horsemouth watched this (most enjoyable).
then he watched laura K as she watched the tory party crash and burn (themselves and the economy).
now horsemouth is not primarily concerned with the state of the economy. he is only really interested in the share of it that goes to the workers and the working class in general. also he is not fussed about how it gets there - through actual wages or through government ameliorative programmes. he thinks as actual wages is better because it indicates that the working class are in a strong enough position to demand better wages (but on the other hand through ameliorative government funded programmes indicates that they are strong enough politically that they must be bought off en masse).
the omnishambles permacrisis of the last 15 years (since the financial crash of 2008 and the subsequent austerity) has enabled the rich to massively loot value from the working class and drastically lower wages in real terms. at the same time. this is a continuation of a rolling-back of post war gains that began under thatcher (if not under wilson).
under the influence of free market ideology, the political elites have contracted their own tax base to the point where they cannot afford the ameliorative measures necessary to keep a lid on society and are funding it through loans. the argument is made by the capitalists that these loans are unsustainable and that tax take must be increased and austerity applied (again). the argument is also made by sectors of capitalism that the political class is too captured by free-market ideology to successfully defend its own interests.
ground floor coming up.
the political instability of the last 15 years is a dark reflection of the economic harm done. brexit is a folk remedy for a global crisis in capitalism - as such it can only provide more opportunities for capitalist looting.
horsemouth sees few (if any) economic benefits from doing it and only economic harms - he doesn't even see any political gains from the working class from doing it because it divides the working class between british citizens (with full political rights), EU citizens with settled status (without full political rights), and people trapped in the immigration system (without full political and economic rights) rather than uniting them in their economic interest as workers.
(god he is a tediously predictable pseudo-marxist).
the strategy proposed by the political class is a retour a normal to boring political competence and that the past 7 years or 15 years or whatever have just been a fever dream. this is a fantasy - normal, safe and boring has gone, and even if it weren't gone it will not resolve the deeper contradictions at work in society.
it is little remarked upon that in removing liz truss the financial markets overstepped their alleged bounds and pronounced on a matter of politics (this is because nobody liked liz truss excepting the braindead tory membership).
but beyond austerity, brexit and covid is the climate crisis - promising disruption on a world historic scale.
horsemouth has already argued that net zero is poor target, a wrong way to frame it. net zero is just the start (we are not actively making global warming worse). the current bien pensant opinion is that, with the correct application of technology we can simply move to a net zero world with minimal disruption and no lowering of living standards and wages - this is as much of fantasy as the tin foil hat brigades vision of utter eco-stalinist oppression.
actually the tin foil hat brigades vision of utter eco-stalinist oppression might be an accurate appreciation of what it will take to get there.
the most likely thing to happen is for net zero to fail. for the ruling classes will to deliver it to mysteriously dry up as the difficulties and costs with delivering it become more obvious. of course there are costs and difficulties with not delivering it (run away global warming, climate refugees in their billions etc.) but they can be blamed on someone else.
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outside it is a bit grey. horsemouth will finish putting the wood in the shed (his major task for yesterday). he mostly read the daily torygraph's money section and some landlords kvetching about having to do up their properties to EPC C level (and then not having to do their properties up to EPC C level as the government u-turned).
soon breakfast.
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