Today's assignment (due Wednesday 2/3) is to review and analyze the British Welfare State:
Part One
1) Review the notes in your packet.
2) Click on the BBC link:Among the features, read:
3) Breadline Britain (timeline), Hard Times & Poverty in UK
4) Blunket on Welfare State & State of Welfare (charts) and
5) 1st Time Buyers & Then & Now: A Hospital's Story
When done reading and taking notes, write your own 10 question BreadlineBritain quiz (with questions & answers).
Do Not just copy the quiz that is on the page, although you should take that when you are done. Quiz must be typed.
Part Two
In a one-page social and economic analysis, take a side on what the UK should do about its economic slump. From the The Times (UK): "Over the next five years, public spending is set to fall to an eight-year low as a proportion of national income, while taxes rise to a 24-year high."
Inflation in the eurozone hit 3.2% in January 2009, the highest in the decade.
In your position paper, back one of two famous ecomonic thinkers.
John Maynard Keynes. Regardless of what other economists say, Keynes' brand of interventionist fiscal and monetary policy have trumped times like these since the Great Depression. The influential writings of Keynes, the British liberal who died back in 1946, still hold court in both Democrat and Republican circles in America and have been foundation of the British Welfare State. Central to his economic theory was the importance of deficit spending. The government is to play an important role in "priming the pump" of the national economy. Laissez - faire is out, active intervention is in. This is now economic dogma here in America. Not quite that far out in the UK.
Milton Friedman. Friedman’s view was that inflation, at the time a serious problem in many countries, was caused by governments pumping too much money into the economy.
At the same time Friedman was convinced that private individuals and companies should be given as much freedom as possible to carry out economic activities. Friedman became the most outspoken economist of his time, promoting small governments, low taxes, free markets and privatisation.
He attacked even the dominant theory of the time, developed by the British liberal thinker John Maynard Keynes among others, who espoused capitalism with a softer, more human face.Friedman promoted capitalism in its basic and less human forms, centring on a fundamental belief in the working of markets and privatisation: market fundamentalism.
He attacked even the dominant theory of the time, developed by the British liberal thinker John Maynard Keynes among others, who espoused capitalism with a softer, more human face.Friedman promoted capitalism in its basic and less human forms, centring on a fundamental belief in the working of markets and privatisation: market fundamentalism.
In 1976 Friedman was awarded the Nobel Prize for Economics, which gave him the status to impress not only generals like Pinochet, but others including British prime minister Margaret Thatcher (1979-90) and US president Ronald Reagan (1981-89).
1 comment:
This is a link to MSNBC
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/35216412/ns/world_news-weird_news/
I found it hilarious. Oh, those pesky British!
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