive these benefits. It doesn't excuse their behaviour because it's still criminal and some of these youngsters came from well-to-do families who really should have known better. But the only people who can create a functional, forward-looking society are the politicians themselves. So you have to ask yourself - what kind of society have they created over the years?
I'm also interested to hear from Americans about the recent debacle about their economy. To us it looked like two parties trying to score political points off each other without even bothering to think what's best for the country? Is that the view over there?

I have been following this thread with interest, but not feeling qualified to comment.
However, there is a 'plaque' in the form of a headstone on the grave of John Smith, the much-loved Labour politician who died so tragically early in 1994.
He is buried on the island of Iona and on his simple stone
are engraved the words by Alexander Pope,
'An honest man's the Noblest work of God'
Would that things might have been different. Thanks, Blimp, for the nudge!

I must agree with corncrake Re John Smith. Of all the media comments made of this man I cannot recall one that implied he was anything short of honourable, this was both prior to and following his untimely demise. I think we need to revise the total on Blimp's Hall of Honour to 4.

That's certainly MY view, but with one twist-

It's not just the attempt to score points off each other in an attempt to attract votes from the middle, but also the elected members of each party trying desperately not to lose standing with its own extreme base, who will turn as quickly on them as it will on the other party if they don't do its bidding. This is absolutely true among the Republicans (who fear the Tea Party, and have sworn allegiance to no-tax-increase Grover Norquist rather than the nation), but also true to a less-uniform degree among Democrats who fear the special interest groups protecting funding for their various entitlements and programs. In a recent debate, every last Republican presidential candidate agreed the oppose any deficit reduction plan that included even 10% of the total as tax increases (as opposed to expenditure cuts), even though 'tax increases' include the closing of tax loopholes, and even though no Republican (or Democrat) has identified a plausible plan for closing the deficit without tax increases. Democrats, for their part, seem content to wait for any republican proposal that so much as shaves social security or medicare benefits so they can demagogue it with the AARP (the American Association of Retired People, who enrolls not just retirees, but everyone over age 50, giving them a potential membership of almost half of registered voters), even though it's impossible to fix the deficit without addressing these entitlements (unless you want to cut pretty much everything else), preferring (note the double 'r') to trumpet 'tax the rich,' though that would be at most a partial solution.

The only short-term hope is the so-called 'poison pill' in the recent debt plan that would mandate cuts to the defense budget (which no one wants) if a compromise cannot be reached, and eluding that would be but a first step to address the long-term problem. Even there, the intransigence of the parties gives at best a 50/50 chance for agreement.

OK, I guess this is more than just one little twist to BrianV's original postulation

I think that's my point. Maybe our democracies have a fundamental weakness and that is that politicians are always looking to the next election instead of making the decisions that are right for the country in the long term. Who votes? Well at the moment it is those over 50 because of demographical changes in the West. They are going to vote to keep their hard-earned money. We've just dumped colossal sums of money to be paid back by today's young. They're not stupid. If we're not careful we will be seeing the start of a generation war. China is expected to become the biggest economy in three years time. India will overtake China shortly afterwards. China couldn't give two hoots about hacking into governments or companies and stealing their secrets. It's not a democracy. Over half of India's population is under 25. They are producing hundreds of thousands of highly qualified graduates each year because their mentality focusses on education. Hence the outsourcing done by our major companies. That's where the jobs have gone. Some of our best independent schools in Britain now teach mandarin. At least they are forward-looking. Our politicians, meanwhile, are running around like headless chickens reacting to situations that they really should have seen coming.

Here's a quote - but I'm not sure who is from. I thought it was from Alexander Tyler, but a brief search (as I looked for the quote) told me it's one of those quotes that no one can agree on.

"A democracy is always temporary in nature; it simply cannot exist as a permanent form of government. A democracy will continue to exist up until the time that voters discover that they can vote themselves generous gifts from the public treasury."

Goodgulf

A very scary quote, but not one which conforms to a brief survey of history. The Greek democratic experiment ended with defeat in wars, The Roman republic died in Civil War and "bread and circuses" was a feature more characteristic of the empire than the republic. The Icelanders have managed to maintain a democracy since about 1300 ad, and the Swiss for a shorter but impressive amount of time. The first (and second and possibly the third) French experiments in democracy ended with military takeovers. The Weimar Republic died from the effects of the Great Depression compounded by the Treaty of Versailles. Although it is a common worry that democracies will end with the mob voting itself huge amounts of the nation's capitol, I can think of no clear case of this having happened.

Yes, that's a pretty good "short answer". As always, the "long answer" is more complicated and faceted.

First, the need to do something about the USA debt is nothing new. The same folks who ballooned our debt over the 8 years of the previous administration are now trying to masquerade as our saviors by recasting themselves as financial conservatives.

The recent "debt crisis" was a "manufactured in Washington" political event that never needed to happen. It will be seen by history as, if not an economic disaster, at least an economic setback that the world didn't need in these uncertain times.

Myself, I blame the American voter who have allowed themselves to be led by transparently biased "journalism" such as that seen on the Rupert Murdoch-owned Fox news, and by the primary-school-level slogans they seem to be so great at crafting. (Remember "government death panels"?)

In the case of our recently downgraded credit rating, our voters recently put into power demagogs who loudly proclaim their willingness to default on debt payments, and who have demonstrated their power to do exactly that. In this political climate, who can blame the financial community for losing faith in the safety of USA debt?


Democracy will always be a messy and inefficient process. (My graduate work is in government, so I've made more than a casual study of this.) Other forms of government can be far more efficient, but none of those can be trusted to remain responsive to the populace.


(Spanking is the answer! Does anybody remember the question?)

Guy

The one thing that amazed me most about US politics was the vicious debate about healthcare reforms.
Those that benefit hugely must be in a very small minority.

However by using the phrase socialised medicine and pretending that the poor in the US have access to what is undoubtedly some of the best care in the world, the Republicans seem to be able to appeal to middle America who logically have an enormous amount to gain from a state provided medical service.

The very rich will always buy the best anyway.
The UK has its faults but you can be sure that if you have the misfortune to suffer from a curable acute condition you will get excellent and prompt service as a taxpayer.

Not so! The huge majority of th poor and middle income citizens would benefit greatly from national health care. Even the rich would benefit, because what we have now is a "de-facto" system of socialized medicine for the underclass which is supported by a patchwork of tax revenue, and inflated health insurance premiums. Since a healthier worker is obviously a more productive worker, even our GNP should improve.

Folks who work at low paying jobs in the USA typically have no health benefits. When they get sick, they have no doctors, so they go to an expensive hospital emergency room (rather than some much cheaper clinic) where the hospital is compelled to treat them regardless of ability to pay. That expense falls on all of us, and represents a huge, invisible public subsidy to the employers of those workers. The Obama plan would put many of those expenses where they belong. (Hint: A majority of those employers are Republicans, so you can understand their anti-healthcare fervor)

On the Democratic side of the isle, you have millions of retirees who are already on Medicare, and are, at best, ambivalent about another group's healthcare problem. A typical response from a retiree: "We can't afford national health care".

To give you an idea of the cost of healthcare here, the wife and I were (for a time) paying nearly $2,000/month for health insurance while we were retired yet waiting on our Medicare eligibility.

Guy