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.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/in_depth/business/2005/breadline_britain/default.stm
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."
The eurozone inflation rate fell to 2.7% in December, down from 3% in November, according to revised figures from the EU statistics agency. It had reached 3.2% in January 2009, the highest in the decade.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-16594509
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.
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).
Poor F.A. Hayek, the conservative economist doesn't get the nod on the blog. But he goes toe-to-toe with Keynes in this popular econ rap. Hayek also had the eye of the "Iron Lady." He received new attention in the 1980s and 1990s with the rise of conservative governments in the United States, United Kingdom, and Canada. After winning the United Kingdom general election, 1979, Margaret Thatcher appointed Keith Joseph, the director of the Hayekian Centre for Policy Studies, as her secretary of state for industry in an effort to redirect parliament's economic strategies.
1 comment:
I haven't done part two yet, but even after reading through all of the BBC welfare information, the part I found most fascinating was the comparison of various welfare programs or benefits between the US, UK and other European countries. In the United States, such high health care coverage or unemployment benefits as seen in Sweden or France would be unheard of-- that fundamental individualist and independent mentality is so ingrained in our society that I (and I have agreed with much of the "obamacare" and reform over the last few years) can't even conceive of such coverage for hospital visits or medication I our lives and culture.
On another note, I wasn't really surprised by many of the other states that were included as having generous welfare systems, particularly Sweden. I think it was from ApHuman last year that we learned about all of the expansive population policies that they provide for their citizens, so it makes sense that they would provide health and economic services/benefits for people in other ways, too. With such large elderly populations (I mean it'd have to be huge to provide mothers with 18 months paid maternity leave) it's no wonder that 60% of the economy is from state spending.
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