TRAP: The Real Art of Plagiarism

Why other Facebook pages stealing my images really makes me angry

The "stolen" meme.

I am what they call a "blogger". I'm a writer really, but it seems blogger's the modern Internet parlance. I'm a "blogger" because I have a web log called Another Angry Voice and a related Facebook page. The reason I have a Facebook presence at all, is simply to publicise the writing on my blog (engaging with my followers is a derivative pleasure of this purpose). Profit is not, and never has been the objective for me. There are no adverts on my site at all. I write what I do because I feel it is important to make strong coherent arguments and I "Facebook" to share my writing with as wide an audience as possible (ughhh, "Facebook" as a verb, I can almost hear you wretch!).

One of the most effective techniques I use to increase my Facebook audience is to create catchy images called "Facebook Memes" (in internet parlance), to which I add a link to a blog post on a related subject in the image description. I strive to avoid using personal attacks, abuse, facile generalisations, or any other kind of  lame debating strategy in either the images or the blog posts. The reason I am so determined to maintain a reasonably high standard of debate is that I strongly believe that consensus must be won with facts and critical analysis, not with feeble polemics.

On Friday 19th October I created an image (see above) contrasting Boris Johnson's fiery polemic in March 2011 against "fare-dodgers" on the London Underground and that Friday's revelations about George Osborne's fare-dodging antics. The reason I created this image was to publicise a new blog post highlighting fresh evidence about austerity and fiscal multipliers, in which I attempted to build a coherent, compelling and evidence based case, using quotes from the OBR and the IMF, that George Osborne's fiscal austerity policies are primarily responsible for the double-dip recession.

I was trying to engage people with a non-abusive, calmly stated argument about fare-dodging, in order to draw them into the significantly more important story of how the economic evidence is pointing to the fact that "Osbornomics" is the cause of the double-dip recession, and explain to them that the case is no longer simply my opinion, or the opinion of any other "leftie", but an evidence based assertion.

This is the comment I left in the image description:

Not only is he a fair-dodger, there's compelling new economic evidence that Osborne's austerity agenda is to blame for the double-dip recession:

Please take the time to read the link, it is very, very important stuff:
http://anotherangryvoice.blogspot.co.uk/2012/10/an-entirely-avoidable-osbornomic.html

Within hours I noticed that my image had been stolen by another page called "TRAP - The Real Art of Protest". A page with 120,000 followers, compared to my 2,000. I say "stolen" because they deliberately erased the small unobtrusive Another Angry Voice logo in the corner of the image before re-posting to their wall as their own work. Instead of using the share button to post the image so that my page and the link to my article would get some traffic, they copied it to their computer, deleted out my logo, then re-uploaded it as if it was their own work. What is much worse, is that they replaced my calmly considered words and the hyperlink to my carefully constructed analysis of Osborne's ideologically driven and destructive austerity agenda with this statement:

"Conservative Party MPs, activists and voters - rats would not eat their rotting cadavers."

The "Real Art of Protest" had replaced my carefully considered and fact based "protest" with a tribalistic and offensive statement about rats not caring to eat the cadavers of people with particular political allegiances.

Let me get one thing straight, I was a blogger long before I was a so-called Facebook Meme creator. The whole purpose of the fare-dodging Facebook Meme I'd created was to publicise the article I'd written. Had the article not existed, neither would the image. If someone simply pinches this image without pointing people in the direction of the link, they're actually removing my right to protest from the image, destroying the primary purpose of the image's existence and denying thousands of people the opportunity to see the link that the image was designed to promote.

If this is the normal modus operandi of "TRAP - The Real Art of Protest" page, I reckon it's no surprise at all that it has managed to gather so many thoasands of followers. Using the technique of simply pinching other people's images, removing the logo if necessary, jettisoning the original description, re-posting it as if it were their own work and then mopping up all the credit (Facebook traffic) for that other person's work, they can gather themselves tens of thousands of followers. I also believe that the reason I have fewer Facebook followers than I could have, is that whenever I come across a Facebook Meme I particularly like, I always feel morally obliged to share it properly, so that the bulk of the traffic goes to the originator page, instead of pinching the image and re-uploading it as if it were my own work in order to collect the traffic exclusively for myself.

I was obviously a little upset at what TRAP had done. Here is the message I sent them:

This the second page with 100,000+ followers I've seen blatantly ripping off one of my images, removing the important link that the image was designed to publicise then mopping up all the traffic that would have gone to my image (and my important link) for themselves. 

No wonder you have 120,000 followers and I have just 2,000. 

The whole reason the image existed in the first place was to highlight the link. Without the link, I would never have taken the time to design the image. 

By removing my comment and link and replacing it with your own puerile comment, you have effectively silenced my protest. The Real Art of Protest"? The "Real Art of Silencing Other People's Protest" if you ask me.

ADMINS: Please share the link on your page and edit the image description (of the Boris, Trains, Osborne image) to at least mention the link about the failure of Osbornomics.

I want as many people to see the link as possible, because, as I said in the description, I feel it is "very, very important stuff". I firmly believe that as many people need to see this information as possible. If another page simply pinches the publicity image, without pointing people in the direction of the link, they're actually expunging my right to protest from the image and in doing so, removing the whole purpose of the image's existence. Some bloody thing to do for people masquerading as "The Real Art of Protest".

I'm now triply disappointed: Firstly that the mainstream media almost uniformly ignored the story I've been trying to promote (the Guardian aside, who ran an article covering the subject of Fiscal Multipliers, but not making the precise point I had): Secondly, because the Labour party also completely missed the story and gave David Cameron a ridiculously easy ride at PMQ's, when they should have been using the OBR and IMF data to nail him to the wall over self-defeating austerity: And thirdly, because when I tried to publicise this evidence based analysis myself, someone took it upon themselves to remove the link and use my specifically designed publicity vehicle to spread the message that they believe that "rats would not eat the rotting cadavers" of Tory MPs, activists and voters.

After waiting for a response, I saw that the admins had been active on the site again, but without addressing my concerns so I then wrote another message asking the admins why they had deliberately erased my logo off the image and posted it as their own work, why they occasionally credit other pages when they lift their work, but not mine and why they are refusing to apologise or rectify the situation. They simply erased the messages.

What "The Real Art of Protest" did was to silence my protest, write something offensively partisan in place of my reasoned argument against Conservative party policy, use my work to mop up all the Facebook traffic for themselves, then censor my complains by deleting them instead of answering them.

What saddens me is not that they deliberately pinched my image, but the fact that some people on "the left" would rather just hurl ugly abuse than help to spread carefully considered, fact-based critical analysis. If stealing other people's work and silencing their reasonable, closely-argued, non-abusive, fact-based critique of government policy is "The Real Art of Protest" in order to soak up as much Facebook traffic for themselves as possible, I think I'll stick to whatever "Fake art of Protest" I've been practicing.

If people on "the left" see fit to erase a link to evidence based criticism of government policy and replace it with hateful bile, then I feel desperately pessimistic that the British political debate is going to remain the facile, dishonest, PR driven, tribalistic, voter apethising mudslinging pit that it has become over the last three decades and that there is little I will ever be able to do to change it. On the other hand, I'm still optimistic enough to be writing yet another blog post about politics with the intention of hawking it to the mainstream press as some kind of politics, the media and social networking meta-analysis piece!

An entirely avoidable "Osbornomic" recession

I know I can be a bit long winded in my posts, this is a consequence of my habit of presenting a lot of complicated facts and then conducting extensive critical analysis on them. The subject of this post is of such enormous importance that I've had to strive to explain it in a very simple, but also entirely accurate way in order that as many people as possible understand it. The best way I could think of doing it is by presenting two damning quotes.

Quote One
The Office for Budget Responsibility
2012 Forecast Evaluation Report
October 2012
"The average multiplier over the two years would have needed to be 1.3 – more than double our estimate – to fully explain the weak level of GDP in 2011-12"

What it means 
In order for George Osborne's ideological fiscal austerity experiment to be entirely to blame for the double-dip recession (that the OBR had abjectly failed to predict) the average fiscal multiplier must be 1.3.

Quote Two
The International Monetary Fund
 IMF Global prospects and policies report
October 2012
"[We previously claimed] that fiscal multipliers used in the forecasting process are about 0.5.Our results indicate that multipliers have actually been in the 0.9 to 1.7 range since the Great Recession. This finding is consistent with research suggesting that in today’s environment of substantial economic slack, monetary policy constrained by the zero lower bound, and synchronized fiscal adjustment across numerous economies, multipliers may be well above 1."

What it means
Due to the current economic conditions (quantitative easing, widespread fiscal austerity, financial sector chaos, extensive capital flight and significant wealth retrenchment) the IMF are making an astonishing 80% - 320% revision to their previously stated fiscal multiplier (returns on government investment) values. 1.3 happens to be slap bang in the middle of their newly revised range.

To join the dots
I'll spell it out: These quotes are compelling evidence that Osborne's "austerity" is entirely to blame for the double-dip recession. This is not just an Another Angry Voice opinion, it is a fact established upon economic studies undertaken by the OBR and the IMF.

What makes this evidence such a damning indictment of George Osborne's austerity agenda is that these economic organisations should be two of his very strongest allies.

George Osborne created the OBR, in November 2009, announced them officially in May 2010 and they were formally appointed by the 2011 Budget Responsibility and National Audit Act. While Osborne was slashing 100,000s of public sector jobs, the OBR were the minority of people to have publicly paid jobs created for them. Everyone in the organisation can be thankful to George Osborne for having created their jobs.

Since George Osborne became Chancellor, he has provided £40 billion to the IMF, funds they have used to promote austerity oversees via the structural adjustment conditions on their emergency loans.

The figures from these two organisations clearly demonstrate that it is overwhelmingly likely that fiscal austerity is the principle cause of the double-dip recession. The figures could hardly have been more precise. 

I damn the state of affairs where the mainstream media have utterly failed to grasp the importance of this story, instead focusing the vast bulk of their mid-October coverage, comment and debate on "human interest stories" like the (admittedly very disturbing) Jimmy Saville case, the Gary McKinnon's extradition case, Andrew Mitchell's long overdue resignation, Trenton Oldfield's ridiculous sentence for swimming in the Thames, and George Osborne's fare-dodging exploits.

Although noteworthy all of them, the above listed stories should have been massively overshadowed by this compelling evidence that Osborne's mindless austerity is responsible for the double-dip recession.

I am also aghast that the Labour party have failed to pick up on this story and than not a single mention of Fiscal Multiplers was made at Prime Minister's Questions. In fact, Labour were so pathetic that they even allowed David Cameron to get a dig in about the economic record of the Labour Party before restating the endlessly repeated fallacy that "We have to rebalance our economy because the state sector was too big and the private sector was too small". Ed Miliband and the Labour party completely missed the chance to nail Cameron to the wall with the OBR and IMF evidence; that it has been policy based upon this kind of mindless generalisation about the size of the state that has actually caused the double-dip recession.

I know economics based stories are difficult to sell to the public, it is often difficult to spin a narrative to give the story enough "human interest" appeal. However there is significant human interest at the very centre of this economic story, a human who should be being made to answer significantly more challenging questions than "what is your excuse for fare-dodging". The fact that the mainstream media and the Labour party are overlooking this story of compelling evidence that George Osborne caused the double-dip recession, leaves me feeling that I've been left to do the job of the entire mainstream media and the political opposition all by myself.

Please share this post as widely as possible.

Thomas G Clark (Another Angry Voice) 








To see more detailed analysis of this story and the case that George Osborne should be held accountable, follow this link:
George Osborne's indiscriminate austerity

For more information on what Fiscal Multipliers are, follow this link:
What is... Fiscal multiplication? 

To learn more about the Office for Budget Responsibility, follow this one:
The Office for Budget Recklessness?

To see the case I was making against Osborne before these compelling Fiscal Multiplier figures came out, follow any of these:
The catastrophic failure of "Osbornomics"
Austerity and the double-dip
Osborne's fallacy of bond confidence 

George Osborne's 3rd World tax loophole

There are two main causal factors in the Tory party's slump in popularity in 2012; the fact that George Osborne's "cut now, think later" economic policies have driven the UK back into recession and Osborne's spectacularly ill thought out "Millionaire's budget", described by one Tory backbencher as having been drawn up on the back of a cigarette packet.

Pretty much everyone is tired of hearing Osborne's lame excuses for the economic nosedive he has masterminded: "Labour left us a mess", "The Royal wedding", "the Eurozone crisis", "The Jubilee bank holiday",  "the winter was too cold",  "the spring was too wet", "leaves on the line", "the dog ate my homework"... And pretty much everyone has heard about Osborne's half baked budget policies; "the Granny tax", "the millionaire's tax cut", "the pasty tax", "the philanthropy tax", "the static caravan tax" and all of the subsequent U-turns required because his budget was quite clearly based upon a foundation of ideology, not evidence.

One aspect of Osborne's "millionaire's budget" that has until now, not received a lot of attention is the changes he made to Controlled Foreign Companies (CFC) rules, which will allow British registered companies with foreign operations to begin evading tax in their host countries from January 2013, by shifting their profits into tax havens. This is a regulatory change that should be of grave concern to British taxpayers, since many of these counties are in receipt of British foreign aid. It would be frankly absurd for the British taxpayer to fund these struggling economies to the tune of tens of millions a year, only for British based corporations to use Osborne's tax loophole to extract hundreds of millions a year to be stashed in tax havens. If these changes do go through, Osborne will not only be facilitating theft from poor countries, he will be facilitating theft from the British taxpayer that supports these economies through foreign aid donations.

Given all of his rhetoric about tackling tax-dodgers, forcing through a regulatory change that has clearly been designed with the express purpose of allowing British corporations to dodge their taxes in other countries, is yet another case of glaringly obvious Tory tax hypocrisy.

The charity ActionAid have estimated that Osborne's regulation changes will end up costing Third World countries £4 billion a year in lost tax revenues. The government can't refute the figures since no impact assessment has actually been done to estimate the consequences of this regulation change (as is Osborne's way of doing things). Various international organisations (including the barkingly right-wing IMF) have demanded that the UK government conduct impact assessments before formalising these tax changes, however Osborne and the Tories remain reluctant to embrace the concept of evidence based policy, presumably because they fear that many of their other harebrained and ideologically driven schemes would spectacularly fail any rigorous evidence based analysis.

The public are already increasingly aware that George Osborne is an economic liability, however two more things are absolutely clear from this forgotten aspect of Osborne's budget; Osborne is a tax hypocrite who regularly sounds off about the immorality of tax-dodging, then goes on to introduce legislation that is clearly designed to allow British corporations to steal £ billions in tax revenues from the Third World; and that Osborne is not just reluctant to embrace the concept of evidence based economic policy, he is downright opposed to it, preferring to base his economic strategy for the UK upon a foundation of ideologically driven neoliberal pseudo-economics instead.

 

See Also

Austerity and the Double-Dip

The catastrophic failure of "Osbornomics"

The case for evidence based policy

George Osborne's "philanthropy tax"

The fallacy of diminished importance

The fallacy of diminished importance goes along the lines of "we shouldn't spend our valuable time debating trivial issues like this when the economy is in such a mess".

The first time we heard it trotted out was when Tory MPs like the odious Liam Fox adopted the line that the issue of gay marriage is not important and that the government should concentrate on the economy, rather than the contentious issue of same-sex marriage.

The next time the argument was trotted out was to justify the Tory MPs decision to scupper the democratisation of the House of Lords. Exactly the same kind of reason was presented; that at these "difficult economic times" the government should be concentrating on economic issues rather than political reforms.

After the Liberal-Democrat MP Danny Alexander criticised George Osborne over his failure to back "green policies". The Tory apologists immediately came out with the now familiar line that "No one really cares about green issues, especially at a time like this."

The genius of this fallacious debating strategy is that it is an infinitely transferable criticism that works just as well for just about any issue. here are a few examples of how it can be used:

• No one really cares about equal rights, especially at a time like this.
• No one really cares about political reform, especially at a time like this.
• No one really cares about investment in sustainable technology, especially at a time like this.
• No one really cares about financial sector criminality, especially at a time like this.
• No one really cares about impoverished pensioners, especially at a time like this.
• No one really cares about young people with no job prospects, especially at a time like this.
• No one really cares about supporting the ailing manufacturing industry, especially at a time like this.
• No one really cares about executive pay inflation, especially at a time like this.
• No one really cares about police brutality, especially at a time like this.
• No one really cares about the disabled, especially at a time like this.
• No one really cares about child poverty, especially at a time like this. 
• No one really cares about internet freedom, especially at a time like this. 
• No one really cares about labour rights, especially at a time like this. 
• No one really cares about liberty, especially at a time like this.
• No one really cares about justice, especially at a time like this. 
• No one really cares about democracy, especially at a time like this.

Returning to the original examples, there is actually a strong case for the government to invest their time in issues such as political reform, equal rights and sustainable technology given their dismal track record of driving the UK back into recession with their barmy "cut now, think later" neoliberal pseudo-economics dressed up as "austerity". Perhaps the British economy would actually benefit if the Tories stopped insanely trying to cut their way to growth and concentrated on other issues for a while?

Using the "green" issue as a specific example, the diminished importance fallacy can be even further undermined. The right-wing apologists claim that we must plough on with their economic neoliberalisation agenda at the expense of everything else because "economic issues" are the most important right now. However the development of sustainable technology can be seen as an extremely important if not vital strategic economic issue.

Considering the fact that oil prices are going to continue to rise as oil reserves are used up (check out this informative video), a sensible economic strategy might be to make investments in alternative energy sources now instead of waiting until we are actually running out of oil before we actually start to do anything about the problem. Several nations have already expressed their determination to move towards sustainable technology, including Germany and Japan, even China are beginning to slowly embrace the concept of sustainable growth. Surely the UK should be trying to position itself at the forefront of this movement towards sustainable technology and create some valuable export markets, rather than just carrying on with business as normal. Not only would intelligent investment in pioneering alternative technologies create potentially lucrative export markets to help reduce Britain's absolutely appalling trade deficit, this kind of investment would create numerous high and low skilled jobs, increase aggregate demand and much of the investment would be returned in increased tax revenues.

There are plenty of people out there that want to disparage the "green movement" as a bunch of mung bean weaving hippy lefties so that the whole sustainable development issue can be shoved aside in favour of the continuation of the status quo, however the development of sustainable technology is a long-term economic issue.

Next time you hear a Tory MP or apologist using the fallacy of diminished importance in order to talk down some issue they disagree with, remember that it is a fallacious argument that can be used against virtually anything, even against issues that have strategic importance to the future prosperity of the British economy.                
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More articles from 
 ANOTHER ANGRY VOICE 

Austerity and the double-dip
 
No new ideas, just more Tory cuts

The Austerity Death Cycle

 

 The Tory contempt for the value of labour

The catastrophic failure of Osbornomics

What happens when you let a hugely over-privileged and under-qualified
upper-class twonk seize control of your economy and begin implementing
their defunct brand of pseudo-economic dogma,with absolutely no concern
 for (and many would say extreme malice towards) anyone that does not
share their extremely wealthy and privileged background?

On the 25th of July 2012 the Office for National Statistics announced that the UK economy shrank 0.7% during the second quarter of 2012, meaning that the UK is in the worst double-dip recession since quarterly figures were first produced back in the 1950s. The ONS padded out the dismal economic figures with a package of pre-made excuses such as bad weather, supposed structural weaknesses in the manufacturing and construction sector and the extra bank holiday for the Queen's Jubilee celebrations.

It is difficult to figure out what the ONS are playing at by offering a list of pre-packaged excuses in lieu of actual economic analysis, other than trying to curry favour with the Tory party top brass by refusing to mention the elephant in the room; George Osborne's ideologically driven adherence to socially damaging, self-defeating, neoliberal pseudo-economics dressed up as "austerity".

By refusing to even hint at Osborne's culpability for the third consecutive quarter of dismal economic performance the ONS are now in the minority. Liberal Democrat peer Lord Oakshott responded to the 0.7% economic contraction by called Osborne a "work experience chancellor" who has "no business experience [and] has never worked outside politics".  Only a few days previously the Tory mayor of London Boris Johnson criticised Osborne's cut-now, think-later economic policies and a number of high profile (and normally very Conservative) business organisations have also publicly criticised Osborne's mindless obsession with cost-cutting. The head of the CBI, John Cridland criticised Osborne's ineffective growth strategy, Pierre Williams of the Federation of Small Businesses claimed that Tory strategies to improve funding for growth industries simply hadn't worked and the head of the BCC, John Longworth went even further accusing Osborne of "stifling growth". Even the IMF have shown signs of losing faith in Osborne's ideologically driven austerity experiment and they are the most powerful pushers of neoliberal pseudo-economics on Earth and the beneficiaries of £40 billion worth of Tory largess. If Osborne's strategies are considered too extreme for hardline Tories like Boris Johnson, assorted Tory supporting British business leaders and even the most powerful ultra-conservative neoliberal pushers on Earth at the IMF, it is quite remarkable that the ONS have refused to even consider the possibility that Osborne's obsession with implementing defunct neoliberal pseudo-economic reforms may have something to do with the desperate state of the economy.

Brendan Barber, the general secretary of the TUC, pointed out that the UK economy is now actually smaller than it was when the Tory led coalition came to power in 2010. An astonishingly bad economic performance given the all time low 0.5% Bank of England base rate, £375bn of quantitative easing cash handouts to the financial sector and the lowest cost of government borrowing in recorded history. Osborne's ideological experiment has been nothing short of an economic catastrophe and a crystal clear vindication of the many people who that tried to tell Osborne and the Tories that trying to cut your way out of a recession is economic lunacy.

The fact that the economy has actually contracted over Gideon's time at the helm is absolutely terrible news for him because a shrunken economy means a smaller tax take.  A smaller tax take means that savings made through his ideologically driven cost-cutting measures will be wiped out by losses in tax revenues, meaning that the structural deficit will remain. This latest 0.7% contraction shows up Gideon's economic projections as the insanely over-optimistic fantasies they always were. Without a growing economy, severe cuts in spending wont work, and with severe spending cuts the economy wont grow.

Still Osborne has never been one to accept criticism, his statements on the shocking scale of economic contraction consisted of little more than veiled attacks on the previous Labour administration and excuses about problems in the Eurozone. Both of these excuses are transparently lame. Osborne's statement that "We all know the country has deep-rooted economic problems" is clearly a thinly veiled attack on the previous administration. Neo-Labour were culpable of allowing the financial sector to inflate a vast bubble of "easy credit" that eventually resulted in the most significant economic crisis since the Second World War, however in the subsequent two years they took measures to get the economy growing again. Osborne inherited a weak but recovering economy from Labour and drove it rapidly back into recession.

Osborne's "debt crisis abroad" excuse is even more pathetic, yes there are problems in the Eurozone, but these are largely problems created by austerity. Thanks to the strong economic performance of Germany and the relatively stable economic performance of France, the chaos in Spain and Greece has largely been balanced out if the Eurozone is taken as a whole. All four of Britain's major export markets (the US, Germany, France & the Netherlands) are weathering the economic storm much better than the UK and it would be fair to expect the UK to benefit from the fact that there is still demand in the economies of their four key trading partners, however under the Tories the trade deficit has been ballooning back towards pre-crisis levels, meaning that the economic benefits of UK exports are more than cancelled out by the UK reliance on imports.

The fact that Osborne has concentrated his energies on his facile neoliberal cost-cutting exercises, digging for dirt in order to smear his political opponents and giving huge tax breaks to his rich mates instead of supporting the manufacturing and construction sectors has had the triple consequence of reducing aggregate demand, increasing the trade deficit and stifling economic growth.

Given the abject failure of Osbornomics, one is reminded of David Cameron's comments in regard to the Barclays Libor rigging scandal: "People have to take responsibility for the actions and show how they're going to be accountable for these actions....It's very important that goes all the way to the top of the organisation." I'm pretty sure that this sentiment will be completely forgotten about when it comes to Osborne's catastrophic mishandling of the UK economy.

See Also

Tory tax scandals and some new tax proposals

Austerity and the Double-Dip

More riches for the rich, recession for the rest

The Tory contempt for ordinary working people

 

Tory U-turns are welcome, but we're still waiting for the big one



David Cameron's idol was a lady that was famously
"not for turning", Dave doesn't seem to have the same
  determination to see his parties barmy policies through.

 Here is a quite extraordinary quote from the UK Prime Minister David Cameron:

"When you've got something wrong, there are two things you can do in government: you can plough on regardless, or you can say, 'No, we're going to listen, we're going to change it, we're going to get it right'."

Taken out of context one could almost see it as an admission that their "cut now, think later" indiscriminate austerity policies have driven the UK economy back into recession and that instead of ploughing on with their disastrous policy of imposing ideologically driven neoliberal pseudo-economics on the UK economy under the guise of austerity, they are going to change course and accept the need for state investment in order to stimulate economic demand. This would be a hugely embarrassing u-turn but hardly difficult given that UK government borrowing is so cheap that the real interest rate on government borrowing is negative, because the rates of interest are below the rate of inflation, creating negative real interest rates.

David Cameron and George Osborne came to power with a tidal wave of support for their hard line austerity agenda from Britain's so-called business leaders, who wrote a congratulatory letter of support for "Osbornomics" to the Telegraph. The fact that the rapid indiscriminate slashing of state spending and a severe reduction in the disposable income of the masses would create a large decline in aggregate demand, and a fall in corporate profits seemed to pass Osborne's applauding band of corporatist cheerleaders by altogether.

After two years of this barmy ideologically driven gibberish in place of sound economic policy, the UK economy is in recession and the British Chamber of Commerce (who describe themselves as "the national voice of local business) are calling on Osborne to abandon across the board austerity and use the UK's negative interest credit facilities to promote economic growth through strategic investment in fiscal multipliers.

"[The UK has] considerable credibility in the financial markets, and [Osborne] is now in the position to increase spending on growth-enhancing policies without endangering Britain’s AAA rating. This is necessary, because persistent stagnation threatens to damage the economy’s long-term productive potential." - David Kern, Chief Economist at the British Chambers of Commerce

The fact that the Tories key supporters are publicly calling for a reversal of Osborne's indiscriminate campaign of cuts speaks volumes and suggests that the Cameron quote in the introduction may have been a recognition that "Osbornomics" is responsible for this economically damaging  "persistent stagnation" that the BCC are complaining about, yet what Cameron was actually talking about are a sequence of budget blunders from Osborne, including the granny tax, the pasty tax, the philanthropy tax and the static caravan tax.

Osborne's millionaire's budget has turned into an absolute farce, much like
 his wider economic strategy of "cut now, think later" indiscriminate austerity.

 Despite being warned by his adviser that the Granny Tax would be spectacularly unpopular, Osborne included them in his Millionaires budget and he didn't even bother to consult charitable organisations or the culture secretary before announcing his "philanthropy tax". Osborne's farcical budget proposals have come under a sustained barrage of criticism, including the extraordinary criticism from the Conservative back bench MP David Ruffley, who claimed that Osborne's tax calculations had been drawn up "on the back of an envelope". Another Conservative MP writing on condition of anonymity in the Daily Mail accused Osborne of being a part-time chancellor with little grasp of the detail. In the face of this barrage of criticism Osborne had to drop the pasty tax, cut his proposed VAT hike on static caravans from 20% to 5% and abandon his philanthropy tax proposals altogether, all within a week.

The fact that the man feted as the key Conservative political strategist over the last five years has been found out as a guy that announces legislation without adequate consultation or any kind of evidence based analysis of the potential consequences, then ignores the advice of his key advisers is quite remarkable. If Osborne's recent budget farce is indicative of his general methodology, what on Earth is there to reassure the public that the central Tory policy of indiscriminate austerity isn't similarly conceived, "back of an envelope" ideologically driven rubbish?

If even Tory MPs are lining up to criticise the man, perhaps the Tories could abandon their economically destructive indiscriminate austerity strategy, pinning the blame on Gideon as he is booted out? Then set about attempting to salvage what remains of the economy with some coherent evidence based growth strategies. Pretty unlikely I know, but Cameron has shown time and again that he is a man for turning.

See also
 

Austerity and the double-dip
 

The austerity death cycle
 

Osborne's philanthropy tax
 

No new ideas, just more Tory cuts

Public Sector Net Investment explained

Government investment (or to give the full technical term Public Sector Net Investment) is the amount of money invested by the government on new infrastructure projects, things like hospitals, schools, army bases, police stations, motorway improvements and railway bridges. Anyone that has ever experienced publicly funded education at a state school or a public university, received treatment at an NHS facility or driven on a motorway has experienced the economic benefit of Public Sector Net Investment.

Increasing the amount of Public Sector Net Investment during economic downturn periods is a tried and tested method for boosting economies out of recession. Franklin D. Roosevelt boosted the US economy out of the post Wall Street Crash "Great Depression" by regulating the speculative activities of the financial sector and investing heavily in public infrastructure projects. After the Second World War, the UK economy was in ruins, with a national debt in excess of 237% of GDP, the establishment political parties agreed upon the post-war consensus and set about building hospitals, schools and social housing at an unprecedented scale and after three decades of the mixed economy of regulated capitalism and large scale state spending, the UK national debt had been reduced to just 43% of GDP. After Carlos Menem's government completely broke the Argentine economy with their diligent adherence to IMF pseudo-economic dogma and ceding their fiscal autonomy by linking their currency to the US Dollar, the Kirchner government restored economic growth of 9% of GDP per year, by closing tax loopholes and using the increased tax revenue to invest heavily in public infrastructure projects such as building houses, schools and hospitals, and improving infrastructure in areas that had been without basic utilities such as running water and electricity.

The reason that targeted public sector investment works as a short-term economic stimulus is that a lot of the government investment is economically recycled in the form of wages, tax contributions and private sector profits on the supply of materials and services. Public sector investment can also work as a long-term economic stimulus if the spending is done intelligently. The aim of public sector investment should be to establish strong fiscal multipliers. A strong fiscal multiplier is an expenditure that ends up creating more economic activity than the cost of the initial investment.

To give a very simplified fictional example; a government funds the development of a new power station in an area with unreliable power supplies. 40% of the construction cost goes towards the after tax salaries of the workforce (which adds to the amount of aggregate demand in the wider economy by boosting the disposable income of the workers)  30% of the construction cost goes towards tax payments (which can be recycled into the construction of other economic multipliers) and 20% goes towards the corporate profits of the construction and supply companies (which provides more wealth for shareholders and more capital for private sector expansion).

Once the power station is operational it acts as an incentive for several companies to locate themselves within the local economy to take advantage of the cheap and reliable electricity, generating more jobs and more disposable income, increased tax revenues for further public sector investment and more profits to stimulate further capitalist expansion. After the power station is decommissioned it can be estimated that the construction of the power station more than paid for itself, through increased economic activity, higher tax receipts and increased private sector investment in the area.

The Tory led coalition have decided to ignore the lessons
 of history and attempt to cure a recession by
slashing public sector investment.

Other fiscal multipliers include the funding of schools and universities (because educated workers are productive workers), the construction of hospitals and other health care investments (because healthy workers are productive workers), and the building of public infrastructure like road and rail links (since sitting in traffic jams or waiting for delayed trains is economically inefficient use of what could be economically productive time). Another surprising kind of fiscal multiplier can be direct welfare payments (such as pensions and unemployment benefits) which are generally spent locally, stimulating economic activity. An American study showed that the biggest one year (short term) fiscal multiplier of any US government policy in 2008 was actually achieved through the temporary increase in the provision of food stamps to destitute American families, with a fiscal multiplication effect of 1.73.

Public Sector Net Investment generally has a very high fiscal multiplier effect, especially investment in the construction sector. All of this seems to have passed the Tory led Coalition government by. Since they came to power in 2010 they have cut public sector net investment from 3.5% of GDP to 1.5% of GDP under the ideologically driven assumption that all government spending is inefficient if not completely evil. Effectively what they are doing is throwing the baby out with the bathwater. In in a drive to cut state spending at all costs, they are also cutting investment in areas where government spending is actually very efficient. At a time when the cost of UK government borrowing is extremely low, meaning very low interest repayments on money borrowed to invest in fiscal multipliers, the Coalition government have decided to ignore the lessons of history and drastically slash the amount of public sector investment in economically beneficial infrastructure projects in what is looking more and more like a barmy ideologically driven agenda than a coherent government strategy.

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More articles from
 ANOTHER ANGRY VOICE 

Mixed Economy vs Neoliberalism

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The Great Neoliberal Lie
 

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3D economics: Disposable income, Demand and Debt
   

The austerity death cycle

The Eurozone experiment in austerity is failing, as many people predicted that it would. The conventional tried and tested approach at times of economic downturn has been for the state to invest in productive activities, stuff like large infrastructure projects, housebuilding and public education. This type of investment creates jobs and improves the long term economic prospects with more efficient infrastructure, better quality and more affordable housing and a more highly educated workforce. Another common component in successful economic recovery strategies has been to put more disposable income into people's pockets, by providing welfare payments (pensions, child benefits, unemployment benefits) and reducing the cost of services like public transport of health care. Creating employment and reducing the cost of living increases the amount of disposable income in the system, which in turn increases economic demand.

The neoliberal austerity experiment is to try the opposite, to dramatically reduce government expenditure on stuff like infrastructure, housebuilding and education and to slash welfare payments by undermining existing pension agreements, eliminating many benefits and making the others much more difficult to obtain. Adherence to hard line austerity measures have intensified the Greek economic meltdown, created a vast unemployment problem in Spain and driven the UK back into recession.

The problem with "austerity" is that it is exactly the same kind of discredited neoliberal dogma that created the global financial meltdown in the first place. When the establishment response to the financial sector meltdown was to prop up the debt riddled institutions with direct government funding and Central Bank ultra-low interest "giveaway" loans, it was clear that maintaining the status quo was going to be the priority. They just needed a change of narrative in order to explain away the crisis. Thus the Great Neoliberal Lie was born. Excessive state spending, not reckless financial sector gambling had caused the crisis and the "only solution" would have to be "austerity".

The reason austerity is not working is that the austerity policies are not even meant to be a solution to the crisis, they are simply a justification for the continuation of the "orthodox neoliberal" agenda. The political and financial establishment are simply continuing to do what they want to do; to lower taxes on themselves and their supporters, reduce regulations limiting themselves and their supporters, funnel ever increasing amounts of state expenditure to themselves and their supporters whilst cutting welfare entitlements and labour conditions to those who are not their supporters. Their real reason is selfishness, their actual policy is just self interest dressed up in pseudo-scientific terms in order to fool people into thinking that it is complicated, when it isn't.

Realisation that "austerity" is actually destabilising the economy and damaging the long term economic outlook wont change anything, because fixing the economy was never the actual reason for doing it in the first place. The only way that the excesses of the free-marketeers can be reduced, is when the people have had enough. It took the US nearly half a decade to begin rectifying the Wall Street Crash with the New Deal, it took the Second World War to shake Western Europe into developing the stable and highly productive social democratic mixed economy model and it took the Argentine people around four years to replace the "orthodox neoliberal" establishment with true patriots, people that put national prosperity ahead of adherence to the self-interested, self serving ideology of globalised neoliberalism.

It seems that after four years of punishing ideologically driven austerity the Greeks are on the verge of ousting the neoliberal austerity pushers. I wonder if the British people still have the backbone and solidarity to rid themselves of their sickeningly self serving, corruption riddled, austerity loving establishment?

See also

The Great Neoliberal Lie

Mixed Economy vs Neoliberalism

Eurozone Austerity, neoliberalism rebranded

Austerity and the double-dip

Angela Merkel, dead woman walking

As one of the most visible champions of the Pan-European ,
"austerity" project, Angela Merkel is in the dangerous position 
of being democratically accountable to the German electorate.

As one of the most visible champions of the catastrophic Pan-European "austerity" project, German President Angela Merkel is a dead woman walking. Her main problem being that she is answerable to the German electorate. Unlike most of the other "austerity lovers" that have been wreaking their ideologically driven chaos across the continent, she is the dangerous position of being democratically accountable.

Merkel's main (democratically accountable) ally in "austerity economics" Nicolas Sarkozy became the first sitting French President to get booted out by the French electorate since Valéry Giscard d'Estaing in 1981. At the front line of "austerity economics" in Greece the pro-austerity parties suffered heavy losses in the legislative elections. Then one week later Merkel's own CDU party took a kicking at the North Rhine-Westphalia regional elections, leaving them with an all time low of 26.3% of the vote, an indicator that the German electorate are rapidly tiring of Merkel taking a highly visible role in imposing "German austerity" onto much of the rest of Europe.

Merkel may be the next figurehead of the "austerity lovers" to be turfed out by their electorate, however many other culprits in this European economic meltdown are completely insulated from the "dangers of democracy" by being completely unelected. Some of the most notable of these unelected "austerians" include Mario Draghi of the European Central Bank (who recently handed out over €1trillion in ultra low interest loans to save the neoliberalised European financial sector from the consequences of their own reckless and incompetent gambling), the entire European Commission including "our" Euro President Mr Van Rumpuoy and the IMF blackmail fund technocrats.

Nigel Farage may be a bombastic right-wing tool, but he is absolutely right when he complains that almost all of the architects of this European economic meltdown are unaccountable, unelected enemies of democracy.

See also

Eurozone Austerity; neoliberalism rebranded

Argentine recovery economics

The Greek rejection of austerity 

The Tory contempt for the value of labour

The Tory establishment elite would gleefully abolish the
May Day bank holiday because it was created in
order to coincide with International Workers' Day

The May Day bank holiday which is celebrated in more than 80 countries across the World is a time for people to celebrate the great achievements of international workers movement. It is a day to recognise the sacrifices made by workers of the past in order to fight for the fair wages and decent working conditions we benefit from today.  In 2011 the Tory led coalition government in the UK proposed the outright abolition of the May Day bank holiday in order to replace it with a so called "United Kingdom" bank holiday in October. The idea that a day to celebrate the hard work and sacrifices of ordinary working people should be abolished is a distinctly Tory idea, in that it expresses the absolute contempt the English establishment elite have for the value of labour.

In England the May Day bank holiday is not just a day of celebration for British workers, it is also an opportunity for the English to show off their cultural eccentricities in the form of Morris Dancing, 'obby 'oss parades, maypole dancing and cheese rolling. That the Tory establishment would do away with all of this wonderful and absurd eccentricity in order to attack the workers reminds us just how spiteful their attitude is towards ordinary working people.

The Tory establishment would gleefully do away with all of this
wonderful and absurd eccentricity in order to attack the workers.

The Tory plans to abolish Labour Day are far from the only example of Tory malice towards ordinary working people, throughout the decades the Tory establishment elite have battled against workers rights. The Tories have always hated the trade union movement and instead of adopting a sensible co-operative approach between employers and unions (as can be seen in Germany and across Scandinavia) the Tory establishment elite spent decades trying to cripple the trade unions, a battle they eventually won in the 1980s. In the 1990s they opposed the introduction of a National Minimum Wage and in the 2000s they supported the Labour party in their policy of pouring hundreds of billions of pounds into the debt riddled financial sector, instead of using this vast cash pile to offer direct support to industry, research and development, infrastructure projects, services, education and manufacturing, preferring to see hundreds of billions in taxpayers' cash used to prop up a dysfunctional financial sector than have it used to protect jobs and industry.

When the Tories returned to power at the head of the coalition government in 2010 they set about their usual tactics of attacking the pay and welfare entitlements of ordinary working people whilst simultaneously giving large tax breaks to corporations and the super-rich. Under the guise of "austerity" the Tory led coalition set about the destruction of hundreds of thousands of state sector jobs, attacks on pensions, huge health service and benefits cuts, the deliberate suppression of state sector wages and derisory increases in the National Minimum Wage (especially for young workers). Whilst the majority of ordinary working people have been made to pay for the reckless gambling of the financial sector through prolonged below inflation pay rises, large pension losses and reductions in welfare standards, the Tories have enabled the super-rich economic elite to become richer. In 2011 the bosses of the FTSE 100 group of corporations awarded themselves an eye watering average salary increase of 49%, the richest 1,000 people in the UK increased their combined wealth by 4.7% to £414 billion and in 2012 George Osborne announced an income tax cut for the very highest earners in the UK, meaning that someone with a salary of £5 million would receive a tax cut of over £240,000 whilst someone working 60 hours a week, 52 weeks a year at national minimum wage would have to get by on around 7% of that tax giveaway.

That the Tories have made the majority of ordinary people pay the cost of "austerity" whilst allowing the richest to continue getting richer comes as no surprise at all, given their unofficial party motto of "steal from the poor to give to the rich". What is surprising is their sheer contempt for the value of peoples labour. This utter contempt can be seen in two key policy areas, their plans to introduce "regional pay" in the state sector and their trenchant defence of the Department for Work and Pensions absurdly unfair workfare schemes.

On the face of it the Tory "regional pay" plan to award higher salaries to those working in richer (Tory) areas and lower salaries to those working in poorer (Labour) areas looks like a case of vindictive political tribalism. A policy aimed at ensuring Labour voting areas are punished by incentivising the most talented state sector workers to leave poorer areas to work in richer, Tory voting areas. That the Tory establishment would use the pay of state sector workers as a political tool to punish areas that vote for their political opponents is bad enough, but their support for the DWP's grotesquely unfair (and economically illiterate) mandatory unpaid labour Workfare schemes really shows their contempt for the value of labour.

Tory employment minister Chris Grayling has repeatedly
shown his contempt for the value of labour with his
trenchant defence of mandatory unpaid Workfare schemes.

Much has been written about the unfairness of forcing unemployed people to work 30 hours a week in order to receive their pitifully low unemployment benefits. The idea that anyone should be compelled to work for giant profit making corporations (Tesco, Sainsbury's, TK Maxx, Burger King, Maplin, HMV, Boots, Poundland, BHS) for no pay at all, already demonstrates the Tories absolute contempt for the labour of unemployed people, but a closer examination of the economic implications reveals that it is not just the labour value of the unemployed that they casually dismiss, it is yours too. Nearly all of these mandatory unpaid labour Workfare schemes involve nothing more than several weeks or months of menial tasks like shelf stacking or warehouse work. For every person that is compelled to work unpaid for these corporations, there is another person denied a job, another person claiming benefits, another person not making tax contributions. If the work needs doing, the corporation should pay someone at least the minimum wage to do it. That the Tories have repeatedly and vehemently defended these schemes demonstrates both their economic illiteracy and their absolute contempt for the value of labour.
 
The Tories are the party of the establishment, they have always worked to protect the interests of the rich establishment elite, the landlords and the capitalists, which by definition means working against the interests of the working poor, the tenants and the trade unionists. The Tories have always valued inherited wealth above earned wealth, and valued wealth accumulated through capitalist exploitation above wealth made through hard labour. So as you are enjoying your May Day bank holiday, try to remember that the day is a celebration of the fact that the workers united to demand fair wages, decent working conditions and the occasional bank holiday, and that the Tories consider these great achievements to be defeats for the establishment class and would gleefully abolish May Day out of sheer spite.