The Tea Party and Fiscal Madness
Riots never seem to set in Britain these days. Just 5 days into the riots and the police are still trying desperately to put together a profile of the rioters, one that would allow them to pin the blame squarely at the feet of unruly mobsters.
The truth however may be far from the reality we see. As the picture slowly begins to emerge, we see not only mobsters but also a diverse range of educated people who's livelihoods have been deprived of their due due to the stiff austerity measures that have been put in place as recently as last October to curb a runaway deficit.
What started off as an unrelated trickle of protests in autumn this year soon gathered force midstream and has now burst into a deluge downtown that has virtually shut down all major cities and prevented any semblance of normalcy from returning.
It is very tempting to compare the stark differences in the approaches taken to combat the crisis by the 2 colonial allies. On one hand, Britain has taken the neoclassical approach to cut spending by £80 Billion in order to prevent itself from going off the cliff. These cuts have in fact been quite painful and have been in areas that have hurt the middle class considerably such as tuition fees, armed forces, pension cuts, etc ..
A recent discussion on BBC on the riots were cautious enough to make a clear distinction between the 2011 riots this month versus the 2011 Budget Cuts Protests in March this year. However it would be rather difficult to look at the unfolding crisis in isolation and ignore the buildup to it.
The other superpower has to live with a tea-stained attire henceforth in government!! Much to the dislike of either party (Republicans or Democrats) the Tea party's business of holding Congress hostage seems to have worked and they now have pretty much everyone else on the back-foot.
Continued on the next page
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