The Comprehansive Spending Review announced today is designed to bring public spending back to the same level in real terms that it was in 2006/2007.
I am going to write that again.
The Comprehansive Spending Review announced today is designed to bring public spending back to the same level in real terms that it was in 2006/2007.
It is not radical. It is not nearly radical enough. The state sector is much.much too large in this country. We could have a much smaller public sector which at the same time was much more effective at wealth redistribution. 500,000 public sector job cuts hardly scratches the surface of needed reductions in our ludicrous bureaucracies. The Pivate Finance Initiative, Internal Market mechanisms, feee nd academy schools and their hordes of accountatns and administrators should all go and be replaced bysimple direct provision of necessary services. Local incometax should fun over half of public spending, decided upon and provided close to the point of delivery. Andthe UK should be broken up anyway.
Geithner points the finger at China telling them to float the currency. In a large continental economy like China consumer demand will be the main determinant of growth. When that process hits peak China’s exports will slow considerably as imports of expensive foreign goods flood Chinese markets. China can’t float anyway because it has to many dependants.
dreolin, haiku is an oft-used (and sometimes, as with my spoof-example, abused!) form which has been changed and adapted constantly in recent decades. It no longer ‘has’ to conform to the classical parameters. So long as it contains some sort of ethos which conforms to the spirit, rather than the letter.
I like this one, from a person I met in India:
Fallen petals rise back to the branch
I watch
oh…butterflies
I was pulling your leg, Suhayl. Personally I prefer the 5-7-5 because I enjoy the discipline.
Dreoilin, what, you mean whips and stuff…? (!)
You’re right, though, the rigour of a classical form can stimulate creativity – eg. the sonnet.