Dear Editor
Dear Editor Hard Times As Robert Lekachman points out ("Hard Times Ahead," NL, October 8,1979), our economic future looks bleak. We are apparently heading for a depression, and what amazes me is...
...But for some inexplicable reason the Carter Administration refuses to consider this...
...Second, the Labor party has lost the intellectual leavening which has always enabled Labor to appeal to various constituencies, instead of just one...
...Minority workers and young workers, already hard hit, will be hit hardest...
...Riverside, Conn...
...Workers will be discharged as business contracts, and they will find it impossible to get new jobs because the government is trying to reduce business expansion...
...But the Labor leaders sealed their fate by trying to out-Tory the Tories: "Britain doesn't want its government pulled up by the roots again...
...That makes it hard to expand an existing business and almost impossible to start a new one...
...Theodore Woodbridoe III...
...He can come over to our house for a "discreet and chilly" martini—and try out our other quaint ethnic customs—any time...
...Champaign, III...
...Today, on the contrary, the intellectual stir is among the Conservatives, centered around monetarist Sir Keith Joseph, while the stream of bright, idealistic Oxbridge graduates entering Labor has narrowed to a trickle...
...Jeremy Stamp A Toast to Kitman I greatly enjoyed Marvin Kitman's "Here's Looking at Cheever" (NL, December 3...
...In these circumstances, it may be of interest to your readers that in the somewhat parallel case of Great Britain, the European Economic Commission (EEC) in its latest yearly survey comes to different conclusions...
...Third, the Labor Party has come to be associated too strongly with the unions—and, as Gelb points out, the threat of even greater control of MPs by the unions is real...
...But even if it succeeds, the price to the economy, especially the working class, will be very high...
...This policy is being pursued in the hope, probably vain, that it will control inflation...
...Perhaps there is a lesson here for the U.S...
...Slonington, Conn...
...return Labor to power"—this was the line taken by James Callaghan and Denis Healey...
...The search for a culprit—preferably a simple and single one—will have to be resumed...
...High British traxation—another popular criminal—though exceeding the average tax-take of the EEC (13.5 per cent of GDP, compared with an average of 12.2 per cent), is offset by lower social welfare charges (6.2 per cent of GDP, against 14.2 per cent in the EEC...
...If Labor can resist the threats to its autonomy as a political party, the challenge from its left wing may actually lead to a revitalization at the center...
...Alfred Baker Lewis During election periods—which means almost all the time—simplistic arguments are the most popular...
...With Roy Jenkins shuffled off to Brussels, Anthony Crosland prematurely dead and Shirley Williams voted out of office, the party now feels a sore lack of intelligent moderates...
...After a disastrous winter when garbage piled high, the sick were turned out of hospitals and the dead went unburied, the Conservatives could hardly lose...
...We are apparently heading for a depression, and what amazes me is that the Federal government seems bent upon setting us rolling by bringing about a recession...
...New Haven, Conn...
...Excessive public spending, for example, is today held responsible for almost all of this country's ills, while the simple cure is believed to be reduced public spending and a balanced annual budget...
...Britain's problems, severe as they are, apparently have little to do with high public spending, since the percentage of its Gross Domestic Product (GDP) taken up by public spending is the lowest of any EEC country...
...A serious slump is a virtual certainty...
...Spending last year in England, I was able to observe the election at close hand, and I concur with most of Gelb's points...
...Adolf Sturmthal British Labor Norman Gelb's article on the troubles of the British Labor Party ("British Labor's Uncertain Future," NL, December 31) was thorough and lively...
...There is an alternative, namely government control of wages and prices...
...Government agencies dealing with money and credit have raised interest rates to an unprecedented 15 per cent, so that credit is very hard to get and, when available, very costly...
...Britain's union leadership, it is well known, is not elected by the most democratic means, so nothing less than the viability of the parliamentary system is at stake...
...Still, the Community predicts that in 1980 the UK will have a lower growth rate than almost all of the EEC countries, the highest inflation rate and an above-average unemployment rate...
...it wants stability...
Vol. 63 • January 1980 • No. 1
