I am now seriously worried about a return to the 1930’s.
The Greek decision might have worked some months ago although even then it would have been difficult. The decision to have a referendum on the bailout will throw the Euro into uncertainty and turbulence. It is just possible that the Greek people can be persuaded to vote ‘yes’ but currently it looks incredibly unlikely. Another banking collapse is exactly what we don’t need but that is one of a number of possibilities.
When the history of this period is written it may well be that the Greek decision will be seen as the economic equivalent of the assassination of Archduke Ferdinand at Sarajevo in 1914. It will trigger events way beyond the borders of Greece or even Europe.
The UK economy is stuck in recession. The Government made a serious error in talking the economy down for political reasons and foolishly comparing us to Greece and Portugal – farcical and dangerous. Consumer confidence needs boosting – not suppressing. The coming ten years are going to be tough unless we see some very statesman-like behaviour by governments all over the world.
Oh no! Democracy! How awful.
As someone who actually cares about the people of Greece, rather more than I care about the disastrous ‘European project’, I hope very much that the Greeks vote against it.
Then Greece can leave the Euro, default on its debts, and actually start rebuilding its economy with a New Drachma able to price it back into the market.
I think you’ll find that, actually, we are not in recession. And the comparison with Greece only went so far as our levels of debt as a % of GDP being similar to Greece’s (a fact you can easily check for yourself, Lord Soley) – the big contrast was that we weren’t daft enough to sign up the the Euro. Thank God.
No amount of cliched hyperbole about 1930s Europe will change the reality of the situation.
Spot on. The Greeks have been told to carry on cutting spending. Yep, that’s the plan. They plan on cutting spending on debt repayments.
As for the Greek comparison with the UK, its correct.
Greek (versus UK in brackets)
Debt to GDP 150% (158%)
Deficit 10.5% (10.4%)
That’s on the Micky Mouse debt numbers. By the way keep asking politicians how much they owe us for our state pensions. They can’t answer that because its a Bernie Maddoff scam. All off the books. The intention is not to pay for any state pensions.
The difference between the Greeks and the UK boils down to one thing.
The Greeks are in a mess, and can get out of it by taxing people.
The UK is in just a big a mess, but can’t get out of it by taxing, because taxes are already on the wrong side of the Laffer curve.
You can see this by the rapidly falling tax revenues. Even more falls are coming, because the cash cow, the city, is moving offshore, and not paying bonuses. So Vince Cable is going to get his wish. Hit the bankers, and they move. That hits the electorate who get even more into debt paying the 2,700 a day for each peer (claims not attendance)
@Lord Blagger:
Here is a little addition to your thinking.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KKRzNgoL9h4
And you know we have bankers in both Houses here.
We are being taken for a roller coaster ride that needs to be stoppped now by the people.
Does this ring a bell?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f83M2zR4smU&feature=related
Look at the common theme.
1. Companies do what the government wants, lend to lots of people.
2. Governments set low interest rates, encouraging people to borrow and spend. Look at all the stuff at the moment about demand driven recovery. ie. Lets spend lots of money at McDonalds. Lets increase the spending on the lords to 5,000 a day. That will get the economy moving. Yeah – Right.
3. Then when the debts become due, its er, I haven’t the money.
4. Then the idiots who lent, turn to the government and get them to ante up the cash. See the Greeks for a more recent example. The real idiots who presided over it, think about their directorships, hand over your money.
5. The reason they do this, is that they need the banks to lend them, so they have to rescue them, just to postpone the inevitable Greek collapse.
6. In the mean time tax and fine dodger like Vince Cable, set about taxing you more. They also do what Paul Daniels does, and use the banks as a distraction from their own mess.
You can prove me wrong here and tell me where in the government accounts is the money they owe you and me for a state pension? A little hint, its not there, and its many multiples of the bank mess.
Most of the bank mess is Brown. Just like with the Gold. He bought when he should have sold. He insured after the house had burned down.
What should happen is far from nationalising, they should have been sent to the wall. Pour encourage les autres.
In addition the regulator should likewise be fired.
Then the law of bankruptcy retrospectively changed for people who defaulted on the loans, and they should be forced to pay them back. Ditto for credit cards.
@LB:
It is no one else but the people of this nation that are going to be left in the manure with all this chicanery.
Nationalisation will return to us our entire country, which has been sold off to other States Did you know, for example, that France and Germany, their states not individuals, have bought parts of our railways. So, our railways are already nationalised, except, the people or nations that own them are French and German. And this is only a part of the sell off we are mostly unaware of.
I agree the legislator should be fired and each of the people running the show, held personally accountable to the people for the loss. And their own pockets emptied to repay the tax payer in any shape or form.
However, unless we, the tax payer, and quickly, buy up every aspect of our States assetts by ‘nationalisation.’ Britain will have been sold off at auction, and nothing we have taken for granted as the British way of life, will be left.
And it’s Tony Blair who should be in the dock. He and his cronies, all of them, including those still holding seats in opposition. Then stripped of all their assets taken by fraudulent practice. But, where was the Conservatives in al of this? Right there with them. There was no opposition to the stripping of the UK assets and it’s people.
Nationalize, put a lien on all of it, everything. The alternative will be far worse, no matter which side of the political spectrum you cling to.
Here is Mackinnon. But, he isn’t going far enough.
http://www.bloomberg.com/video/78168210/
And do remember the Bank of England is a ‘private’ concern.
Have to agree with you on Greece. If you claim to believe in representative democracy, the very last thing you can put to a plebiscite is a budget measure.
The Greek Government is using this as a diplomatic manoeuvre to try to extract further concessions, but it looks like potentially suicidal brinksmanship. We now have to wait until January which is far too long in the current environment.
On the UK though the data this morning shows we grew at 0.5% in Q3, no mean feat given the headwinds.
“The UK economy is stuck in recession.”
Good grief – the definition of recession is two quarters of negative economic growth. This last occurred in Q1/Q2 of ’09. We have grown in 8 of the last 9 quarters. Perhaps you could take your own advice and stop “talking the economy down for political reasons”!
“Another banking collapse is exactly what we don’t need but that is one of a number of possibilities.”
Since most banks have now significantly recapitalised and are indeed making profits again there is a low risk. Particularly as the most vulnerable banks outside Greece are French/German which have national governments with more than sufficient fire-power to support them.
“When the history of this period is written it may well be that the Greek decision will be seen as the economic equivalent of the assassination of Archduke Ferdinand at Sarajevo in 1914.”
Hmm Greek default to ww1 aren’t we over-egging this just a touch 😉 If the referendum forces European leaders back into reality then it will be a good thing. It would at least put an end to this farce where they publically pretend that Greece can somehow magic away a completely unsustainable debt & deficit inside a currency it never met the qualifications and under interest rates it can’t sustain or alter. Europe has been trying protect the European project not Greece and the sooner Economics not politics takes the lead the better. Greece needs a structured formal default not these fudged soft defaults or haircuts which don’t convince the markets. (It’s often ignored that much of the debt is insured but under a soft default this can’t be claimed leaving to greater losses and a loss in confidence in those buying future sovereign debt.)
Croft’s wisdom.
To me it seems that the ECB dominated by Germany, is not something the Greeks want to bow to any longer.
It is not that being in or out of the Euro makes that much difference. Looking at the history of money in the USA the other day, revealed vast numbers of banks setting up and then going out of business, over the years.
Trade went on none the less, notably in tobacco currency.
Perhaps Greece will latch on to Ouzo as an alternative means of exchange. They have still got to pay what they owe abroad, subject to the new agreements made recently.
“To me it seems that the ECB dominated by Germany, is not something the Greeks want to bow to any longer.”
I suspect that this is not as it appears. The referenda is not a strike out for independence but rather by creating an wholly artificial question (much as Labour intended over the EU constitution) the Greek Government believes it can bounce people into agreeing the austerity package when presented with an in/out vote. This should help them out of a horrible mess of public and parliamentary obstruction of reform.
“It is not that being in or out of the Euro makes that much difference.”
Well the obvious recent examples of major restructuring of an economy/currency are Latvia (which successfully left the rouble, introduced capital controls, ran a sacrificial currency while it devalued and then introduced a new currency), Iceland or even Argentina which went from default to trade surplus in five years.
An honest default is better than smoke and mirrors
There is a kind of parallel between the tough post-WW1 Versailles treaty ruthlessly enforced by the French and today’s France/Germany demands on Greece. To rub salt in, a German now occupies an office in Athens*. Other than that, I can’t get it out of head that the European pacts of old were a heck of lot less stable than NATO etc.
While Portugal seeks help from Brazil in a similar way to help received by the Rep Ireland from the UK, Greece doesn’t have a BFF and clearly has no intention of making one.
*http://www.ebrd.com/pages/news/press/2011/110720a.shtml
Lord Soley,
I think a lot of Lord Blagger’s comments are very perceptive. I must admit I am surprised with how much I see in his point of view.
The Greek path may well lead them out of the Eurozone. The truth is that their policis must strengthen their own core and also work in the framework of Europe. A lot of people of very divergent views seem to feel that is not happening.
I think there some very macro, macroeconomic issues in the whole world that are driving so much of this that everything is stopgap until they are addressed.
Assuming the EU doesn’t manage to put enough pressure on the Greeks to abandon the idea, I’m looking forward to the result. Yes, it may be bad for Europe, but then so is much of what has been done by the unelected elite of Europe.
In the Commons debate, the two cries were “Now is not the right time” and “It is never the right time”. The Greek PM obviously took this on board and decided that it would be the right time over there before he was dropped deeper into the mire. If his people say no, he can stand up to the EU secure in the knowledge that he has that mandate, and if the people say yes, he can turn to them and insist they accept the austerity measures.
Now he’s promised his people a referendum, I think the mood is such that if his government is toppled by one that then denies them a referendum, it too could be thrown out in a more violent manner.
I think it’s just a matter of time before Greece defaults, so the sooner they do it, the less of our money will have been poured down the drain.
The EU has brought this on itself by its actions, so I’m afraid I’ll pull up a chair and get the popcorn out to watch the show as they try to sort out the mess. If we’re going to have a bad decade as a result, we might as well start on a high note.
As they might say in the Theatre, whilst you’re eating your pop corn – “He’s behind you”
There’s just a big a problem in the UK as there is in Greece. We’ve got peers cost us 2,700 a day. They are claiming their attendance allowances when they haven’t turned up. We got convicted criminals sitting and deciding on the law. We’ve a deficit that’s the same size. We’ve a debt (borrowings, not the total debt) that’s the same (pro rata).
We people who are receiving major lottery wins in benefits a year, without tax.
e.g. 5 children family in Westminister pulls down this.
1. 1800 * 7 = 12,600 in free health care
2. 104,000 in housing benefit
3. 600 * 5 = 30,000 in free schooling.
4. 1375.24 in council tax – free
5. 13,264 a year in Child Tax Credit
6. 5,509 a year in income support
7. 3843 in Child benefit.
Plus other little extras such as free prescriptions.
Total 170,592. No tax.
You would have to earn 317,000 a year to be as well off as quite a few people on benefits in Westminster.
This has been going on for years. In other words we have had people who have had well over a million in benefits. That doesn’t make you poor. It makes other people poor.
The Greeks may be the answer to EU prayers with this move. Even though they are scared to death by it. It will allow movement. Up or down has to be better than what is currently taking place.
What we see from all the great thinkers, who are paid a fortune to guide us safely through a storm, is purely stall tactics, the one we all play when cornered by a creditor. A referendum of the Greek people will give us all an opportunity to get the ball rolling toward an end game.
Fate is a hard task master to the foolish.
Your “Consumer confidence needs boosting -not suppressing” might be band-aid-ish, too
I venture to forecast that “consumerism” (and hence ” – confidence”) is long overdue for re-defining, and needs to be urgently Re-Ordered to become Longest-Term Thrifty.
————
I have only a one-eyed world-view telescope to look through;
but it shows me that Greece may become ‘annexed’ by The East (China),
maybe along with Turkey;
and a string of other ‘dominoes’
and that Nobody knows how to manage the exponentially-upwards potentially-disastrous 7 billion and racing-away over-population Problem
but today that the Chinese have set-in-orbit a “biological” double-space-station
Was it necessary to ruin the first three paragraphs by adding the nonsense of the last? It is irrational to say that the economy is in in recession, but that the Government are talking the economy down. Talking down the economy is talking as though it is worse than it is. Saying an economy is in recession when it is in fact showing anaemic growth is talking an economy down. Making a claim, which some people agree with and others disagree with, that the adding to the structural deficit would be the wrong thing is not talking down the economy.
The UK is in a major mess. It’s only by spending your pension money, and by borrowing hand over fist has the government kept afloat.
Even growth doesn’t help the government out of its mess. It has to raise taxes (and kill growth) or cut spending.
@LB:
What we need to do and quick, is re-nationalize everything we can get our hands on. Utilities, Telecomunications, railways, every living walking thing that should belong to UK Ind….
Just stick two fingers up and take back what belongs to the British people. And do it now.
Just bonkers. Lets go back to the post office running telephones.
The problem with government is that the debts are to the citizen.
Take a look at the civil servants. They are owed more than the entire government borrowing (gilts).
What you’re proposing is slavery. You can be owned by the state if you want.
@LB:
And do you seriously feel you are not owned by the State today, right now?
If you feel a free man, then you are caught up in a wild fantasy of your own making. And you being so bright as well!
I do everything to avoid the state’s set up in this way.
I agree, they own you and treat you as such.
Here’s another prediction. Exchange controls and fees for leaving the country. Just like Nazi Germany. It’s already been proposed to me by people on the left. Just as booking people in the states accounts as an asset.
So yes you are right. I’m right too, in that its going to get much much worse.
1. More property taxes
2. More tax raids on pensions (public sector workers except, as are MPs)
http://www.thedailymash.co.uk/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=4492&Itemid=89&utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+thedailymash+%28The+Daily+Mash.+It%27s+news+to+us.%29
As the Greek prime minister ‘convinced’ his cabinet to back a referendum on a massive bailout, experts said the move was quite clearly designed to scam even more money from the European Union.
Julian Cook, chief scamologist at Donnelly-McPartlin, said: “It’s textbook stuff. You join a single currency and then borrow a sum of money so huge that it endangers the entire system.
“The other countries offer to bail you out because if they don’t then everyone is ruined, but then you wait until the last possible minute and ask for more cash or ‘you’ll have to have a referendum’.
“The other countries know they can’t let you have the referendum unless you’re definitely going to vote ‘yes’ and so they pony up with the dough.
“Meanwhile, those dumb saps at the Daily Telegraph unwittingly help you along by saying it’s ‘a great day for democracy’. Beautiful.”
Nathan Muir, a retired bunco artist, said: “It’s called the Albuquerque Two-Step. Old Mickey Five-Knees used it all the time back in the Forties.
“I wouldn’t be surprised if the whole country’s in on it.
“I’ll tell you what though, this Papandreou guy has got some serious hustle. Between the two of us we could clean up, maybe pick a small town and then go door to door selling shares in a free-range haggis farm.”
He added: “I love the fact the Greeks fired all their top generals at the same time, making everyone think the country is on the brink of a violent military coup.
“It’s the sort of wit and panache that you used to see in this game all the time. These days it’s all just payment protection insurance and homeopathy.”
Lord Blagger: you are aware that the Daily Mash is a spoof news website?! http://www.thedailymash.co.uk/about/
Of course I’m aware its a spoof.
However, in this case its a pretty accurate assessment of what’s going on.
1. The horror of Sarkozy and Merkel, and most of the commentators on the BBC. ie. Yeh Gods, how can they let the electorate have a say. They might say no.
2. The Greeks have done exactly what the Mash have said. Loaded up with debts, knowing that they then have a gun to the EU.
3. Look at the fraud involved in getting Greece in. [And Italy] Dodgy transactions via Goldman sacks to dress up the accounts. Now that’s exactly what’s happening in the UK. The accounts have been prepared with the help of an accountant trained in the Bernie Maddoff school of accounting. All the really big debts aren’t there. Every wonder why?
Here’s a challenge for you Beccy. Tell us what the present value of the assets and liabilities are in the state pension system (exclude the state second pension if that makes it simple). Hard cash number, say to the nearest billion. And a link to where in the accounts they appear.
If its not there, the intention is not to pay it.
So back to the Greeks. Now the EU has to decide on pulling the plug and taking the blame, or to ante up more cash to the con men.
Sorry I’m just a mod…Lord Blagger.
(Ahem -)
and ‘mod’ (presumed ‘moderator’-to-LotB)Beccy Allen also signs her unilaterally-aside emailed censoring-notifications as a
Researcher and Project Manager, (British) Citizenship Education;
possibly these jobs are each significantly part-time, then ?
It is no one else but the people of this nation that are going to be left in the manure with all this chicanery.
Nationalisation will return to us our entire country, which has been sold off to other States Did you know, for example, that France and Germany, their states not individuals, have bought parts of our railways. So, our railways are already nationalised, except, the people or nations that own them are French and German. And this is only a part of the sell off we are mostly unaware of.
==============
So lets see. You want to take from anyone who has invested their pension money in these industries the money they have saved for their retirement? Nice. Very attractive prospect.
=========
buy up every aspect of our States assetts by ‘nationalisation.’
=========
Buy them with what? There is no money. In most cases they make losses, such as the rail which relies on massive subsidies. Brilliant idea, lets take more of the losses onto the taxpayer. That’s what has got us into this mess.
So when it comes to a lien, what’s your address so we can nationalise your house, leave you with the debt and sell it off under your nose. Hell, we could even rent it back to you. Of course you still have the debts.
There is no solution bar government default and massive government spending cuts.
@LB:
Sometimes you can be hard going. If we don’t nationalize, this entire island will be in the hands of those who own the IMF.
If we nationalise, we may, just may, have some way of saving the nation as a democracy.
Not to mention bring the country back from total insolvency.
http://debatepedia.idebate.org/en/index.php/Debate:_Nationalization_of_banks_during_economic_crisis
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/e310cbf6-fd4e-11dd-a103-000077b07658.html#axzz1cr9GxUuO
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2008%E2%80%932011_Icelandic_financial_crisis
So you seee Blagger, I am not alone in my deliberations. Others also have considered the matter, and it saved Iceland.
If you nationalize you steal by and large from the people in this country who have saved, and put the assets in charge of the people who have caused the mess.
If you hadn’t realized, politicians are about to buy another 40 bn of shares in the IMF. With your money, and more debt.
@LB:
You are not being rational. The people of this country have now been totally plundered by Capitalist governments. And remember, government is run by people. People who are playing profligate games with the tax payers money, secure in the knowledge that, like Tony Blair and his cronies, they will not be held accountable or touched personally. Meaning, they are unaccountable for selling us down the river. So, watch out for the great escape, when they ship themselves off to leave us in the manure whilst they live life out in say, Brazil or the Cayman Islands.
This 40 billion you speak of to the IMF is air money. It must be backed up by some kind of ‘collateral.’ So, either that is the gold reserves or something else? Where is this money coming from? Do you know? And wouldn’t it be better spent investing it in our own industry here in the UK than being sold literally down the river to those outside our domain? As this mad government is doing. Supposedly to assist the world. Doesn’t that strike you as odd.
http://uk.news.yahoo.com/uks-imf-contribution-limit-40bn-145337814.html
And think about this, why, if we are backing the IMF with our money, are we asking the Chinese to hand us a slice of their cash and putting ourselves in hock to these unknown entities who are telling us what they require in return? There is a cock up here somewhere and we are being kept well in the dark.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nationalization
Expropriation is the answer to this confidence trick we have been party to for some considerable time. Privatization has been the steady destabilization of this countries wealth. And now, even worse, it is up for grabs to foreign despots who we have financed to enable them to make these demands on us.
You wrote of slavery, do you have any idea what you are advocating? And where it will lead? Because real slavery of the people is created by rampant Capitalism.
http://economicsonline.co.uk/Business_economics/Nationalisation.html
We need an entire rethink with regard to what this government, without any mandate, is doing.
Look at this list of who owns most of the world’s gold. And ask, if this is correct, why is the US asking China to shore up the dollar?
http://www.wealthdaily.com/articles/who-owns-worlds-gold/2491
Oh, and notice the UK is not in the worlds top ten gold holders. Also, take note, Germany, France, Italy the Netherlands and Switzerland are. Doesn’t that tell you that ‘Europe’ is where it’s at?
You are not being rational. The people of this country have now been totally plundered by Capitalist governments.
========
Nationalisation is a socialist policy. You’re engaging in an attempt at newspeak, to make war into peace, etc.
Capitalism is letting the banks go bust. Socialism is bailing them out. We have had the banks bailed out, and that is socialism
People who are playing profligate games with the tax payers money
Yes. They are politicians. They are running the largest fraud in the world. A ponzi scheme out of Bernie Maddoff’s league, but with the same effect. The Lords are doing the same. 2,700 a day to run one Peer. More tax than a British standard peasant earns in a day. Note, that there is no capitalism there. It’s government and politicians.
This 40 billion you speak of to the IMF is air money. It must be backed up by some kind of ‘collateral.’
Yes. The collateral is you. They’ve sold you to the IMF.
And wouldn’t it be better spent investing it in our own industry here in the UK than being sold literally down the river to those outside our domain
Certainly not by the plonkers in Westminster. If you want them to invest for you, let them. Before you know it that investment will be Union led and invested in the likes of British Leyland and HS2.
Expropriation is the answer to this confidence trick we have been party to for some considerable time. Privatization has been the steady destabilization of this countries wealth. And now, even worse, it is up for grabs to foreign despots who we have financed to enable them to make these demands on us
So what are you going to do about the British citizens who own some or all of these assets? You’re going to steal their retirement money aren’t you? Then what? Ah yes, the politicians will keep most of it and give it to their mates.
You wrote of slavery, do you have any idea what you are advocating? And where it will lead? Because real slavery of the people is created by rampant Capitalism
No, to make slaves you need a state. The state will make slaves of you. There are plenty on the left who advocate balancing the government books, by booking people as assets. I’m not kidding here. The reason then is that they can carry on spending.
Look at Greece. It’s not rampant capitalism that’s the issue. It’s a government that has borrowed and spent like mad, with no assets to back up the debts. Now the debts are being called, quite rightly too. Only a nutter would loan to them. So politicians are taking your money and investing it in Greek debt. That’s not capitalism. It’s statism, and its politicians. The same politicians who will deny the voter any democratic control. Just like the Lords. They want to dictate.
On mandates, that’s why we need Referenda by Proxy. The cheap way of getting politicians under control.
On gold, I’ve topped up again this morning on more gold. With Greece gone, and Italy next, that is the end of the Euro. That’s going to cause chaos. No capitalism as the cause there. States running ponzis. Just as it is in the UK.
So when you have a state that hands out up to 170K a year tax free in benefits to the unemployed, what do you expect?
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/news/105751.stm
I think you’ll find it is [or they are..] ‘referendums’ – as ‘referenda’ may mean ‘things to be referred’. Although this may yet be the case if the ‘petitions website’ has a few more ‘successes’..
All the best, BG
@Lord Blagger:
I have to respond to your last post as it would be obscene of me not to.
Your first paragraph indicates you feel Capitalism would have left the banks to go to the wall. Wrong, Capitalism saved them, because it was capitalist governments that encouraged the banks, and fully backed them, in the gaming they went at with other peoples money. They were in it together, and so, they had to hide their complicity. The people of these organizations were insider trading and making a fortune from it. Plus, only Capitalists would have had the brazen sweetbreads to do this and continue to fake sweet smelling, gratuity as they did. The Blair syndrome. You are trying to sell the idea that New Labour was a socialist government are you? ‘Listen to the oily freak Bob Diamond on radio 4 Today programme recently. God was he a smooth operator. Hear him, ‘Capitalism must be more cuddly.’ Like him I suppose. A little vivisection may be good here I think. Besides we and the USA, who was the originator of this, did not have a Socialist government. They don’t know what it is.
Well we need to find better players than the previous investors in our nationalized industries. I agree politicians we have can’t run a roadside cafe let alone a government controlled business. However, if you think these lot are poor, wait until all the wets they’ve brought in to run the show, take their place. If you think Fox was out of his depth, look at what Cameron has in government now. Don’t hold your breath. Twenty nine year old groupies will soon be at the helm, covering their backsides as they slide from one base to the other, ogling with gormless grins and dimwit boss eyes, rolling uncontrollably akin to E Balls, hoping the idea of pendulous udders will be enough to keep them afloat.
Socialists didn’t deal in the slave trade, it was rampant Capitalists. Remember those ships taking off from the Horn of Africa? And as we have had to watch our salaries drop, to where they had to bring in millions of third world workers to man the wheel, so we would become penniless and beg for a return to the six and a half day day week. With two jobs to pay the rent. Under a true socialist government, wages didn’t flag for the ordinary man in the street and there was full employment. But it sunk those sharks on the top rung paying ninety five pence in the pound in taxes didn’t it?
http://www.understandingslavery.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=307&Itemid=152
Just take how Goldman Sachs has been allowed away with millions of unpaid tax by the head of that department. I don’t suppose they put a good sweetener in his trousers as they cleaned up themselves did they? No of course not. Just like Fox. He made nothing either.
And then how many billions in tax did Vodafone manage to hide from? It is Capitalism that has made it possible to earn a billion a year and pay less than your cleaner. So don’t give me that old onion, Blagger. Capitalism deserves a good dose of nationalization.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2010/oct/22/vodafone-tax-case-leaves-sour-taste
Goldman Sachs pays no tax.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2058557/Goldman-Sachs-escapes-paying-10m-sweetheart-deal-taxman.html?ito=feeds-newsxml
They got away with it. And that means those in the top seats got away with it as well.
Take a haircut. They need a Brazilian.
Wrong, Capitalism saved them, because it was capitalist governments that encouraged the banks, and fully backed them, in the gaming they went at with other peoples money.
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No that is socialism. Nationalisation. Capitalism means that they go to the wall. Capitalism relies on creative destruction. The failures go bust. That frees up the rest, and provides the clearing in the forest for new companies.
I couldn’t possible comment on Diamond. If he things capitalism should be cuddly, he’s wrong. Cuddly just means protecting his little fiefdom, and for that he wants the government to give him an advantage.
I agree politicians we have can’t run a roadside cafe let alone a government controlled business.
I agree. We’ve even got Lord Taylor (ex Wormwood scrubs and the bar) due back in the Lords to rule and dictate to us. What is needed is less government, and you’re proposing nationalising people pension funds, (you missed that off in your reply), which means the idiots controlling more of your life.
ust take how Goldman Sachs has been allowed away with millions of unpaid tax by the head of that department.
Because government let them.
And then how many billions in tax did Vodafone manage to hide from?
Because government let them.
Why were the banks bailed out
Because government gave them your money.
ie. To rip you off, you need to be in league with the government. If the government doesn’t play ball, its hard for these people to rip you off.
All roads lead to the government.
Then there is the question of scale.
Unnecessary bank bailout (government decision) 70 bn
Unfunded government debts (government decision to run a ponzi) 7,000 bn
100 times larger.
You might be interested in the wee little mouse (banks), but there is a herd of stampeding elephants behind you (government debt).
So what about the missing bit. When you nationalise all these bits, are you going to steal people’s pension funds in the process?
@LB:
Stealing pension funds, began with that great capitalist, Robert Maxwell. After his sons got away with their collusion, it took off rocket style in the City as well as government.
Nationalization is the best way to cull the crap from the cream.
And just feeling you shiver at the thought tells me I have hit the nail on the head with it.
Stealing pension funds predates Maxwell by a long way.
It started with the state pension. Instead of having it as a funded schemes (as was intended by Beveridge), they turned in into a Ponzi and took the cash, your cash.
So you’re still not answering the question.
Why should the fat cats in the public sector get their pensions, paid for out of the confiscation of the pension funds of those who put the effort in and saved?
@LB:
I will counter that with this, why should I put up with the fat cats in the City (yanks, and others, akin to Bob Diamond and boy George, our Chancellor) and in business, ie: those making a billion or a million or more a year and moving it off shore, whilst I pay for those rabid dogs to be bailed out when they fall apart. Or, really its only a pretend to fall apart, another set up. When in fact it was the same set up as was created in the thirties. I’ve put links here to expose the game they play over and over in order to peel off the meager existence from those they despise, the me’s. And then you think I and those like me, must accept their attacks and remain muffled in silence, still handing over my stipend for them to add to their coffers. The to follow the lemmings who vote again for the creeps who are in cahoots with them to keep the band wagon rolling. Are you playing with a full deck here?
You answer that LB and comment on that con game you expect me to go along with, like you repeatedly do.
You want to have voters line up and tick the box once again to be robbed by oligarchic capitalism or even state guided capitalism, to our detriment. Because you are convinced you will do well by it.
You should read Orwell’s Animal Farm and think of yourself in the role of Boxer. He ends up in the knackers yard once the state has finished with him. He is a trusting soul. I, on the hand, identify with the Donkey, he tries to get the rest of the animals to read the writing on the wall, but, all they can do is bleat. And suddenly, there it is, large as life, ‘four legs good, two legs better.’ But the sheep can’t read it. They continue to cling to the old line they felt was going to ‘change’ their life.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_s3EYMf5HNc
Now listen to this carefully. There is no such thing as a free market. it is a con. Globalization is a con.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KAj7a_VXmuQ
Now listen to the real story of welfare. Who gets welfare, do you know? I don’t think so.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w7JXfwUtz0w&feature=related
Now we have Capitalism is making life better:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=el1CdxiDo6M&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JroogX7zBek&feature=related
The misuse of Socialism:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6pDmMTW6rJc&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0xEivNvs-sg&feature=related
And the overthrow of governments by state Capitalist societies. As we as, in favour of slavery. Do, please remember, slaves come in all colours.
Bush and Blair, followed by Obama and us:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8mA4HYTO790&feature=related
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rent-seeking
Read up on rent seeking.
Bank bailouts are just one example, and there are many others. Even the Lords are just rent seeking.
Rent seeking needs a government to extract the cash. When the government doesn’t play ball, rent seeking can’t take place, even if the seeker wants it, and the public benefits.
All roads lead to the government, and the government is the common guilty factor.