Isn't all this news about phone hacking just what people expect? Police are paid too little to own homes in the communities they protect whilst £100,000 are paid to journalists who hack into phones. I don't blame them for selling information from their jobs. They probably see it as a perk of the job!
Wages are becoming ridiculous in Britain. Bankers and wealthy capital hoarders are effectively making the population work for minimum wage, and if they complain they simply threaten to take the jobs abroad. Remember that banks were actually organisations that are meant to allocate our money (from savings and government bonds) to projects which benefit society...when did that stop? How can they pay their employees 70-90% of their revenue? Which other industry could afford to pay their staff such a high percentage of the revenue moving through your business. Not profit, revenue! So, you can end up with a loss whilst paying your people bonuses. You might ask, why don't all the shareholders put a stop to it? Well, funnily enough the shareholders are primarily large fund managers who either are part of banks or insurance companies that use banks. Its all a complete fraud! They're doing what's best for them, not what's best for the ultimate shareholder - the people with their retirement funds held at insitutions. What business can compete for staff with banks? They have taken all the graduates, they in turn are doing exactly what the older generation taught them to do in the 80s - Greed is Good!
I remember an interview given by the guy who wrote the book Liar's Poker. Its a recollection of the author's time working for an investment bank in the early 80s including the prejudice and nepotism that exists there. He wrote the book to lift the lid on the outrageous behavior he saw, but instead of his readers reacting in revulsion he received thousands of letters asking him to how to get in to the industry!!
When will the British public realise that the political and wealthy classes are taking them for fools. Here are some obvious observations that will eventually be proved true
1. Police are political and change investigations based on political interference
2. Interest rates are political regardless of the "independent" Bank of England. Just look at who the governor answers to? Its not the normal people? Its the political parties that can ask him for dinner...
3. Politicians are owned by the industrialists who pay for their election campaigns
4. Austerity is only required because the rich want to continue living in an unfair society. They feel they deserve their lifestyle. For those that have provided benefits to society I agree...but can you say bankers are in that group or "old money" families who simply live off one person's success?
5. People who are wealthy have generally lied and cheated the system at some point. I'm not saying its universally true...but its a good rule of thumb that wealthy people have used their power to corrupt our officials to get what they wanted e.g pay less tax or pass legislation. Otherwise, what's the point of having that money?
6. People probably go into politics to change things and realise that there is a whole other universe of back stabbing and conniving to navigate to.
7. The heads of public institutions usually have a political agenda. They are biased e.g cabinet secretaries or BBC chairman. They are all performing their job roles, not for the good of the country but for their friends in their social circle e.g politicians and land owners
8. Large private companies do not pay anywhere near the amount of tax they should pay. By that I mean, they find legitimate ways to not pay full 20% odd corporation tax. Instead, they create small charitable giving trusts that pretend they are benefiting society as a large marketing gimmick. Its endemic, look at Tesco and their computers for schools programme or any of the bank's charitable giving.
9. People without any capital will always be taken advantage of by wealthy people.
10. Our culture has become so short termist that we are losing our position in the world. Everything that was built by our great inventors and politicians of the past is being lost. As the political infighting of a small group of wealthy individuals culminates to a grand finale, we, the people, will lose more and more of our living standards.
11. There are more baby-boomers that any other generation. They will hold the assets, the democratic power and convince themselves that what is good for them is good for everyone. Unfortunately, they will bankrupt society as they get old and no one can support them. I fully expect towns and cities to become full of older people who cannot afford to heat their homes or afford care as they begin to be unable to look after themselves.
There is no denying it. We are looking at a worse future. To prevent this:
1. We need to spend money on maths and science education, but more than that we need to make it "cool" to create and invent rather than become "famous" for gossip or become employees at banks and multinationals.
2. We need to let our banks fail and take losses, it'll be tough for a few years but our business services will develop new saleable skills to help the other parts of western society deal with debt. Society will be better for it. Look at Iceland as an example. We will realise that we cannot have a society where the top earners make their living through debt. Our society will focus on delivering new services and products that will be required for the asian middle classes.
3. Ensure that broadcasters provide equal advertising space on tv, radio and newspapers to the largest 4 political parties - ending this ridiculous charade of democracies. Let the state pay a set amount for the advertising space to end the hold that media moguls have on our politicians.
4. Provide new computers and broadband to the entire population as quickly as possible to enable government services to be provided on line and provide educational services for low cost. Information is free (look at Khan Academy), you can learn anything you want if you have the determination. It will equalise society to enable learning at lower cost.
5. Provide TV programmes that are aspirational. Show how people made their success, the difficulties they overcame and where you need to go to develop skills. Incorporate this into our popular culture, rather than programmes like east enders which are mired in societies problems.
If we create we will survive, if we remain as consumers we will be lose everything we have built over the last 100 years.
