Uncanny Parallels Between the U.S. and the U.K.
The U.S. and U.K., after the American Revolution have managed to be two of the greatest and longest allies on the international stage. Not only are the two countries allies, but they also seem to follow hand-in-hand when it comes to politics and economics. The U.K. however, is probably 10 years ahead of the U.S. if the U.S. continues to swing to the left and implements more socialist policies…
There are striking similarities in the operations of British parliamentary elections and the American electoral college. Both systems effectively determine their nation’s executive leadership: the American system by means of an electoral college which translated popular votes cast for President into winner-take-all state blocs of electors which actually elect him, and the British system by means of single-member constituencies for the election of individual MPs which, in the aggregate, likewise determine the British chief executive. Following a British general election, the MPs serve as functional equivalents of presidential electors in determining who is to be the Prime Minister: electors by voting for their party’s nominee for President and MPs by their support for the leader of their party in forming his (or her) government.
The structures of both electoral systems – the “winner-take-all” blocs of state electoral votes in America and the “first-past-the-post” or “plurality-winner-takes-the-seat” in Britain – almost always ensure that the presidential candidate or party running first in electoral support will enjoy a considerable bonus in electoral support will enjoy a considerable bonus in electoral votes or Commons seats. In the British election of 1987, for example, Margaret Thatcher and the Conservative Party won 42.4% of the national vote and with it received 57.5% of the seats in the House of Commons.
It should come as no surprise that the two political systems are similar, mainly due to the fact that the United States was formed from immigrants of The United Kingdom and their knowledge of government stemmed from British politics. However, the advantage was carrying with them the aspects of that government that they saw faulty.
Throughout history Britain and the U.S. have gone hand-in-hand and have seemed to have followed parallel paths.
In World War I the UK and the US both took desperate measures to maintain wartime production levels. During the great depression the U.S. was hit the hardest, but Europe and the U.K. also suffered various repercussions due to the depressed economy of America, just not as bad as today because the global economy was not as intertwined back then.
The Reagan revolution in the early 80′s took place after another economic downturn when liberals were put in charge of the United States’ government. The same event took place in the United Kingdom when Margaret Thatcher of the Conservative Party was ushered into office. She took over after the Labour party was through demolishing their markets. Both Margaret Thatcher and Reagan were against socialism and forms of government that reflected policies that provided for more government control and less freedoms for individual citizens. Both leaders were able to implement conservative principles and legislation that put their economies back on track and permitted years of prosperity, GPD growth, etc. When people were reaping these benefits they forgot where they came from and became complacent and spoiled. They were spoiled to the point of electing those same individuals/party members that believed Government could resolve all the problems of society or at least the PERCEIVED problems of society. This political cycle has been ongoing throughout history, and probably won’t stop any time soon – which is why I am hopeful for 2010.
The U.K. and the U.S. are so intertwined that Gordon Brown has cronies from the 90′sin the Clinton cabinet that are now in Obama’s cabinet.
One minister sketched the skein of long-standing political contacts that Brown has in Obama’s administration, including Larry Summers, Robert Reich and Timothy Geithner: “I think Obama will feel very strongly drawn to back Brown … you can’t underestimate how much the development of the new Democrat projects and the new Labour projects of the early nineties are intertwined. Many of Obama’s closest advisers are Brown’s mates – they have looked up to Gordon for a long time. I think there will be a lot of pressure to help Gordon’s position.”
If Obama’s cabinet members truly do look up to Gordon Brown and we see what is currently occurring in Britain than we have a lot of hard times ahead of us. Gordon Brown and his labour party have enacted frivolous fiscal policies, horrible national security decisions and have put their country in a precarious position for years to come. The U.K. is estimated to have one of the lowest GDP growth rates in the next few years and they are experiencing a lot of turmoil due to hate speech laws and the lax immigration policies of middle eastern extremists.
Margaret Thatcher recently made a statementabout the Labour party and the current state of her country, which is a big deal since Lady Thatcher rarely speaks publicly these days due to health issues and old age. Instead of using Labour in her statements I will replace it with Democrat:
Thatcher rarely speaks publicly now; her concerns were relayed last week by Lord Lamont, the former chancellor in an interview in the political current affairs magazine Holyrood. “I can tell you exactly how she feels,” he said. “Mrs Thatcher is appalled by the current situation, very concerned about it indeed. I spoke to her very recently and her attitude is: this is how it always ends with Labour Democrats.”
Another close friend of Thatcher said the former leader believed Brown Obama had spent beyond Britain America’s means. “It’s an absolutely accurate description of every Labour Democrat controlled government since the war,” he said. “They have always left office with a huge economic crisis – the public finances in a terrible state and the economy in disarray. She feels strongly about it because she came to power in 1979 after the Callaghan (Substitute Reagan for Thatcher and Carter for Callaghan) government had to go to the IMF. She sees it as a repeat of history.
“Her general view would be that you have to have prudent economic management,” he continued, “and although BrownObama has used the word ‘prudence’ ad nauseam, it has only ever been a word, not an action.
“I have talked to her over the past five or six weeks, and her view is exactly what Norman [Lamont] said. This is what always happens. It always ends in disaster when you have a Labour Democrat government.”
In another post I also wrote about this scenario and what is currently taking place – again I will substitute where I wrote about Labour and use Democrat (as if looking into a crystal ball):
The national debt since the New Labour Democrat party took control has risen to over 49% of GDP and still growing. The budget deficit is deepening, the tax yield is falling and therefore taxes are increasing, and unemployment is at historic levels.
The only markets in Britain’s America’s economy that have seen job growth in the last 10 years are the public sector, the banking and financial services industry and construction…
New Labour Democrats continue to spend money that the country does not have and it continues to implement heavy restrictions and regulations on the economy. The debt to GDP ratio continuously rises, as has AmericaU.K.’s since the 1970s (after we rid ourselves of the gold standard). The United Kingdom and The United States have both made pacts with the devil, whereby, they have played with the economy and fiddled by implementing heavy government regulations as well as “sauteing the books” just enough to distort the markets and create devastating bubbles and hybrid securities that grew tentacles throughout all sectors of the free markets.
Now think about what happened with ENRON, do we remember SOX compliance? SOX compliance, otherwise known as Sarbanes-Oxley, is still used today and it has created major profit losses at companies due to the red tape and number of auditors required to implement it. The jobs created by SOX are similar to that of the U.K., where 1.25 million public-sector jobs were created along with pension plans.
Growth in public-sector jobs, though, ultimately depends on growth in tax revenues from the private sector, which contracts – this becomes a vicious circle. At some point the private sector will contract so much because of the dominance of the public sector that the public sector will be unable to survive with a lack of adequate funding.
This spells disaster for years to come…
Daniel Hannan of the U.K. Conservative Party continues to hit the nail on the head and makes remarks very similar to how many conservatives in the United States feel.
Not only are the policies seemingly intertwined, but the corruption and fraud in big government is also quite similar. We have various members of congress, non-profits, and lobbyists that are under investigation or have already been indicted for corruption. The most striking parallel is in regards to the Speaker of the House of Commons – Michael Martin just stepped down as the Speaker due to the debacle with the expenses filed by several MPs in the parliament. Nancy Pelosi has been making various flubs and quite frankly she could also have made impeachable offenses by intimating that the CIA lies and misleads and stated she was not briefed on the interrogation methods. It will only be a matter of time to see if the parallels remain and as Mr. Martin stepped down, so will Nancy.
