Margaret Thatcher dies at age 87 - Page 17

On April 09 2013 16:06 Warlock40 wrote:
More like propaganda can make you think that Hitler won an election. But it'd be ludicrous to claim that Hitler "won" an election by any democratic standard.

On April 09 2013 07:29 Evangelist wrote:
Yeah. I don't think any American has the ability to comment on Thatcher's politics.

On April 09 2013 06:36 nunez wrote:

if there's a conflict you will often have collateral damage, i don't think this is necessarily a crime in itself.

On April 09 2013 17:15 ThaSlayer wrote:
Could anyone direct me to a set of rational, well-explained reasons as to why Thatcher was hated? All the rage on the internet isn't helping at all. Thanks!

The economic legacy of Mrs Thatcher

Nicholas Crafts, 8 April 2013

The death of Lady Thatcher makes it opportune to consider the difference that her governments made to the UK's economic performance. This column is an ‘economic obituary’.

The policies of the Conservative governments led by Margaret Thatcher between 1979 and 1990 remain highly controversial more than 20 years later. In many respects, they represented a sharp break with the earlier postwar period and this was certainly true of supply-side policies relevant to growth performance. Reforms of fiscal policy were made including the restructuring of taxation by increasing VAT while reducing income-tax rates and, notably, by indexing transfer payments to prices rather than wages while aiming to restore a balanced budget. Industrial policy was downsized as subsidies were cut and privatisation of state-owned businesses was embraced while deregulation, including most notably of financial markets with the ‘Big Bang’ in 1986, was promoted. Legal reforms of industrial relations further reduced trade union bargaining power which had initially been undermined by rising unemployment. In general, these changes were accepted rather than reversed by Labour after 1997. ...

Conclusion

In sum, Thatcherism was a partial solution to the problems which had led to earlier underperformance, in particular, those that had arisen from weak competition (Crafts 2012). The reforms encouraged the effective diffusion of new technology rather than greater invention and worked more through reducing inefficiency than promoting investment-led growth. They addressed relative economic decline through improving TFP and reducing the NAIRU. At the same time, the short-term implications were seriously adverse for many workers as unemployment rose and manufacturing rapidly shed two million jobs while income inequality surged, to no small extent as a result of benefit reforms.

Indeed, any judgement on Thatcherism turns heavily on value judgements concerning the relative importance of income distribution and economic growth as policy objectives. The 1980s saw a very rapid increase in the Gini coefficient by about nine percentage points, which has turned out to be largely permanent. Ultimately, the Thatcher experiment was about making a liberal market economy work better. There will be those who think a German-style coordinated market economy is preferable. That was not really an option available to Mrs Thatcher but in any event it was hardly a vision of which she approved.

On April 09 2013 18:00 UdderChaos wrote:

Again, as someone said above, think of what the republicans think of Obama, well the north of Britain and the less central left of Britain, pretty much have that attitude to Thatcher. The fact that twice the Godwin Law has been invoked by those very strongly against thatcher kind of tells you how rational they are.

On April 09 2013 18:38 cozzE wrote:
The people here demanding respect here need to actually do some reading. She was a torturous witch that ruthlessly ignored the working-class in the UK. There was no love lost when she passed, hopefully she's in a terrible place with Stalin, Hitler, Pinochet, Pol Pot and all the other unforgiving despots of the 20th century.

On April 09 2013 18:38 cozzE wrote:
The people here demanding respect here need to actually do some reading. She was a torturous witch that ruthlessly ignored the working-class in the UK. There was no love lost when she passed, hopefully she's in a terrible place with Stalin, Hitler, Pinochet, Pol Pot and all the other unforgiving despots of the 20th century.

On April 09 2013 18:38 cozzE wrote:
The people here demanding respect here need to actually do some reading. She was a torturous witch that ruthlessly ignored the working-class in the UK. There was no love lost when she passed, hopefully she's in a terrible place with Stalin, Hitler, Pinochet, Pol Pot and all the other unforgiving despots of the 20th century.