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why the bbc is going down the pan

bi0boy said:
A lot of their "news" is just them plugging their own products, they do it more so even than the Murdoch companies.

Olympic torch: DJ Chris Moyles gets 'buzz' from torch relay leg

BBC Radio 1 DJ Chris Moyles said he got an amazing buzz carrying the Olympic torch in Aberystwyth, as the relay travelled to Bangor on its tenth day. The radio personality said it was a great honour to take the flame through the mid-Wales town, from where his Radio 1 show was broadcast live.
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Shame it was'nt a million volt buzz
 
"If young Americans knew what was good for them, they would all be in the Tea Party."

"We blame the politicians whose hard lot it is to bring public finances under control, but we also like to blame bankers and financial markets, as if their reckless lending was to blame for our reckless borrowing.

We bay for tougher regulation, though not of ourselves."

This is what happens when economists are allowed an effective opinion....
 
frogwoman said:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-18456131

:facepalm:
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fuck me, what a load of shite.

Thing is though, this is the problem in a nutshell, in that the people in power presume twats like this know what they're talking about because he's a Harvard professor.

I'm seriously worried we're heading for a seriously long period of depression now, as I'd previously been hoping that those in power would be forced out or forced to see sense at the point where it was clear their policies had directly taken us back into a 2nd recession, but this doesn't seem to be happening at all. Twats like this guy are a large part of the reason for this IMO.

We can't cut our way out of a depression, we can't cut our way to reduce the deficit by any significant amount, and we certainly couldn't cut our way to actually paying any debts off. When the fuck are these stupid bastards going to work these fairly simple facts out?
 
well, I thought I'd have a try at actually emailing the guy directly instead of just mouthing off on here.


Dear Professor Ferguson,
This is probably fairly presumptuous of me, but I've just read your article for the BBC, and felt that I had to email you to beg you to reconsider your position, as it's opinions such as this from people holding positions such as yours that are giving legitimacy to the very policies that are dragging the whole of Europe into what is now almost certain to be the longest and harshest period of economic depression covering the most countries in Europe in living memory.

The point you and every other apologist for these 'austerity' policies never seem to explain is how austerity measures that are killing the economies of the countries involved can ever have any hope of even seriously reducing the deficits of those countries, never mind actually getting them to a point where they can actually pay those debts off.

I believe you're a historian of some repute, in which case you should have no problem pointing to the numerous examples from the last 100 years or so of all those countries who've managed to successfully pay back their debts by starting from a point at the bottom of a bad recession and enacting a savage programme of government cuts. I'm aware that Canada in the 90's provides an example you'll probably try to point to, but this would be a false comparison as it was only able to achieve this because it was able to piggy back on the growth from its biggest trading partner, whereas these policies are being applied to most of a continent wide free trade area.

If you can't come up with some suitable examples, then I'd respectfully suggest you ought to reconsider your current position, or at the very least actually explain this in your future articles, and make sure the public know that what you're actually proposing is a massive experiment of policies that have never previously been successful anywhere, and could well lead to further contractions of the economies and increases in overall national debt levels that lasts for a generation or more if you've got it wrong.

If your logic had held sway in the late 40's, Europe and Asia would never have recovered from WW2, the UK would have remained utterly crippled by its WW3 debts, the NHS and welfare state would have never happened. In the UK we'd have spent the last 60 years scratching a living in a completely wrecked country while the government cut absolutely everything in a hopeless attempt to pay off the war debts that in real terms were quadruple our current debt to GDP levels.

Had Europe not adopted these Austerity measures, over the last 2 years, and instead focused on stimulating economic growth, by now the entire continent would have been enjoying a period of sustained growth, tax receipts would be up, welfare spending would be down, deficits would be reducing and GDP would be up so that debt to GDP ratios would be reducing, financial markets would be happy so interest rates wouldn't have climbed so high, and with some good governance the banks could be paying off their debts and so in time could the countries.

Instead of this, by following the policies you're still advocating we've taken a drama and turned it into a full blown economic crisis that you and your fellow travellers have absolutely no answer to at all - ever deeper austerity in the face of a depression is not an answer to the problem, it is the cause of the problem.

To counter the impact of these depression creating policies, what Europe now desperately needs is a marshall plan to rebuild the economies of the parts of Europe that have been ravaged by this austerity induced crisis, to get their youth in to work to grow the economies of these countries to the point where they actually can start to honour their debts.

By the way, I find it frankly distasteful that you attempt to play the generational equality card with policies who's impact has been largely felt by the young, with 50% youth unemployment rates in some of the hardest hit countries. It seems a little intellectually dishonest of you not to mention that inconvenient fact in your article to be honest.

Anyway, I'll conclude this email on that note. I don't expect a reply, because apart from anything else I doubt you'll be able to supply any notable examples of countries who've successfully implemented the policies you advocate to bring them out of a deep recession - certainly not on a continent wide basis, and it'd probably be beneath a Harvard history Professor to admit that. Feel free to prove me wrong though if you're able.

If you have read this far through the email, then I thank you for that at least.

Regards
FS

ps Just to confuse you, I am one of those people who actually runs a business and employs people that you and your ilk like to portray yourselves as representing. FYI you and your views absolutely do not represent me, and most who run small businesses that I know are of the same opinion. What you're proposing is complete economic madness.
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xes said:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/wor...Iraq-photo-to-illustrate-Syrian-massacre.html
"accidentally" used the pictures to show mass deaths in Syria, using a photo from Iraq 2003. They do shit like this all the time. You just got to catch them. I remember also the videos showing something about some of the videos on the beeb coming from Lybia and Egypt were from somewhere else and from anoher time. They like to make us think in certain ways about certain subjects, they use hypnotic script to make sure that you're listening too. (conversational hypnosis aka covert hypnosis) and is why you'll see them wearing purple ties much of the time.

But this could be applied to pretty much all the media which we're blasted with. Watch what you watch.
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I found this very shocking too when I read about it. So quoting for posterity.
 
If NF replied (which he won't, he's too busy getting feted in the US) he'd surely simply say that if his logic had been followed there would have been no WW2, as his logic means (and he has explicitly argued this at length) that GB should have either kept out of WW1 or helped the germans, thus establishing a german-british empire that would still exist today and the US would not have become the dominant financial power off the back of the debts these wars entailed.
 
august 1914 would - but Germany would win with British support - hence november 1918 would not have happened (and possibly feb-october 1917 neither).
 
_angel_ said:
Yeah, China under communism was 'lazy' they needed protestant Christianity to make them successful. Wtf?
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It was up with the top dozen fastest growing economies by capitalist lights all through the "communist" era, absolute bollocks (ETA Ferguson I mean in case that's not clear!) even without special pleading for the sort of infrastructure built in campaigns that doesn't show up on conventional economic stats (but laid the foundations for the township enterprise take-off post-1979). All the halfway decent standard text books say that, not just lefty apologists.
 
butchersapron said:
august 1914 would - but Germany would win with British support - hence november 1918 would not have happened (and possibly feb-october 1917 neither).
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Would it even have required active support? Would the Germans have broken through on the Marne if the BEF hadn't been there?
 
jesus, his ideal world does sound like some sort of romanticised semi fascist wankfest.

wouldn't have thought it would have turned out too good for the hereros, namas and others that the kaiser had murdered in africa etc
 
JimW said:
Isn't the argument that the balance was shifting the US's way from late 19th C and WWI only sped up the process though?
ETA: Not his, thinking more world systems type stuff
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All sorts of people were making all sorts of geo-political predictions in that period - the famous Russia/US as superpowers one of de Tocqueville in 1831 for example. The key thing about WW1 was the debt it forced onto the old powers which then gave US based capital an entry into european investment and markets whilst closing off the German dream of catching up with the colonial powers and the resources and markets these brought. The argument goes that if Germany had won the US would not have had either of these openings and would have been closed out of the world market and reliant on their vast internal market, but one easily matched by british-german empires internal markets.
 
frogwoman said:
someone suggested a new thread on this and i thought i'd start one, post your examples of bbc bullshit here ...
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er - note to whinging poms...

a) get on a plane to the US..
b) turn on TV in hotel - any channel..
c) consider joining al-qaeda or..
d) get straight back on a plane to the UK and thank fuck for the bbc
 
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