the gangsters win because the state is corrupt ....

[ahinton]

I was an Embassy man.

Not the Ecuadorian one, presumably?

On another topic - and noting your change of "name" (for which the onerous procedures of deed polls are conveniently not required for changes of forum ID) - the expression "having [xyz] for breakfast" springs unbidden to mind; I hear that it is not unusual in certain parts (particularly those from which I personally hail) for kippers to be consumed for breakfast...

[aka Calum Da Jazbo]

you just could not make up the farce eh?

[eighthobstruction]

A lot of ugly stuff in this elite.... SOCA employs 4,000 people and has a budget of £490 million....

[amateur51]

And so it keeps coming, day after day ....

"Senior officials across Government who are paid through agencies or personal service companies have ignored instructions to prove they pay the appropriate level of income tax and National Insurance."

"They are flouting orders from Danny Alexander, the Chief Secretary to the Treasury, who said last year that any official earning more than £58,200 a year and employed for more than six months 'off the books' must demonstrate they are paying their full share of tax. The arrangements are only acceptable in “exceptional circumstances”, he said."

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politics/10219526/Mandarins-face-sack-after-refusing-to-answer-tax-questions.html

"But despite the crackdown, since August 2012 some 1,232 civil servants have been granted new off-payroll contracts."

"Of these, 149 have been asked to prove how much tax they pay but refused to answer. Another 130 have not been asked about their tax arrangements at all, in an apparent breach of Mr Alexander's instructions."

See the above article for further apparent breaches.

Can you imagine the stink if postal delivery staff or teachers decided to do the same thing?

[ahinton]

And so it keeps coming, day after day ....

"Senior officials across Government who are paid through agencies or personal service companies have ignored instructions to prove they pay the appropriate level of income tax and National Insurance."

"They are flouting orders from Danny Alexander, the Chief Secretary to the Treasury, who said last year that any official earning more than £58,200 a year and employed for more than six months 'off the books' must demonstrate they are paying their full share of tax. The arrangements are only acceptable in “exceptional circumstances”, he said."

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politics/10219526/Mandarins-face-sack-after-refusing-to-answer-tax-questions.html

"But despite the crackdown, since August 2012 some 1,232 civil servants have been granted new off-payroll contracts."

"Of these, 149 have been asked to prove how much tax they pay but refused to answer. Another 130 have not been asked about their tax arrangements at all, in an apparent breach of Mr Alexander's instructions."

See the above article for further apparent breaches.

Can you imagine the stink if postal delivery staff or teachers decided to do the same thing?

Can we be certain that none of them do? - or might do in the near future? I'd have thought it somewhat unlikely that the ongoing part-privatisation of their respective professions would not bring with it the encouragement of similar contractual arrangments for at least some of the more senior people who function within them. That such arrangements might be legal is one thing; that they may be used in such a way that Mr Alexander's requirements are either not met in full or not adequately policed is, obviously, quite another (though quite whose fault it may be when certain questions that are supposed to be asked are not asked is another matter again)...

[Sydney Grew]

It all gives more power to the push towards the complete abolition of what is called "money" does it not. Bound to come - why not in our own era? Indeed it would be best were the abolition of "money" and the abolition of "nations" to be brought in simultaneously. The money-gangs and the nation-gangs - same idea at bottom - calamitous creations of the self-assertive. Both "money" and "nations" exist only as arbitrarily framed notions of the mind.

[aka Calum Da Jazbo]

ah but which or whose mind Mr Grew? arbitrarily framed? i suggest not .... particularly ripe and productive fruit trees can be protected from the attentions of subordinates by dominant coalitions of more powerful primates ... presumably over generations of 'inherited wealth'

[ahinton]

It all gives more power to the push towards the complete abolition of what is called "money" does it not. Bound to come - why not in our own era? Indeed it would be best were the abolition of "money" and the abolition of "nations" to be brought in simultaneously. The money-gangs and the nation-gangs - same idea at bottom - calamitous creations of the self-assertive. Both "money" and "nations" exist only as arbitrarily framed notions of the mind.

Here we go yet again! In answer to the question in your first sentence, no, it does not but, in any case, since there is in any case no such "push" that you mention, it is obvious that nothing could give power to it.

Who would or could abolish money as we know it?

Given that all the world's nations use money, how would the international agreement essential for the implementation of its abolition be reached?

What in any event would replace it, given that its absence would not bring with it the abolition of markets, transactions et al?

How and why would the world's nations all be persuaded to agree - and at whose behest - to abandon their geographical borders and scrap their governments (some of which would have been democratically elected) and in favour of what?

Lastly, how would or could the abolition of currencies and/or nationhood guarantee the end of corruption, greed, advantage-taking and the rest?

[Sydney Grew]

Mr. H - The true fantasy (if I may so express it) is your dream world of "money" and "nations"; mere figments of the mind, having no empirical existence, naked, yet foisted daily upon a base and subservient population. The "religions" of our time, one might say, accepted generally and without question.

[amateur51]

Mr. H - The true fantasy (if I may so express it) is your dream world of "money" and "nations"; mere figments of the mind, having no empirical existence, naked, yet foisted daily upon a base and subservient population. The "religions" of our time, one might say, accepted generally and without question.

Nice try Sydney - now let's see you tackle the important questions that ahinton has posed in his most recent post here.

[vinteuil]

Both "money" and "nations" exist only as arbitrarily framed notions of the mind.

hmmm. Much like "music", "culture", "civilization" then....

[amateur51]

hmmm. Much like "music", "culture", "civilization" then....

Welcome back, vints - hast tha bin away?

[ahinton]

Mr. H - The true fantasy (if I may so express it) is your dream world of "money" and "nations"; mere figments of the mind, having no empirical existence, naked, yet foisted daily upon a base and subservient population. The "religions" of our time, one might say, accepted generally and without question.

You may indeed express it - as in fact you have - but merely doing so confers no inherent validity or credibility upon what you express; to begin with, it is not my "dream world", since I invented neither money nor nationhood but, rather more imporetantly, you make no effort in your response here to address any of the questions that I put to you about either, as am51 has gently reminded you. The notion of things being poisted on a subservient population is not one with which in principle I find myself in disagreement; where I do part company with you on this, however, is that the phenomena of currency and nationhood do not beling in their company.

[vinteuil]

Welcome back, vints - hast tha bin away?

... am still away - last week Italy, this week Greece.

But I can still lurk when the heat gets too much. Or when I need to recover from over-indulgence...

[amateur51]

... am still away - last week Italy, this week Greece.

But I can still lurk when the heat gets too much. Or when I need to recover from over-indulgence...

How marvellous - is it steaming hot there? A lunch-time red mullet from the barbecue and a tomato & black olive salad, good bread, the odd glass here & then?