Thank heavens for the private sector!

Now that the awful public sector has rid itself of thousands of jobs, isn’t it great to see such a thriving private sector?

Well. No.

There are now more unemployed women, than in 1988. Overall unemployment is at its highest since 2009 – the middle of a recession. One in five people between 19 and 24 is unemployed. Average wages rose 2.8% since 2010, whilst RPI (inflation) rose 5.2%, which means wages actually fell by 2.4%.

So we were told that the private sector would take up the jobs lost in the public sector. George Osborne, back in November 2010, told the House of Commons in November that jobs created in the Private Sector, would:

Far outweigh

- the loss of jobs in the Public Sector.

Remember those “35 leading businessmen” that the Chancellor quoted, as some sort of economic demi-gods (I have always wondered why businessmen are considered economic experts. They are not economists. They have an agenda). They sent a letter to the Telegraph, in support of Osborne’s claim. They wrote:

“The private sector should be more than capable of generating additional jobs to replace those lost in the public sector.”

Here’s the letter in full. Tories loved to point to it, last year. I’m guessing they will be less forward in pointing to it, this year.

At its most optimistic, we we under the impression that someone who had spent their life in the public sector employed in a job they love, would now get a nice new job working the tills at McDonalds. Even that, failed to materialise. From April to June public sector job losses reached 111,000. The private sector jobs grew by 41,000. The problem is, the Government insisted in March, that only 20,000 (I say only, because it appears I have caught the bug of treating people and their jobs, as mere statistics – Am I becoming Tory? Dear God, I hope not) would lose their jobs. Unemployment rose by 80,000 in June.

Apparently, when you make people unemployed, and you devalue wages, it becomes impossible to kick start the demand needed for the private sector to thrive. WHO WOULD HAVE THOUGHT IT!

EDF have just announced energy prices are to raise by 15%, despite profits of Euro1.2bn last year. Last month HSBC announced 30,000 jobs would be cut. They must be struggling right? Again….well. No. The first six months of the year saw their profits raise 3% on the previous six months, to $11.5bn. Seriously. We are now only concerned, as a World, with profit. This is emphasised in the fact that the moment HSBC announced it was kicking 30,000 people out of their livelihoods, their shares rose 3.4%. Rich people absolutely love to hear that they can make even more money now that there isn’t the annoying factor of having to pay 30,000 people.

It is clear that demand creates jobs. Not wealthy businessmen. Referring to them as “job creators” is a falsity of epic proportions. When you take money out of peoples pockets with a VAT rise, with the removal of universal services, with housing benefit cuts; you cut demand in the process. Giving the wealthiest few a tax break isn’t going to change that.

When growth is downgraded, almost on a daily basis, they insist it is Labour’s fault, Europe’s fault, the snow’s fault. No, it is the fault of holding dear to the heart a dangerous Freidman-ite economic philosophy. As with HSBC mentioned above; the epitome of the thought process that leads to this kind of system, is that the abstract concept of the “market” is deemed to be improving, regardless of how many jobs are lost. Shares in HSBC increase, as 30,000 jobs are cut. There is a dramatic evil in that process.

Labour MPs and Shadow Ministers on Twitter insist on questioning whether Strike action is necessary. They should be ashamed to refer to themselves as ‘Labour’. A Labour party, who have seemingly made absolutely no impact on the political landscape since 2010, are quietly licking their wounds as a Tory party who have no legitimate mandate to carry out the ideological attacks they are inflicting, get away with it. If we don’t have the support of a half arsed Labour Party unsure of where its allegiances lie, given it’s past thirteen years of total capitulation to the financial sector, nor do we have the support of a weak Lib Dem party who cowardly abstain when they disagree with Tory policy, then Unions are the only other way to go. There is no other option. A very radical government, requires a very radical opposition. Instead, Labour seem to be constantly worried about their ties to the Union movement, rather than pro-actively and jointly making the case against deep and vicious austerity. The Tories have cleverly managed to set the political discourse in favour of a mythical, broken public sector, and away from the real broken sector; the financial sector.

Yesterday we saw that same Financial Sector produce a rogue trader responsible for UBS losing $2bn on unauthorised dodgy dealings. Have they learnt nothing? UBS was also responsible in 2009, for helping wealthy Americans set up offshore accounts to avoid tax. Growth for the sake of the wealthy, is not real growth. The banks have been let off the hook, by having the support of government like ours, who shift the blame from them, to the constantly demonised public sector.

If anything, we are finding out, for the second time in thirty years, that harsh and forced Neoliberalism is a dangerous dogma. Monetary policy does not pull Nations out of sovereign debt crises. It never has.

Unemployment – Done.
Dismantled NHS – Done.
Bend over to be fucked by the banks – Done.
Stagnating wages – Done.
Provoke riots – Done.
VAT rise – Done.
Pull any support for poorer children (EMA) – Done.
Close as many youth centres as possible – Done.
Close libraries – Done.
Make people work until they’re basically dead, before giving them a pension – Done.
Demonise disabled people – Done.
Rising inflation – Done.
Threaten Unions – Done.
Burden of debt created by wealthy, slammed onto the shoulders of Nation’s 18 year olds – Done.
Tax cuts for the wealthy – Done.
All within 15 months.

It makes Thatcher look like a Socialist in comparison.

A Neoliberal Attack…

Religious people are far more likely to engage in conversation about religion with me, after I mention that I have studied Philosophy and take an interest in Theology. I think they presume I will agree with their thoughts and perhaps provide reasoning to their illogical beliefs. I think they imagine that one can only speak with conviction on matters of religion, if one is religious in an academic sense. The same is true of many walks of life, not least the public sector in England. Because Tory MPs are essentially a part of the public sector, they seem to believe they have the right to talk of all public sector workers, as if they’re the official spokespeople for the public sector.

On Question Time last week, John Redwood, Tory MP for Wokingham appeared delighted as he informed the audience that as a public sector worker, he would be working longer and putting more money into his pension pot as a result of his Government’s reforms, and he was proud of it. The reason John Redwood can seem so pleased with himself that he is accepting the changes to his pension and retirement age, is because on top of the £65,000 a year he earns as an MP, he also claimed a hell of a lot of money, that regular public sector workers could only dream of. Yet, Mr Redwood seems to think his claims were perfectly reasonable, as suggested on his own personal blog:

In 2007-8 I claimed a total of £105,917. This made me the 19th cheapest MP, claiming around £40,000 less than the average. One fifth of that claim was the mortgage interest costs, the Council Tax and service charge and maintenance on a bedsit flat in Pimlico. It is entirely used to enable me to work longer days in London when there is important Parliamentary business. During my ownership it has only been slept in by myself. I do not need it for any other purpose. The deposit and repayments of capital are of course paid for out of my taxed income.

- We should be thanking him, for claiming in one year, more than a teacher is likely to earn in five years. We should be happy that tax payers money is going to fund the “maintenance” on his Pimlico flat. We should be grateful that the money spent on his mortgage interest (tax payers money) will go to buying a flat he can then sell when he retires, making a handsome profit, and giving nothing back to the public, whilst his party continue to force harsh austerity. One does wonder what the purpose of his 2004/5 claim of £13,305 for his luxurious house in Berkshire (a £1,000,000 estate which he fully owns), including £168 and £112 for his lawn to be reseeded, and how that is “entirely used to enable me to work longer days in London when there is important Parliamentary business” was needed for, but nevertheless, i’m sure it’s just as noble as the necessity of “maintenance” claims on the MILLIONAIRE’S flat in London. Thank you John “Jesus Christ” Redwood. You are a hero.

A man in the audience pointed out that the Private Sector has forced through harsh pension reforms, and so the Public Sector should do the same and “modernise”. The audience were alive with cheer! But it got me thinking; why is it always the public sector that is made to look as though it is in the wrong, like a Soviet leftover, trailing behind the private sector. People seem happy to accept the notion that if the private sector is screwing people over, then so should the public sector! Why is no one arguing that the private sector should be actively forced to lift itself up to the level of the public sector? As far as I can discern, over the past twenty five years it has been an out of control short-term wealth obsessed private sector that has been so majestically out of control, that when the bubble finally cracked, the public sector had to take the hit.

Let’s look at examples of the private sector providing a “modernising” model that the public sector ought to apparently follow:

Lloyds TSB is currently 43.4% owned by the taxpayer. Yet, its new Chief Executive, Antonio Horta-Osorio received a signing on fee of £4.1mn in shares, £516,000 in money, and an annual salary of £1.6mn with a yearly bonus of £2.5mn.

A wonderful company named Trafigura, in 2010 leased a ship called the Probo Koala to a company called Compagnie Tommy, with the intent to dump toxic waste at a waste disposal sight in Amsterdam. The site raised their prices by 20 times that quoted, because the toxic waste was deemed to be far more dangerous that Compagnie Tommy and Trafigura first suggested. So, a new company set up on the Ivory Coast agreed to take the waste, for a very cheap sum. Trafigura did not investigate just why this new company was offering to take the waste for such a cheap price. After the waste was dumped, ten people died from poisoning, and over 100,000 became ill. Trafigura said they’d tested the waste, and it wasn’t toxic, and that they had no idea why so many people became ill. The Dutch tested the waste and found it contained two tonnes of Hydrogen Sulfide. A killer gas. Trafigura spent three years publicly denying the waste they dumped in a poverty stricken area of Africa, was not enough to kill people. Suddenly, Trafigura offered to pay a massive amount of compensation of Euro152,000,000 to the Ivory Coast (which didn’t go to the victims) with the instruction that on acceptance of the compensation, they couldn’t be prosecuted or causing death in the courts. The reason they did this, is because The Guardian obtained – through Wikileaks – private company emails from Trafigura in which they quite plainly accept, as early as 2006 before they’d even chosen the Ivory Coast to dump the waste, that the waste was indeed dangerous.

According to the Guardian, Diageo PLC, the company that makes Guiness, in 2009 paid as little as 2% tax on its profits, despite racking in £2bn in profits. Diageo pays its Chief Executive £3.6mn salary. To fill this gap, it takes 20,000 ordinary British households per year.

The term “Modernising” has come to mean subtle privatising of key services in recent years. An economic laissez faire that apparently promised to solve all of our problems. The outsourcing of cleaning from NHS to private companies with £94mn worth of contacts, led to such declining standards between ’83-’00, that an extra emergency £31mn was injected into cleaning in the NHS, with the a Patient Environment Action Team (PEAT), set up to visit hospitals to ensure standards were being met; the Private sector had failed. By 2000, only 20% of NHS Trusts had achieved an acceptable level of cleanliness.

The banks aren’t the only sector that have required government bail outs in recent history. In 2002, British Energy (privatised under the Tories) had to approach the government for a £410mn bail out to finance its debts.

News of the World. I believe this doesn’t need elaborating on.

Private sector bonuses and high CEO pay, is more harmful to you and I, than highly paid private sector bosses. When money accumulates in the hands of very few people within the private sector (we spend more in the private sector, than on taxes), the cost gets passed on to us. The Bush tax cuts, along with the deregulation of the financial sector didn’t go toward greater investment, it went to increasing the pay and bonuses of those at the top, and the cost was passed on to us, through the creation of a very easy credit system. We all know how that turned out.

British Airways, under the incompetent management of Willie Walsh faced massive fines (record breaking fine actually) for price fixing, long drawn out industrial disputes with the cabin crew which the media helped by describing the cabin crew as greedy, despite 2000 of their workmates being laid off, the company making huge losses, and Willie Walsh taking in a 6% inflation busting pay rise, taking it to £743,000 and £1.1mn in deferred share bonuses. Enough to keep at least ten people on at BA, who otherwise lost their job. The media will never paint the boss as the greedy incompetent bastard in this kind of dispute. It will always find a child at Heathrow, crying, because the cabin crew strike means he wont see his mummy this Christmas. The media do not tend to side with the unions, they never will, and so neither will the ill-informed public.

Do we need to even mention the banking system? A particularly ironic take on this whole new “private good public bad” era of austerity we are living in.

Thankfully we have the Government’s new corporate team, who will help him “stand up to business”. On the panel, inevitably, is Philip Green, Topshop mogul who owns Taveta Investments, which he put in his wife’s name, who happens to live in Monaco, thus avoiding £285mn in tax. He also paid his family £1.2bn, taken from a loan in the name of his company, thus cutting Corporation tax because the loan’s interest charges were offset against profit. Oh and he also uses sweatshops in Mauritius, whilst claiming his obscene bonuses are justified because he “takes risks”. Another on the panel, is Justin King, Chairman of Sainsbury’s. In his first year, he received free shares worth over £500,000, whilst axing the £120 christmas bonus for his staff. After his staff didn’t receive their christmas bonus, King awarded his wealthy finance director £357,000 worth of shares. King was also offered 1,000,000 free shares, if he met specific targets the year before. He didn’t meet the targets, the company’s profits fell 2.9% and yet he still took home 86% of the promised shares. He will be given the same year on year, on top of his £500,000+ a year salary.

We all know that the private sector has the potential to deliver fantastic opportunities, despite the fact that its raison d’etre is unjustifiable power and wealth in the hands of people who simply injected the first dose of capital required to kick start the specific business, as if that initial injection of capital somehow creates a universal, unbreakable law, like gravity, that requires the majority of the subsequent profit and the decisions required to move the business forward, be placed in the hands of the person who injected that capital. It’s a bit of a flawed and odd concept that people just tend to accept. But, it does create opportunity (though it doesn’t necessarily have to be the only way of creating opportunity). The downside, is unregulated greed. The public sector is a constant target of abuse from the source of that greed, and the politicians that the greed of the private sector can buy. Corportocracy at its finest and most dangerous.

Isn’t it about time a Politician had the balls to stand up and say the Private Sector over the past thirty years has spiraled disastrously out of control, and perhaps needs to be able to pay people a decent living wage, as opposed to bringing the public sector down to the unacceptable level of the private sector?

The economics of crime

There was a posh turd, dressed in a business suit, aged about 12, speaking like a 17th Century elocution tutor, on Question Time this week. He suggested that there is “no money left” because of Labour. This was in response to the whole question of rape sentencing that has plagued the British media like a bad theatre production all week.

Firstly, he is of course wrong.
For many many ignorant, typically Tory reasons.
The money to keep the prison population, was adequately provided for in the budget. A little spotty, sweaty Tory twat spouting “omg no money!!!! The Cameron man told me so!!!” doesn’t change that.

I don’t want to keep dragging up these comparative graphs to prove a point, but in this case, it is justified. The scare mongering again by those on the Right is becoming ingrained in our national psyche that it seems almost natural to talk of cuts as if they are absolutely necessary. People start their questions with “I understand there needs to be cuts, but…..”. The discourse is entirely provided for, by the Right wing. It needs to change.

This first chart, is how the Coalition would like us to always view the public debt. Just in terms of how much it is. It looks huge. It isn’t huge.

The reason it isn’t huge, is because the above graph doesn’t place the debt against how well the economy is doing at the time. If I have a debt of £200, and i’m only earning £220 a week, then yes, it looks huge. If i’m earning £3000 a week, then it’s not so bad.

This next graph is the debt against GDP.

Debt as a percentage of GDP, in the 20th Century, has been far far higher than it is now. It is simply ideological on the part of the right wing (which includes the Labour Party) to speak of this, as a great catastrophe and dire cuts needed immediately.

If there was no money left, it would surely be incredibly poor economic management to state on the Tory Party Website that their plan is: “Tough but fair – ensuring the richest shoulder the greatest burden“, whilst at the same time offering to….

cut Corporation Tax from 28 per cent to 24 per cent over four years which is the lowest rate in the G7.

So, that effectively means a company like Diageo PLC, who earned over £2bn in 2009, yet paid just £43mn in taxes now only have to pay 24%, instead of……………2%. So, whilst Diageo continue to tax avoid, whilst the employees who make the money for the company use the publicly funded roads, and have used publicly funded schools when they were young and publicly funded healthcare when they’re sick, to get them fit to get back to work and make Diageo even richer, other companies will fill that gap in public revenue,………. by paying less. So where does the money the little Tory shit want, come from?

Ken Clarke has an idea! Though he insists this policy isn’t about saving money, it’s about saving the dignity of the victim. Tories love the most vulnerable, as we’re all well aware.
The Justice Secretary is considering offering discounted sentences of 50% off, to rapists who plead guilty straight the way. His defence is, “Well, Labour set it at 1/3 off!!!”. A typical party political logical fallacy of the worst kind. His argument is it encourage rapists to admit their guilt early on, saving the victim the ordeal of going to trial. The reality is, it’s a cost cutting measure. Less prisoners in the system, less money being spent on prisons. This cost saving exercise goes hand in hand with the scheme to build more private prisons to house the prison population out of the hands of the State. It is already failing. According to a Freedom of Information request by More4, four out of ten private prisons scored incredibly low on the Prison Performance Assessment Tool. Juliet Lyon of the Prison Reform Trust said:

The evidence doesn’t suggest that it [use of private prisons] has driven up standards by providing good models.

- So, privatising doesn’t improve anything. Just like privatisation of the gas and electric companies didn’t improve competition, didn’t bring down prices, and actually caused greater problems especially among the poorer, older sections of society who now can’t afford to heat their homes at night.

Privatisation of prisons has a more sinister product. For the private prisons, crime is good. Crime pays. Crime means profit.

Public institutions are not worthless to the people who need it. There is no moral hazard in public institutions, to the people who live it. They act to meet the interests of the public, whose interests certainly aren’t being met by a neoliberal doctrine that is working to increase homelessness, destroy the planet, and impose its own interests on our democracies. The public sphere should be a sphere for debate on morality away from the ethics of the private sector, without it we are in danger of rationalising and justifying the unjustifiable simply because we believe the system is natural, unchangable, and those who are on the outside (be them criminals, the homeless, the mentally ill, or anyone who doesn’t fit into the neoliberal scope of reward) are to be locked away and ignored, because they are of no use to McJobs. By using the motive of profit, as the one defining ethical value within all of societies institutions, we lose what it is that makes us human, because we transfer all energy away from our empathy, our morality, and our compassion and onto our economic interests. That, is a problem.

Shami Chakrabarti, director of “Liberty” (human rights pressure group) and quite hypocritically, on the board of directors of London School of Economics when it accepted a donation from the Gaddafi family, said:

It costs £40,000 to put someone in prison. Is it so wrong to ask questions about whether that is the best way to rehabilitate someone?

- Yes. It is wrong. For two reasons. Firstly, because that is not what the Justice Secretary is proposing. If Shami Chakrabarti thinks letting a rapist out of jail 50% earlier than his sentence demands, just because he said “yeah, it was me”, is a good attempt at rehabilitating a rapist, she’s a disaster. Secondly, she started the sentence on the premise of cost. Cost is the first issue she considered, when uttering that sentence. If there is plenty of money to offer £6.1mn signing on fees to bankers at partly tax payer owned UK banks, and if we have enough money to bail out Ireland and back the bail out of Portugal, if we have enough money to replace trident and allow Vodaphone to get away with its £6bn tax bill, whilst shrinking their tax obligations from 28% to 24% and the cutting of the 50p top rate of tax, if we have enough money to spend on a pointless Royal Wedding and a war in Libya, then it is futile, ignorant, and actually immoral to start to discuss the criminal justice system in terms of cost to the tax payer.

Fighting crime is impossible when you are a government that is committed to increasing inequality. Like mass migration, the main cause of crime, is economic inequality. It is the old battle against poverty and against hunger. We cannot see the country through privileged middle class tinted sun glasses. Economic violence will always breed crime. University of Chicago’s Department of Sociology in the 1930s and 40s found that criminal activity on average, came from all races, all religions, from ordinary backgrounds who were deeply affected by changing economic conditions, and who were left behind.

Robert Reiner, in his book “Law and Order: An honest citizen’s guide to law and order” argues that developed nations such as America and Britain, saw a crime boom matching almost identically to the onset of Neoliberalism. Wage disparity across the board, increased inequality, a huge increase in low paid, insecure jobs, a new “me me me” society, ethics being replaced by ruthlessness, and harsh public spending cuts, actually increased crime beyond recognition. Those left behind, will almost always turn to crime.

People aren’t born criminals. Lower classes do not have criminal behaviour hard wired into their minds at birth. And given that the vase majority of crime, is crime of acquisition, by those from lower socio economic areas, one has to raise the quite simply observation, that economics is a problem. Of course, Libertarians refuse to accept that their system could possibly be the cause of such problems. Their perverse logic and ability to turn their heads to Occam’s razor, is enshrined in some of their most prolific writers. Libertarian writer Charles Murray claimed that there is an underclass who are pathologically and genetically criminal. It is therefore, the fault of biology, and conveniently absolves neoliberal economics of all the blame. He further suggested that Britain should refrain from offering child benefit to our lower classes, to take the incentive away to breed. Rather than face the reality that neoliberalism breeds material deprivation whilst encouraging an incessant and ruthless chase and brawl for material wealth, and so crime is inevitably going to increase in such an atmosphere, Murray and others like him prefer to turn the other way, and blame everything but their failure of a system.

The politics and economics of division, is responsible for the increase in crime rates. To divide people up, into categories based on income, based on race, or gender, and then to say “why aren’t you conforming? The man in the Rolls Royce is happy to conform, why aren’t you? Go to prison!” is deeply irresponsible, and quite prehistoric in its thinking. Transferring the good of community, with the disinterest in community and strength of the individually is a great moral hazard in itself.

It is rather a paradox that the school system aims only at producing good little workers, for the private sector to suck up. We teach our kids the same things, in the same rooms, with the same books, on the very limited same few subjects. We are creating a mass of people who think the same, and they inevitably rebel because they don’t think the same. We are trying to standardise the mindset of a generation, into believing that true happiness is acquired through the process of acquiring. It is unsuprising that those left behind, find other means to fill that gap that doesn’t actually exist, but has been instilled into their minds for decades.

The pro-neoliberal lobby have always refused to accept the criticism thrown at it. Those of us who dislike the model, must be communists. Yet the critiques are essential to understanding. Neoliberalism cannot explain, it can only enrich a select few. It brings with it deep divisions and inherent flaws that may seem like a droplet on an entire ocean, but can create a tsunami if they aren’t understood properly.

Bricks and mortar

This is Samantha Cameron, the wife of David Cameron:

This is a section of 300,000+ people:

The public are very similar to Sam Cameron, in that they’re being fucked by David too.

This is a gimp:

A gimp is traditionally expected to keep quiet and do as he’s told. He has a master. He must take all the abuse, he mustn’t have an opinion, and he must be kept on a short lead in case he disobeys.

This is Nick Clegg:

Nick Clegg has a master, does what he’s told, has had his opinion beaten out of him, and now just obeys. Right now, you are drawing a comparison in your minds between Nick Clegg……… and a gimp.

I went to the TUC rally in London on Saturday, accompanied by close to half a million people. This is what I saw:

Support from all over the place.

My favourite banner quote all day.

My thoughts exactly:

The march across the Thames.

£250 for bacon? Bloody Aussie’s. First they give us Fosters, and now overpriced bacon.

The reason this amazing human being looks so bright, is because he jumped in front of my shot at the very last second. He makes this picture so brilliant.

I am fully aware that this guy holds a bit of a resemblance to me. This is worrying.

The spirit of Che!

Damn right.

Possibly a little bit extreme. Unless we’re now referring to the Foreign Secretary, as “The Hague” in which case, I fully support this.

Lots of families!

The Met officer looks pretty guilty to me. He must really fucking hate Starbucks. He is probably one of those annoying people who insist on talking to you about their favourite coffee.

Carnival type of atmospheres at marchers are fantastic. This man has moves!

The aftermath at Trafalgar.

The Business Secretary, Lib Dem Vince Cable today said he was listening to the Unions, but would not budge on the Coalition’s plans for austerity.
In 2010, before the election, Cable said this:

“We have deep, long term problems….. a financial aristocracy which regards tax paying as something for little people not themselves.”

“People are desperate to see the back of this Labour government. But they don’t want the same old Tories. And make no mistake they are exactly the same.”

Today on BBC Radio, speaking about the top rate of tax, Cable said this:

“It moved up to 50p in an emergency because we had to have a sense of solidarity that everybody was bearing some of the pain, and the chancellor said in the budget that we’re going to have to move away from that. I agree with him. The Liberal Democrats agree with him.

- Essentially what he is saying is there doesn’t need to be a ‘sense of solidarity that everybody is bearing some of the pain any more’ because whilst the disabled, the elderly, and the most vulnerable lose all sorts of care, Cable is allowing the richest few to pay less tax. What an obscene man he has become. I wonder if the Vince Cable of 2010 who warned of the “same old Tories” would appreciate the Vince Cable of 2011 becoming one of the same old Tories. It is the biggest ideological attack in many many years. It is not the “only way”.

The issue from Tory MPs and those who seem to have very short memories, and an apparent lack of attention to detail, now seems to be that no one is setting out an alternative, to deep austerity. As if Neoliberalism is the only possible way. The problem with that is…
1) Labour set out an alternative before the election.
2) Pre May 2010 Lib Dems had an alternative.
3) Reforming the clear imbalance between cuts and taxes is an alternative. Tax more, do not cut Corporation tax, raise it. Impose a stricter set of regulations on banks and impose a far far higher levy. Robin hood tax. Close all tax avoidance loopholes. Ensure that Companies such as Diageo agree to pay back all of what they owe over a set period. Do not abolish tax on offshore profits bought back to the UK. DO NOT abolish the 50p tax rate, as Vince Cable announced would be abolished as early as 2013. Stop promoting the idea that we are like Greece. We aren’t, in any way like Greece, nor were we heading that way. That’s an alternative. It is a wholly left wing alternative, but an alternative nevertheless. Keynes set out an alternative. Stiglitz set out an alternative. Roubini, McCulley, Romer, Krugman, Pettifor, Pissarides, Kalecki, Blinder, and many many other economic and political theorists have many different alternatives than deep austerity. Thereisabetterway.org sets out alternatives. To ask ordinary people to sacrifice their jobs and their livelihoods, for the sake of a mass of tax cuts, is not the only way. To claim no one could possibly come up with an alternative, is massively ignorant.

Violent action is provoked by violent economic policies.
There is an alternative.

Cameronism

Neoliberalism: The tyranny of Big Business, under the mask of “Freedom“.

I have always wondered how the very fortunate manage to convince the very unfortunate that perpetuating that system is to everyone’s benefit. Thatcher managed to convince a mass of people that the Unions were evil, and were strangling the Country. She killed off the Unions, and bosses began the biggest exploitation effort since the 19th Century. Jobs shipped abroad daily, wages kept lower than ever before, and homes repossessed with the homeless rate doubling. How were people convinced that that was a good thing for the Country? Northern England still hasn’t recovered from what she did. It would seem that if you add the words “freedom” and “giving power to the people” to the end of a speech that is essentially going to destroy those people, you will have convinced them.

One has to wonder, if this was a people power thing, why not mention it during the run up to the election. Such a social and class engineering project doesn’t come into being over night, it takes years of planning. They knew this would be the case. So why not mention it, if it’s so great? I’d suggest because if a political party was to suggest privatisation of the NHS and the public services, before an election, they would be so massively unelectable, they would have no MPs left. So, the answer is to manipulate a population into voting for you, and then systematically destroy their life.

The fact remains, no one has given the Tories a mandate to do this. They did not win the election. More people voted for a slower reduction of the deficit, and less cuts. More people voted centre and centre-left political parties, than who voted for the Tories. Economically, if not socially, the Tories have no democratic right to be doing what they are proposing to do.

Any time mass privatisation is suggested, the phrases “more power to the people” and “freedom” are banded about. I am always very suspicious of this, because it never quite turns out that way. It was “freedom” that drove Thatcher to privatise British Gas and the railways. British Gas is now run by one CEO who rises prices in line with an increase in oil prices, but then when the oil price lowers, he keeps British Gas prices high, raking in massive profits. For charging customers obscene amounts of money for no legitimate reason, boss of Centrica (which runs British Gas) was Knighted for “services to business“. The Chief Exec, Sam Laidlaw (who went to Eton, unsurprisingly) increased the cost of gas for consumers by 35% in 2006, for no reason whatsoever, and made record profits, when asked about it, he answered “Well, I am not about to apologise for making a healthy profit“. FOR THE PEOPLE!!

One wonders how long they can keep blaming Labour, given that unemployment and the deficit were shrinking in May 2010. They’re now both on the rise.

David Cameron does not have the mandate to be privatising the entire public sector. And yet, in the Telegraph today, he shamefully used his dead son as justification for the most worrying of plans I’ve yet to hear him say:

And though I was always so grateful for the tremendous care my eldest son received, I never understood why local authorities had more control over the budget for his care than Samantha and I did.

I never understand why my boss, where ever I choose to work, has the right to be as rude and obnoxious and speak down to us as he so wishes. But apparently that’s “freedom“. What a wretched freedom it is. Allowing business the freedom to dictate terms and conditions for its workers, with absolutely no balance, is not freedom. Replacing democratic oversight with a dictatorial boss whose only objective is to make more money, is not freedom.

I would never use a dead relative to promote a political agenda. He should say it like it is; Cameron and Osborne are Libertarians. It is why there is a mass of tax cuts for the very wealthy whilst the public sector is being gutted. It is why the banks are not being hit. It is why he is demolishing the NHS and the public sector as a whole. It is something beyond scary.

“Instead of having to justify why it makes sense to introduce competition in individual public services – as we are now doing with schools and in the NHS – the state will have to justify why it should ever operate a monopoly.”

What the hell? Damn right you should have to justify privatisation, logically because you are changing the system. You have to justify why you are changing the system. But mainly, because it has never fucking worked as promised in the past. The Tories privatised the railways, and now no one can afford to go anywhere. The Tories sold off the Council Houses, effectively entirely privatising the housing system, and now no one can afford homes. The Tories privatised electricity, and now old people die because they cannot afford to heat their homes in winter. So damn right you have to justify why you are handing even power to big business. FOR THE PEOPLE!!

One of the most worrying aspects of these proposals, is that the White Paper will lay out plans to make the proposals irreversible. Cameron said the Government would:

“make it impossible for Government to return to the bad old days of the standard state monopoly”

It is an ideological attack. It is Social engineering on a grand scale. Because those of us on the Left would argue that the bad days, especially where British Gas and the railways are concerned, and looking at the private health service in America; revolves around the private sector. It has to be resisted. By making this right wing plan irreversible, he is ironically presiding over the biggest Government in decades, because he is forcing Right Winged tyranny on those of us who oppose it completely. He is effectively banning the Left Wing. What if the Labour government had given more power to the Unions, and made it irreversible? Surely we’d be hearing how Orwellian that actually is?

What if recession hits again. Which it will. It means that the only legal response, would be to do nothing. Keynesian economics would be entirely banned. What basis do they have to ban it?

The difference is, the power. The Unions represent hundreds of thousands if not millions of ordinary people. Their power is legitimate, if we are talking about giving power to ordinary people. Syndicalism, is not a bad idea. Giving power to a very narrow set of businessmen is not, and could never be considered the height of human freedom.

It amazes me that we have got to a position where we are being convinced en masse, that privatisation is “handing power back to the people“. It is such a falsity that it is almost funny. When we elect a politician, we know their face, we know their name, and if we don’t like them, we vote them out. By privatising the public sector, they are practically selling democracy to the man with the most money and calling it “power to the people“. We are getting to the stage where local representatives cannot do a thing, because their power is being handed to faceless businessmen, who we do not see, ever, never mind elect. Corporations act as little Stalinist States, where money is forced upwards, from the bottom. Those at the very top are always going to want more. Those at the bottom are always going to be squeezed for as much productivity and as little money as possible. We are therefore ruled by a Stock Market system, that relies on very very dodgy deals that have no social benefit whatsoever. Has it enriched our lives thus far? Longer working hours, ever more slimy bosses with a deluded sense of superiority? Stagnating wages with no real chance of an increase? Unions unable to exercise any power? An out of control financial sector? No housing? Gas and electricity more expensive than ever before? Less job security and more worry than ever before? I have argued previously that Democracy and Capitalism are entirely incompatible. This proves it. We are not a Democracy. We are wholly run and controlled by the power of big business. FOR THE PEOPLE!!

Orwell’s worry about an overbearing Government should not come to symbolise just the abstract concept of a State. Corporations are just as dangerous.

There is a reason why the Public and Private sectors are separate. They have different values. Profit seeking should never place itself in the public sector.

It took a Labour backbencher, Labour MP Chuka Umunna, to force Barclays to admit that it had only paid 1% Corporation Tax in 2009, even though it made profits of £11.9bn. That is absolutely obscene and completely unjustifiable. Unless you’re a Tory, obviously. Bob Diamond, the CEO of Barclays told the Treasury Select Committee that Barclays paid £2bn in taxes in 2009. It turns out he was very misleading, because those taxes are payroll taxes and its employees National Insurance. It paid just 1% Corporation Tax. It is paying bonuses worth £3bn. FOR THE PEOPLE!!

If that wasn’t enough, Barclays (remember, the tax it saves, is obviously for our benefit, for the people!) helps to fund Mugabe’s regime in Zimbabwe. It lent £750mn to Zimbabwean officials who had siezed land from White farmers, in 2007 alone, in order to “boost farm production“. Didymus Mutasa, the National Security Minister of Zimbabwe got a large chunk of Barclays money, even though he masterminded the ousting of white farmers….. who were left homeless. Mugabe has three farms, that he was able to take over, thanks to the funds from Barclays. FOR THE PEOPLE!!

If you’re disabled, tough. If you’re a child in a low socio-economic area, tough. If you want a borrow a book from a library, tough, it’s closed, fuck off. If you’re the CEO of a tax avoiding, corrupt regime propping up Bank…. great, have a bonus! FOR THE PEOPLE!!

So that begs the question, why is David Cameron focusing purely on the public sector? The public sector did not fail to the extent that he is suggesting. The public sector didn’t cause the biggest financial crises we’ve ever seen. The private sector has failed miserably, far far worse than the public sector could ever imagine. The private sector created a culture of short term gain at the expense of long term stability. It gave everyone credit cards to artificially inflate demand, to keep wages at the very top getting higher and higher whilst (unsurprisingly) wages for the rest of us stagnated. It is the reason that my boss can keep us on minimum wage, and squeeze extra work out of us, without ever offering a pay rise, and talking to us as if we are socially inferior. It is a class system. The neoliberal system. And it doesn’t work. It is a hopeless, dire, miserable little system.

David Cameron is focusing purely on the public sector, because like all Tories, he is unable to recognise the absolute failure of the Private Sector, and instead focuses all his energy on attacking the public sector. He constantly mentions benefit fraud, as do most Tory supporters. People cheating benefits is their big gripe. Yet it costs just £900mn a year. Corporate Tax avoidance (like Barclays) cost us £25bn. Get your fucking priorities in order.

I am unsure how the Liberal Democrats can continue to let this happen. They have no shame. If they keep referring to themselves as Progressives, it is going to be the main source of ridicule politically for years. Freedom, for a left of centre party, should never mean the freedom for big business and a class of business elites, to control every inch of our lives.

I hope to God that one day humanity opens its collective eyes to the absolute abuses of this horrendous right winged economic system we are force fed. It is not here to work for you and I. It is here to work for a very narrow wealthy elite.

I smell Class War.

The Unions, the Student movement, UK Uncut, and anyone who relies on public services, and anyone who hasn’t got an essential part of their soul missing, should fight back. The last thing this Country needs, is Cameronism. I give it a month before England has its name changed to McEngland, or Nike Air England.

Thatcherism and its supporters like to boast that they beat the dragon of Socialism. The Country and the World will never be truly free until it has immunised itself from the disease of Neoliberalism.

Neoliberal Democracy: Of the rich, for the rich, by the rich.
FOR THE PEOPLE!!

Why the Big Society is a load of bollocks

I have taken it upon myself to write a bullet point list of why the Big Society is a load of bollocks.

It’s a Tory plan.

In principle, is sounds lovely, and cuddly; a Country where everyone helps the little old lady cross the street, and the struggling girl trying to lift her suitcase up a flight of stairs, or a disabled man trying to reach food on the top shelf, or inviting a homeless drug addict round to Christmas dinner and letting him touch your wife’s breast. It all sounds lovely. But it’s a Tory plan. So obviously it isn’t all that it seems. Putting two and two together is not difficult, because this breed of Tory isn’t much better than the last breed at hiding their sinister motives.

Tories and their supporters are notoriously unable to critique their dogmatically held economic principles, no matter how flawed or dangerous it is. They simply put a new mask on it, every couple of years. A rebranding. Putting sparkly bits on dog turd.

Compact Voice, an agreement between the Voluntary sector and the Government, took London Council to court over plans to cut £10mn worth of funding. They won the right to a judicial review, after the court found that the plans to cut funding to 200 projects for lower socio-economic areas of London failed to meet statutory equality duties. So given that it takes a court order to promote a Big Society that the Government is apparently massively in favour of…. what is going wrong?

First you must look at the current Tory leader. Margaret Thatcher. Actually, it’s a posher looking shinier version of the mad old witch, but it nevertheless, is Thatcher. Dogmatically gelling himself to out of date, unfounded economic principles that didn’t work last time, and wont work again. Economic principles that cause more misery than joy, and only work to enrich a few people; the same people who happen to be socially retarded bastards of the highest calibre.

Thatcher famously said “there’s no such thing as society“. This is exactly what David Cameron is saying when he tries to promote his “Big Society”. The mask behind the motive, is that people will volunteer in their communities, rescue libraries, save post offices. The problem is that local communities are being drained of all resources.

When you take the mask off, the choice is “run your library yourself, of we’re closing it down“. And that’s horrendous. It is no different to what Tories always attempt to do, it just has a new mask. It would seem that the “Big Society” is a clever PR stunt, to cover up the fact that the Government is taking money away from the public sector, washing its hands of all social responsibility, in order to fund a mass of tax cuts for the very wealthy. The evidence for this can be seen with the recent offshore Corporate tax rule change; the biggest change in its history. Public money is being taken away from your library, and given back to people who run a business in England, but store their profits elsewhere, and pay no tax on it. Not only has the offshore tax system been scraped, the Corporate tax rate will be dropped by 4% by 2014. Public money is being taken away from your child’s school, for purely ideological reasons, and given to the very rich in the form of tax cuts; the very same very rich people who happen to fund the Tory Party.

Last year, George Osborne stood up in Parliament and told us all he was instantly getting rid of 490,000 jobs. Half a million people unemployed, in less than ten seconds. The Tory backbenchers cheered in joy. The Big Society is the tedious and futile hope that the voluntary sector will suck up the jobs that have been, and will continue to be destroyed by the Government. When millions are unemployed and in desperate need, the Government is washing its hands of them, and telling the rest of us to deal with it. We didn’t create this mess. The Financial Sector; many of whom donate to the Tory party, and all of whom are taking home a mass of money in bonuses this year created the problems.

The Scottish Council for Voluntary Organisations said:

“In Scotland we’re already delivering the big society. David Cameron’s big idea simply describes a lot of what already happens throughout Scotland’s third sector, from active volunteers in communities across the country to excellent public services run by charities.

“But government cuts are dangerously undermining our capacity to even continue the valuable work we were doing before the crash, never mind becoming the thriving third sector that Scotland so badly needs.

“Right now we’re on a knife- edge. The local lifelines that so many people rely on face vicious cuts, leaving the most vulnerable without the support they need. It’s going to take more than rhetoric to save our services.”

It is impossible to engage the Voluntary sector, when you are taking billions our of it, and giving a couple of million back whilst telling everyone you’re definitely funding it adequately. It is a joke. Most charity leaders don’t buy into it. They recognise that whilst Charity organisations face cuts of close to £5bn, plus the added issue of receiving less due to the scrapping of tax relief on donations, the promise of a couple of extra hundred million pounds, is minuscule. A £100mn “transition fund” is the equivalent of taking a loaf of bread away from you, handing you a slice of bread, and telling you to feed your family.

In fact, the Office for Civil Society’s promise of an extra £470mn for Voluntary organisations over the next four years, during a Parliament of intense Council cuts, is nothing in comparison to £500mn over the past three years. The Charity Commission will also be required to cut its funding by 27%.

Dame Elisabeth Hoodless, the Executive Director of the UKs leading voluntary and training service; “Community Service Volunteers” said:

“So there are a lot of very worthwhile programmes – for example volunteers working in child protection as promoted by the minister for children – which are now under threat of closure.”

Do not buy into the Big Society hype.
It is not just a cover for public sector cuts, it is a cover to transfer wealth to a very narrow wealthy elite, through a mass of Corporate tax breaks.
In plain, it is Tories being Tories.

Welcome to Corporate England…

It was an exceptionally busy day in British politics yesterday.
First, the dirtiest and most destructive years of the past half a century in Britain is being made into a film, staring Meryl Streep as Satan Baroness Thatcher……..

How scary is that?
To research the role, Meryl will be spitting on a few homeless people, and giving your money to her friends in the City.
I hope it explains the situation of the Thatcher years accurately. I hope they don’t presume to tell the World she created a wondrous property and share owning society. I hope they explain that her deregulation of the banking sector lead to the biggest financial mess we’ve ever had; that her selling off the council houses lead to numerous housing market crises and a lack of affordable homes for the next generation; that selling a few shares in British Gas (which hasn’t improved British Gas as a service) is not an adequate substitute for stagnating wages and the destruction of pensions; that passing power from the unions to finance capital has not been a great achievement leading to wondrous trickle down economics like her dirty ideology promised.
That would be nice.

Secondly, the BBC announced that the Banking sector was FURIOUS at the Treasury for the increase on the bank levy. They are apparently “livid”. It reminds me of the first episode of The Royle Family where Nana rings Barbara just to tell her that the post office wont accept her voucher because it’s a couple of days out of date. Barbara tells Jim. Jim doesn’t care. Barbara says “I’ve told Jim……… oooo he’s livid“. It is a similar situation. The increase on the bank levy of an extra £800mn more is minuscule. The bankers are not “livid”, they are simply saying so, to make it seem as if the Government is being tough of banks. It is a joint effort, and it probably wont work, because people aren’t stupid. The banks will then announce that they have come to an agreement to start lending again (even though that’s what they’re supposed to do anyway), they will presume we will all be grateful to them for doing what they’re supposed to do as opposed to just extravagantly rewarding themselves for breaking things, and the Chancellor will seem like a hero who tamed the banks. The reality, is quite the opposite.

The bank levy is still less, even with this extra £800mn, than it was under Labour. The banks are being asked to pay less than is required of them for destroying the entire system in the first place. Barclays Chief Bob Diamond will take home a bonus (not salary) of £8mn this year. Correct me if i’m wrong, but this is the exact same situation we were in before the crises. It will happen again and again. It is inherent to the excessive power of finance capital. The unions may have had too much power in the 1970s, but finance capital, backed by the forces of Conservatism has an even greater hold on power now.

Thirdly, as the bank levy was made public yesterday, the Tories knew it would take up much of the coverage in the Press. So this gave them a chance to spill the beans on a horrid little change to the Corporate tax laws. When I say “little change“, I mean, the biggest change to Corporate tax laws in decades. It is the greatest transfer of wealth from a gutted public sector, from services to children, to the elderly and to the disabled – to big business, I think I’ve ever known and it is massively unjustifiable.

The change is this;
The corporate tax rules used to say that if you paid 10% on your overseas profits, and the rate here is 28%, you’d have to pay 18% when you shift your profits back here, to make up the difference. Which is sane.
Now, under the new Tory rules; companies pay nothing on money made by their overseas branches.
When the money gets here, through tax havens, they will have paid nothing on it. But, this rule change only applies to “large and medium firms“. Small businesses still have to pay.
And here’s the icing on the feces cake…. the “large company” that now have even higher profits because it doesn’t have to pay tax on it, can still claim expenses for funding its overseas branches, against the tax it pays here. They don’t pay the tax on that overseas branch, but they can still claim expenses to run it.
Oh and by 2014, the 28% rate will be dropped to 24%.

The point of doing this, is obviously ideological. It is an ideology that says a lower corporate tax rate is better for us all, the extra money will trickle down to us from those philanthropists of the business World, and whilst the rest of us have to deal with mass unemployment, no police, cuts to any form of social service, privatised health care, child care cuts, fear of job and house loss, extra funding for school sports being abolished, the selling off of forests and our libraries closing; we should be thanking the Government for allowing our richest companies to get even richer. Because they will provide the jobs that will kick start the economy apparently. Like they definitely fucking didn’t did in Ireland.

Welcome to Corporate England. Welcome to Wednesday afternoon, brought to you by Starbucks. Enjoy the air you’re breathing, sponsored by Nike. Indulge in some conversation, promoted by Walmart (Disclaimer: At the end of every sentence, you must use the phrase: this sentence was brought to you by Walmart).

It is of course no surprise that the Tories are bending over the kitchen table and winking provocatively at the City. It was revealed in the Guardian yesterday, that over 50% of Tory funds come from the City. One of my favourites is Peter Hall, an Australian Fund Manager, who in 2008 told the Sydney Morning Herald that the oceans should be sold off as property. If privatising the sea wasn’t enough, David Rowland, the multimillionaire worth an estimate £700mn donated over £4mn to the Tory Party. Hedge Fund manager Stanley Fink donated £1.9mn. He was then made Tory Treasurer. The money is astounding. For all the talk of Labour being in the pockets of Unions, it is no better that that Tories are in the pockets of the richest and most powerful men on the planet. Actually, that’s a lie. It is worse than being in the pockets of Unions. Unions represented average men and women, thousands upon thousands of people. The City represents the most narrow of elites, whose main concern is increasing their own power and wealth.

It is no wonder that Corporate Tax cuts and a banking tax cut is being masked as a great coup against a greedy banking sector. Who do our public servants work for? What a funny, blinded little World we live in, when we claim we’re a liberal and free democracy. We are too cowardly to fight back. The Egyptians are showing us how it should be done. The public face of Finance Capital, is the Tory Party, and that is not a good thing.

I seem to remember there were Liberal Democrats in this Coalition at some point? Are they still calling themselves Progressives? Is that still what they insist on going with? Can a massive delusion really last this long?

The guinea-pig Nation

According to the Australian reporter Prue Clarke, growing poverty in Ghana has tripled the number of children who work the streets as prostitutes, over the past decade. There are now over 20,000 children living on the streets of Ghana.

The IMF likes to claim that it has given well over $160,000,000 to Ghana to help rebuild the economy of Ghana, plus an extra $1.1bn from the World Bank, and how wondrous this is. Now, whilst it is true that a minority of citizens of Ghana have benefited from the IMF liberalisation of the markets of Ghana, most have been displaced by cheap imports that have destroyed their local industry, made them jobless, and then thanks to massive cuts in social spending, they’re simply left to rot. The IMF says it’s wonderful, because growth for the sake of growth is the neoliberal way.

The IMF are a group that are rather dictatorial in their running of an economy. To them, the idea of Nation States, and their sovereignty is meaningless. To the IMF, the IMF control your country. They in affect, make sure the richer countries remain rich, and the poorer countries open up their markets for the richer countries to exploit at will.

The IMF is essentially a bank. They give loans and aid to countries that need it, but they only give that aid, if the countries in question implement right winged economic principles. The idea is “you do it our way, or fuck you“. This ideological vehicle, of course has it’s problems. Not least for Ghana, who the IMF insist they have done an excellent job with.

What they fail to point out, are the findings by Christianaid:

“In the year 2000 alone, sub-Saharan Africa lost nearly US$45 dollars per person thanks to trade liberalisation. Most trade liberalisation in Africa has been part of the conditions attached to foreign aid, loans and debt relief. This looks like a bad deal: in 2000, aid per person in sub-Saharan Africa was less than half the loss from liberalisation – only US$20. Africa is losing much more than it gains if aid comes with policy strings attached. The staggering truth is that the US$272 billion liberalisation has cost sub-Saharan Africa would have wiped clean the debt of every country in the region (estimated at US$204 billion) and still left more than enough money to pay for every child to be vaccinated and go to school.”

The government of Ghana no longer has any control over Ghana. Social policies are tied to economic policies, and the government of Ghana can only implement a social policy, if the IMF agree to it. If a Sub-Saharan African nation needs help, it has to sell it’s soul to the economic devil, for eternity. Who gave the IMF that sort of power over so many lives? I certainly didn’t vote for them? Why is this form of totalitarianism considered legitimate?

According to Waldon Bello, a senior analyst at “Focus on the Global South”, a program of Chulalongkorn University’s Social Research Institute:

“At the time of decolonization in the 1960s, Africa was not just self-sufficient in food but was actually a net food exporter, its exports averaging 1.3 million tons a year between 1966-70. Today, the continent imports 25% of its food, with almost every country being a net food importer. Hunger and famine have become recurrent phenomena, with the last three years alone seeing food emergencies break out in the Horn of Africa, the Sahel, Southern Africa, and Central Africa.

It would seem that the huge problem caused by neoliberalism on economies that just aren’t ready for it at all, is the huge increase in imports and the meagre growth or even decline of exports, which in turn leads to huge rates of unemployment, awful exploitation at the hands of Western business and the bare minimum social protection for the those affected the worst. Markets are incomplete and so the social programs that gave access to land to local farmers, and offered them a degree of protection, were suddenly taken away. People who had no idea how to work in a highly competitive global marketplace, had absolutely no chance of survival. What happens, in areas like chicken farming, which is one of Ghana’s biggest industries, is that with market liberalisation, UK and US excess chicken produce, is imported and sold ridiculously cheap in Ghana, thereby pricing the local farmers out of the markets. It is not “competition”, it is economic imperialism. Ghana is thankfully fighting against it. Unfortunately, they have been in this position once before. In 2003, the Ghanaian government passed legislation that increased import duty on poultry in an attempt to help local poultry farmers keep their livelihoods. The IMF forced them to repeal the legislation a few months later. How very undemocratic of the IMF, given that the Ghanaian government is a fairly elected government of the people. The IMF apparently consider themselves far more important than the Ghanaian people.

With this, came the liberalisation of health in Ghana. Which meant paying for healthcare. The most vulnerable people in Ghana were thus unable to gain access to healthcare. Healthcare from a specialist in Ghana after IMF liberalisation, cost people ten times the average wage of Ghanaians. Primary education, costs Ghanaians money too.

Ghana is not making anything. It’s industrial base is non-existent. According to Christianaid, Ghana’s employment in manufacturing actually fell quite horrendously after liberalisation occured. Which is why its exports are so weak. It’s farmers are forced out of the market by multinational competitors, which works only to benefit the richer nations. According to the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development:

“The more recent evidence from liberalisation episodes in sub-Saharan Africa as well as Latin America suggest that they have often been accompanied by an increase in unemployment. ”

The IMF’s fundamental grasp on markets is interestingly weak. They forced Vietnam to liberalise it’s coffee industry in the 1980s. And it worked. Pretty well too. (In stark contrast to Senegal’s tomato production, which after IMF liberalisation, fell from 74,000 tons to just under 20,000 tons and pretty much killed off the entire trade in Senegal) Vietnam went from producing 50,000 tons, to 400,000 tons of coffee. Which, is a success. The IMF then decided that which works in one Nation, must be true for all. Neoliberalism at it’s oddest. And so it urged Uganda and Kenya to do the same in 1993. Suddenly, with increased coffee exports, the market was over supplied, and a huge economic crises occurred in the major coffee producing nations, causing the World Bank to report:

“coffee prices have declined sharply in recent years because of large increases in coffee production and exports from traditional exporters such as Brazil and new entrants such as Vietnam, Between July 1998 and June 2001, coffee export prices declined by almost 50%.”

In 2008, the World Bank, released a report, beautifully hidden away, and ignored by pretty much all major news institutions, which seems to be a subtle hint, that perhaps neoliberalism isn’t all it’s cracked up to be:

“Structural adjustment in the 1980’s dismantled the elaborate system of public agencies that provided farmers with access to land, credit, insurance inputs, and cooperative organization. The expectation was that removing the state would free the market for private actors to take over these functions—reducing their costs, improving their quality, and eliminating their regressive bias. Too often, that didn’t happen. ”

IMF demand absolutely no trade restrictions from poorer Countries, whilst richer Countries like the US ensure that entry into their markets are as difficult as possible. The US high tech industry would have died horribly, many many years ago, had the Pentagon not kept it going.

Trade liberalisation in a global economy, does work. But only when it is appropriate. Countries like Malaysia explicitly ignored the IMF’s recommendations to liberalise their markets, and Malaysia succeeded. Such strong neoliberal recommendations do not work in the most developed of Nations, so attempting to implement them in the poorest, is always destined to fail. Especially given that a huge cut in import tariffs means a far smaller tax revenue for Nations like Ghana, who then cannot afford to pay their debts back. Even the US and the UK retain protectionist policies, that the IMF have strictly forbidden from the poorer Nations. It seems like the IMF is simply a vehicle for the economic imperialist ideologues who adhere to the theories of neoliberalism, to experiment on poor and struggling Nations. It has created a tyranny of an economic system. Ghana has no choice but to do what the IMF says. Ghana, is a guinea-pig.

The Reagan Legacy

Ronald Reagan, in my estimation, was a nightmare. He is adored as a grandfather like figure who transformed America, whilst his equally as evil minion, Thatcher “transformed” Britain. A Corporate bitch at best, a war criminal for what he did with Guatemala at worst. Reagan once commented on Guatemala:
“President Ríos Montt is a man of great personal integrity and commitment. … I know he wants to improve the quality of life for all Guatemalans and to promote social justice.”
President Rios Montt, staunch anticommunist, and funded almost entirely by the Reagan administration, was according to a Roman Catholic investigation, guilty of commanding widespread torture, rape, political murders and genocide against the indigenous population if they happened to show left wing sympathies.
Greg Grandin, a reputable historian found that:
“In Nicaragua, the U.S.-backed Contras decapitated, castrated, and otherwise mutilated civilians and foreign aid workers. Some earned a reputation for using spoons to gorge their victims eye’s out. In one raid, Contras cut the breasts of a civilian defender to pieces and ripped the flesh off the bones of another.”
Quite ironically, one of America’s most wanted terrorists, Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, was funded almost exclusively by the Reagan administration, whilst also given full immunity for cocaine trafficking, people trafficking and other horrific offences, purely because he didn’t really like the Soviets either.

Whilst Reagan was quite happily knowingly funding rape, death, and genocide over in Latin America; back in America he was launching an all out assault on organised labour. His Chief of Staff (ex-chairman of Merrill Lynch, and vice chairman of the New York Stock Exchange) Donald Regan helped build policy around this new Neoliberalist ideal. In 1981, air traffic controllers went on strike to demand better working conditions. 12,000 in all. When 12,000 people go on strike, ones instant reaction is that perhaps management isn’t all that great. 12,000 people are not holding the industry to ransom; the management is holding the people to ransom. Reagan didn’t see it that way. He had them all fired. As a result, management could now just replace striking workers, meaning workers didn’t dare speak out against poor working conditions. Which meant that management could do whatever the fuck they wanted. The median real wage did not grow, during the entire 1980s. But, the gap between rich and poor more than doubled, and the homeless rate was at the highest in decades. As a result of his tax cuts for the rich, the deficit reached record highs. After forcing a recession on the American public, he then managed to cut Federal low income household funds, by 84%.

What about the middle class? According to research undertaken by Wallace Peterson, author of “The Macroeconomic legacy of Reaganomics“, The middle class share of the economy in 1980 was 61.7%. In 1985, that had shrunk to 58.2%. Similarly, the poverty rate under President Carter reached a peak of 12.1% before falling to 11.9% by the end of his term in Office. Under Reagan, between 1981-1986, the poverty rate shot up to 14.7%. Unemployment under Carter started falling and finished at 7.5% by the end of his term. Between 1981-1986, under Reagan, unemployment shot up to 8.1%.
Under Obama, the unemployment rate has dropped from 10% to 9.7%, whilst U.S. Department of Commerce states that 4th quarter GDP growth went from 5.7% to 5.9%, the best rate of growth in seven years. Obama doesn’t have Fox News on his side, Reagan still does. That’s the difference.

What Reagan essentially did, with his ideal of cutting the size of government and slashing aid to those who needed it most, was to bankroll the rich, spit on the poor, create a new class of homeless people, and use this new smaller government (which in fact, had more federal employees than any government before it) to undertake the task of destroying any left wing opposition in Latin America. That was the American Government’s new mission. Constitutional? Apparently so, if you ask Republican America.

Economist Mark Weisbrot is quoted as stating that Reagan’s economic policies were “mostly a failure”. Free-market-failure-denial-sufferers, will never accept that Reagan was an utter failure. Weisbrot goes on to point out that: “The median wage was flat, and there was a massive redistribution of income, with wealth going to the top one or two percent of the population“

Was he the most popular President of the past century as some conservatives would have us believe? No. He never reached the 90% approval rating that even George W Bush and his father achieved, and Bill Clinton managed roughly the same rating during his two terms, surpassing Reagan in the second half of each of their terms.

The hysteria about the debt and stimulus across the U.S, is crippling the recovery. America needs more stimulus. As does Britain. It didn’t go far enough. What the World doesn’t need, is another Reagan or Thatcher propagating the rumour that neoliberalism is the only way out of recession, because for millions upon millions of people, it certainly isn’t. During a recession of such huge proportions, a lack of easily affordable healthcare (a universal system), lack of a safety net, and lack of foreclosure federal help, means the majority is far more at risk from financial ruin and psychological depression. One of the many reasons i’ll never vote Conservative.

Reagan’s legacy was one of homelessness, selfishness, arrogance, lack of compassion or empathy, hate, Corporate greed, death, and misery. All in the name of an economic policy disastrously known as “trickle down”. History will remember both him and Thatcher as little beacons of horror and misery. That’s all.

Obama now needs to man up, recognise that he’s President, recognise that the Democrats control Congress, and make sure the Republicans – as well as being a laughing stock for the entire World – know that they are largely irrelevant now.

Big Brother Society

The era of reality TV has many critics claiming the word “reality” is far too loosely attributed to those shows. Big Brother is undoubtedly the King of reality TV. Blogs like Weekly Gripe claim without contest, that shows like Big Brother do not reflect any sense of reality at all, and ends the piece with “I think Television should rethink what is reality and what’s not.” I’d disagree wholeheartedly with that statement.

Ultimately, Big Brother is pointless and has no social benefit whatsoever. And so Big Brother is a perfect example of reality. The notion that a group of people are thrown together, forced to backstab each other in the hope that they will get ahead. Only one person can win the money, the rest are forgotten, greater social needs are ignored. The enemy of those people, is “Big Brother“, the government of the house. The contestants change themselves to what they think the public expect them to be. Similarly, we as good little workers speak like our employers expect us to speak, we question nothing, we dress as we are expected to dress in order to appeal to this abstract concept of “looking professional”. We are never ourselves when it comes to the incessant chase for money and reward. That, if the Neoliberal conception of human nature is to be believed, is reality at it’s finest. That fear of government, that selfish grab at money, is reality. Big Brother, is the perfect example of 21st Century reality. The World, financial markets, workplaces, are hundreds of thousands upon millions of little Big Brother type shows acting themselves out under the guise of “reality“. The selfishness and the greed institutionalised in shows like Big Brother, is a solid reflection of the institutionalised culture of greed and individualism that the Western World has been forced to adhere to under the manipulated language of “freedom” and “human nature“.

Contestants on Big Brother are not free. And it isn’t just the Government of the reality show that restricts their freedom. The carrot dangling at the end of the show; the money. The promise of “more”. The promise of “more” is a far bigger restriction on human freedom, than Government could ever be. Business is by it’s very nature; totalitarian. This promise of “more” is what drives people in a Neoliberalist system of economics. It assumes that human nature is inherently self interested, totally individual and greedy. I WANT AN IPHONE!!! Why? for what reason? You’ll only want a newer model in a year or two. Pointless, manipulative greed. It dismisses any notion that human nature, whilst having the potential to be self interested and greedy, also has the capacity to be loving, and giving, and needing support, and sensitive, and helpful, and every other trait that appears completely at odds with individualist selfishness. Collective responsibility is deemed “communist” at worst, and so ignored. An individual is a commodity in a Neoliberalist World. Unless you have a mind for business, or are the son of a rich couple, you’re deemed a commodity, to be bought and sold, and if you cannot produce the skills that the Market at this time demands, you’re useless, and worthless, and should not be given any support whatsoever. Collective responsibility for an individuals misgivings are being slowly eroded. The idea being that if everyone is responsible for themselves and themselves only, we will be forced to work hard enough to survive without any help or assistance whatsoever.

Neoliberalism places Government as the antagonist, at odds with human freedom because they take your money from you and redistribute it to the poor. It amazes me that it is only government that is seen as the antagonist. The place that I work at, gave us a worker’s manual. It stated that we must be “clean shaven or have a full beard, ‘designer stubble’ is not acceptable“, so businessmen think they have the right to tell me how my face should look. They then told us we should “have at least one bath or shower a day“. Why is that any of their business? And why aren’t those advocates of “freedom” up in arms about business tyranny and totalitarian principles that they are built on?

Their argument seems to be “if you don’t like it, go elsewhere“. Forgetting the fact that I, like most people, can’t afford to be out of work looking for a new job, If I were to go elsewhere, that new place would have the very same kind of limitations; it’s universal. Business, by it’s very nature, is totalitarian. And yet, Neoliberalism tells me that this is the ultimate in human freedom; being able to tell those people below you who make YOU the money that funds YOUR luxurious lifestyle, how to dress and how many times to wash. It then demands that I respect a person like my boss, despite the fact that I utterly despise him. What is the incentive for me to respect a man who pays me the very minimum allowed by law, whilst he himself drives home in a nice big luxurious car, financed by the staff who work for him, the very same staff whose names he hasn’t got the time to learn? He is a child of the Thatcher generation, and so assumes employee respect and subservience is his God given right. It isn’t.

The paradox of Neoliberalism, is that the ideology exists like a set of scales. For those at the top to keep rising, those at the bottom must keep falling. There is no way out of it. Neoliberalism then suggests that those who have rised, deserve even further praise, admiration and reward, whilst the inevitable pile of those who have failed, deserve nothing but a life of misery. It’s the reason stores like Primark insist on using cheap, exploitable labour. Profits become far more important that people, and no one stands up to complain, millions shop in Primark every year. Purely because the notion that human nature is greedy, offers people a justification for giving money to pretty Fascist organisations. And so whilst some may call it “freedom“, I simply call it “insecurity“. Suddenly values, morals, and humanity are fleeting, abstract thoughts that matter very little because everyone has been forced to be self interested and greedy, looking out for number one first. We’ve been given no choice. The freedom they gave us (Thatcher and Reagan) was “either be greedy, or be insecure, hungry, cold, and useless“. Human nature is not simply greedy, it is merely the case that greed is obviously amplified, when the system we live in offers endless rewards to such greed. When love, and compassion are not rewarded, and in some cases, punished, why would humanity exhibit such qualities above greed? Why is incentive offered to place the exchange of goods and capital, ahead of social injustice?
That isn’t freedom.

Within the Big Brother house, the choice is “be entertaining, controversial, and backstab everyone, or fail miserably“.

Neoliberalism also brings with it a terrible amount of institutionalised racism. Schools in poor black areas cannot readily afford new equipment, or top class teachers, or new text books because they simply lack funding, and so class division and lack of social mobility is perpetuated for another generation. Neoliberalist supporters fail to admit this flaw in their miserable ideology, and instead choose to blame the lack of ability, or work ethic, or discipline within poor black communities themselves as opposed to horrendous social injustice caused by their awful system. The USA healthcare system, that rich white folks do not want to see changed, is a supreme case of Neoliberal institutionalised racism at it’s worst. According to a study by University of Dayton, areas of predominantly uninsured minorities are subject to higher rates of “environmental toxins, including lead and asbestos“, the workers of the minority areas also “disproportionately work in jobs with higher physical and psycho-social health risks (i.e., migrant farm workers, fast food workers, garment industry workers). Minority communities are frequently the targets of institutions promoting unhealthy products, such as alcohol and tobacco. ” If it wasn’t for some form of social conscience exhibited by Government over the years, those minorities would doubtless become a Neoliberal dream, full of sweatshops and exploitation of the worst variety. Government needs to go further, and intervene in social misfortunes, where the Market simply perpetuates the problem.

Democratic values are seemingly undermined by the ideology of privatised-everything, cloaked by the narrow focus of “the market“.
Socialism, to me, is not simply an economic challenge to Capitalism. It is not simply a solution to inequality through the common ownership of production; it is a set of values, that start at the premise that people are far more important than private profit. The idea that you cater to the needs of civilisation first, and once that aim has been realised, you cater to the wants of civilisation. I do not believe in forcing people into jobs they hate purely so economists can say “look, isn’t the unemployment rate amazing”. For every well paid mining job the Thatcher government destroyed, another three McDonalds and Starbucks jobs were created, and was used as a sign of improving times. The Confederation of British Industry, the beacon of Neoliberalism, once suggested cutting University degrees down to what the economy needs. If it needs more Maths graduates, then they suggested emphasis should be put on Maths, and degrees such as Philosophy should be scraped. Where is the freedom in that? What if I want to study Philosophy? Freedom only appears to work, when haggered old grey haired right wingers decide it’s possible. Which speaks to another area of society’s Big Brother complex. Neoliberalism tends to want to press home the notion that markets should be left to their own devices, free from government interference. Yet, when markets fail, government interference is demanded by the markets. The banking crises was a magnificent example of the failure of Neoliberalism, and Socialism having to bail it out, to keep it going. The Capitalist structure, was crumbling, and Socialism had to bail it out. In the Big Brother house, contestants appear to hate their in-house Government, yet appeal to it rather hypocritically for help and advice, whenever they seem to be crumbling themselves. The American high tech industry has only survived as it is today, because of Pentagon subsidies over the years. Without those subsidies, America would not be the immense power it is today.

Big Brother is simply a reflection of the Neoliberalist society that has been forced onto the World over the past twenty five years. Thatcher’s generation forced Neoliberal principles onto my generation, and we don’t want it. You can keep it. And take Big Brother with you.

Cambridge Universitism

I fear the general public is in danger today of ignoring an incredibly vital issue that was set to be debated in the Commons this afternoon (but has in effect, been defeated and thrown out). The Employment Opportunities Bill, introduced to the House by Tory MP for Christchurch Christopher Chope. It raises the issue of Minimum wage, and suggests that, with the consent of the employee, employers should be able to opt out of paying minimum wage. It is, in essence, an abolition of the minimum wage bill.

Now, ignoring the fact that whilst Mr Chope doesn’t much care for those of us who could not afford to live on less than minimum wage, let alone hope to one day get a foot on the housing ladder, he didn’t appear to have a problem claiming £136,992 last year in expenses. Perhaps that money could go to helping those who would so severely be hit economically by his disastrous bill, buy food? We already can’t afford gas and electric since his party privatised it all during the ’80s.
Are the Tories really that naive as to think any employee is going to agree to opt out of minimum wage, without the employer saying “Sign this agreement to opt out, or fuck off”? It would encourage businesses that are not struggling, to pay beneath minimum wage. Prices would deflate hugely as a result. And all companies would start to opt out on a grand scale, because minimum wage does not work unless it’s universally applied. It would, in truth, be a disaster.

Chope said “Our government make it illegal for an employer and an employee freely to negotiate the level of remuneration if it is less than £5.73 an hour for an adult, unless, of course, the work involved is unpaid voluntary work.” That damn Government, trying to help those who were quite routinely exploited during the Tory reign of terror, live a better life. How dare they. I particularly dislike his use of the term “negotiate”. If an employer says “you either accept a pay decrease to £1 an hour, or i’ll employ someone who will”, that isn’t a negotiation, that’s exploitation. It is not a bill to help people surf the tide of recession by having access to more jobs albeit with slightly lower pay, it’s a bill to increase productivity of workers whilst paying as little as possible, it’s a bill to help employ at the lowest costs possible, whilst be able to pay just enough to keep employees alive to actually do the work. For example, one of the Tory MPs who backs this bill, is Peter Bone, famous for once paying a 17 year old trainee 87p for work in his Travel Company. The old face of exploitative Toryism just refuses to die.

It is no surprise that it is Mr Chope promoting this bill. He is responsible for selling off Council Houses in the 1980s, which lead to Mrs Thatcher’s re-election, gaining support from those who would typically vote Labour given that they could now afford to own their own home. In the process, it completely screwed over my generation, who will find it almost impossible, short of becoming a Lawyer (or an MP), of owning my own home. The Government of the 1980s made it easier for those wanting to buy multiple homes to do so, which in turn pushed the average house price up by 225% between 1983 and 1990, which meant sea side home were bought up and used once or twice a year, which meant villages like Beadnell in Northumberland are forced to close schools and businesses local to the area, because 256 out of the 500 homes, are holiday homes! Thanks Chope! You’re a genius! Chope went on to say that being FORCED to work for minimum wage, was against our “human rights”. Note, that this is from a party opposed to the Human Rights Act.

The idiots Geniuses over at Cambridge University Conservative Association (as if you’d expect them to understand the point of the minimum wage in the first place) say “ the minimum wage causes unemployment (a surplus of labour)“. No it doesn’t. It’s regressive, especially during a recession, to suggest that employers should be able to pay those who are already struggling to pay their bills, a lot less. It’s inexcusably immoral at best. They’ve decided upon the conclusion that minimum wage causes unemployment, due to their dedication to Thatcherite Neoliberalism. Not to concrete evidence. Surely if every firm is paying minimum wage, then equilibrium is achieved? Market forces cannot work against a universal principle. It creates a level playing field for all firms, whilst protecting the most vulnerable, from what i’m now going to refer to as “Cambridge Universitism“. The only conceivable way that markets will fail, is by introducing an Opt Out system, where by some firms stick in principle to minimum wage, whilst their competitors see an opportunity to capitalise on paying their employees, 35p an hour. In which case, those employees will want to go elsewhere, to companies that pay minimum wage, and the exploiting Company based on “Cambrigde Universitism” fails anyway?

The minimum wage was introduced in the UK in 1999, the pay was set at £3.30. Since then it has rose to £5.73 an hour, and comes with strict penalties for firms caught not abiding by their responsibilities. It benefits huge numbers of the lowest paid workers in the Country, which in turn, provides a higher rate of disposable income (some were paid as little as 80p an hour during the Thatcher years), and so benefits the economy on the whole. There is little argument that minimum wage is one of New Labour’s greatest achievements, and has helped improve the living conditions of millions since it’s introduction in 1999. Except, if you’re an expenses cheating Tory MP, or you’re in your own haven from the rich at Cambridge, obviously.

Cambridge go on to say “Indeed, now that we are in a recession, it is surely responsible for even more unemployment.” Followed by “Unemployment will never be minimised as long as minimum wage legislation remains in force.“…… Again, no evidence, merely sticking to Neoliberalist principles that says minimum wages prices people out of jobs. Unemployment (which spiked during the Thatcher era, despite the lack of minimum wage) was falling steadily year on year when minimum wage was introduced. Two years later, unemployment was at it’s lowest in decades. This is true for both full time and part time workers. In fact, by 2000, unemployment was at it’s lowest in 25 years. You’d surely expect, a year after minimum wage has been introduced, by Cambridge Univertism 19th Century Factory exploitation logic, and Peter Bone MP, who said in 1998 that a “A minimum wage would condemn hundreds of thousands to the dole queue.” that unemployment would have rose dramatically, almost inconceivably so, by hundreds of thousands, if not millions, but no, it fell, and continued to fall, pretty much until recession hit.

Recession of cause, had absolutely nothing to do with minimum wage, and everything to do with the greed of banking Neoliberalists, which in turn lead to suspicion in the banking sector and reluctance to lend. Minimum wage was not the cause, and minimum wage did not make the situation worse. In fact, having a minimum wage can help, given that mortgage lenders lend on the strength of income. If you’re being paid 80p an hour, you aren’t in a better position to be claiming a mortgage. Regardless of what these toffs say, Minimum Wage has provided security for millions of workers, who in turn have lead a healthier , more secure and happier life. It doesn’t cause mass unemployment, no more so than before minimum wage legislation was introduced. It prevents the greed of certain employers driving down wages as much as possible.

It is worrying that such a senior Conservative, advocates such regressive nonsense, at a time when Conservatives are almost inevitably set to become the next Government of the United Kingdom. Chope seems to be attacking Labour on the introduction of the minimum wage, appearing to be concerned with rising unemployment and yet didn’t have a problem when 3,000,000 people were left unemployed, and untrained, the homeless rate shot up, and the poll tax that he helped usher in creating mass unemployment, the deaths of thousands of businesses (including ours), and unprecedented rioting, due to the policies he endorsed in the eighties. The only difference now is, we at least have some protection for our lowest paid…. which he doesn’t seem to like. He appears to be in denial that deregulation of the labour market, would be a disaster during recession.

The same Tories were telling us all, a few months back, that you had to pay bankers high to provide incentive for them to work hard. Now they’re telling me that same logic doesn’t apply to those who are paid least? Why is Chope not proposing legislation to cut down on tax loopholes for the super rich? Why is he proposing to hit the lowest paid workers the hardest? Simple answer, he’s a Tory, and he’s supported by Cambridge Universitism.

Chope, who opposed the introduction of the minimum wage ten years ago, and seemingly still carries a grudge, speaking on behalf of Conservatives who oppose Minimum Wage, said, quite comically: “We are talking about the marketplace and people should be free to compete in the marketplace without restriction“. Well in that case, I cannot wait to see Chope introduce a bill to abolish or “opt out” of the Factory Acts and all anti-discrimination laws, so that people are “free without restriction” to hire whomever they wish, for as long as they wish, for as much as they wish. Let’s have no restrictions on employment. Let’s be fully regressive!

The Tories are starting to show themselves for what they really are. Stuck in the 1980s.

Corporate Narnia

The Cayman Islands, off the West coast of Cuba, are home to a plethora of beautiful sun kissed beaches, glistening white sand, clear blue sea, and small buildings that magically home tens of thousands of U.S Companies. It’s a beautiful warm magical corporate Narnia.

Whilst the hypocritical Teabaggers sit at home complaining endlessly about the work the Obama administration is currently undertaking in order to clean up the failed Neoliberalist mess left by eight years of Republican destruction; the Administration itself is set to crack down on off shore tax havens, and rightly so. We spend far too long reading stories about benefit cheats, who, in 2008 were responsible for scrounging altogether £800m condemning them all to hell, and yet we appear to have no problem with the fact that £13bn was lost to Corporate tax evasion in the UK in 2008. We let that slip. For what reason? For all the complaining about the public finances David Cameron does, and how he’s so worried about our kid’s futures, he doesn’t seem too fussed about the tax haven scams.

Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner told the House Ways and Means Commitee on Tuesday: “We fully support the legislation … on offshore tax centres, and we look forward to working with you as part of the broader effort to address international tax evasion and close the tax gap”.
To most of us, the fact that $13tn remains locked away in untaxed havens of the super rich across the planet, is despicable, and so intensely wrong it demands urgent action. The Chancellor over here in the UK announced in his 2009 Budget, that HM Customs and Revenues would name and shame those companies underpaying what they in fact owe in tax, with those individuals responsible for tax avoidance, for the first time ever, being held personally liable for the lost tax revenue. Fantastic steps. Obama appears to be doing the same over in the States. And rightfully so.

President Obama announced that along with much more transparency in American held bank accounts in tax havens; that regulation of offshore Tax Havens would save $210bn over ten years, and would be used “to reduce the deficit, cut taxes for American businesses that are playing by the rules, and provide meaningful relief for hard-working families.”
The plans would also stop companies deferring taxes on profits made overseas, and so should act as an incentive to stop shutting up shop and shipping jobs overseas. Overall, it seems like a great idea. The Future of Capitalism must be a responsible future. It must not reward those who ship overseas, or move their profits to tax havens, to avoid paying their fair share in the United States. The Republican culture of pandering to big business seems like it is being cleaned up.
In January 2009, The Government Accountability Office found that of the 100 biggest U.S Corporations, 83 have subsidiaries in offshore tax havens.
Where are the teabaggers now? Where were they when it was announced in July 2008 that 18850 companies are registered to a small apartment block in the Cayman Islands? Pandering to big business and defending their ability to cheat the system, whilst complaining that the poor folk of America can no longer afford to keep their homes due to disastrous Bush Administration policy, is hypocritically pathetic at best.

The Republicans have two courses of action, both wont help their cause. Firstly, they could come out against these plans, and just appear to be the same old Republican Party, sucking up to big business, the party of the rich, and claiming that anything other than letting Corporate tax avoidance happen is Socialism; or they could keep quiet and say nothing. Which, makes them look weak, no doubt the extreme Right (Fox, and Limbaugh) will then make a point to attack the GOP for being too Liberal, and further kill off their cause. Either way, i’m fine with.

The U.S Chamber of Commerce chief economist Marty Regalia said of the plans: “A huge tax hike on U.S. employers is not the way to stimulate our economy. Congress should reject this approach.” I never realised making companies pay the taxes they owe, is a tax hike? But what do I know, i’m not a chief economist.
Ryan Ellis, tax policy director of the anti-tax group Americans for Tax Reform echoed Regalia’s sentiments by saying: “This will force companies to leave the country, and they’ll take their jobs and capital with them,”. If Ellis had chosen a different career path, and instead became a counsellor for domestic abuse victims, I fear his message would be something like: “HEY! Let your boyfriend rape you, otherwise he’ll leave and find someone new to rape”. I say if the cancer of Capitalism wants to leave the Country because their infectious nature has been broken down and eliminated, let them. Fuck them. Competitiveness will not be killed off, it will merely create a fairer market within the United States for the companies that don’t piss all over the rule book.

I wait anxiously to see the Republican response to this in the United States, and what, if anything The Conservatives and David Cameron have to offer over here in the UK.

The untouchable Conservatives?

I’ve been wondering lately why those people who intend on voting Conservative at the next general election, actually like President Obama. Surely he stands for everything they’re against? I couldn’t imagine Maggie Thatcher fans claiming the greatest President that ever lived was Franklin Roosevelt (even though, he was) who spent a fortune on the New Deal stimilus package in the 1930s. Similarly, I can’t understand why anyone supporting David Cameron, would claim to be a fan of Obama? It makes no sense, it’s an odd infliction. And so it’s leading me to the disappointing, and rather worrying belief that people wont be voting Conservative because they like the idea of a Conservative government; people will vote Conservative because they dislike Gordon Brown.

I think the younger generation, who appear to have lost touch with Politics, see a Nation on the brink of economic disaster, and naturally feel drawn to the opposite side. They don’t however, understand what the opposite side is offering. Of course we all accept that Brown’s claim to have abolished boom and bust, is quite frankly ridiculous. But that isn’t reason enough to empower a new Tory regime.

Latest Polls show that people seem to be happier for the Tories to take control of the economy, despite the misery they caused last time. Despite the fact that this time, they offer no help to those less fortunate during recession. They aren’t offering training programs, they aren’t offering infrastructure investment, they aren’t offering investment in future technology. They are just offering the same shit, cut public spending, cut tax. As if that solves anything at all. They do not seem to understand that the most hard hit families, rely on public spending which if cut, would harm those families but help those who are coping fine as it is. We are not Republican America, we are not a Country under the failed presumption that public spending means Socialism. It doesn’t. The Conservatives would be the very worst Political Party to have in Government. Neoliberalism has failed. We are in recession, because of Neoliberalism. The Conservatives, are offering more Neoliberalism. Do you see the problem?

The last time the Conservatives had their Right Wing grip on Britain, we had full scale riots, 60% of Liverpool’s workforce unemployed (which under Labour has decreased so far, that they are well above the national average for employment rates) to the point where people rioted (again, Tories are good at causing riots) and police were forced to use tear gas, section 28 of the local government act telling schools not to teach homosexuality as natural, so alienating children, and an attempt to completely underfund the NHS to the point of near collapse. Then of course, they began to sell off the council houses, meaning 20 years later, my generation has been betrayed by the greed of the Tory years, now unable to get anywhere near the housing ladder. Yeah thanks for that. And now, because of their disastrous “leave it to the market” neoliberalist Conservative agenda, taken at it’s word by New Labour, we have a knackered economy. We have utility companies charging extortionate rates that people can’t afford, and that some have actually died because they can’t afford it. The Tories left power in 1997 having left a child poverty rate that grew 34% since they took over Government in the late 1970s. Not forgetting that year long period of 15% interest rates. That was a wonderful year.
Since that wondrous Conservative 1988 Housing Act, landlords can freely set rent at whatever price they so choice, which usually means most of the tenant’s wages per month, which in turn meant those tenant’s cannot save enough to get a mortgage, even though mortgage payments are usually cheaper than the rent they’re currently paying. And so enter the sub prime market. We all know what happened with that one.
Under the Tories, more than 300,000 workers earned less than £1.50 an hour, with Job Centres advertising jobs for 80p an hour. GO TEAM TORY
We lost everything during Thatcher’s reign, but hey, the rich got richer. So that’s okay, right?
And what do the Tories suggest we do about the economic crises? Invest in infrastructure? Nope. Invest in training programs? Nope. Invest in much needed green technology to kickstart a failing economy? Nope. Typical Tories, offering nothing new. Leaving those less fortunate to sink further.
The Shadow Foreign Secretary, William Hague, repeatedly seems to enjoy attacking the Government on their “wasteful spending campaign” and their fiscal irresponsibility, and yet, appears to have forgotten that he’d been paid £30,000 for two after dinner speeches….at RBS. Not only that, but given that deregulation of the financial markets got us into the mess we’re in today, it’s a bit rich for the Shadow Foreign Secretary to be claiming that the Tories are the party to lead Britain through the economic crises, given that during his last campaign, Hague is quoted as saying;
“As prime minister I will make deregulation one of my top priorities. I will drive deregulation from the centre and I will promote ministers not on the basis of whether they regulate enough but on the basis of how much they deregulate”.
Nothing changes.
Suddenly people (the rich, who benefited under Thatcher) seem to think that it’s their God given right to own, two, three, four or more homes – using them once or twice a year on holiday – whilst others fail to be able to afford even one home because they’ve all been taken up. Rights only seem to apply to those with money.

And then of course, you have to move onto the Tories constant attacks on the immorality of Home Secretary, Jacqui Smith claims on her home in Worcester to the amount of close to £23,000 in 2007-2008; despite the fact that Conservative Shadow leader of the Commons Alan Duncan has claimed £143,392 since 2001 on a second home despite renting out a privately owned third property in Westminster, earning him a tidy profit at the expense of, well, us.
Or Tory MP James Clappison, who owns farm land, 22 rented houses in Yorkshire, and an entire Cricket Ground, and yet still thought it morally acceptable to claim £97,892 in 2nd home allowances.
Or the largest 2nd homes claim made by MPs, coming from Tory MP Douglas Hogg, who rented out three London Properties, whilst claiming £143,651 since 2001.
The Tories have not suddenly gained a social conscience. Nor is their rhetoric convincing to those of us who actually take an interest in Politics.

New Labour repealed that nasty little Section 28. New Labour have made it possible for me to go to University, whilst the Right Wing seem to think that only kids who have rich parents, should be allowed that luxury. New Labour set up EMA which meant I could leave my dead end boring job to go back to college. New Labour set up minimum wage (which David Cameron voted against), New Labour extended maternity leave and paternity leave to which the Tories voted against, and the best ever A-Level results, came under New Labour (Tories like to suggest that tests are easier, rather than educational standards improving… and given that I took my A-Levels in 2008, I can promise you, educational standards were much higher than I expected, and tests were pretty fucking hard). Before the current recession hit, unemployment because of New Labour had hit it’s lowest rate since 1975, compared with 3,000,000 unemployed throughout the first half of the Tory regime in the 1980s. New Labour created free nursery education for children 3 and 4 years old – something the Tories voted against. Of course New Labour have made mistakes, and things are far from perfect. But given the choice, i’d rather have a government that invests in social projects, invests in training, invests in green initiatives, invests in the future, rather than a government full of out of touch Etonian morons that choose to paint all less advantaged people as “lazy” and offer nothing but deadly cuts in public spending. In 1997 people living in France, Germany, Belgium and Japan were all wealthier than us. By 2002 we had overtaken them all.

I do not want to empower a Party that seems to think it’s fine that millions of children exist in poverty, whilst executives take home a pay cheque equal to 718 times that which the average employee takes home. When wealth is relocated to the poorer, dilapudated, violent areas of the Country, the Conservatives start complaining that Socialism is on it’s way back. When turds in designer suits Company execs
relocate ridiculously large amounts of wealth to themselves, it’s labelled “freedom” and “Capitalism” when in truth, it’s Stalinism for the rich under the mask of “free markets” and “trickle down economics“, which the Conservative Party still hold dear to their core system of beliefs today. I wont shame my principles by voting for such crap. I may not like Gordon Brown, but I dislike the idea of a Conservative Government much much more.

What’s next?

“The real debate today is about finding the right balance between the market and government. Both are needed. They can complement each other. This balance will differ from time to time and place to place.” – Joseph Stiglitz

If the 1970s marked the death of social democracy; the flawed ideals of Socialism and it’s proponents, then 2005-2010 marks the death of the neoliberalist experiment. Thatcher, Reagan, New Labour, Alan Greenspan and other prominent neoliberalist proponents were wrong. The Banking crises with it’s roots lodged deeply into the cancer of the sub prime market spread and infested the very concept of neoliberalism itself; exposing the financial system for what it is – a corrupt entity, focusing on monetary value only rather than a mix of monetary, environmental, and human value; a germ that feeds on deregulation and a sub standard FSA.

This neoliberalist concept has forced itself on other nations. They have to allow Coca Cola and Starbucks to destroy their land and exploit their resources and workers, because if they don’t, they fail – falling further and further into poverty. Just because America loves it, doesn’t mean we all should.

There is of course one big problem. There isn’t another coherent philosophically sound economic theory that could replace the system we currently have. When the Callaghan government fell in 1979, it’s social democratic form was replaced by a Thatcherite Conservative movement which sparked the beginning of the neoliberalism experiment; thirty years later causing the biggest financial crises in modern history. The left wing didn’t cause this mess, we merely sat by and let it happen. We were theatre goers. We watched on as the boys in suits on stage attacked each other and set fires, whilst exclaiming to the audience that everything is great, that this system of setting fires and destroying each other, is the height of human nature. We watched helplessly as tax was set on fire, investment in public goods was set on fire, poor nation’s resources were set on fire, the environment was set on fire, financial regulation was set on fire, human kindness was set on fire, and we stood back and merely said “we told you so” when the money itself was set on fire.

The problem the Left has, is we do not know how to put those fires out. We have nothing new. We have no great intellect. We have no one like Milton Friedman who has a clear economic way forward. We lack a coherent set of economic strategies to combat the global recession and create a new World based on fairness and equality.

Conservatives and Republicans alike appear to be under the naive impression that if you’re not a supporter of deregulated markets and financial institutions, then you’re a communist. Well i’m neither. Socialism cries that the State is the answer to everything. Neoliberalism cries that deregulated free markets are the answer to everything. Neither ideas are right. Neither proved themselves worthy. The right mixture of market values and State supervision along with a safety net and assurances, is the right way forward.

We need to fight the attacks made by the American Right Wing, that any thing other than reimplementing Neoliberalist ideas is Socialist. We need to look back to Keynes for answers. We look to people like the Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd who insists on striking the middle ground when he mentioned a new order known as “Social Capitalism” . We need left wing intellects and prominent politicians willing to think the unthinkable and publicise it. For twenty five years not only have the Conservatives and Republicans dedicated themselves to neoliberal concepts, even our centre-left Parties have embraced neoliberalism. Tony Blair and New Labour embraced deregulation in all it’s disastrous glory. Thatcher herself, a a dinner in Hampshire was asked what her greatest achievement had been, she replied “Tony Blair and New Labour. We forced our opponents to change their minds“. The failure of New Labour and it’s ties to Thatcherism is evident today. They deregulated financial markets further, which in turn allowed 3.5million house holds to brave the winter months in fuel poverty; they sold industries further reducing Britain’s exports and social responsibilities whilst simultaneously killing the unions off further. The Tories are offering the same nonsense that got us into this mess in the first place. There is nothing new. They simply suggest that the super rich should be able to accumulate even greater wealth in the short term, whilst the rest of us get ever so slightly richer as the years pass by.

Economic growth along with the ability to accumulate great wealth at the expense of whoever they saw fit, has been considered a moral “right” and true “freedom” for thirty years, rather than a by product of social inequality and spectacularly wrong ethical standards. That, has to change. Let’s stop claiming London is such a powerhouse purely because the super rich in Mayfair have a number of yachts to their name; and let’s stop measuring the success of a city by how those less fortunate people in places like Peckham could benefit from huge investment in public education, policing, job creation, community support and healthcare. Let’s measure the success of a city by the way they pull together to help each other. Let’s stop considering houses to be “investments” and start seeing a house as a home primarily. Let’s stop considering the water supply in Indian slums as perfect places for Coca Cola to drain the water for profit to the detriment of local communities. Let’s stop claiming that poor nations are “lazy” when in fact most bi-lateral trade agreements favour the West in general and have very little benefit for poor nations. Let’s stop teaching our kids that it’s perfectly acceptable and necessary for the future of the concept of “freedom” to allow your child to get superbly over weight, whilst another starves to death. It isn’t right. It never was right. And the ethical system based on this flawed concept of “freedom” has been nothing but a disaster. Conservatives and Republicans should be ashamed of themselves for continuing to support it.

The State, which has been the centre of attack from Neoliberalist proponents across the globe, now has the task of saving us and those Neoliberalists from themselves through bail out schemes. The State has been resurrected and has a duty to regulate the financial markets, invest in public healthcare, housing and education, lead the way on climate change and make sure the hungry are fed.

Whilst this is a small window of opportunity for the Left to present it’s ideas on climate change initiatives, social welfare, bank regulation and new rules on global trade to include help for the poorest Nations, and ways out of this crises, there is nothing to be heard from them. As a leftie, liberal, green, hippy – this stands only to disappointment whilst we wait for Cameron and the New Thatcherites to start fighting the fire, by pouring petrol onto it.

So if Social Democracy failed; Communism failed; and now Neoliberalism has failed. What’s next?