Classical Music Forum banner

Proposed elimination of arts funding

45K views 466 replies 39 participants last post by  jegreenwood 
#1 ·
Pres. Trump's 2019 budget proposal put forth today includes eliminating federal funding for 22 agencies, grant programs, and institutes. There's a full list in the referenced article. Of likely interest around here:

- The Corporation for Public Broadcasting, which funds public television and radio stations including PBS and NPR.

- The National Endowment for the Arts, which funds American artists and projects with grants.

Thoughts?

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/poli...rams-trumps-budget-would-eliminate/ar-BBJ2Odf
 
#248 ·
The argument about public versus private train funding is reasonably close to the original discussion about public versus private funding for arts. But if you're going to argue about train funding, there's no need to make ad homs. Focus on the trains and the funding rather than making unnecessary personal comments. One such comment has been deleted.
 
G
#249 ·
I used to love riding on the trains in the 70s. The early diesels were lovely things, much better than newer trains with their uncomfortable lighting and overcrowding due to the lack of carriages. I don't remember any filth and they were generally quick and reliable. Conductors used to treat you with respect too.

If you wanted to travel you just went to the station, bought a ticket and hopped on the train. Now you have to buy it 3 months in advance to avoid paying a rip-off price and book a seat because if you don't you probably won't get one.

None of this is surprising. British Rail were working for us. The capitalists are screwing us to make profits, both from government handouts and providing services that are as cheap as they can get away
 
#256 · (Edited)
Let’s eliminate all the artists, writers, painters, dancers, and musicians and the people who say they love them but never offer them a dime because they are too stingy and cheap to sacrifice a handful of dollars per year to willfully and cheerfully support public arts education on some basic level or something like NPR and PBS, both of which have numerous shows devoted to the arts, writers, musicians, painters, and dancers... Let’s get rid of everyone and put them to work with tar and gravel to rebuild the collapsing infrastructure that not giving money to artists, writers, and musicians is supposed to help make possible so we can conveniently drive on flat roads and shop at convenience stores that everyone can understand because they’re so completely ordinary, unchallenging and pedestrian. It’s time for a clean sweep, and we can keep our military jets too.
 
#270 · (Edited)
My view is largely irrelevant in discussing the facts about rail privatisation in the UK. Every report conducted by three different governments (New Labour, the Coalition and the last Conservative one before May) have mutatis mutandis reached the conclusion that the rail contracts have not been as successful as they should be (with their different approaches suggesting either more or less of what they think will achieve it).
External reports - notably excluding the one from the "Institute for Economic Affairs" and also one bizarre report cooked up by a former CEO of a private bus service - also reach the conclusion that hitherto rail privatisation has been a very costly failure. With fares out of control and out of proportion to the "services".

It's not my job to read all of these and boil them down into soundbites for lazy people.

My previous reply concerned the empty retorts of our esteemed colleague above, since that is all he seems to want to engage in.

I'll leave the cleverer approaches for clever people like you and I'll stick to the "foolish" approach .
 
G
#274 ·
Here's the efficiency of market forces in action. Private companies that can't seem to run a **** up in a brewery, but they do like to take our dosh.

"Fury as train delays and cancellations in UK enter second week"

"Sir Michael Holden, a rail consultant who ran East Coast line on behalf of the Department for Transport from 2009-15, said he had predicted problems with Thameslink's new timetable but "never in my worst nightmares did I imagine it could conceivably be anything like as bad as it is".
He criticised GTR's amended information for passengers, tweeting: "I've been in this industry some 43 years now and I can't understand from this guff what service they are actually trying to run." "

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2018/may/29/train-delays-commuters-cancellations-second-week

Facts, not prejudices.
 
#275 ·
I haven't made any 'personal attacks'. The bit you quoted was an 'implication' or suggestion, or an inference. A personal attack would be evident and likely see moderator action.

Now please go and ask the same questions to the person whose entire posts consist of these things and stop bothering me with these trivialities.
 
#276 ·
Oh, it was a genuine enquiry, sorry if it disturbed you so easily. Why do people think that taking the low road looks to others like they're taking the high road? It's more than an optical illusion, you know?

Anyway, thanks for helping. Carry on... :tiphat:
 
G
#279 · (Edited)
Here is some data.

http://dataportal.orr.gov.uk/displayreport/report/html/a830de20-83bf-408d-9c22-7f3ec23999f9

If you scroll to the right of the table you will see that government subsidy prior to privatisation was about £2 billion in today's prices, whereas now it is about £5 billion every year. That is a bald figure but it would imply that privatisation is more inefficient than state run.

So Dave, are you able to deal with this fact? How can you justify an extra £3 billion per year going to the private sector?
 
#282 ·
I haven't bothered to look at the reference you provide but surely it can't have escaped your attention that the comparison you propose is highly dubious because of the big time difference between then and now. Without a detailed explanation of all the calculations and assumptions, there is no justification in simply asserting that if the railways hadn't been privatised they might not have required an even bigger subsidy than the £5 billion a year. In fact, given the awful record of waste, overmanning and other inefficiencies of several nationalised industries before they were privatised in the early 1980s and later there's a good chance it would cost more than £5 billion a year in subsidy to support the rail industry.
 
#290 · (Edited)
#302 · (Edited)
This thread originally had to do with the potential reduction in subsidies to the arts in the US federal budget. As of now, a considerable part of that (small) subsidy goes to pay for licenses to British TV series about:

1 – Rich families living in impossibly large houses, and their servant problems.

2 – Capable female professionals solving crimes with the bumbling assistance of less-capable male staffs.

3 – More crime solving by “safe” males, usually of the Anglican persuasion.

4 – Adventures of fiercely competent but psychologically-crippled medical professionals, who can be saved only (if at all) by female intervention. Yes, Doc Martin, I’m talking about you.

Needless to say, these shows are eagerly watched by the housewives of America, who certainly don’t begrudge their tax dollars being spent in that way. In fact, this sort of subsidy brings far more people enjoyment than say, subsidies to classical music, which nobody much cares about any more.
 
#303 ·
This thread originally had to do with the potential reduction in subsidies to the arts in the US federal budget. As of now, a considerable part of that (small) subsidy goes to pay for licenses to British TV series about:

1 - Rich families living in impossibly large houses, and their servant problems.

2 - Capable female professionals solving crimes with the bumbling assistance of less-capable male staffs.

3 - More crime solving by "safe" males, usually of the Anglican persuasion.

4 -Adventures of fiercely competent but psychologically-crippled medical professionals, who can be saved only (if at all) by female intervention. Yes, Doc Martin, I'm talking about you.

Needless to say, these shows are eagerly watched by the housewives of America, who certainly don't begrudge their tax dollars being spent in that way. In fact, this sort of subsidy brings far more people enjoyment than say, subsidies to classical music, which nobody much cares about any more.
You forgot all the cooking shows :rolleyes:
 
  • Like
Reactions: KenOC
#307 · (Edited)
Here's an article from a left leaning newspaper 'The Independent' in which John Cowie says:

'Nationalisation was no panacea in the 1940s. It was driven more by circumstances and political ideology rather than any great strategic vision for a modern railway. The investment errors of the 1950s look like a classic example of the ills of public sector management: Poorly defined objectives, loss of focus, little sense of realities at senior management level and wasteful extravagance.'

My point has been that the nationalised BR was pretty dire. Several articles I have read back up that point. Whether today is an improvement is a matter of opinion. However, to see nationalisation as a panacea is pretty naive. Unless it is handled properly things will just slip back into the 1950s climate.

For whole article see

https://www.independent.co.uk/voice...-ownership-jeremy-corbyn-labour-a8137611.html
 
#311 ·
The Independent is not a 'left-leaning' newspaper. It was once a middle-of-the-road paper (when people still actually read it), but has since been staffed by New Labour cheerleaders and Neo-Tories. Like John Cowie who pushes an agenda of Thatchernomics for transport in his courses at the Scottish University where he teaches.

Hardly an ideology-free view and certainly not 'left-leaning'.
 
#319 · (Edited)
The Independent is arguably more left wing than right wing, but agreed that it's hardly an instrument of the hard left.

Returning to the topic of the subsidy to the rail industry, a few days ago you argued that " ... the cost of the government subsidy has risen from £2 to £5 billion per year, and nationalising will take away the need to feed the capitalists ..."

As I stated, I'm not an expert on rail subsidy matters, but it does rather appear from the government statistical source that you referred to that by far the largest part of the total subsidy to the rail industry has gone to the public operator, not to the rail operating companies. It shows that the bulk of this subsidy has been paid to Network Rail, which has been in public ownwership for many years.

I reported this finding in my post # 294. I thought you might have wanted to respond to that post given that it would seem rather to undermine your argument, but nothing has yet appeared. Perhaps you are still thinking about it?
 
#324 · (Edited)
Bloomberg Philanthropies Launches the 2018 Public Art Challenge: https://www.bloomberg.org/press/releases/bloomberg-philanthropies-launches-2018-public-art-challenge-u-s-cities/

"Mayors of U.S. cities with 30,000 residents or more are invited to apply for up to $1 million in funding for temporary public art projects that address important civic issues. Submissions for dynamic works of art across all disciplines will be considered. Proposed projects will be evaluated on their ability to generate public-private collaborations, celebrate creativity and urban identity, and strengthen local economies."

Wishing Bloomberg success on behalf of any artists and communities who might be involved in this project.
 
G
#328 ·
MartinD

Firstly, my apologies. You are indeed not Dave. (But you probably knew this already. :p)

Re the £2 to £5 billion:

Firstly, much of Network Rail's assets are run by private operators. So it is not correct to attribute this spend to the public sector in total.

Nextly, it is not clear how much of the £5 bn relates to investment and how much to running costs. To the extent that it relates to investment, a goodly proportion will likely be due to the lack of investment in the years since privatisation.

So whilst I agree with you to the extent that it would be better to drill down on the figures in order to understand them better, I am happy to stand by my original point:

That is a bald figure but it would imply that privatisation is more inefficient than state run.
 
This is an older thread, you may not receive a response, and could be reviving an old thread. Please consider creating a new thread.
Top