British austerity humor: sounds familiar

[Hannah Bell]

HOW LONG will this government keep their trick going of announcing every few days: "Oh my goodness, the books are even worse than we thought....This morning, I had a call from Blockbusters, and they informed me that Jack Straw neglected to pay the late return fee on Call of Duty... As a result, the Treasury owes $6 million more than was previously believed to be the case, which makes it a necessity that we sell off the Post Office."

Every commentator on almost every program informs us every day that the deficit is so awful we have to make unprecedented cuts...For example, a poll in this week's Sunday Times asked whether you agree or disagree that the government could save money by "eliminating unnecessary non-jobs in the public sector." As if anyone would say, "No--we must keep those unnecessary non-jobs. They're vital to us all..."

BUT THE government is obviously concerned that when the actual cuts are announced, this consensus might crack. So at the moment, they're still being vague about what they're planning, and they carry on telling us that they're going to scrap "waste."

Still, if there was a genuine pile of waste that could save billions if it was scrapped, they could be more specific, couldn't they...? One group that might just escape that category are the richest 1,000 people in Britain, whose wealth, according to the Sunday Times Rich List, has increased by 30 percent in the last year. That amounts to $114 billion, or half the entire annual deficit...

http://socialistworker.org/2010/06/22/any-excuse-to-make-cuts

[XemaSab]

1. I can think of a genuine pile of waste that can be cut from the US budget

Starts with "m" and ends with "ilitary."

[readmoreoften]

2. But we have child-raping warlords to support so that school-burning terrorists

don't take control of a region. Besides, if we don't muddy the waters, the leftists in Pakistan might rise up and challenge both the school-burners and the child-rapers. Then we'd all be screwed because at least the child-rapers take payoffs. The leftists will challenge the military dictatorships we like to keep in our pockets. Plus they'll raise the price of the glass beads we buy in the Global Handicrafts section of Overstock.com.

[Sherman A1]

3. +1, Agreed & Well Said!

hit the nail on the head!

[inna]

4. What's astonishing is that European social democracies with their long traditions

of worker-oriented policies fall victim of this onslaught. It's class warfare in action, as simple as that. The financial crisis simply served as a tool to achieve unprecedented transfer of wealth to the richest few at the expense of the working class. Now this poison has spread across the Atlantic. The question is, how Europeans with their strong traditions of pro-worker policies put up with this crap and allow their welfare state be dismantled.

From http://news.yahoo.com/s/time/20100622/wl_time/08599199868600 :

Now it's Britain's turn. On Tuesday, June 22, the nation joined a growing list of European nations taking drastic measures to pull themselves out of debt when Finance Minister George Osborne announced a sweeping program of cuts - and warned that it's going to hurt. For Britons, austerity 2010-style means an immediate, unprecedented squeeze on public spending and welfare that will hit virtually every family in the country. ... Ministers have been warning for months that the only way to tackle the U.K.'s £156 billion (about $230 billion) deficit, which they lay firmly at the feet of the previous Labour government's alleged profligacy, is by inflicting unavoidable economic pain on every citizen for years to come. ... But opposition parties warn that the measures are so savage, they would not only disproportionately hit the poorest in the country but also risk putting the economy back into recession and even possible depression.

[1Hippiechick]

5. Oh, how the Brits love to criticize the US. So glad to see the Brits criticized here for a change!nt