The UK faces the consequences of Neoliberalism
Press Association reports
Unions have warned of co-ordinated strikes and campaigns of civil disobedience to fight the Government's spending cuts amid revelations that more than 200,000 public sector jobs have already been axed or are at risk of being lost.
Councils, health authorities, police forces, Government departments and other public sector bodies across the country have all taken an axe to jobs in recent months after having their budgets slashed.
One leader warned that co-ordinated industrial action was "inevitable" as the TUC prepared to draw up a campaign of protests against the Government when its annual congress opens in Manchester on Monday.
Delegates will be asked to support joint union industrial action as well as other forms of protest, with a national demonstration being planned for next March which could attract hundreds of thousands of people in the biggest show of public anger in a generation.
Bob Crow, general secretary of the Rail, Maritime and Transport union, said a campaign of civil disobedience is needed to fight spending cuts.
"Maybe we need Batman climbing up 10 Downing street, Spider-Man on Buckingham Palace, as part of peaceful demonstrations of civil disobedienc
The UK is reaping the consequences of neo-liberalism. The UK public sector is to be gutted by the Conservative government in order to reduce the deficit.
In reality, this is a scheme for privatization of the public sector. Privatization often results in lower pay and less benefits for workers. Privatization does not really work effectively on lowering the price of government service. It does not increase the quality of service and it is given to capitalists who only goal is to make a profit.
If you want to see the consequences of privatization, just go look at Blackwater, KBR, and many other contractors out there. Privatization weakens the internal control structure and allows for crony capitalism.
Privatization only works if you have vigorous oversight over the private sector. Therefore, if the UK goes the privatization route, the UK will need to make strict acquisition regulations and have experienced contract management oversight. Otherwise, you will get crony capitalism that will result in higher costs to the taxpayer
David Cameron needs to seriously weigh the costs of privatization route before he commits to a privatization scheme. Privatization is a major factor that led to the race towards the bottom, but the more serious consequence is to potential for crony capitalism. The UK needs to do a cost-benefit analysis before starting down the road towards privatization s.
I read that the poor will be hit 13 times hard as the rich. In my opinion, the rich should take the hit as much as the poor do and that means that you get slapped with a super-high tax rate after making a certain amount of pounds. Excessive wealth that is not used to generate human capital or capital investment needs to be taxed and used to pay down the deficit to a sustainable level.
I think the US can learn a lot from the UK experience because I believe that the US will be pressured to take similar steps in the near future.