The problem is that I’m not attacking the man so much as his ideas, which have objectively failed if their objectives were to provide a better standard of living for most if not all. If however – and this is my personal opinion, so take it as it is – the ideas were to sell a bill of goods to the majority so that they would be unwilling or unable to complain while the wealthy and privileged were able to make a killing far in advance of previous decades and conspiculously fail to spread the largesse, then they have succeeded spectacularly.

I’m a believer in social democracy and regulated markets, as this seems to be the best balance between having the freedom to make money while at the same time keeping a reasonably stable and functioning society in place.

I’m not a slavering follower of Naomi Klein, but “The Shock Doctrine” does make some very salient points. The central fallacy in free-market doctrine, if it’s aims are to be believed, is the posit that the inherent desire to amass wealth will keep everything in check, when the simple fact is that the good of the one will not self-regulate and automatically translate into the good of the many – in fact without strong regulation it comes into direct conflict with it. Put more bluntly, even if a rising tide lifts all boats, if you can’t afford a boat then you’re short on luck. I consider this an unacceptable state of affairs.

Do you often stick pins into wax images?

Milton Friedman died three years ago but I’m told that sticking pins into dolls can have definite therapeutic benefits for the seriously afflicted.

Alternatively, I believe an approved course of socially integrated therapy goes something like that demonstrated here
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z_C992KPzKs

Otherwise, you could buy a book on economics written by his son, David D Friedman, and burn that:

Hidden Order – the economics of everyday life (Harper Business 1996)
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Hidden-Order-Economics-Everyday-Life/dp/0887307507

You don’t need to read a lot of Friedman to know he was full of self-serving free-marketeer bullshit, you need only look at the company he kept and continues to keep posthumously. Pretty much every wrongheaded conservative and neoliberal policy came form people claiming him for their own.

Btw I noted with interest this briefing note on Germany for American companies on an official US Department of Commerce website:

“Germany’s regulations and bureaucratic procedures can be a difficult hurdle for companies wishing to enter the market and require close attention by U.S. exporters. Complex safety standards, not normally discriminatory but sometimes zealously applied, complicate access to the market for many U.S. products. U.S. suppliers are well advised to do their homework thoroughly and make sure they know precisely which standards apply to their product and that they obtain timely testing and certification.”
http://www.buyusa.gov/germany/en/trade_regulations.html

In that case perhaps it would be wiser to wonder why the size of the service industries in Germany and Japan is so small. It is not as if those countries are any wealthier than the US.

Extrapolating from past experience may not be a fruitful guide to the future if the work environment and product technologies change, as they have. Ubiquitous computers and electronics/robotics – which challenge literacy and numeracy skills – have altered the work context.

Car engines are now mostly managed by electronics so mechanical skills aren’t necessarily of much use, especially if mechanics have problems understanding computing and electronic engineering manuals.

Literacy and numeracy skills are hardly “academic” nowadays but I agree that Britain – unlike several other west European countries – has neglected to develop training systems for vocational skills. This neglect is not recent but extends back through the postwar period to the 1944 education act with the failure to create technical colleges alongside grammar and secondary modern schools. The later shift to comprehensive schools didn’t fill the gap. And Gordon Brown’s pre-1997 idea of an Internet-based University for Industry had to be closed down after wasting millions: well-done David Blunkett, the responsible education minister.

“I think Friedman was and remains full of shit.”

I really wonder how much Friedman you have read.

Neither Thatcher nor Blair had any political incentive to “decimate manufacturing”. But you are correct in suggesting they could get comfortably re-elected regardless of what happened to manufacturing.

If you check it out, I think you’ll find that the percentage contribution of manufacturing to Britain’s GDP is about the same as with most other affluent countries, including America and France, but with the notable exceptions of Germany and Japan.

Manufacturing in the German economy has long benefitted from a well-developed system of work-based vocational training. In Japan, for the last 30 or so years, almost all school students stayed on in the education system at least to 18, unlike Britain.

About 20 years ago, the DTI looked into the split in Britain and Japan between arts and science degrees among university graduates. It was found that the percentage of science and engineering degrees was virtually the same in both but in Japan the percentage of graduates with engineering degrees was much larger compared with Britain. To my knowledge and that of colleagues, British universities have for decades had greater difficulty in attracting calibre applications for undergrad engineering degrees than in attracting quality applications for degrees in the science, social science and arts.

I don’t think that lack of academic skills for whatever reason implies lack of shopfloor skills, in fact quite the opposite. I worked with some incredibly skilled and experienced mechanics in my younger years that could barely string a written sentence together, but could take apart and rebuild an engine – and have it running better than before – in a matter of hours. Some people’s brains just work differently, and this is something that the National Curriculum, through both the Tory and New Labour years, painfully failed to take into account.

Not mincing words here, I think Friedman was and remains full of shit. But it was not necessarily his ideas per se, but a misinterpretation of them that was the problem here – Thatcher’s ideology (one that Blair at least partially subscribed to) was that by decimating the manufacturing and industrial sectors, enough service industry vacancies would arrive to take their place – and that was a big fallacy. But as far as the Tory administrations of the 1980s and early 1990s were concerned, that was no problem, because as a rule the people who worked in industry did not vote Tory – and the resultant employment wasteland was their just deserts for not getting with the programme.

And the reason that Germany and Japan retained their manufacturing sectors was because they weren’t stupid and/or vindictive enough to destroy them for political ends in the first place.

C’mon.

“Up to 12 million working UK adults have the literacy skills expected of a primary school child, the Public Accounts Committee says. . . The report says there are up 12 million people holding down jobs with literacy skills and up to 16 million with numeracy skills at the level expected of children leaving primary school.”
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/education/4642396.stm

“A £2bn scheme to improve basic skills among adults has been called a ‘depressing failure’ by education inspectors.”
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/education/4506410.stm

Britain compares fairly badly relative to other G7 countries in productivity and especially so comparisons with the Netherlands:
http://www.statistics.gov.uk/cci/nugget.asp?id=160

Btw it would be completely inconsistent for Friedman to express a preference for service industries over manufacturing beyond noting that the share of services in national GDP tends to increase, while the share of manufacturing tends to decline, as economies become more affluent.

Rather than dispaging Friedman – and I’m no Friedmanite – it makes better sense to figure out why Germany and Japan have unusually large and successful manufacturing sectors.

“I suspect (a large?) part of the problem was and is that we lack sufficient shopfloor skills for the high productivity businesses we need to compete with both the higher productivity and the lower wage economies.”

I’m not sure that’s the case. I’m certain that the skills exist, it’s just as part of the move to a Friedmanite service industry-oriented economy that’s been going on since 1979, the number of vacancies available to utilise those skills has dropped sharply. This has been aided and abetted by short-termist corporate business practices which favour making a quick buck by shifting manufacturing overseas and collecting the bonuses for cutting costs rather than thinking long-term and keeping high-end medium-scale manufacturing in the country as a bulwark against tougher times when we need to keep exports up.

and @56:

All of your sources are pro-Tory and pro-Boris – I’m talking about *independent* sources, or at least balancing those sources by providing one from an opposing viewpoint.

To quote the man himself:

“Bus subsidy has soared from £24 million in 2000 to more than £600 million today.

With almost 40 per cent of bus passengers allowed to travel for free, I have of course been urged to take those benefits away.”

http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/standard/article-23756829-these-fare-rises-are-hard-but-i-have-no-choice.do

In the same paper:

Baroness Valentine, chief executive of business organisation London First, said: “Almost half of bus passengers and up to a third of Tube passengers pay nothing at all. When we’re searching down the back of the sofa for every last penny, should those in work but over 60 still be travelling in the rush hour for free?”

http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/standard/article-23756905-huge-fare-rises-and-pound-10-c-charge.do

I’d swear I’d seen a third reference, but inevitably, now that I go looking for it, I cannot find it.

I think it likely that the revenue gap to fill would be even larger but for the Congestion Charge because there would be less reason for some motoring commuters to use public transport.

As a general proposition, I favour road pricing although I regret the loss of privacy that will entail.

While I’m here, let’s not also forget the years and years of underspending on transport infrastructure under previous governments. It’s not all Boris’s fault.

BobB – my point exactly. Sevillista was trying to argue that the congestion extension has kept fares down, which looks like a bit of a silly argument in the face of the recent increase.

And where do these massive holes in Boris’s transport budget come from that have led to the fare rises?

The recession has had an impact – but so has Boris creating black holes in his budget to redistribute money to those who got him elected (a fair choice – he was voted to do this – just need to be transparent about it) through:

* Preference for council tax freezes instead of fare freezes (benefitting people in big houses, costing the poor)

* Preference for freezing outer London commuter fares instead of fare freezes for the poor (the poor are credit constrained and do not have the cashflow to purchase a travelcard so are forced to pay-as-they-go – the same ‘charge the poor more’ policies are followed by privatised utilities)

* Forgoing revenues from the rich and upper middle class (abolish charge on large 4X4s and sports cars, prepare for taking away the Western Extension to the Congestion Charge)

* Paying lots of money because of a groundless obsession with bus shapes amongst those who do not use buses

Could it be that other factors, besides the Congestion Charge, have impacted on the revenues and costs of London Transport, such as the effect of the recession on travel in London and, therefore, fares revenues? What of the additional costs arising from the failure of Metronet?

As reported, the alternative to a hike in fares was a hike in the rates in London, which would have significant consequences for business costs and jobs.

In 1997, to get elected, New Labour was going to do something good for manufacturing – like ending boom ‘n’ bust – but nothing much became of that. I suspect (a large?) part of the problem was and is that we lack sufficient shopfloor skills for the high productivity businesses we need to compete with both the higher productivity and the lower wage economies.

It’s hugely significant IMO that the arms producer BAE is now our largest manufacturing company and Dyson no longer manufactures vacuum cleaners in Britain even if the management, development, design and marketing functions are located here.

One big question is how well will BAE continue to fare if HMG manages to reduce the procurement shambles in the MOD.

It will take a long time to fill the legacy gap in shopfloor skills. Meanwhile . . ? We have to rely on growing the Creative Industries, which are mostly services.

Btw I shouldn’t be by now but I’m continually surprised by how quickly Boris and acolytes unravel in open debate.

It never, ever, seems to occur to them that there could be robust analysis and viewpoints which differ from their own. They think that once they have said their bit, that’s it. I’ve a sneaky feeling that has something to do with a classics education at Eton and Oxford.

I never said the charge is *levied against* “the very poorest”. I was simply making the point that the majority of resident drivers in K&C are not the super-rich, but many are people on average or modest incomes. No richer than those in other Boroughs that don’t have the charge. Whether you think the lower middle classes are “tossers” or not does not make it right to tax them disproportionately relative to the super-rich, just because they have some celebrity neighbours.

And amongst the very poorest, most of whom may not be drivers, there is still the friends-family-support-services argument. Non-residents are penalised for visiting them. And that is not fair.

Economically, I am probably in the latter category, and I can tell you, Sevillista, that the extension has been unambiguously bad for us, so please, stop patronising me and telling me what I know to be demonstrably false.

If anyone else out there is under the misapprehension that the western extension has kept cars from my streets, let me tell you: you’ve been misled. If you’ve got 8 pounds, you’re free to visit anytime, and see for yourself. It’s still congested, still polluted, and there are still accidents. Seems like Boris has done a good PR job in convincing people that K&C is now some sort of traffic utopia, but let me assure you, it isn’t.

some poor people live in k and c yes (at least until the tories put the new gerrymandering proposals hammersmith and fulham are trying to roadtest in action)

But few drive – across the whole of London (rich and poor) 40% of households have no car. This % is higher in inner London, and far higher among the poor. I’d be surprised if more than 10% of k and c council tenants drive.

Therefore the congestion charge is unambiguosly good for them. It keeps fares down, it pays for a more comprehensive and regular bus service, it keeps cars (and accidents and air pollution) from their streets.

The whole argument “congestion charging harms the poor” is completely false in Inner London – the poor don’t drive (though would have some truth for an outer London charge or in other uk cities)

That being the case, maybe it’s time that as a country we started supporting industries that don’t have such an abusive relationship with the majority of the populace.

As it stands, expecting our financial industry to keep the economy strong and not take excessive risks is somewhat akin to asking an alcoholic to supply one with booze.

That is true but this is also true:

“Alistair Darling has already spent almost a fifth of Britain’s GDP on bailing out its shattered banking system – more than any other major economy, according to a grave assessment of the world financial crisis published today by the International Monetary Fund [in March].”
http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2009/mar/06/imf-uk-bailout-gdp

And so, too, is this:

“One in five hedge fund managers found to be misrepresenting facts . . Using confidential data taken from 444 due diligence reports commissioned by investors between 2003 and 2008, academics at Stern analysed the extent to which hedge fund managers’ representations about their funds differed from reality. . .”
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/fc7d2e7e-b859-11de-8ca9-00144feab49a.html?nclick_check=1

Britain cannot afford a replay of the potential systemic collapse of its financial system. Meanwhile, in Brussels:

“Mr Rasmussen says many in the financial sector are working overtime to see the hedge fund proposals watered down, referring to a recent visit by the mayor of London, Boris Johnson.

“‘In that last two weeks, you even saw the mayor of London here in Brussels. We looked into his campaign funding and it looks like more that 60 percent of his campaign costs were covered by hedge funds,’ said the former Danish prime minister.”
http://euobserver.com/9/28814

No, it was a centrist government, as I said earlier. I’d also love to know where your 40% figure comes from, and how many of that 40% are in fact schoolchildren or people claiming benefits, in which case they’re entitled to discounts at the very least.

Also, I’m usually the first to point out that the plural of anecdote is not data, but having caught the bus to work for 3 years now, I see no people not touching in or paying on double-deckers, and very few failing to touch in on bendies.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/economics/6339642/Ex-FSA-chief-Sir-Howard-Davies-sees-dramatic-risks-for-Britain.html

It’s not really the £20 a month (a monthly bus pass is £55, and a monthly 1&2 Travelcard is £99, I suppose it’s the thought of living on modest means in Ken&Chel with all these rich tosser neighbours. One of the small consolations must be the thought that you can drive around as much as they do, and you have just as much right to clog up the streets as they do.

I’m not buying it’s brutality on the very poorest though, very few of whom can afford to run a car in London, congestion charge or no congestion charge. On a scale of 1-10 for brutality to the very poorest, putting pay as you go Oyster bus fares up 20% ranks as a 10, whilst the congestion charge is maybe a 4.

Now, I’m just off to eat Tim Worstall for breakfast, perhaps with a few fava beans and a glass of chianti.