Grasshopper and Ant

[vespa]

This " fable " represents what ?
Could be written by the Daily Mail school of fables
Its propaganda to divide the masses

Dont get me wrong , i`m not educated like Hubble ,he can put hes point over much better than me ,

this fable ,blames the person needing help ,
Basically its saying that if your on beefits ,its your own fault .
ie the needy ,the weakest people in our society
It says we should look at our neighbours ,who arnt as strong as us, and belittle them ,blame them because they are struggling ,because we can just about keep our heads above water.,we should look down on those who cant .

It easy to blame the victim , it makes us feel better about ourselves

It makes it sound like the people on benefits live the life of riley .............
they dont ................many live in poverty , we all now how much money you need to earn to get by in London , just to get by mind, and trust me ,try living on benefits in London ,you are at the bottom of the heap

i get there are some people who are work shy spongers ....but not many ,nothing like the right wing press would have you believe , people on benefits ,from my experience are at a low ebb , they are people who need our help

Bottom line is ,things like this are put out to divide us ,make us blame each other .
The real problem isnt a very small percentage of people ripping off the welfare state,,

Its big corporations not paying enough tax , its the vast majority of us working to keep a very small minority of us in power and very rich ,its working class people believing that there is actually meritocracy in this country.

Hopefully if your interested in this sort of thing you can see the trick they are pulling on you ,divide and conquer , its been going on forever.........
,

[Hubble]

You put it better and far more passionately than me Vesps. Divide and rule. Exactly.

[vespa]

You put it better and far more passionately than me Vesps. Divide and rule. Exactly.

Cheers Hubbs , have to admit i was pretty p issed when i posted that last night , but ive read it back and i stand by it !

[Shania]

"The problem with socialism is that you eventually run out of other people`s money...."

[vespa]

"The problem with socialism is that you eventually run out of other people`s money...."

its everyones money ,and that is the point , and with no one creaming off the profits , there is more than enough for everyone

[Shania]

its everyones money ,and that is the point , and with no one creaming off the profits , there is more than enough for everyone

That is true. But What I (conviniently) forgot to add, is that it was a Maggie Thatcher qoute. For what it`s worth; It could have been a politician from my country for that matter..

[Hubble]

its everyones money ,and that is the point , and with no one creaming off the profits , there is more than enough for everyone

Too right.

The point those (who seem to be) brainwashed by the ruling elite/establishment fail to realise is that once upon a time this land belonged to all of us. No one owned it. And we were free to roam and live where we wanted. There was no taxation. There was no money system, banks, interest, usury, etc. Of course in the millennia that have passed since then, we have become divided, ruled, financially enslaved, our common land taken away from us (read about the enclosures acts if you're not aware of this) and natural law superseded by commercial legalese whereby you are given a 'birth certificate' turning you into a commodity from the start, and forced into a system that is based on privilege and enforced by threat of imprisonment or worse.

Of course there have been times when our system has in general benefitted the majority, and people have been able to live in relative peace and with some prosperity, depending on circumstances. Such times have only been brought about through long-term activism, protest and organisation, with people prepared to fight for their basic rights. In general it has not been gifted to the people by benevolent dictators/oligarchs and so on. Of course there exceptions to this too - throughout history there have been regimes and empires that have looked after their citizens (although often they based such benevolence on slavery of others who weren't considered citizens) and even today some autocratic states such as Dubai actually give their citizens a basic income. However, overall money, property, land and rights have tended to accrue to an elite. The idea that capitalism on its own would change this has proven to be false. It is only when models of socialism have been applied has capitalism been reined in to provide a more equal and just system for all. What happened after the 2WW in this country is a prime example, where a Labour government gave birth to the so-called Welfare State and its citizens began to enjoy things they had - en masse - never experienced before - cheap and decent housing, security of tenure, a free health service and so on. Things that by right, they should enjoy anyway.

Unfortunately there was a concerted fight back against this by the ruling elites and their puppet politicians, with one Margaret Thatcher to the fore. Her mission was to destroy the cohesion of communities and unions, who are naturally resistant to control and divide and rule, in order to create a new society based on competing individuals addicted to the new religion of consumerism. This is not to say that there weren't endemic problems in this country at the time, but there were multiple solutions to this, Thatcher's was but one of these. 40 years later, we can see the results of Thatcherism: a society more divided than ever. An ever increasing gap between rich and poor. Wages falling behind inflation, and falling in real terms. Insane house prices out of the reach of all but a few. Barely affordable rents. Zero hours contracts. Super-rich multinationals paying no tax, yet using all our public services. Massive housing problems. A decade of austerity. All of our once publicly-owned services in private hands, the majority of these being foreign investors and institutions. We have been shafted.

There has never been true free market capitalism of the type extolled by Friedrich Von Hayek. It is a lie and an illusion to say that there has. And despite the fact that both Thatcher and Reagan said they were advocates of Von Hayek's free market capitalism, the opposite is true. All they did was reinforce the grip of the ruling elites, the banks and multinationals, whilst giving ordinary people the illusion of affluence by flooding the market with cheap credit. And boy have we paid for that. Gordon Brown further entrenched the elite's control when he gave all of our money to the banks to bail them out. A heinous crime masquerading as saving the Western financial system. That, in a nutshell, is privilege-based capitalism: socialism for the rich (their losses covered by ordinary people's tax money), but capitalism for the profits. A double-whammy of elite protectionism.

Money and banking should be a basic utility, there to service the smooth running of an economy. They should not be in private hands for profit. We only have to look at recent history to know the money system in not safe in private hands. Look at fractional reserve banking, for example. An idea floated by the banks and rubber-stamped by Thatcher and Reagan under the aegis of 'deregulating the markets'. What they did, in point of fact, was allow the private banks to literally make money out of nothing. Money they could then lend to people at interest. This is one of the greatest scams every played on people, and yet it continues unabated. And yet for all their crimes, the financial crash, mass-money laundering, rate fixing and so on, not a single banker has gone to jail. That's when you know the system is not looking after you, the ordinary person, it's looking after an elite.

[vespa]

I`d vote for you mate !

[Rael]

Well, I certainly do not buy Hubble's vision of a pre-capitalist ‘golden age’. I’m listening to the History of England podcast and, believe me, life in those days was nasty, brutish and short! People lived as vassals under an oppressive feudal regime that tied them to their land and forced them to pay a portion of their produce to their lord and master, and serve in his army. They definitely were not "free to roam and live where they wanted".

I wouldn’t deny that much social progress came about during the 19th and early 20th century through protest movements such as the chartists and the suffragettes, as well as by individual reformers, often wealthy philanthropists, who reformed the factory system, ended the slave trade, etc.

Hubble also dramatically understates what an economic basket case the UK had become by the late 1970s, with a labour chancellor, Healey, forced to go to the IMF for a loan, the 3-day week, winter of discontent, etc. And tellingly, he doesn’t tell us why this might be - excessive union power, inflation, economic stagnation etc.

I agree with him that capitalism when left unregulated quickly becomes monopolistic (witness today's tech sector), and needs to be balanced by a strong state, willing to uphold the rights of its citizens. I think the model we have today has its problems, but overall it has delivered a better quality of life to all sectors of society than any before in history.

btw: It’s true, income inequality in the UK did rise between 1979 and 1991, but it has stayed more or less the same since then, and even fell in 2010 - a little inconveniently for Hubble's argument.

[Hubble]

Well, I certainly do not buy Hubble's vision of a pre-capitalist ‘golden age’. I’m listening to the History of England podcast and, believe me, life in those days was nasty, brutish and short! People lived as vassals under an oppressive feudal regime that tied them to their land and forced them to pay a portion of their produce to their lord and master, and serve in his army. They definitely were not "free to roam and live where they wanted".

I wouldn’t deny that much social progress came about during the 19th and early 20th century through protest movements such as the chartists and the suffragettes, as well as by individual reformers, often wealthy philanthropists, who reformed the factory system, ended the slave trade, etc.

Hubble also dramatically understates what an economic basket case the UK had become by the late 1970s, with a labour chancellor, Healey, forced to go to the IMF for a loan, the 3-day week, winter of discontent, etc. And tellingly, he doesn’t tell us why this might be - excessive union power, inflation, economic stagnation etc.

I agree with him that capitalism when left unregulated quickly becomes monopolistic (witness today's tech sector), and needs to be balanced by a strong state, willing to uphold the rights of its citizens. I think the model we have today has its problems, but overall it has delivered a better quality of life to all sectors of society than any before in history.

btw: It’s true, income inequality in the UK did rise between 1979 and 1991, but it has stayed more or less the same since then, and even fell in 2010 - a little inconveniently for Hubble's argument.

Holds on fella, you don't know what age I was referring to. Granted I didn't make it clear, but I wasn't talking about the feudal system FFS! I was talking about pre-Roman times, and stretching back for millennia before that. I am a fan of the tribal system that we had in place in Europe for 1000s of years until the Romans destroyed it. They supplanted it with their laws and proto-capitalism and we still live under that yoke today.

On the disparity between rich and poor, it depends on what your using to measure it by. In basic terms, the richest have got richer - in this country and across the globe. When you have a situation as we do now, where the richest 1% own half the world's wealth you have a problem. From the Guardian: "Has inequality worsened since 2008? Inequality between the richest 1% and the rest of the country is continuing to rise, according to the report, worsened by weak wage growth and rising living costs. The growth in property values in recent years might have helped homeowners, yet the younger generations have suffered. Millennials, or people born after 1981, are four more times likely to be renting, and only half as likely as baby boomers to own their own home by the age of 30.*" That's not a pretty picture, is it?

As for the 3-day week, in case you've forgotten, that happened under a Tory government. You say I don't tell us why the economic problems of the 70s happened, but I did say "This is not to say that there weren't endemic problems in this country at the time, but there were multiple solutions to this, Thatcher's was but one of these." Yes, I didn't drill down into it further than that. But by and large the economic factors were part of a global downturn at the time, not due to a Labour government or excessive unionisation; there was a global recession in the early to mid 70s (again, in case you forgot), and one of the key causes was the oil crisis. I accept that the unions had lost the plot in the late 70s, as had the Labour government. but like I said, there were multiple solutions, Thatcher's was but one, and IMO, it was to the detriment of all but the rich, the elite and the financial institutions. She was primed by a neo-liberal agenda to destroy the fabric of society in order to pave the way for consumerism and that meant creating a nation of competing individuals, the mantra of so-called 'choice' and 'individualism'.

On the other points we seem to agree.


*https://www.theguardian.com/inequali...getting-poorer

[Ćock-a-Hoop]

Hubble, you appear to be unduly defensive of your predominantly leftist arguments, as derived from Guardian editorials.

Your Guardian quote refers to the growth "in property values" whereas it should be talking about property "prices", not values. Their values have not changed, but the purchasing power of money has declined. These are not just subtle economic differences - they betray a failure to understand the rich/poor divide.

What the Guardian piece shows is certainly not a pretty picture, but the first step towards redress is to understand how it happens. Simply uttering grievances is a useless activity. Coincidentally I authored a full explanation of this in layman's language earlier this month in an essay titled "Reaping the whirlwind". The following extract might help:

"Central bankers claim that these bouts of rampant “quantitative easing” (QE) staved off a bigger crisis – but did it? Could it? Had they never heard of the inescapable process of unwinding that reveals the inescapable consequences of this folly? Capital destruction, interest rate distortion and malinvestment in all its forms. In masterminding their supposed salvation they reaped a whirlwind that will leave cracks in the monetary edifice too wide to be papered over this time.

"QE has ushered in its own randomly redistributive effects, for example helping those already on the property ladder at the expense of those who cannot afford to own their own home. This applies throughout the economy and is a primary driver of income inequality. Even back in 2012, a Bank of England report showed that its quantitative easing policies had benefited mainly the wealthy “early receivers” of the new money: 40% of those gains went to the richest 5% of British households."

AND:

"All those working in the financial markets owe a huge debt of gratitude to QE. But for many others, especially young people with few assets, this era of unprecedented central bank largesse has been characterised by job insecurity, rising house prices, sluggish real wages and widening inequality between the “1 per cent” and the rest.

"As the new-found wealth seeks more outlets, lending to entrepreneurs and small businesses becomes widespread. Defenders of QE sometimes point to this “trickle-down” effect as some sort of justification for a policy that is, in truth, diabolical in its social consequences. They claim that, in theory, the trillions that central banks inject into the market through their bond purchases should slosh through the economy as they are lent and re-lent, lifting all the boats in the harbour. But that is little more than wishful thinking and takes no account of how the new billions actually behave when released."

[Hubble]

Hubble, you appear to be unduly defensive of your predominantly leftist arguments, as derived from Guardian editorials.

Your Guardian quote refers to the growth "in property values" whereas it should be talking about property "prices", not values. Their values have not changed, but the purchasing power of money has declined. These are not just subtle economic differences - they betray a failure to understand the rich/poor divide.

What the Guardian piece shows is certainly not a pretty picture, but the first step towards redress is to understand how it happens. Simply uttering grievances is a useless activity. Coincidentally I authored a full explanation of this in layman's language earlier this month in an essay titled "Reaping the whirlwind". The following extract might help:

"Central bankers claim that these bouts of rampant “quantitative easing” (QE) staved off a bigger crisis – but did it? Could it? Had they never heard of the inescapable process of unwinding that reveals the inescapable consequences of this folly? Capital destruction, interest rate distortion and malinvestment in all its forms. In masterminding their supposed salvation they reaped a whirlwind that will leave cracks in the monetary edifice too wide to be papered over this time.

"QE has ushered in its own randomly redistributive effects, for example helping those already on the property ladder at the expense of those who cannot afford to own their own home. This applies throughout the economy and is a primary driver of income inequality. Even back in 2012, a Bank of England report showed that its quantitative easing policies had benefited mainly the wealthy “early receivers” of the new money: 40% of those gains went to the richest 5% of British households."

AND:

"All those working in the financial markets owe a huge debt of gratitude to QE. But for many others, especially young people with few assets, this era of unprecedented central bank largesse has been characterised by job insecurity, rising house prices, sluggish real wages and widening inequality between the “1 per cent” and the rest.

"As the new-found wealth seeks more outlets, lending to entrepreneurs and small businesses becomes widespread. Defenders of QE sometimes point to this “trickle-down” effect as some sort of justification for a policy that is, in truth, diabolical in its social consequences. They claim that, in theory, the trillions that central banks inject into the market through their bond purchases should slosh through the economy as they are lent and re-lent, lifting all the boats in the harbour. But that is little more than wishful thinking and takes no account of how the new billions actually behave when released."

Unduly defensive? In your opinion old son. Not in mine. I was simply responding to the points put by Rael. (Incidentally, there was a cult leader called Rael back in the 80s, involved naked frolics in France or something - unlikely Rangers fan). Also - point of order - my arguments aren't derived from Guardian editorials, they're my own, derived from many years of observation and interpretation of global trends and geopolitics. Nice little rhetorical dig though.

Quantitative easing is not an answer to anything, I agree with you on that - and that, ironically, it has only exacerbated the problems it is supposed to solve. But talking finance and the banking cartels, then I would point to the deregulation of the banking industry as one of the most heinous acts in recent times - and the subsequent scam known as fractional reserve banking. All under either Tory or Republican watches. Not that I'm a fan of the Democrats either. You could equally cite Nixon taking the dollar off the gold standard and the creation of the petrodollar as key destabilising factors in the Western economies. And also key factors in the subsequent Middle East conflicts and all the trouble we've endured as a consequence. QE is a minor issue in this 'big picture' scenario.

Disparities in wealth? You can't argue that this is anything but an increasing trend and one of the worst things that could be happening. It's patently clear (multiple studies and common sense have shown) that the bigger the differences in any society between rich and poor, the less at ease that society is.

[Hubble]

Incidentally, what are your views on Von Hayek? I've mentioned him before in this thread. My analysis of his 'free-market' economics is that he's closer to a true anarchy than anything the right wing advocates believe in. Certainly Thatcher paid lip service to him, but never delivered anything close. Indeed, she actually delivered the opposite, I would argue - bigger government interference and privileged, closed markets. It was only the cheap credit boom that gave ordinary people the illusion that they were part of the so-called free market economy.

[Ćock-a-Hoop]

Unduly defensive? In your opinion old son. Not in mine. I was simply responding to the points put by Rael. (Incidentally, there was a cult leader called Rael back in the 80s, involved naked frolics in France or something - unlikely Rangers fan). Also - point of order - my arguments aren't derived from Guardian editorials, they're my own, derived from many years of observation and interpretation of global trends and geopolitics. Nice little rhetorical dig though.

Quantitative easing is not an answer to anything, I agree with you on that - and that, ironically, it has only exacerbated the problems it is supposed to solve. But talking finance and the banking cartels, then I would point to the deregulation of the banking industry as one of the most heinous acts in recent times - and the subsequent scam known as fractional reserve banking. All under either Tory or Republican watches. Not that I'm a fan of the Democrats either. You could equally cite Nixon taking the dollar off the gold standard and the creation of the petrodollar as key destabilising factors in the Western economies. And also key factors in the subsequent Middle East conflicts and all the trouble we've endured as a consequence. QE is a minor issue in this 'big picture' scenario.

Disparities in wealth? You can't argue that this is anything but an increasing trend and one of the worst things that could be happening. It's patently clear (multiple studies and common sense have shown) that the bigger the differences in any society between rich and poor, the less at ease that society is.

Not a great deal to argue with here.
My only comment is that more than $20 trillion of QE by central banks throughout the world can never be correctly described as "a minor issue" in exacerbating the global rich/ poor divide, no matter how big the "big picture" may be.

[Ćock-a-Hoop]

Incidentally, what are your views on Von Hayek? I've mentioned him before in this thread. My analysis of his 'free-market' economics is that he's closer to a true anarchy than anything the right wing advocates believe in. Certainly Thatcher paid lip service to him, but never delivered anything close. Indeed, she actually delivered the opposite, I would argue - bigger government interference and privileged, closed markets. It was only the cheap credit boom that gave ordinary people the illusion that they were part of the so-called free market economy.

I haven't read enough Von Hayek to comment. My preferred source is Von Mises.