October | 2015 | Fighting for Fairness by Remaking the Real Economy

What does it mean that the NHS is in deficit to the tune of £930m? It’s not a business trying to make a profit for its shareholders – the deficit doesn’t refer to losses. The forecast is that the deficit will be as much as £2.8bn by the end of the financial year next April. But that’s the difference between the actual costs of delivering NHS services, still mostly free at the point of delivery, and the budgeted costs agreed by the Health Secretary for the financial year. It looks like the Health Secretary got the figures badly wrong.

The budget figures are set and NHS Trusts have to work out how such targets can be met. Clearly a major component of costs relate to staff: doctors, nurses and other staff. The only way the budgeted figures could be achieved is to reduce numbers employed. So those cuts are made as a result of the annual budget process. The shadow health secretary quoted a figure of 6,000 nursing posts, for example, as being cut during the last parliament.
Continue reading Saving the NHS →

The Friedmanite Neoclassical Economic Belief System (FNEBS) now dominates the developed and developing world. It is taught across the globe in business schools and universities. It is the orthodox wisdom among the Self-Perpetuating Industrial, Financial, Media, Academic and Political Establishment (SPIFMAPE).

The SPIFMAPE is the shadowy presence in our economy which has the real power and resources to ensure its continued dominance. It includes those Industrialists corrupted by the pursuit of wealth, Financiers who pay the £billions of fraud fines as the necessary entry fee, the Media controllers who shape the news to their advantage, Academics who accept ‘research’ income for conformist enquiry and teaching, and those Politicians nurtured within the SPIFMAPE, warmly accepting the FNEBS, otherwise referred to as in the ‘Westminster bubble’.

Those who know the FNEBS appear to really believe in it; and those who don’t know it, accept it as a truth. However, J K Galbraith identified such matters as ‘institutional truths’: that is not a truth at all, but a downright lie that people must buy into if their careers are to progress within their chosen institution.

Continue reading TTIP – Plutocratic Victory →