Mass Slaughter? - An apology will do nicely Sir!

Here we go again. This time laundering money for international criminals, drug barons selling to our kids on street corners, and known terrorist groups world-wide. But, on the upside, they've apologised so that's ok then eh?!
http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2012/jul/17/hsbc-executive-resigns-senate 


Once again it was a failure in the 'system' but "lessons have been learned" (where have I heard that before?) and "safeguards have been put in place so that this never happens again" - Yeah right!!

It is estimated that a staggering 47,000 people have lost their lives since 2006 to Mexican drug trafficking alone and all under the financial wing of Europe's largest bank - HSBC. To this end they have been complicit in a mass slaughter. But hey! - C'mon they've apologised so now a hefty fine and that's that. No worries really since they'll probably borrow that at a privileged interest rate via the Libor system where they'll also be complicit in fixing that rate illegally too. Good innit?

If I was caught money laundering or stealing a few quid to feed my family I would be imprisoned. They collude and conspire to (in effect) fund organisations that commit murder on a mass scale and an apology and a fine will do just nicely. The whole damned system is as sick as the people within it.

Austerity Cannot Work.

We in Europe (UK included) are on the brink of being pushed in to an unnecessary economic depression. It is much the same in America but happening more rapidly. For people (politicians in the main) who would claim to have some modicum of intelligence, it is a mix of lunacy and dogma that occupies their minds. Although if they were to suffer the same financial fallout of the current austerity measures that they impose upon others with such relish or pay themselves the national minimum wage things perhaps might change a little and possibly quite rapidly.


Austerity is offered as the answer when it is not. In fact it is the complete opposite - it is and will continue to be, a main factor in deepening the economic depression even further. It simply cannot work. As a device to transfer money from the poor to the rich it works reasonably well (which is a main reason for it's current vigorous implementation) but to get the UK Plc out of depression it is counter-productive.


Like it or not we live in a consumer society. If the general public do not or cannot consume above subsistence levels then the economy shrinks and eventually implodes into a state of economic depression such as is happening right now. The solution of the conventional wisdom of today (just as was in the 1920's)? More cuts; more job losses; less disposable income; less consumption; more depression. If individuals and families cannot spend over and above what they need to survive then the consumer society we all depend on for our personal prosperity dies a slow and anorexic death. 


In addition to this if you put people out of a job they draw benefits and don't pay income tax or National Insurance and they don't pay as much VAT because they can't afford luxury items. They have to 'make do' - 'make shift - and 'mend'. Their consumerism is confined to eating enough to stay alive and hopefully to put a roof over their heads full stop. To all intents and purposes they become 'non-consumers'. Their numbers are growing.


So there's a 'double-whammy' here; they cannot spend because they don't have any income above subsistence (lowly subsistence at that too when on benefits although the ridiculous mythology of the 'Benefit Millionaire' still abounds) and they are paid to sit on their backsides. The Aboriginals summed it up neatly when they called the Australian Government dole money they receive as "sit down money".


John Maynard Keynes in the 20's and 30's had it spot on and Roosevelt's 'New Deal' in America brought his ideas to life. You have to spend and spend big and, via what Keynes called "The Multiplier Effect" alongside financial prudence, you can actually pull yourself out of recession/depression. It works and works every time unless thwarted by political dogma and/or the International Banking Financial Mafia.


Keynesianism will make a return, although it may be called something else like 'Osbornism' or 'Cameronism' or 'Cleggism' even. In fact it's already started with announcements about £Billion investments in the rail and road infrastructure, but it will take time and some may still see it as nothing more than convenient coincidence. It's not. However, it will not work alongside austerity too well as the austerity measures will be a drag on it. We need to ditch 'austerity' in favour of proven methods of economic recovery. 


In essence the economy of today is no different from the economy of yesterday. It will respond in the exact same way and this can be seen today as the austerity measures being applied right now are evidently deflationary just as was in the 1930's. A dose of Keynes would have the opposite effect.

The Way of the Banker.

Bankers.

A young man bought a donkey from a farmer for £100.
The farmer agreed to deliver the donkey the next day.

Delivering the donkey he pulled up and said, "Sorry son,

but I have some bad news. The donkey died during the trip."

The young man replied, "Well then just give me my money back."

The farmer said, "Can't do that. I've already spent it."

"OK," says the boy "then, just bring me the dead donkey."

A little shocked the farmer asked, "What are you going to do with him?"

"I'm going to raffle him off." He replied.

The farmer said, "You can't raffle a dead donkey!"

The lad replies "Sure I can. Just watch me. I just won't tell anybody

he's dead."

"But that's fraud!" states the farmer. "You shouldn't do that!"

The young man takes the dead donkey and smiles.

A month later, the farmer met up with this lad and asked,

"What happened with that dead donkey?"

He replied, "I raffled him off and sold 500 tickets at £2 each.

I made a profit of £898"

The farmer said, "My god, didn't anyone complain?"

The young guy said, "Just the man who won. So I gave him his £2 back."

He now works for Barclays .

Management Explained.

A woman in a hot air balloon realised she was lost. She reduced altitude and spotted a man below.

She descended a little more and shouted: "Excuse me, can you help me? I promised a friend I would meet him an hour ago but I don't know where I am."

The man below replied, "You're in a hot air balloon hovering approximately 30 feet above the ground. You're between 40 and 41 degrees north latitude and between 59 and 60 degrees west longitude."

''You must be an Engineer", said the balloonist.

"I am", replied the man, "How did you know?"

''Well", answered the balloonist, "Everything you have told me is probably technically correct, but I've no idea what to make of your information and the fact is, I'm still lost. Frankly, you've not been much help at all. If anything, you've delayed my trip by your talk".

The man below responded, "You must be in Management".

''I am", replied the balloonist, "But how did you know?"

''Well", said the man, "You don't know where you are or where you're going. You have risen to where you are, due to a large quantity of hot air. You made a promise, which you've no idea how to keep, and you expect people beneath you to solve your problems. The fact is you are in exactly the same position you were in before we met, but now, somehow, it's my fault."

Bout says it all!

Punishing The Disabled - An Update.

The reality of it all. Genuinely disabled people are to be targeted in order to try to whip them in to jobs that don't exist and that they cannot in honesty do because of their disabilities and at the same time cutting essential benefits when, by their own figures, only 0.5% of claimants are shown to be cheating the system. This government is truly a disgraceful one.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2012/jul/27/disability-benefit-assessors-film

Atos assessors told to keep disability benefit approvals low, film suggests

www.guardian.co.uk

GP applied for job with Atos assessing whether benefit applicants were fit for work, and secretly filmed his training

Don't believe the Tory propaganda machine - this is the reality. 

When Personal Independent Payments are introduced to replace Disability Living Allowance the 'lower DLA rate' of £20.55p per week will simply disappear. It won't exists any more - nada - gonski. Anyone currently getting this will lose it completely. There will be nothing to replace it. This is an allowance 'given' to help disabled people with their everyday extra needs such as incontinence pads or special toilet adaptations, keeping warm, or extra washing of soiled clothes etc. Local Authorities supply only so much. This is not given lightly and people have to be assessed by an independent medical examination. They only get it if their disability is confirmed. 

Incapacity Benefit is also ceasing to exist - it will now be called Employment & Support Allowance. It will expire after 1 year. On expiry there is nothing to replace it. Again it is gone for good. Those on the top rate (£99.15p per week) because of their genuine illnesses (illnesses that have been doubly confirmed over the last year totally independently by a medical assessment agency actually employed by the government - a French company called ATOS) will lose it. It will simply disappear. These people are, by independently assessed medically confirmed definition the most disabled and vulnerable. They will be hit the hardest. 

The vast majority of DLA/IB claimants are not thieves or cheats or scroungers. By the government's own statistical evidence just 0.05% of claimants are fraudsters. People who have paid their NI Contributions for 40/50yrs will lose that disability income after just 1 year whether their disability still exists or not. 

As we all well know too many disabilities are chronic and actually deteriorate over time - they simply cannot get better. If that's the case how the hell can we as a society justify pushing people who have paid in to the system all their working lives (and yes I know there are some who haven't but by the governments own accepted figures the vast majority have) in to grinding poverty where the only way out will be to sell their homes and possessions just in order to live? People/couples and kids that will end up in social housing and receive housing benefit instead. This is cruel madness and driven by 19th Century Malthusean ideology and ultra right wing dogma.

A current example. The woman in question has just turned 46 years of age and is married to a 63 year old who works in B&Q for 28/32 hours per week because that's all he can get. She needs a hip replacement but has been told by the NHS that she is too young. She has needed this for the past 2.5yrs. She has Rheumatoid Arthritis. The other hip is beginning to deteriorate. There is no estimate on surgery time. She is on at least one stick but spends a lot of time on two or simply sitting in a chair in terrible pain and exhausted. This has also affected her gait (obviously) and has put extra pressure on both knees. She needs one knee replacement now but in approx 2 years time she will need the other done too. She is on high dose morphine patches. She is incredibly depressed (and who could blame her), on a cocktail of anti-depressants and was at the point of suicide some weeks ago. An increasingly regular occurrence for her. 

When, with her sitting by the side of me and on speaker phone, we contacted the DWP she was told very impolitely that next May (although all her disabilities have been confirmed by ATOS) her ESA will simply end and that unless she is terminally ill she is regarded as fit to work. In fact it seems that as long as she can move her eyes she can be (perhaps) a proof reader or maybe an eye model for specsavers?

She has been registered without regard to her condition to attend job seeking classes with JC+ and is worried because if she doesn't attend (sometimes it will be that she cannot attend) they have threatened (in writing) to stop her benefits. There are precious few jobs out there for fit people. For her I would estimate that there are approximately none. Because her husband works (National Minimum Wage and only part time) they were told they must learn to manage. Their income will be cut as from May 2013 by £4,800 per annum. How the hell are they going to do that? And this is by no means an isolated case. 

This is not just me reading newspaper headlines and government damning articles. Of course the Tory Party propaganda headlines will tell you these cases simply don't exist and all is well but that's the nature of propaganda isn't it. No - this is real life for her and many thousands of others. There but for the grace of god and all that eh?

Benefit Cheats.

Very soon (within the next year) people who are now receiving Incapacity Benefit because they cannot work due to chronic disease or injury will cease to receive it in entirety if they have a partner who is working. It will simply stop. They will lose it all. 

Of course everyone who is receiving Incapacity Benefit (IB) and especially Disability Living Allowance (DLA) is, so government propaganda goes, a 'Benefit Cheat' and/or 'Dole Scrounger'. This when the governments own figures show that just 0.05% of claimants are that and are claiming fraudulently. By their own research and statistical analysis they prove their own propaganda wrong, but hey, why let truth intervene in a crusade to pay the bankers bills (brought about by the upper echelons of society) out of the pockets of the poor and needy who never came anywhere near to causing the 'problem' in the first place? It's obviously better to bleed those at the bottom when the cancer is actually at the top.

Someone relying on their IB to live will, in many instances, have their incomes cut by up to £99.15p per week. Those who give over their DLA so that they can have specially adapted vehicles to get around will have zero income apart from their partners wage. How many ordinary working class people could afford to take a pay cut of approximately £400 per month or £4,800 per annum? But then again they are Benefit Cheats anyway aren't they? Just more undeserving poor. Burdens to society so they deserve this - well don't they? This measure will save about £4 Billion per year and push disabled people and their families in to abject poverty. 

Uncollected corporate taxes and tax havens for the rich cost the exchequer  £42 Billion (2010/2011). But then again, according to the propaganda the one group deserves their poverty whilst the other deserve their wealth. Those who evade taxes in tax havens set up in and by the City of London or pay their corporate taxes at hugely discounted rates after a private deal quietly struck with senior staff of HMRI over a rather expensive four course luncheon to include a bottle or two of £150 claret are immune of course. Those who are disabled through no fault of their own are not it seems.


"In order to succeed the poor need most of all the spur of their poverty."

A quote from that wonderful doyen of the Tory right George Gilder, (1981, p. 118)

The Undeserving Poor.

Never ceases to irritate when someone who has never experienced 'austerity' themselves preach and push the gospel of austerity to others.

In concert with that how can it be that those who are entrusted with government can fail to understand even the simplest of concepts when it comes to economics? How is it that they simply cannot understand the difference between a household budget and a macro economy.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_r-AKruzmkk

Why is credence given over to millionaire 'venture capitalists' in who's interest it is to transfer money from the lower strata of the economy to the upper strata - which, of course, includes him? And at the same time so little credence is given to people who have ready made 'off the shelf' solutions to the problem at hand?

Paul Krugman has much to say and offers that solution (it's Keynesian by the way) and in all instances where it has been applied it has actually worked. So why not apply it?

Answer - because it suits them. It offers a golden opportunity to push along an ideology. That is that the 'undeserving poor' should be made to suffer because of their inherent laziness and sub-prime humanity. They are not real people. Much like any enemy they are dehumanised and made to look and feel that they are of a different sub-species. The inbuilt and abiding attitude is that 'they' are the scum of the earth whilst 'we' are the cream of the crop and if less money was spent on things like health care and benefits when we throw them out of work there would/will be far more for us. An economy awash with millionaires at one end and the poverty stricken at the other is, for them, not only the natural order of things but something that should be actively pursued. 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=acLW1vFO-2Q