Hey Guv can you lend us a fiver?

[aka Calum Da Jazbo]

....in repsonse to vinteuil's question i think the UK has too large a population and is too diverse for the Swiss or Scandinavian [or even Costa Rican] models for the whole country .... over recent years i have become a believer in regional autonomy within a loose national polity .... i am a republican because i detest British Majesty and the Windsors and their grip on the national psyche, if we could perhaps have a more European style of discreet monarchy i might not object so much; but i feel we should cast off the chains of subject deference to the throne.... it is pure mythology, but as a democrat i tolerate it because most of the people seem to want it ..

our stuckness resides in the need for radical approaches and the impossibility of our politicians approaching any idea that could, in the myopia of our present discourse, make them "unelectable" ... the media, especially the sargent and Robinson types like things to stay the same so that they know what they are on about ..... there is little that is truly original or radical on offer .... so its the 'none of the above' for me ...


... meanwhile the gangsters prosper ...

[Serial_Apologist]

....in repsonse to vinteuil's question i think the UK has too large a population and is too diverse for the Swiss or Scandinavian [or even Costa Rican] models for the whole country .... over recent years i have become a believer in regional autonomy within a loose national polity .... i am a republican because i detest British Majesty and the Windsors and their grip on the national psyche, if we could perhaps have a more European style of discrete monarchy i might not object so much; but i feel we should cast off the chains of subject deference to the throne.... it is pure mythology, but as a democrat i tolerate it because most of the people seem to want it ..

our stuckness resides in the need for radical approaches and the impossibility of our politicians approaching any idea that could, in the myopia of our present discourse, make them "unelectable" ... the media, especially the sargent and Robinson types like things to stay the same so that they know what they are on about ..... there is little that is truly original or radical on offer .... so its the 'none of the above' for me ...


... meanwhile the gangsters prosper ...

Why is it, then, that whenever Tony Benn appears on Any Questions, and puts across basic socialist tenets such as the ones I adumbrated above, the audiences, rural, urban, petty-bourgeois or proletarian, always applaud warmly? Is it because they get to hear them so seldom?

[eighthobstruction]

>>> 'Why is it, then, that whenever Tony Benn appears on Any Questions, and puts across basic socialist tenets such as the ones I adumbrated above, the audiences, rural, urban, petty-bourgeois or proletarian, always applaud warmly? Is it because they get to hear them so seldom?' <<<<

Perhaps it's because when he farts in bed ....he does hang his **** out of the bed....[does he still smoke a pipe ?]....

[Serial_Apologist]

>>> 'Why is it, then, that whenever Tony Benn appears on Any Questions, and puts across basic socialist tenets such as the ones I adumbrated above, the audiences, rural, urban, petty-bourgeois or proletarian, always applaud warmly? Is it because they get to hear them so seldom?' <<<<

Perhaps it's because when he farts in bed ....he does hang his **** out of the bed....[does he still smoke a pipe ?]....

Don't know. As he's knocking on a bit now, perhaps the rephrased question should be, "Does he take tea?"

[eighthobstruction]

I'm sure if he had his time again/or if he was in his 30's now, he would be saying, sustainable this....sustainable that....smart science and inclusive education....

Funny, that's what I think too....

[aka Calum Da Jazbo]

The British Virgin Islands is the global capital for the incorporation of offshore companies. Though it has a population of just 22,000, it has 823,502 registered companies which make vast amounts of money through the wonder of transfer pricing. It works like this. Suppose I manufacture a product in Africa and sell it in the UK. If I am a canny businessman I set up an intermediate company in a tax haven. It need do nothing except exist on paper. But through it I can buy all the products I make in Africa, dirt cheap, and then sell them, at a much higher cost, to my UK subsidiary. The African and British companies do not, thus, make much profit, so I have little or no tax to pay. All the money stays offshore, where taxes are low or non-existent. This is perfectly legal. But it distorts the world economy and means I pay no tax. I can also borrow where rates are lowest and keep my costs where they are most tax deductible.

That is why General Electric paid no taxes in 2010, despite $14.2bn profits. It's why Barclays, with 181 subsidiaries registered in the Caymans, paid relatively little UK tax on its worldwide profits. Rupert Murdoch's News Corp, with 152 subsidiaries in tax havens according to the US government, paid no net UK corporation tax between 1988 and 1999.

Half the world's trade flows through tax havens. Every multinational uses them routinely. So do banks. Almost 70 per cent of international trade now happens within, rather than between, multinationals. Christian Aid reckons that tax dodging costs developing countries at least $160bn a year – far more than they receive in aid. The US research centre Integrity estimated that more than $1.2trn drained out of poor countries illicitly in 2008 alone.
here

and here is the book

[aka Calum Da Jazbo]

bless the Telegraph it is becoming quite indispensable!

banks 1

banks 2

[amateur51]

bless the Telegraph it is becoming quite indispensable!

banks 1

banks 2

Brilliant stuff, Calum!

The Torygraph is a great paper, aside from the editorials & the owners

[eighthobstruction]

Interesting comments after bank 2 ....[and lots of them]....[a lot of intelligent people with time on their hands]

[amateur51]

I think that Caklum's #97 banks 2 needs a headline to get the interest of the passing trade.

Britain's banks are directly responsible for more than a third of the country's economic slump since September 2008, official figures show.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/newsbysector/banksandfinance/8729589/Banks-responsible-for-over-a-third-of-UK-economic-slump.html

That's better

So we're NOT all in this together

[teamsaint]

once upon a time, you put your money in the bank in case you got robbed......

whereas now.............

I would make all investment bankers work in an asda warehouse for 5 years...to teach them some manners if nothing else.

Time to wake up.

[aka Calum Da Jazbo]

corpocat greed quantified

total pay packages for company executives in the wider FTSE 350 had gone up by 700% since 2002 - while the index had risen by only 21%.

Pay levels for the average worker in Britain have risen by 27% over the past decade.

[aka Calum Da Jazbo]

it is getting much worse, we are like boiling frogs ....


it is not only those on benefits needing the food banks, the working poor are with us .....

[mangerton]

it is getting much worse, we are like boiling frogs ....


it is not only those on benefits needing the food banks, the working poor are with us .....

CDJ, Thanks for posting. That is a frightening link. Beggars belief, really.

The biggest Govt benefits agency, which deals with all benefits except Child Benefit and Tax Credits, is saying in effect that either they can't cope ("benefits delayed") or that the benefits are insufficient in any case.

[aka Calum Da Jazbo]

yep ... makes it easy to know what we might spend the bankers' bonus pool [£6bn] on, i see George O was arguing against a transaction tax in the EU .... let the gamblers have their spoils eh ....