Hey Guv can you lend us a fiver?

[aka Calum Da Jazbo]

we are all in this together but they are are in something else

[greenilex]

Frenchfrank asks who will provide the necessary credit - why, mutuals of course, and honestly for a change...in our credit union we don't use the money several times over, just the once.

[aka Calum Da Jazbo]

As Runciman observed, "most people's lives are governed more by the resentment of narrow inequalities, the cultivation of modest ambitions and the preservation of small differentials" than by the larger picture of social justice. That applies as much to the professional as to the working classes.

interesting piece on the absence of rage

[aka Calum Da Jazbo]

BONUSES ARE BACK

LENDING IS NOT

[eighthobstruction]

I'm loving this....this is the bestest of bestest recessions, I EVER have been in....

...that's coz I love SOUP....

[did you see ?....I gave you a free comma with this post....don't know if it was needed ....put it in the fridge till you do need it....]

[mangerton]

I'm quite partial to soup myself, especially home made. It strikes me that we'll all be in the soup, very shortly, with these pagliacci in charge.

Thanks for the free comma. I've included three free apostrophes in this post. Greener - they can be stored at ambient.

[eighthobstruction]

I always wondered what the difference was....

[Serial_Apologist]

I'm loving this....this is the bestest of bestest recessions, I EVER have been in....

...that's coz I love SOUP....

[did you see ?....I gave you a free comma with this post....don't know if it was needed ....put it in the fridge till you do need it....]

I'll stick with/on my colon, if you don't mind.

I once read a little book by Erich Fromm, with some such title as "Listen, Litle Man". Directed at the middle classes of the 1930s who, squeezed between a militant, self-organised labour movement and the growing power of the multinationals, were looking to fascism.

The cyclic problems are endemic to capitalism, counteractive measures to buy class peace notwithstanding. Howevermuch the ruling class and its lackeys throw blame and religion at the poor for pricing themselves out of their rigged market, the latter will seize whatever opportunities it gets when conditions within an innately unstable unreliable unsustainable sustem are favourable, whether its cheep booze, differential improvements, obsolescing consumerist trash or unplanned babies. In a system where taking responsibility makes little impact for overall benefit beyond the temporary, fulfilment in the NOW acquires other than spiritual (for want of a better word) implications; communitarian solidarity remains at best a temporary holding operation.

S-A

[eighthobstruction]

Seems to me the ATOS MEDICAL SERVICES assessors who are employed to root out dead wood, and living wood should be employed to scan the BANKERS for similar ESA [Employment Support Allowance] time-serving dirty lucre opportunists....they seem to be very singleminded and tireless in their pursuit of MEAT....

....public-disembowelling....

[aka Calum Da Jazbo]

it is happening now and tomorrow and will go on and on .......


oy yeh and FIFA BLATTERGATE too ..... loadsa £$£$£$£$£$£$£EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE

[aeolium]

we are all in this together but they are are in something else

A couple of interesting articles today about European discontent about the plutonomy, that alliance of the wealthy, the political establishment and the media which prevents any significant action to tackle inequality.
This one by Adrian Hamilton argues that "the peculiarity of European politics at the moment is that the revolt against cuts is directed against anyone in power to the benefit of the party in opposition" and that the Spanish protests, like others in Europe are " demonstrating against the whole system and the major parties held to be part of it."
This one by Guy Standing considers the same problem but from the perspective that the abandonment of the 'precariat' by those who used to speak for it may result in an increase in support for the far right.

It would not be surprising to see a rash of violent discontent spreading across Europe this summer, particularly in those indebted countries where intolerable economic pressures are being inflicted by EU/IMF bailout terms (in part to protect European banks, principally in the north). No action has been taken to prevent huge bonuses in the financial sector, or indeed a recurrence of the 2008 crisis.

[Serial_Apologist]

Was it Lenin who defined a prerevolutionqary situation as one in which the rulers are no longer capable of ruling, and the ruled no longer willing, to be ruled in the old way? There's an unfortunate dearth of alternative coming up on the left; I can't speak of across Europe as a whole, but here in the UK Compass appears to be the only organisation amid the traditional left offering any fundamentals for another way of looking at, and beyond the current crisis of capitalism. And then, would what it proposes be permitted by the EU, let alone be capable of fending off a massive run on the £? How could the *ankers and speculators be blocked from doing just that?

S-A

[Lateralthinking1]

I have just been watching Vince Cable's speech to GMB. He warns that strike action could lead to far greater restrictions on the future right to strike. This, at a time when (a) We are told by some that the economy is in its poorest state since the 1930s and (b) Strike action is at its lowest level since, erm, the 1930s.

Vince no doubt means well. His position is predictably middle-of-the-road on the surface. A warning about what the ogres in the Coalition could do. The nature of the lever that he mentions? It is all stuff that is tried and tested. Enough to make the leftists quake. Let's be more specific. Quake, that is, in the late 70s, the 80s, the 90s, the double zeros.

The problem is that the unions are already failing to help many. Their traditional incompetence and selectivity partially. The effectiveness too of past and present containment. And in a time when Governments seek to reduce their power further, often pointing to a lack of support, what they are not "getting" is the mentality of many who are not striking.

These are not all Coalition supporters. Far from it. Many have reduced the power of the unions themselves by concluding that they won't be able to represent their interests. It is just the same as not bothering to vote. This trend is set to continue as the economic savagery continues to bite. The lever mentioned by Vince, while it sounds threatening in the cosy opposition between Government and the unions, is losing power in itself.

The principal lever is now held by the public at large. Rather like in the case of the law when it fails to be adequately fair to all, and vigilante activity is the natural consequence, the more Governments push individuals outside the systems and structures that enable an effective voice, the greater likelihood there is of a Libyan - or at the very least a Greek - situation here.

The waters seem calm at present. Cool heads and so on. But the scenes of students in London some months ago may come to look like a vicars' tea party. If there is eventually societal breakdown, Governments will have been the perpetrators and there will be no one else for them to blame. They are still playing games when reality resides "without".

[teamsaint]

and now according to Robert Peston, the problems at southern cross are not due to its mountain of debt.
Really? so its not true that the wealthy "owners" stripped out all the value , and left a vital business with no fat to live on, and with nowhere to go in a crisis.because thats how it looks to us ordinary folks.

The people at the top in our, and other countries, have an arrogance that is genuinely staggering.AS the few at the top continue to exploit the many, as the gap between rich and poor inexorably grows, perhaps the worm will finally turn.
This is a wealthy country still, and the many will surely not put up with privatised mecicine, ever declining pay rates, hopelessly expensive housing,pensions at 70 + and sanctimonious nonsense spouting for the mouths of the old etonians who STILL run this country for much longer.
The bankers and their cronies in high places have so much to answer for...time for us all to wake up.

[aka Calum Da Jazbo]

yes wake up but don't just yawn, don't get angry ... we need to get more than even, we need to throw them out .... it is business as usual ....and the politicians are still incredibly relaxed about the filthy rich ....


in the days since this thread started at least $100 TRILLION has been gambled on forex trading, some five time global trade's annual value ..... very conservatively that is a Robin Hood or Tobin tax value of $1 TRILLION in something less than a month ....


were you reassured that the IMF backed the Plan A [Plan A always involves the taxpayer funding big finance's shareholders in the event of loss]?