Jim,
Thank you for sending me this link. I have made a meal of it as usual.
I don't believe it for a second. The average English are absolutely amazing. It's a popular put down to say the average English are somehow behind the ball, but the reality is that they have withstood enormous change in the past decade. The level of integration and goodwill in London is beyond belief. I am so happy that what violence could have happened is still so remote. Newcomers to London and England love the country and people. Yes. Yes. The degree to which a strange incoming population has been received with open arms is truly heartwarming. The rainbow of integration can obviously happen if it is properly orchestrated. Come to London and see for yourselves.
The real problems in London have nothing really to do with the English nor how well everyone is coping with tremendous economic pressures. It has to do with rich speculators buying up the best properties of Greater London and what average homes should be available to the locals at reasonable cost in speculation hoping to make a flip or turn and then take their capital out. The average locals are housing peasants. They have to spend all of their income on a double two person mortgage and go head long into credit card debt to keep up with the young.
Foreign banks that have the worst financial records in their own countries, such as Santanders from Spain, which has a dismal history of bad management there, are speculating in the London property market and killing what recovery is possible from that sector. Thank goodness the British government has now introduced a property speculation tax beginning in 2015. That's only a scratch at the problems.
Unfortunately, the British government does not try understand the most basic of realities with regard to the housing market as it affects the ethnic English. Local councils cannot afford to pay the enormous sums to house a population that is growing so rapidly because of inward migration and an inability of the government / Bank of England to deal with maturity mismatch in the money markets. I participated in the invention / innovation of these markets in the 1970's, trying my hardest to stop the crazy policy of Margaret Thatcher to make Building Societies into banks and allow banks to compete in the housing market. I shake my head in disbelief at the financial carnage and a misunderstanding of the effects of that bad policy has brought internationally. The Americans tried to copy cat London and look what happened. I had Barclays friends earning annual bonuses of half a million on property speculation. They retired to Southern Europe.
The result of property and stock speculation arising from deregulation and throwing away lessons learned from the 1929 crash was a disaster for locals in England and the States, especially the British who demanded a decent wage but who had no effective union representation as Thatcher rapidly closed down the future of British manufacturing industry the only thing that really produces economic growth. With the focus on services industry the British distribution of income has gone completely towards the bankers and insurance company execs that actually produce nothing but fear.
And you have read no doubt how the American banks speculated and pushed British banks into speculation. In short, Thatcher's Big Bang was a big bubble that worked in favour of those who could speculate. It favours growth biased towards speculators and bankers. It still does and David Cameron with the help of that Canadian / Yankee Doodle Governor Carney has unleashed another round of costly socially destructive speculation. No wonder the Scot's want to run as far and as fast away from London as they can. It's insane what's happening.
Thatcher took away education subsidies and introduced reforms that were ludicrous as regards the average Brit. The Scots kids receive subsidized education like the Canadians. The idea that graduates can carry huge debts into their future lives is stupid. Especially, if one factors in the high cost of housing.
Now after the Thatcher years, we have nobody in England that can afford a home with one income. The kids are treated as a cost instead of benefit to society and educational standards have fallen well below preThatcher years.
What the Social Democrats here did here was imitate Thatcher, which is why people have no choice now. The English should have been housed at affordable costs, the kids should have been educated at affordable costs. The housing / banking crisis should never have happened.
The English can thank Maggie that the world is in such a mess. That is my view as a former banker who believes he understands the British economy.
I get angry because it is easy to produce a functioning economy where everyone can afford a home and all the luxuries. What Thatcher is responsible for is a dis functional economy and stupid policies that threaten the economy stability of the whole world. So from easy peasy, we have slump and bump. No fun and it can lead to major, major international conflicts and what could otherwise have been tolerant people taking to the streets in despair.
So, when I hear that Maggie did so much for Britain by getting rid of the union power belonging to the lazy English, I just think that if you can read history and understand the most basic of economics of the money and housing markets, you would come to a very different conclusion. The English are just fine in relative terms. What's dysfunctional is the stupidity of David Cameron and the wayward ideas of his one time mentor the misguided shop keeper Maggie Thatcher, such a destructive force.