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I'm sorry, are you genuinely trying to argue for austerity ("hard but necessary reforms accompanied by significant spending cuts") in a thread that literally st
by hnbad 3y ago
I'm sorry, are you genuinely trying to argue for austerity ("hard but necessary reforms accompanied by significant spending cuts") in a thread that literally started with someone posting information debunking the scientific basis for claims that austerity works? https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36199042 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36199042
Also I'm not sure what your link seeks to demonstrate. The article says British Leyland was nationalised in 1975 but its history section starts out stating that it was formed in 1968 by the merger of BMH and LMC and that BMH was "periously close to collapse". The article shifts a lot of the blame for its failure on strikes and the company being too poorly organized to withstand them but the continuous failure of BMH following the merger is a running theme. The reason it was nationalised is also suggested to be that it was facing bankruptcy while representing almost the entirety of the UK automobile market.
Honestly, if anything BL's history reads like an example of aggressive mergers/buy-outs ruining an industry through monopolization and the tax payer ending up having to foot the bill to bail out the company so half the economy doesn't collapse with it. If the LMC-BMH merger hadn't gone through, BMH would have failed on its own instead of growing into an integral part of BL and taking the entire company with it to the point that the government had to step in and keep it on life support long enough to start selling parts off for scrap.
- qwytw 3y ago> I'm sorry, are you genuinely trying to argue for austerity ("hard but necessary reforms accompanied by significant spending cuts") in a thread that literally started with someone posting information I'm sorry, are you genuinely implying that there one-size-fits-all approaches in economics that universally work regardless of the circumstances? And I'm pretty sure your misinterpreting the article or fundamentally misunderstand how statistical models work. > scientific basis for claims that austerity works It does work to a degree in certain cases. Or at least in certain situations is the least bad option. > The article shifts a lot of the blame for its failure on strikes and the company being too poorly organized to withstand them but the continuous failure of BMH following the merger is a running theme Yes British business weren't competitive because of continuous government interference and dysfunctional yet to influential trade unions. The merger in 1968 was an outcome of government and trade union meddling Leyland was doing fine on it's own and there were no good reason for it to merge with BMH (which was on the brink of bankruptcy) as a result of that both went under eventually.. > Honestly, if anything BL's history reads like an example of aggressive mergers/buy-outs ruining an industry Yes but these mergers/buy-outs were imposed by the government...