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If you’ve always been a lurker, nighthawks gives you an opportunity to delurk, make some Changes, Tonight, be a Rebel Rebel, and start posting, I’m sure you’ll be Dancing in the Street once you start posting
Already seen the PS4 video, but it's a very astute and quite amusing kick in the nuts for Microsoft, whose PR approach to the Xbone appears to be sub-optimal.
FPT - I see Charles got stuck behind all my friends on the naked bike ride last weekend. My facebook hasnt been safe for work since due to all the photos they took!
FPT - I see Charles got stuck behind all my friends on the naked bike ride last weekend. My facebook hasnt been safe for work since due to all the photos they took!
I'd have been fine if I was behind them.
It was turning a corner and having one present himself face on that was a little disconcerting...
Ah yes, us metropolitan, urban elite have been conspiring behind your back again. Shall I tell you the plan?
Basically, we're engineering a temporary boom in London, on the back of foreign slave labour. This will be used to give the *illusion* of prosperity.
Then, because essentially everyone in London earns more than the minimum wage, we can scrap it there without anyone noticing. Our next move will be to point to London and say "Look! We scrapped the minimum wage, and everyone is happy." We'll then scrap the minimum wage everywhere.
The final stage of our cunning plan will be to replace all the Brits in jobs with low paid Albanians, Afghanis and Alaskans. Essentially, our sole goal - as Jacques Delors told me over fois gras and caviar at the Bilderberg meeting last week - is the destruction of British culture and the British worker.
Ah yes, us metropolitan, urban elite have been conspiring behind your back again. Shall I tell you the plan?
Basically, we're engineering a temporary boom in London, on the back of foreign slave labour. This will be used to give the *illusion* of prosperity.
Then, because essentially everyone in London earns more than the minimum wage, we can scrap it there without anyone noticing. Our next move will be to point to London and say "Look! We scrapped the minimum wage, and everyone is happy." We'll then scrap the minimum wage everywhere.
The final stage of our cunning plan will be to replace all the Brits in jobs with low paid Albanians, Afghanis and Alaskans. Essentially, our sole goal - as Jacques Delors told me over fois gras and caviar at the Bilderberg meeting last week - is the destruction of British culture and the British worker.
After that MODERATED
If that entails bringing Sarah Palin over, it'll be the final straw that leads to revolution.
Ah yes, us metropolitan, urban elite have been conspiring behind your back again. Shall I tell you the plan?
Basically, we're engineering a temporary boom in London, on the back of foreign slave labour. This will be used to give the *illusion* of prosperity.
Then, because essentially everyone in London earns more than the minimum wage, we can scrap it there without anyone noticing. Our next move will be to point to London and say "Look! We scrapped the minimum wage, and everyone is happy." We'll then scrap the minimum wage everywhere.
The final stage of our cunning plan will be to replace all the Brits in jobs with low paid Albanians, Afghanis and Alaskans. Essentially, our sole goal - as Jacques Delors told me over fois gras and caviar at the Bilderberg meeting last week - is the destruction of British culture and the British worker.
After that MODERATED
The globalist billionaires who own the political class want to create a plantation economy competing solely on labour costs.
Ah yes, us metropolitan, urban elite have been conspiring behind your back again. Shall I tell you the plan?
Basically, we're engineering a temporary boom in London, on the back of foreign slave labour. This will be used to give the *illusion* of prosperity.
Then, because essentially everyone in London earns more than the minimum wage, we can scrap it there without anyone noticing. Our next move will be to point to London and say "Look! We scrapped the minimum wage, and everyone is happy." We'll then scrap the minimum wage everywhere.
The final stage of our cunning plan will be to replace all the Brits in jobs with low paid Albanians, Afghanis and Alaskans. Essentially, our sole goal - as Jacques Delors told me over fois gras and caviar at the Bilderberg meeting last week - is the destruction of British culture and the British worker.
After that MODERATED
The globalist billionaires who own the political class want to create a plantation economy competing solely on labour costs.
It's getting more and more obvious.
"The globalist Jewish billionaires who own the Zionist political class want to create a plantation economy competing solely on labour costs."
Ah yes, us metropolitan, urban elite have been conspiring behind your back again. Shall I tell you the plan?
Basically, we're engineering a temporary boom in London, on the back of foreign slave labour. This will be used to give the *illusion* of prosperity.
Then, because essentially everyone in London earns more than the minimum wage, we can scrap it there without anyone noticing. Our next move will be to point to London and say "Look! We scrapped the minimum wage, and everyone is happy." We'll then scrap the minimum wage everywhere.
The final stage of our cunning plan will be to replace all the Brits in jobs with low paid Albanians, Afghanis and Alaskans. Essentially, our sole goal - as Jacques Delors told me over fois gras and caviar at the Bilderberg meeting last week - is the destruction of British culture and the British worker.
After that MODERATED
The funny thing is, I don't consider that to be completely unlikely.
Ah yes, us metropolitan, urban elite have been conspiring behind your back again. Shall I tell you the plan?
Basically, we're engineering a temporary boom in London, on the back of foreign slave labour. This will be used to give the *illusion* of prosperity.
Then, because essentially everyone in London earns more than the minimum wage, we can scrap it there without anyone noticing. Our next move will be to point to London and say "Look! We scrapped the minimum wage, and everyone is happy." We'll then scrap the minimum wage everywhere.
The final stage of our cunning plan will be to replace all the Brits in jobs with low paid Albanians, Afghanis and Alaskans. Essentially, our sole goal - as Jacques Delors told me over fois gras and caviar at the Bilderberg meeting last week - is the destruction of British culture and the British worker.
After that MODERATED
Yeah, very funny. Maybe some can afford to make a joke of it. But the average joe 'striver' (employees and employers) getting shafted by the smugly amused all right jacks is what's driving the disenchanted vote imo.
Young girl gets raped at 13 by a 17 year old. Conservatism of her home town makes her keep the baby. The rapist is let out on bail, and likely to get between probation and a couple of years. The victim gets slut shamed as a pregnant teenager.
Ah yes, us metropolitan, urban elite have been conspiring behind your back again. Shall I tell you the plan?
Basically, we're engineering a temporary boom in London, on the back of foreign slave labour. This will be used to give the *illusion* of prosperity.
Then, because essentially everyone in London earns more than the minimum wage, we can scrap it there without anyone noticing. Our next move will be to point to London and say "Look! We scrapped the minimum wage, and everyone is happy." We'll then scrap the minimum wage everywhere.
The final stage of our cunning plan will be to replace all the Brits in jobs with low paid Albanians, Afghanis and Alaskans. Essentially, our sole goal - as Jacques Delors told me over fois gras and caviar at the Bilderberg meeting last week - is the destruction of British culture and the British worker.
After that MODERATED
The globalist billionaires who own the political class want to create a plantation economy competing solely on labour costs.
It's getting more and more obvious.
Ah yes, those evil capitalists who want to minimise the cost of making products, and to maximise their own profits. Fortunately, people like you have seen through this sham.
Just got back from seeing 'Man of Steel'. Got told it was a special showing for the press, but the cinema was full of p**sed up students who'd spent all day partying to celebrate graduating or some such nonsense.
Anyway, taking away the distracton of kids whooping and cheering at every possible opportunity, I'd say it's apreety good action movie. Very easy to compare it with last years masterpiece 'The Avengers' due to the ott amount of general destruction and mayhem. It's not amazing, but well worth seeing. Second best movie this year after Star Trek I'd say.
More importantly, been scanning through the last thread on the bus home. Someone brought up IHT again I see, and as usual the word stealing got used. If inherited wealth isn't the ultimate definition of unearned income-for the recipient, then I don't know what is. Probably the economically most inefficient way of allocating wealth there is, after the national lottery. For example, what exactly did the Milibros do to either earn or deserve their bonanza from marxist daddy? A bonanza they did their best to avoid paying tax on I may add. Hypocrite overload as always.
When you earn money it's yours, if you give it away to family it becomes a gift. Tough if it gets taxed heavily again. It shouldn't have been taxed when you worked for it of course. As usual punish people for doing positive things, reward their kids for doing nothing.
Just as an update on my fave topic, the Roma invasion of Stockholm. The begging and pickpocketing situation is reaching critical mass, really is becoming an obscenity and blight on the city.The Rumainian government is quite happy to see the back of them of course. Glad the EU is chucking truckloads of money at the country whilst they are partaking in ethnic cleansing on an epic scale. These people should be in their own country and being educated and integrated into society. It's so pointless them coming here or moving to the UK en masse next year, just more problems and understandable racial tension await. Believe me, this is the worst cultural clash I have ever seen, the normally placid Swedes are furious, and I have heard comments from usually sane and hippiesque people that would have you covering your ears in shock. This mix is incendiary, and it's coming big time to a town you live in soon.
Ah yes, us metropolitan, urban elite have been conspiring behind your back again. Shall I tell you the plan?
Basically, we're engineering a temporary boom in London, on the back of foreign slave labour. This will be used to give the *illusion* of prosperity.
Then, because essentially everyone in London earns more than the minimum wage, we can scrap it there without anyone noticing. Our next move will be to point to London and say "Look! We scrapped the minimum wage, and everyone is happy." We'll then scrap the minimum wage everywhere.
The final stage of our cunning plan will be to replace all the Brits in jobs with low paid Albanians, Afghanis and Alaskans. Essentially, our sole goal - as Jacques Delors told me over fois gras and caviar at the Bilderberg meeting last week - is the destruction of British culture and the British worker.
After that MODERATED
The funny thing is, I don't consider that to be completely unlikely.
Yes, it is. Bringing in cheap foreign labour will reduce wages, not increase them. The globalist elite have missed a trick: they need to restrict immigration to cause wages to pick up, and then take away the minimum wage before opening the flood gates.
Ah yes, us metropolitan, urban elite have been conspiring behind your back again. Shall I tell you the plan?
Basically, we're engineering a temporary boom in London, on the back of foreign slave labour. This will be used to give the *illusion* of prosperity.
Then, because essentially everyone in London earns more than the minimum wage, we can scrap it there without anyone noticing. Our next move will be to point to London and say "Look! We scrapped the minimum wage, and everyone is happy." We'll then scrap the minimum wage everywhere.
The final stage of our cunning plan will be to replace all the Brits in jobs with low paid Albanians, Afghanis and Alaskans. Essentially, our sole goal - as Jacques Delors told me over fois gras and caviar at the Bilderberg meeting last week - is the destruction of British culture and the British worker.
After that MODERATED
The globalist billionaires who own the political class want to create a plantation economy competing solely on labour costs.
It's getting more and more obvious.
"The globalist Jewish billionaires who own the Zionist political class want to create a plantation economy competing solely on labour costs."
There you go, there's the original version.
No it isn't. That's your straw man version.
It's been around for hundreds of years, you're not in control of your own destiny you know. You only post because *they* want you to. It suits their purpose to have a Neo Nazi group putting out the truth so no one susses *them*. You're just a tool of the Zionists.
Ah yes, us metropolitan, urban elite have been conspiring behind your back again. Shall I tell you the plan?
Basically, we're engineering a temporary boom in London, on the back of foreign slave labour. This will be used to give the *illusion* of prosperity.
Then, because essentially everyone in London earns more than the minimum wage, we can scrap it there without anyone noticing. Our next move will be to point to London and say "Look! We scrapped the minimum wage, and everyone is happy." We'll then scrap the minimum wage everywhere.
The final stage of our cunning plan will be to replace all the Brits in jobs with low paid Albanians, Afghanis and Alaskans. Essentially, our sole goal - as Jacques Delors told me over fois gras and caviar at the Bilderberg meeting last week - is the destruction of British culture and the British worker.
After that MODERATED
The globalist billionaires who own the political class want to create a plantation economy competing solely on labour costs.
It's getting more and more obvious.
Ah yes, those evil capitalists who want to minimise the cost of making products, and to maximise their own profits. Fortunately, people like you have seen through this sham.
So we're agreed it's the plan then - which is what i said at the beginning?
Ah yes, us metropolitan, urban elite have been conspiring behind your back again. Shall I tell you the plan?
Basically, we're engineering a temporary boom in London, on the back of foreign slave labour. This will be used to give the *illusion* of prosperity.
Then, because essentially everyone in London earns more than the minimum wage, we can scrap it there without anyone noticing. Our next move will be to point to London and say "Look! We scrapped the minimum wage, and everyone is happy." We'll then scrap the minimum wage everywhere.
The final stage of our cunning plan will be to replace all the Brits in jobs with low paid Albanians, Afghanis and Alaskans. Essentially, our sole goal - as Jacques Delors told me over fois gras and caviar at the Bilderberg meeting last week - is the destruction of British culture and the British worker.
After that MODERATED
The funny thing is, I don't consider that to be completely unlikely.
As a matter of interest, who are these billionaires running the plantation economy? And to who are they expected to sell their products, if the general population is reduced to poverty?
Ah yes, us metropolitan, urban elite have been conspiring behind your back again. Shall I tell you the plan?
Basically, we're engineering a temporary boom in London, on the back of foreign slave labour. This will be used to give the *illusion* of prosperity.
Then, because essentially everyone in London earns more than the minimum wage, we can scrap it there without anyone noticing. Our next move will be to point to London and say "Look! We scrapped the minimum wage, and everyone is happy." We'll then scrap the minimum wage everywhere.
The final stage of our cunning plan will be to replace all the Brits in jobs with low paid Albanians, Afghanis and Alaskans. Essentially, our sole goal - as Jacques Delors told me over fois gras and caviar at the Bilderberg meeting last week - is the destruction of British culture and the British worker.
After that MODERATED
The funny thing is, I don't consider that to be completely unlikely.
As a matter of interest, who are these billionaires running the plantation economy? And to who are they expected to sell their products, if the general population is reduced to poverty?
Ah yes, us metropolitan, urban elite have been conspiring behind your back again. Shall I tell you the plan?
Basically, we're engineering a temporary boom in London, on the back of foreign slave labour. This will be used to give the *illusion* of prosperity.
Then, because essentially everyone in London earns more than the minimum wage, we can scrap it there without anyone noticing. Our next move will be to point to London and say "Look! We scrapped the minimum wage, and everyone is happy." We'll then scrap the minimum wage everywhere.
The final stage of our cunning plan will be to replace all the Brits in jobs with low paid Albanians, Afghanis and Alaskans. Essentially, our sole goal - as Jacques Delors told me over fois gras and caviar at the Bilderberg meeting last week - is the destruction of British culture and the British worker.
After that MODERATED
The funny thing is, I don't consider that to be completely unlikely.
As a matter of interest, who are these billionaires running the plantation economy? And to who are they expected to sell their products, if the general population is reduced to poverty?
Ah yes, us metropolitan, urban elite have been conspiring behind your back again. Shall I tell you the plan?
Basically, we're engineering a temporary boom in London, on the back of foreign slave labour. This will be used to give the *illusion* of prosperity.
Then, because essentially everyone in London earns more than the minimum wage, we can scrap it there without anyone noticing. Our next move will be to point to London and say "Look! We scrapped the minimum wage, and everyone is happy." We'll then scrap the minimum wage everywhere.
The final stage of our cunning plan will be to replace all the Brits in jobs with low paid Albanians, Afghanis and Alaskans. Essentially, our sole goal - as Jacques Delors told me over fois gras and caviar at the Bilderberg meeting last week - is the destruction of British culture and the British worker.
After that MODERATED
Yeah, very funny. Maybe some can afford to make a joke of it. But the average joe 'striver' (employees and employers) getting shafted by the smugly amused all right jacks is what's driving the disenchanted vote imo.
Carola: I just don't understand who these 'them' are who are supposedly running such a scam. Let's not forget, under the labour government you could get a peerage for lending the party a few hundred thousand quid. So a position of influence could be got by *lending* the cost of a not very nice two bedroom flat in Shephard's Bush. Why would the political elite need to stoop to such lengths if they were being secretly bankrolled by billionaires?
Two weeks ago I had dinner with Google's ex-CEO, Eric Schmidt. You know what he cares about? He cares about making really cool products that people want to buy and which will make him money. He might put down $30,000 to get a seat at a fundraiser for a Presidential candidate, but really, the way he makes his money is by making things people want to buy. The great business successes really don't give a shit about doing anything other than making something you might want to buy. You think Apple is a success because they made things in China? Nope: everyone made things in China. Apple is a success because they made things people want to buy. Steve Jobs interest in politics is about the same as my interest in my wife's shoes. If anything he was less interested (I am required to say 'they look great, honey'.)
Ah yes, us metropolitan, urban elite have been conspiring behind your back again. Shall I tell you the plan?
Basically, we're engineering a temporary boom in London, on the back of foreign slave labour. This will be used to give the *illusion* of prosperity.
Then, because essentially everyone in London earns more than the minimum wage, we can scrap it there without anyone noticing. Our next move will be to point to London and say "Look! We scrapped the minimum wage, and everyone is happy." We'll then scrap the minimum wage everywhere.
The final stage of our cunning plan will be to replace all the Brits in jobs with low paid Albanians, Afghanis and Alaskans. Essentially, our sole goal - as Jacques Delors told me over fois gras and caviar at the Bilderberg meeting last week - is the destruction of British culture and the British worker.
After that MODERATED
The funny thing is, I don't consider that to be completely unlikely.
As a matter of interest, who are these billionaires running the plantation economy? And to who are they expected to sell their products, if the general population is reduced to poverty?
This mix is incendiary, and it's coming big time to a town you live in soon.
Tbh I dont think people are waiting around for the work visa requirements to be relaxed in order to come to the UK to beg.
I was in London for most of April and May and I came across some Roma on the underground and in the West End, but nowhere near the numbers here in Stockholm. There are restrictions in entering/staying in the UK at the moment, (none here in Sweden-well at least there don't appear to be any), the major towns and cities in the UK just appear like goldmines for low level criminality when all restrictions are removed there.
Ah yes, us metropolitan, urban elite have been conspiring behind your back again. Shall I tell you the plan?
Basically, we're engineering a temporary boom in London, on the back of foreign slave labour. This will be used to give the *illusion* of prosperity.
Then, because essentially everyone in London earns more than the minimum wage, we can scrap it there without anyone noticing. Our next move will be to point to London and say "Look! We scrapped the minimum wage, and everyone is happy." We'll then scrap the minimum wage everywhere.
The final stage of our cunning plan will be to replace all the Brits in jobs with low paid Albanians, Afghanis and Alaskans. Essentially, our sole goal - as Jacques Delors told me over fois gras and caviar at the Bilderberg meeting last week - is the destruction of British culture and the British worker.
After that MODERATED
Yeah, very funny. Maybe some can afford to make a joke of it. But the average joe 'striver' (employees and employers) getting shafted by the smugly amused all right jacks is what's driving the disenchanted vote imo.
Carola: I just don't understand who these 'them' are who are supposedly running such a scam. Let's not forget, under the labour government you could get a peerage for lending the party a few hundred thousand quid. So a position of influence could be got by *lending* the cost of a not very nice two bedroom flat in Shephard's Bush. Why would the political elite need to stoop to such lengths if they were being secretly bankrolled by billionaires?
Two weeks ago I had dinner with Google's ex-CEO, Eric Schmidt. You know what he cares about? He cares about making really cool products that people want to buy and which will make him money. He might put down $30,000 to get a seat at a fundraiser for a Presidential candidate, but really, the way he makes his money is by making things people want to buy. The great business successes really don't give a shit about doing anything other than making something you might want to buy. You think Apple is a success because they made things in China? Nope: everyone made things in China. Apple is a success because they made things people want to buy. Steve Jobs interest in politics is about the same as my interest in my wife's shoes. If anything he was less interested (I am required to say 'they look great, honey'.)
Ah yes, us metropolitan, urban elite have been conspiring behind your back again. Shall I tell you the plan?
Basically, we're engineering a temporary boom in London, on the back of foreign slave labour. This will be used to give the *illusion* of prosperity.
Then, because essentially everyone in London earns more than the minimum wage, we can scrap it there without anyone noticing. Our next move will be to point to London and say "Look! We scrapped the minimum wage, and everyone is happy." We'll then scrap the minimum wage everywhere.
The final stage of our cunning plan will be to replace all the Brits in jobs with low paid Albanians, Afghanis and Alaskans. Essentially, our sole goal - as Jacques Delors told me over fois gras and caviar at the Bilderberg meeting last week - is the destruction of British culture and the British worker.
After that MODERATED
The funny thing is, I don't consider that to be completely unlikely.
As a matter of interest, who are these billionaires running the plantation economy? And to who are they expected to sell their products, if the general population is reduced to poverty?
Each other, surely?
There's only so many iPhones a man can own. Or so many Ferraris.
Look, I would tend to agree with have too much income inequality. I would think that in any mature corporation, the boss shouldn't earn more than 5x the average income.
Even doing this, it's worth noting, will not stop inequality. Larry and Segei earn $1 a year. They're worth $20 billion each because they built an amazing business.
And it's worth noting that -as the Rausings are proving- your time at the top is typically very short. Families (like Charles') who keep wealth for many generations are the exception rather than the rule. If you look at the top ten richest people in the world, Gates, Buffett are essentially self-made. Carlos Slim, the Mexican telecoms billionaire, I don't know about. Larry Ellison is very definiately self-made. The Koch brothers I don't know. Li Ka-Shing is self-made.
If the billionaires are passing it around among themselves, they're not doing a very good job of it, given that so many of the top 25 have managed to get there by their own shoe string. In fact, if you look at the list from two decades ago, who would still be on there? Many billionaires have come and gone (and committed suicide in at least one case). Very few are family scions.
There are restrictions in entering/staying in the UK at the moment
They have been free to come to the UK for nearly 7 years now. They are not able to work without permission but people who come to steal and beg dont strike me as being likely to worry about that particular restriction.
Ah yes, us metropolitan, urban elite have been conspiring behind your back again. Shall I tell you the plan?
Basically, we're engineering a temporary boom in London, on the back of foreign slave labour. This will be used to give the *illusion* of prosperity.
Then, because essentially everyone in London earns more than the minimum wage, we can scrap it there without anyone noticing. Our next move will be to point to London and say "Look! We scrapped the minimum wage, and everyone is happy." We'll then scrap the minimum wage everywhere.
The final stage of our cunning plan will be to replace all the Brits in jobs with low paid Albanians, Afghanis and Alaskans. Essentially, our sole goal - as Jacques Delors told me over fois gras and caviar at the Bilderberg meeting last week - is the destruction of British culture and the British worker.
After that MODERATED
Yeah, very funny. Maybe some can afford to make a joke of it. But the average joe 'striver' (employees and employers) getting shafted by the smugly amused all right jacks is what's driving the disenchanted vote imo.
Carola: I just don't understand who these 'them' are who are supposedly running such a scam. Let's not forget, under the labour government you could get a peerage for lending the party a few hundred thousand quid. So a position of influence could be got by *lending* the cost of a not very nice two bedroom flat in Shephard's Bush. Why would the political elite need to stoop to such lengths if they were being secretly bankrolled by billionaires?
Two weeks ago I had dinner with Google's ex-CEO, Eric Schmidt. You know what he cares about? He cares about making really cool products that people want to buy and which will make him money. He might put down $30,000 to get a seat at a fundraiser for a Presidential candidate, but really, the way he makes his money is by making things people want to buy. The great business successes really don't give a shit about doing anything other than making something you might want to buy. You think Apple is a success because they made things in China? Nope: everyone made things in China. Apple is a success because they made things people want to buy. Steve Jobs interest in politics is about the same as my interest in my wife's shoes. If anything he was less interested (I am required to say 'they look great, honey'.)
I know they're just interested in making money.
And the way they make money is by making products and services people want to buy, and by doing it as cheaply as possible.
That's not a plantation economy, that's capitalism, and that's the driver of the West's economic success over the last 500 years.
"It is not from the benevolence of the butcher, the brewer, or the baker that we expect our dinner, but from their regard to their own interest." Adam Smith
Think he's still in shock after seeing his conspiracy nutter crown stolen from him by the total mental case yank on the Sunday Politics show this week.
There's nowhere to go after seeing that performance. It was like the absolute pinnacle of conspiracy insanity. With a healthy dose of total w**kerness thrown in as a bonus.
Ah yes, us metropolitan, urban elite have been conspiring behind your back again. Shall I tell you the plan?
Basically, we're engineering a temporary boom in London, on the back of foreign slave labour. This will be used to give the *illusion* of prosperity.
Then, because essentially everyone in London earns more than the minimum wage, we can scrap it there without anyone noticing. Our next move will be to point to London and say "Look! We scrapped the minimum wage, and everyone is happy." We'll then scrap the minimum wage everywhere.
The final stage of our cunning plan will be to replace all the Brits in jobs with low paid Albanians, Afghanis and Alaskans. Essentially, our sole goal - as Jacques Delors told me over fois gras and caviar at the Bilderberg meeting last week - is the destruction of British culture and the British worker.
After that MODERATED
Yeah, very funny. Maybe some can afford to make a joke of it. But the average joe 'striver' (employees and employers) getting shafted by the smugly amused all right jacks is what's driving the disenchanted vote imo.
Carola: I just don't understand who these 'them' are who are supposedly running such a scam. Let's not forget, under the labour government you could get a peerage for lending the party a few hundred thousand quid. So a position of influence could be got by *lending* the cost of a not very nice two bedroom flat in Shephard's Bush. Why would the political elite need to stoop to such lengths if they were being secretly bankrolled by billionaires?
Two weeks ago I had dinner with Google's ex-CEO, Eric Schmidt. You know what he cares about? He cares about making really cool products that people want to buy and which will make him money. He might put down $30,000 to get a seat at a fundraiser for a Presidential candidate, but really, the way he makes his money is by making things people want to buy. The great business successes really don't give a shit about doing anything other than making something you might want to buy. You think Apple is a success because they made things in China? Nope: everyone made things in China. Apple is a success because they made things people want to buy. Steve Jobs interest in politics is about the same as my interest in my wife's shoes. If anything he was less interested (I am required to say 'they look great, honey'.)
I know they're just interested in making money.
And the way they make money is by making products and services people want to buy, and by doing it as cheaply as possible.
That's not a plantation economy, that's capitalism, and that's the driver of the West's economic success over the last 500 years.
The economic success of this country over the last 500 years was built on innovation.
For example, cheap labour creates short-term profit but undermines the innovation which leads to long-term profit.
Ah yes, us metropolitan, urban elite have been conspiring behind your back again. Shall I tell you the plan?
Basically, we're engineering a temporary boom in London, on the back of foreign slave labour. This will be used to give the *illusion* of prosperity.
Then, because essentially everyone in London earns more than the minimum wage, we can scrap it there without anyone noticing. Our next move will be to point to London and say "Look! We scrapped the minimum wage, and everyone is happy." We'll then scrap the minimum wage everywhere.
The final stage of our cunning plan will be to replace all the Brits in jobs with low paid Albanians, Afghanis and Alaskans. Essentially, our sole goal - as Jacques Delors told me over fois gras and caviar at the Bilderberg meeting last week - is the destruction of British culture and the British worker.
After that MODERATED
The funny thing is, I don't consider that to be completely unlikely.
As a matter of interest, who are these billionaires running the plantation economy? And to who are they expected to sell their products, if the general population is reduced to poverty?
Each other, surely?
There's only so many iPhones a man can own. Or so many Ferraris.
Look, I would tend to agree with have too much income inequality. I would think that in any mature corporation, the boss shouldn't earn more than 5x the average income.
Even doing this, it's worth noting, will not stop inequality. Larry and Segei earn $1 a year. They're worth $20 billion each because they built an amazing business.
And it's worth noting that -as the Rausings are proving- your time at the top is typically very short. Families (like Charles') who keep wealth for many generations are the exception rather than the rule. If you look at the top ten richest people in the world, Gates, Buffett are essentially self-made. Carlos Slim, the Mexican telecoms billionaire, I don't know about. Larry Ellison is very definiately self-made. The Koch brothers I don't know. Li Ka-Shing is self-made.
If the billionaires are passing it around among themselves, they're not doing a very good job of it, given that so many of the top 25 have managed to get there by their own shoe string. In fact, if you look at the list from two decades ago, who would still be on there? Many billionaires have come and gone (and committed suicide in at least one case). Very few are family scions.
I don't believe in a conspiracy by billionaires. But I'm just saying that a rising share of GDP going to the rich, and a falling share going to the poor, doesn't stop people from making money. It just means less effort goes into making smart phones and more goes into space journeys. I would also disagree with you that families don't keep their wealth, regardless of what happens to one family. The children and grandchildren of most very wealthy people stay very wealthy.
Ah yes, us metropolitan, urban elite have been conspiring behind your back again. Shall I tell you the plan?
Basically, we're engineering a temporary boom in London, on the back of foreign slave labour. This will be used to give the *illusion* of prosperity.
Then, because essentially everyone in London earns more than the minimum wage, we can scrap it there without anyone noticing. Our next move will be to point to London and say "Look! We scrapped the minimum wage, and everyone is happy." We'll then scrap the minimum wage everywhere.
The final stage of our cunning plan will be to replace all the Brits in jobs with low paid Albanians, Afghanis and Alaskans. Essentially, our sole goal - as Jacques Delors told me over fois gras and caviar at the Bilderberg meeting last week - is the destruction of British culture and the British worker.
After that MODERATED
Yeah, very funny. Maybe some can afford to make a joke of it. But the average joe 'striver' (employees and employers) getting shafted by the smugly amused all right jacks is what's driving the disenchanted vote imo.
Carola: I just don't understand who these 'them' are who are supposedly running such a scam. Let's not forget, under the labour government you could get a peerage for lending the party a few hundred thousand quid. So a position of influence could be got by *lending* the cost of a not very nice two bedroom flat in Shephard's Bush. Why would the political elite need to stoop to such lengths if they were being secretly bankrolled by billionaires?
Two weeks ago I had dinner with Google's ex-CEO, Eric Schmidt. You know what he cares about? He cares about making really cool products that people want to buy and which will make him money. He might put down $30,000 to get a seat at a fundraiser for a Presidential candidate, but really, the way he makes his money is by making things people want to buy. The great business successes really don't give a shit about doing anything other than making something you might want to buy. You think Apple is a success because they made things in China? Nope: everyone made things in China. Apple is a success because they made things people want to buy. Steve Jobs interest in politics is about the same as my interest in my wife's shoes. If anything he was less interested (I am required to say 'they look great, honey'.)
I know they're just interested in making money.
And the way they make money is by making products and services people want to buy, and by doing it as cheaply as possible.
That's not a plantation economy, that's capitalism, and that's the driver of the West's economic success over the last 500 years.
The economic success of this country over the last 500 years was built on innovation.
For example, cheap labour creates short-term profit but undermines the innovation which leads to long-term profit.
Unconstrained capitalism is self-destructive.
"The economic success of this country over the last 500 years was built on innovation."
The economic success of this country was built on us being able to do things more cheaply that our competition abroad. We did this through ruthless automation, which led to the destruction of whole ways of life. The relentless driving down of costs created by the stocking frames and the pinning jenny put journeyman weavers out of jobs, and instead resulted in children paid peanuts working in 'dark satanic mills'.
Now that sucks: and I am all for a more equal society. (Or rather, I am all for creating a society with equality of opportunity.) But your reading of history is partial and inaccurate.
Ah yes, us metropolitan, urban elite have been conspiring behind your back again. Shall I tell you the plan?
Basically, we're engineering a temporary boom in London, on the back of foreign slave labour. This will be used to give the *illusion* of prosperity.
Then, because essentially everyone in London earns more than the minimum wage, we can scrap it there without anyone noticing. Our next move will be to point to London and say "Look! We scrapped the minimum wage, and everyone is happy." We'll then scrap the minimum wage everywhere.
The final stage of our cunning plan will be to replace all the Brits in jobs with low paid Albanians, Afghanis and Alaskans. Essentially, our sole goal - as Jacques Delors told me over fois gras and caviar at the Bilderberg meeting last week - is the destruction of British culture and the British worker.
After that MODERATED
Yeah, very funny. Maybe some can afford to make a joke of it. But the average joe 'striver' (employees and employers) getting shafted by the smugly amused all right jacks is what's driving the disenchanted vote imo.
Carola: I just don't understand who these 'them' are who are supposedly running such a scam. Let's not forget, under the labour government you could get a peerage for lending the party a few hundred thousand quid. So a position of influence could be got by *lending* the cost of a not very nice two bedroom flat in Shephard's Bush. Why would the political elite need to stoop to such lengths if they were being secretly bankrolled by billionaires?
Two weeks ago I had dinner with Google's ex-CEO, Eric Schmidt. You know what he cares about? He cares about making really cool products that people want to buy and which will make him money. He might put down $30,000 to get a seat at a fundraiser for a Presidential candidate, but really, the way he makes his money is by making things people want to buy. The great business successes really don't give a shit about doing anything other than making something you might want to buy. You think Apple is a success because they made things in China? Nope: everyone made things in China. Apple is a success because they made things people want to buy. Steve Jobs interest in politics is about the same as my interest in my wife's shoes. If anything he was less interested (I am required to say 'they look great, honey'.)
I know they're just interested in making money.
And the way they make money is by making products and services people want to buy, and by doing it as cheaply as possible.
That's not a plantation economy, that's capitalism, and that's the driver of the West's economic success over the last 500 years.
The economic success of this country over the last 500 years was built on innovation.
For example, cheap labour creates short-term profit but undermines the innovation which leads to long-term profit.
Unconstrained capitalism is self-destructive.
"The economic success of this country over the last 500 years was built on innovation."
The economic success of this country was built on us being able to do things more cheaply that our competition abroad. We did this through ruthless automation, which led to the destruction of whole ways of life. The relentless driving down of costs created by the stocking frames and the pinning jenny put journeyman weavers out of jobs, and instead resulted in children paid peanuts working in 'dark satanic mills'.
Now that sucks: and I am all for a more equal society. (Or rather, I am all for creating a society with equality of opportunity.) But your reading of history is partial and inaccurate.
Ah yes, us metropolitan, urban elite have been conspiring behind your back again. Shall I tell you the plan?
Basically, we're engineering a temporary boom in London, on the back of foreign slave labour. This will be used to give the *illusion* of prosperity.
Then, because essentially everyone in London earns more than the minimum wage, we can scrap it there without anyone noticing. Our next move will be to point to London and say "Look! We scrapped the minimum wage, and everyone is happy." We'll then scrap the minimum wage everywhere.
The final stage of our cunning plan will be to replace all the Brits in jobs with low paid Albanians, Afghanis and Alaskans. Essentially, our sole goal - as Jacques Delors told me over fois gras and caviar at the Bilderberg meeting last week - is the destruction of British culture and the British worker.
After that MODERATED
The funny thing is, I don't consider that to be completely unlikely.
As a matter of interest, who are these billionaires running the plantation economy? And to who are they expected to sell their products, if the general population is reduced to poverty?
Each other, surely?
There's only so many iPhones a man can own. Or so many Ferraris.
Look, I would tend to agree with have too much income inequality. I would think that in any mature corporation, the boss shouldn't earn more than 5x the average income.
Even doing this, it's worth noting, will not stop inequality. Larry and Segei earn $1 a year. They're worth $20 billion each because they built an amazing business.
And it's worth noting that -as the Rausings are proving- your time at the top is typically very short. Families (like Charles') who keep wealth for many generations are the exception rather than the rule. If you look at the top ten richest people in the world, Gates, Buffett are essentially self-made. Carlos Slim, the Mexican telecoms billionaire, I don't know about. Larry Ellison is very definiately self-made. The Koch brothers I don't know. Li Ka-Shing is self-made.
If the billionaires are passing it around among themselves, they're not doing a very good job of it, given that so many of the top 25 have managed to get there by their own shoe string. In fact, if you look at the list from two decades ago, who would still be on there? Many billionaires have come and gone (and committed suicide in at least one case). Very few are family scions.
I don't believe in a conspiracy by billionaires. But I'm just saying that a rising share of GDP going to the rich, and a falling share going to the poor, doesn't stop people from making money. It just means less effort goes into making smart phones and more goes into space journeys. I would also disagree with you that families don't keep their wealth, regardless of what happens to one family. The children and grandchildren of most very wealthy people stay very wealthy.
But it is equally worth remembering that the economic situation is caused by people voting by their wallets. When you buy an iPhone, you are choosing to send your money to Foxconn in China and to Apple in California. We used to made TVs in the UK. It turned out that people voted with their wallets, and chose to buy products made in China and Japan instead.
Socrates, when you bought your car, did you look at a Bristol? After all, that's British made, and I'm pretty sure that the guy who owns it doesn't make much money at all. You could have voted with your wallet for lower inequality and a British manufacturing base.
Ah yes, us metropolitan, urban elite have been conspiring behind your back again. Shall I tell you the plan?
Basically, we're engineering a temporary boom in London, on the back of foreign slave labour. This will be used to give the *illusion* of prosperity.
Then, because essentially everyone in London earns more than the minimum wage, we can scrap it there without anyone noticing. Our next move will be to point to London and say "Look! We scrapped the minimum wage, and everyone is happy." We'll then scrap the minimum wage everywhere.
The final stage of our cunning plan will be to replace all the Brits in jobs with low paid Albanians, Afghanis and Alaskans. Essentially, our sole goal - as Jacques Delors told me over fois gras and caviar at the Bilderberg meeting last week - is the destruction of British culture and the British worker.
After that MODERATED
Yeah, very funny. Maybe some can afford to make a joke of it. But the average joe 'striver' (employees and employers) getting shafted by the smugly amused all right jacks is what's driving the disenchanted vote imo.
Carola: I just don't understand who these 'them' are who are supposedly running such a scam. Let's not forget, under the labour government you could get a peerage for lending the party a few hundred thousand quid. So a position of influence could be got by *lending* the cost of a not very nice two bedroom flat in Shephard's Bush. Why would the political elite need to stoop to such lengths if they were being secretly bankrolled by billionaires?
Two weeks ago I had dinner with Google's ex-CEO, Eric Schmidt. You know what he cares about? He cares about making really cool products that people want to buy and which will make him money. He might put down $30,000 to get a seat at a fundraiser for a Presidential candidate, but really, the way he makes his money is by making things people want to buy. The great business successes really don't give a shit about doing anything other than making something you might want to buy. You think Apple is a success because they made things in China? Nope: everyone made things in China. Apple is a success because they made things people want to buy. Steve Jobs interest in politics is about the same as my interest in my wife's shoes. If anything he was less interested (I am required to say 'they look great, honey'.)
I know they're just interested in making money.
And the way they make money is by making products and services people want to buy, and by doing it as cheaply as possible.
That's not a plantation economy, that's capitalism, and that's the driver of the West's economic success over the last 500 years.
The economic success of this country over the last 500 years was built on innovation.
For example, cheap labour creates short-term profit but undermines the innovation which leads to long-term profit.
Unconstrained capitalism is self-destructive.
"The economic success of this country over the last 500 years was built on innovation."
The economic success of this country was built on us being able to do things more cheaply that our competition abroad. We did this through ruthless automation, which led to the destruction of whole ways of life. The relentless driving down of costs created by the stocking frames and the pinning jenny put journeyman weavers out of jobs, and instead resulted in children paid peanuts working in 'dark satanic mills'.
Now that sucks: and I am all for a more equal society. (Or rather, I am all for creating a society with equality of opportunity.) But your reading of history is partial and inaccurate.
Cutting costs through Innovation - like i said.
Wait. Now I'm confused. So it's OK to lay off British workers to increase profits, if it's done because a machine is now doing the work. But it's not OK to lay off British workers to increase profits, if it's done because the work is being done by someone who speaks Polish.
Ah yes, us metropolitan, urban elite have been conspiring behind your back again. Shall I tell you the plan?
Basically, we're engineering a temporary boom in London, on the back of foreign slave labour. This will be used to give the *illusion* of prosperity.
Then, because essentially everyone in London earns more than the minimum wage, we can scrap it there without anyone noticing. Our next move will be to point to London and say "Look! We scrapped the minimum wage, and everyone is happy." We'll then scrap the minimum wage everywhere.
The final stage of our cunning plan will be to replace all the Brits in jobs with low paid Albanians, Afghanis and Alaskans. Essentially, our sole goal - as Jacques Delors told me over fois gras and caviar at the Bilderberg meeting last week - is the destruction of British culture and the British worker.
After that MODERATED
The funny thing is, I don't consider that to be completely unlikely.
As a matter of interest, who are these billionaires running the plantation economy? And to who are they expected to sell their products, if the general population is reduced to poverty?
Each other, surely?
There's only so many iPhones a man can own. Or so many Ferraris.
Look, I would tend to agree with have too much income inequality. I would think that in any mature corporation, the boss shouldn't earn more than 5x the average income.
Even doing this, it's worth noting, will not stop inequality. Larry and Segei earn $1 a year. They're worth $20 billion each because they built an amazing business.
And it's worth noting that -as the Rausings are proving- your time at the top is typically very short. Families (like Charles') who keep wealth for many generations are the exception rather than the rule. If you look at the top ten richest people in the world, Gates, Buffett are essentially self-made. Carlos Slim, the Mexican telecoms billionaire, I don't know about. Larry Ellison is very definiately self-made. The Koch brothers I don't know. Li Ka-Shing is self-made.
If the billionaires are passing it around among themselves, they're not doing a very good job of it, given that so many of the top 25 have managed to get there by their own shoe string. In fact, if you look at the list from two decades ago, who would still be on there? Many billionaires have come and gone (and committed suicide in at least one case). Very few are family scions.
I don't believe in a conspiracy by billionaires. But I'm just saying that a rising share of GDP going to the rich, and a falling share going to the poor, doesn't stop people from making money. It just means less effort goes into making smart phones and more goes into space journeys. I would also disagree with you that families don't keep their wealth, regardless of what happens to one family. The children and grandchildren of most very wealthy people stay very wealthy.
But it is equally worth remembering that the economic situation is caused by people voting by their wallets. When you buy an iPhone, you are choosing to send your money to Foxconn in China and to Apple in California. We used to made TVs in the UK. It turned out that people voted with their wallets, and chose to buy products made in China and Japan instead.
Socrates, when you bought your car, did you look at a Bristol? After all, that's British made, and I'm pretty sure that the guy who owns it doesn't make much money at all. You could have voted with your wallet for lower inequality and a British manufacturing base.
The vast majority of people don't have the luxury of being able to go out their way to choose the product that would cause the least inequality, as they're struggling to get a decent living standard for themselves, even assuming that information was available. In addition, "voting by your wallet" is disproportionately skewed to the very wealthy, so it's a pretty shoddy voting system and should no way be interpreted as a democratic endorsement of our system.
As for me, I don't own a car. I'm part of the metropolitan elite.
Ah yes, us metropolitan, urban elite have been conspiring behind your back again. Shall I tell you the plan?
Basically, we're engineering a temporary boom in London, on the back of foreign slave labour. This will be used to give the *illusion* of prosperity.
Then, because essentially everyone in London earns more than the minimum wage, we can scrap it there without anyone noticing. Our next move will be to point to London and say "Look! We scrapped the minimum wage, and everyone is happy." We'll then scrap the minimum wage everywhere.
The final stage of our cunning plan will be to replace all the Brits in jobs with low paid Albanians, Afghanis and Alaskans. Essentially, our sole goal - as Jacques Delors told me over fois gras and caviar at the Bilderberg meeting last week - is the destruction of British culture and the British worker.
After that MODERATED
The funny thing is, I don't consider that to be completely unlikely.
As a matter of interest, who are these billionaires running the plantation economy? And to who are they expected to sell their products, if the general population is reduced to poverty?
Each other, surely?
There's only so many iPhones a man can own. Or so many Ferraris.
Look, I would tend to agree with have too much income inequality. I would think that in any mature corporation, the boss shouldn't earn more than 5x the average income.
Even doing this, it's worth noting, will not stop inequality. Larry and Segei earn $1 a year. They're worth $20 billion each because they built an amazing business.
And it's worth noting that -as the Rausings are proving- your time at the top is typically very short. Families (like Charles') who keep wealth for many generations are the exception rather than the rule. If you look at the top ten richest people in the world, Gates, Buffett are essentially self-made. Carlos Slim, the Mexican telecoms billionaire, I don't know about. Larry Ellison is very definiately self-made. The Koch brothers I don't know. Li Ka-Shing is self-made.
If the billionaires are passing it around among themselves, they're not doing a very good job of it, given that so many of the top 25 have managed to get there by their own shoe string. In fact, if you look at the list from two decades ago, who would still be on there? Many billionaires have come and gone (and committed suicide in at least one case). Very few are family scions.
I don't believe in a conspiracy by billionaires. But I'm just saying that a rising share of GDP going to the rich, and a falling share going to the poor, doesn't stop people from making money. It just means less effort goes into making smart phones and more goes into space journeys. I would also disagree with you that families don't keep their wealth, regardless of what happens to one family. The children and grandchildren of most very wealthy people stay very wealthy.
I echo a lot of what you say here Socrates. There is no 'conspiracy' by the rich, What we've observed over the past 30 years, when the credit bubble really started in earnest in the early 1980's is a hand-in-hand growth in equality. With the abandonment of Bretton Woods and the Gold window in August 1971, the first dozen or so years with strong trade unions around the world largely saw credit creation going straight into wage inflation, which largely kept inequality unchanged. When that began to change, and more of the credit creation went into fuelling the great stock market and property bubbles. Those with first access to the leverage gained mightily. Leverage has the effect of distributing gains unevenly, think of a night at a casino for starters. A few will do well, at the expense of the vast majority. We've had pretty much the same with the economy as a whole. That's not to say that people haven't bettered themselves from humble backgrounds, but social mobility has declined inevitably. Whilst the great credit based economy is on its last legs, when it falls apart, the exact reverse of what we've seen over the past 30 years will be true - those at the very top right now will lose out most. Societies throughout history have never been stable long term with as much inequality as exists now. I well remember my Tory student days in the mid-1990's thinking inequality didn't matter providing there was equal opportunity to be wealthy. Well inequality does matter as it turns out for societal cohesion, but fixing it rests squarely with having a sound monetary and financial system (based on gold) rather than our current fiat currency and (less than) fractional reserve banking. Trying to fix inequality in terms of levelling down or government interventionwill never work, only a sound monetary system can deliver, with no recourse to financial speculation on unproductive assets. Financial leverage on productive enterprises up to a point is fine - there is a world of difference between financing to increase economic production (having a basis to pay back initial outlay) and financing non-productive assets which does no such thing.
Ah yes, us metropolitan, urban elite have been conspiring behind your back again. Shall I tell you the plan?
Basically, we're engineering a temporary boom in London, on the back of foreign slave labour. This will be used to give the *illusion* of prosperity.
Then, because essentially everyone in London earns more than the minimum wage, we can scrap it there without anyone noticing. Our next move will be to point to London and say "Look! We scrapped the minimum wage, and everyone is happy." We'll then scrap the minimum wage everywhere.
The final stage of our cunning plan will be to replace all the Brits in jobs with low paid Albanians, Afghanis and Alaskans. Essentially, our sole goal - as Jacques Delors told me over fois gras and caviar at the Bilderberg meeting last week - is the destruction of British culture and the British worker.
After that MODERATED
Yeah, very funny. Maybe some can afford to make a joke of it. But the average joe 'striver' (employees and employers) getting shafted by the smugly amused all right jacks is what's driving the disenchanted vote imo.
Carola: I just don't understand who these 'them' are who are supposedly running such a scam. Let's not forget, under the labour government you could get a peerage for lending the party a few hundred thousand quid. So a position of influence could be got by *lending* the cost of a not very nice two bedroom flat in Shephard's Bush. Why would the political elite need to stoop to such lengths if they were being secretly bankrolled by billionaires?
Two weeks ago I had dinner with Google's ex-CEO, Eric Schmidt. You know what he cares about? He cares about making really cool products that people want to buy and which will make him money. He might put down $30,000 to get a seat at a fundraiser for a Presidential candidate, but really, the way he makes his money is by making things people want to buy. The great business successes really don't give a shit about doing anything other than making something you might want to buy. You think Apple is a success because they made things in China? Nope: everyone made things in China. Apple is a success because they made things people want to buy. Steve Jobs interest in politics is about the same as my interest in my wife's shoes. If anything he was less interested (I am required to say 'they look great, honey'.)
I know they're just interested in making money.
And the way they make money is by making products and services people want to buy, and by doing it as cheaply as possible.
That's not a plantation economy, that's capitalism, and that's the driver of the West's economic success over the last 500 years.
Well, before the old 'politics of envy' guff gets thrown around... I don't envy the wealthy their wealth. I'm glad - lucky, compared to many - to have what I've got, and enough is enough for me. I guess we're just different in that respect.
I'm a bit 'Taylor-ish' when it comes to mankind, all in all.
Ah yes, us metropolitan, urban elite have been conspiring behind your back again. Shall I tell you the plan?
Basically, we're engineering a temporary boom in London, on the back of foreign slave labour. This will be used to give the *illusion* of prosperity.
Then, because essentially everyone in London earns more than the minimum wage, we can scrap it there without anyone noticing. Our next move will be to point to London and say "Look! We scrapped the minimum wage, and everyone is happy." We'll then scrap the minimum wage everywhere.
The final stage of our cunning plan will be to replace all the Brits in jobs with low paid Albanians, Afghanis and Alaskans. Essentially, our sole goal - as Jacques Delors told me over fois gras and caviar at the Bilderberg meeting last week - is the destruction of British culture and the British worker.
After that MODERATED
The funny thing is, I don't consider that to be completely unlikely.
As a matter of interest, who are these billionaires running the plantation economy? And to who are they expected to sell their products, if the general population is reduced to poverty?
Truly, I don't believe there's some gigantic conspiracy at work.
But, as a university student in the late 80's, I had real confidence in my country's governing class. Now, I don't. I don't know if they're merely incompetent or actively malevolent.
Ah yes, us metropolitan, urban elite have been conspiring behind your back again. Shall I tell you the plan?
Basically, we're engineering a temporary boom in London, on the back of foreign slave labour. This will be used to give the *illusion* of prosperity.
Then, because essentially everyone in London earns more than the minimum wage, we can scrap it there without anyone noticing. Our next move will be to point to London and say "Look! We scrapped the minimum wage, and everyone is happy." We'll then scrap the minimum wage everywhere.
The final stage of our cunning plan will be to replace all the Brits in jobs with low paid Albanians, Afghanis and Alaskans. Essentially, our sole goal - as Jacques Delors told me over fois gras and caviar at the Bilderberg meeting last week - is the destruction of British culture and the British worker.
After that MODERATED
Yeah, very funny. Maybe some can afford to make a joke of it. But the average joe 'striver' (employees and employers) getting shafted by the smugly amused all right jacks is what's driving the disenchanted vote imo.
Carola: I just don't understand who these 'them' are who are supposedly running such a scam. Let's not forget, under the labour government you could get a peerage for lending the party a few hundred thousand quid. So a position of influence could be got by *lending* the cost of a not very nice two bedroom flat in Shephard's Bush. Why would the political elite need to stoop to such lengths if they were being secretly bankrolled by billionaires?
Two weeks ago I had dinner with Google's ex-CEO, Eric Schmidt. You know what he cares about? He cares about making really cool products that people want to buy and which will make him money. He might put down $30,000 to get a seat at a fundraiser for a Presidential candidate, but really, the way he makes his money is by making things people want to buy. The great business successes really don't give a shit about doing anything other than making something you might want to buy. You think Apple is a success because they made things in China? Nope: everyone made things in China. Apple is a success because they made things people want to buy. Steve Jobs interest in politics is about the same as my interest in my wife's shoes. If anything he was less interested (I am required to say 'they look great, honey'.)
I know they're just interested in making money.
And the way they make money is by making products and services people want to buy, and by doing it as cheaply as possible.
That's not a plantation economy, that's capitalism, and that's the driver of the West's economic success over the last 500 years.
The economic success of this country over the last 500 years was built on innovation.
For example, cheap labour creates short-term profit but undermines the innovation which leads to long-term profit.
Unconstrained capitalism is self-destructive.
"The economic success of this country over the last 500 years was built on innovation."
The economic success of this country was built on us being able to do things more cheaply that our competition abroad. We did this through ruthless automation, which led to the destruction of whole ways of life. The relentless driving down of costs created by the stocking frames and the pinning jenny put journeyman weavers out of jobs, and instead resulted in children paid peanuts working in 'dark satanic mills'.
Now that sucks: and I am all for a more equal society. (Or rather, I am all for creating a society with equality of opportunity.) But your reading of history is partial and inaccurate.
Cutting costs through Innovation - like i said.
Wait. Now I'm confused. So it's OK to lay off British workers to increase profits, if it's done because a machine is now doing the work. But it's not OK to lay off British workers to increase profits, if it's done because the work is being done by someone who speaks Polish.
Long-term economic success is built on innovation and unlimited cheap labour provides short-term profit but kills innovation.
Ah yes, us metropolitan, urban elite have been conspiring behind your back again. Shall I tell you the plan?
Basically, we're engineering a temporary boom in London, on the back of foreign slave labour. This will be used to give the *illusion* of prosperity.
Then, because essentially everyone in London earns more than the minimum wage, we can scrap it there without anyone noticing. Our next move will be to point to London and say "Look! We scrapped the minimum wage, and everyone is happy." We'll then scrap the minimum wage everywhere.
The final stage of our cunning plan will be to replace all the Brits in jobs with low paid Albanians, Afghanis and Alaskans. Essentially, our sole goal - as Jacques Delors told me over fois gras and caviar at the Bilderberg meeting last week - is the destruction of British culture and the British worker.
After that MODERATED
The funny thing is, I don't consider that to be completely unlikely.
As a matter of interest, who are these billionaires running the plantation economy? And to who are they expected to sell their products, if the general population is reduced to poverty?
Each other, surely?
There's only so many iPhones a man can own. Or so many Ferraris.
Look, I would tend to agree with have too much income inequality. I would think that in any mature corporation, the boss shouldn't earn more than 5x the average income.
Even doing this, it's worth noting, will not stop inequality. Larry and Segei earn $1 a year. They're worth $20 billion each because they built an amazing business.
And it's worth noting that -as the Rausings are proving- your time at the top is typically very short. Families (like Charles') who keep wealth for many generations are the exception rather than the rule. If you look at the top ten richest people in the world, Gates, Buffett are essentially self-made. Carlos Slim, the Mexican telecoms billionaire, I don't know about. Larry Ellison is very definiately self-made. The Koch brothers I don't know. Li Ka-Shing is self-made.
If the billionaires are passing it around among themselves, they're not doing a very good job of it, given that so many of the top 25 have managed to get there by their own shoe string. In fact, if you look at the list from two decades ago, who would still be on there? Many billionaires have come and gone (and committed suicide in at least one case). Very few are family scions.
I don't believe in a conspiracy by billionaires. But I'm just saying that a rising share of GDP going to the rich, and a falling share going to the poor, doesn't stop people from making money. It just means less effort goes into making smart phones and more goes into space journeys. I would also disagree with you that families don't keep their wealth, regardless of what happens to one family. The children and grandchildren of most very wealthy people stay very wealthy.
I echo a lot of what you say here Socrates. There is no 'conspiracy' by the rich, What we've observed over the past 30 years, when the credit bubble really started in earnest in the early 1980's is a hand-in-hand growth in equality. With the abandonment of Bretton Woods and the Gold window in August 1971, the first dozen or so years with strong trade unions around the world largely saw credit creation going straight into wage inflation, which largely kept inequality unchanged. When that began to change, and more of the credit creation went into fuelling the great stock market and property bubbles. Those with first access to the leverage gained mightily. Leverage has the effect of distributing gains unevenly, think of a night at a casino for starters. A few will do well, at the expense of the vast majority. We've had pretty much the same with the economy as a whole. That's not to say that people haven't bettered themselves from humble backgrounds, but social mobility has declined inevitably. Whilst the great credit based economy is on its last legs, when it falls apart, the exact reverse of what we've seen over the past 30 years will be true - those at the very top right now will lose out most. Societies throughout history have never been stable long term with as much inequality as exists now. I well remember my Tory student days in the mid-1990's thinking inequality didn't matter providing there was equal opportunity to be wealthy. Well inequality does matter as it turns out for societal cohesion, but fixing it rests squarely with having a sound monetary and financial system (based on gold) rather than our current fiat currency and (less than) fractional reserve banking. Trying to fix inequality in terms of levelling down or government interventionwill never work, only a sound monetary system can deliver, with no recourse to financial speculation on unproductive assets. Financial leverage on productive enterprises up to a point is fine - there is a world of difference between financing to increase economic production (having a basis to pay back initial outlay) and financing non-productive assets which does no such thing.
hunchman: your point about leverage is an excellent one. And I think you're right that too many governments are trying to actively debase their currencies, which will hurt the poor and the middle classes disproportionately (albeit it will be a hidden tax).
Ah yes, us metropolitan, urban elite have been conspiring behind your back again. Shall I tell you the plan?
Basically, we're engineering a temporary boom in London, on the back of foreign slave labour. This will be used to give the *illusion* of prosperity.
Then, because essentially everyone in London earns more than the minimum wage, we can scrap it there without anyone noticing. Our next move will be to point to London and say "Look! We scrapped the minimum wage, and everyone is happy." We'll then scrap the minimum wage everywhere.
The final stage of our cunning plan will be to replace all the Brits in jobs with low paid Albanians, Afghanis and Alaskans. Essentially, our sole goal - as Jacques Delors told me over fois gras and caviar at the Bilderberg meeting last week - is the destruction of British culture and the British worker.
After that MODERATED
Yeah, very funny. Maybe some can afford to make a joke of it. But the average joe 'striver' (employees and employers) getting shafted by the smugly amused all right jacks is what's driving the disenchanted vote imo.
Carola: I just don't understand who these 'them' are who are supposedly running such a scam. Let's not forget, under the labour government you could get a peerage for lending the party a few hundred thousand quid. So a position of influence could be got by *lending* the cost of a not very nice two bedroom flat in Shephard's Bush. Why would the political elite need to stoop to such lengths if they were being secretly bankrolled by billionaires?
Two weeks ago I had dinner with Google's ex-CEO, Eric Schmidt. You know what he cares about? He cares about making really cool products that people want to buy and which will make him money. He might put down $30,000 to get a seat at a fundraiser for a Presidential candidate, but really, the way he makes his money is by making things people want to buy. The great business successes really don't give a shit about doing anything other than making something you might want to buy. You think Apple is a success because they made things in China? Nope: everyone made things in China. Apple is a success because they made things people want to buy. Steve Jobs interest in politics is about the same as my interest in my wife's shoes. If anything he was less interested (I am required to say 'they look great, honey'.)
I know they're just interested in making money.
And the way they make money is by making products and services people want to buy, and by doing it as cheaply as possible.
That's not a plantation economy, that's capitalism, and that's the driver of the West's economic success over the last 500 years.
The economic success of this country over the last 500 years was built on innovation.
For example, cheap labour creates short-term profit but undermines the innovation which leads to long-term profit.
Unconstrained capitalism is self-destructive.
"The economic success of this country over the last 500 years was built on innovation."
The economic success of this country was built on us being able to do things more cheaply that our competition abroad. We did this through ruthless automation, which led to the destruction of whole ways of life. The relentless driving down of costs created by the stocking frames and the pinning jenny put journeyman weavers out of jobs, and instead resulted in children paid peanuts working in 'dark satanic mills'.
Now that sucks: and I am all for a more equal society. (Or rather, I am all for creating a society with equality of opportunity.) But your reading of history is partial and inaccurate.
Relative wages were at their lowest in the early-mid Victorian age, doubt it killed innovation. Although Adam Smith noted that an imbalance between employer and employees power was unhealthy for capitalism in 1776
Remind us again about those nasty Tories in the 1990's who were 'totally relaxed about others getting filthy rich'? I guess mainly to pave the way for their own roads to greed and avarice....
Ah yes, us metropolitan, urban elite have been conspiring behind your back again. Shall I tell you the plan?
Basically, we're engineering a temporary boom in London, on the back of foreign slave labour. This will be used to give the *illusion* of prosperity.
Then, because essentially everyone in London earns more than the minimum wage, we can scrap it there without anyone noticing. Our next move will be to point to London and say "Look! We scrapped the minimum wage, and everyone is happy." We'll then scrap the minimum wage everywhere.
The final stage of our cunning plan will be to replace all the Brits in jobs with low paid Albanians, Afghanis and Alaskans. Essentially, our sole goal - as Jacques Delors told me over fois gras and caviar at the Bilderberg meeting last week - is the destruction of British culture and the British worker.
After that MODERATED
The funny thing is, I don't consider that to be completely unlikely.
As a matter of interest, who are these billionaires running the plantation economy? And to who are they expected to sell their products, if the general population is reduced to poverty?
Each other, surely?
There's only so many iPhones a man can own. Or so many Ferraris.
Look, I would tend to agree with have too much income inequality. I would think that in any mature corporation, the boss shouldn't earn more than 5x the average income.
Even doing this, it's worth noting, will not stop inequality. Larry and Segei earn $1 a year. They're worth $20 billion each because they built an amazing business.
And it's worth noting that -as the Rausings are proving- your time at the top is typically very short. Families (like Charles') who keep wealth for many generations are the exception rather than the rule. If you look at the top ten richest people in the world, Gates, Buffett are essentially self-made. Carlos Slim, the Mexican telecoms billionaire, I don't know about. Larry Ellison is very definiately self-made. The Koch brothers I don't know. Li Ka-Shing is self-made.
If the billionaires are passing it around among themselves, they're not doing a very good job of it, given that so many of the top 25 have managed to get there by their own shoe string. In fact, if you look at the list from two decades ago, who would still be on there? Many billionaires have come and gone (and committed suicide in at least one case). Very few are family scions.
I don't believe in a conspiracy by billionaires. But I'm just saying that a rising share of GDP going to the rich, and a falling share going to the poor, doesn't stop people from making money. It just means less effort goes into making smart phones and more goes into space journeys. I would also disagree with you that families don't keep their wealth, regardless of what happens to one family. The children and grandchildren of most very wealthy people stay very wealthy.
I echo a lot of what you say here Socrates. There is no 'conspiracy' by the rich, What we've observed over the past 30 years, when the credit bubble really started in earnest in the early 1980's is a hand-in-hand growth in equality. With the abandonment of Bretton Woods and the Gold window in August 1971, the first dozen or so years with strong trade unions around the world largely saw credit creation going straight into wage inflation, which largely kept inequality unchanged. When that began to change, and more of the credit creation went into fuelling the great stock market and property bubbles. Those with first access to the leverage gained mightily. Leverage has the effect of distributing gains unevenly, think of a night at a casino for starters. A few will do well, at the expense of the vast majority. We've had pretty much the same with the economy as a whole. That's not to say that people haven't bettered themselves from humble backgrounds, but social mobility has declined inevitably. Whilst the great credit based economy is on its last legs, when it falls apart, the exact reverse of what we've seen over the past 30 years will be true - those at the very top right now will lose out most. Societies throughout history have never been stable long term with as much inequality as exists now. I well remember my Tory student days in the mid-1990's thinking inequality didn't matter providing there was equal opportunity to be wealthy. Well inequality does matter as it turns out for societal cohesion, but fixing it rests squarely with having a sound monetary and financial system (based on gold) rather than our current fiat currency and (less than) fractional reserve banking. Trying to fix inequality in terms of levelling down or government interventionwill never work, only a sound monetary system can deliver, with no recourse to financial speculation on unproductive assets. Financial leverage on productive enterprises up to a point is fine - there is a world of difference between financing to increase economic production (having a basis to pay back initial outlay) and financing non-productive assets which does no such thing.
But, as a university student in the late 80's, I had real confidence in my country's governing class. Now, I don't. I don't know if they're merely incompetent or actively malevolent
Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity.
Ah yes, us metropolitan, urban elite have been conspiring behind your back again. Shall I tell you the plan?
Basically, we're engineering a temporary boom in London, on the back of foreign slave labour. This will be used to give the *illusion* of prosperity.
Then, because essentially everyone in London earns more than the minimum wage, we can scrap it there without anyone noticing. Our next move will be to point to London and say "Look! We scrapped the minimum wage, and everyone is happy." We'll then scrap the minimum wage everywhere.
The final stage of our cunning plan will be to replace all the Brits in jobs with low paid Albanians, Afghanis and Alaskans. Essentially, our sole goal - as Jacques Delors told me over fois gras and caviar at the Bilderberg meeting last week - is the destruction of British culture and the British worker.
After that MODERATED
The funny thing is, I don't consider that to be completely unlikely.
As a matter of interest, who are these billionaires running the plantation economy? And to who are they expected to sell their products, if the general population is reduced to poverty?
Truly, I don't believe there's some gigantic conspiracy at work.
But, as a university student in the late 80's, I had real confidence in my country's governing class. Now, I don't. I don't know if they're merely incompetent or actively malevolent.
I don't think there's an actual conspiracy with a bunch of people sitting round a room but a collection of individual lobbying efforts which collectively add up to the same thing.
Ah yes, us metropolitan, urban elite have been conspiring behind your back again. Shall I tell you the plan?
Basically, we're engineering a temporary boom in London, on the back of foreign slave labour. This will be used to give the *illusion* of prosperity.
Then, because essentially everyone in London earns more than the minimum wage, we can scrap it there without anyone noticing. Our next move will be to point to London and say "Look! We scrapped the minimum wage, and everyone is happy." We'll then scrap the minimum wage everywhere.
The final stage of our cunning plan will be to replace all the Brits in jobs with low paid Albanians, Afghanis and Alaskans. Essentially, our sole goal - as Jacques Delors told me over fois gras and caviar at the Bilderberg meeting last week - is the destruction of British culture and the British worker.
After that MODERATED
The funny thing is, I don't consider that to be completely unlikely.
As a matter of interest, who are these billionaires running the plantation economy? And to who are they expected to sell their products, if the general population is reduced to poverty?
Each other, surely?
There's only so many iPhones a man can own. Or so many Ferraris.
Look, I would tend to agree with have too much income inequality. I would think that in any mature corporation, the boss shouldn't earn more than 5x the average income.
Even doing this, it's worth noting, will not stop inequality. Larry and Segei earn $1 a year. They're worth $20 billion each because they built an amazing business.
And it's worth noting that -as the Rausings are proving- your time at the top is typically very short. Families (like Charles') who keep wealth for many generations are the exception rather than the rule. If you look at the top ten richest people in the world, Gates, Buffett are essentially self-made. Carlos Slim, the Mexican telecoms billionaire, I don't know about. Larry Ellison is very definiately self-made. The Koch brothers I don't know. Li Ka-Shing is self-made.
If the billionaires are passing it around among themselves, they're not doing a very good job of it, given that so many of the top 25 have managed to get there by their own shoe string. In fact, if you look at the list from two decades ago, who would still be on there? Many billionaires have come and gone (and committed suicide in at least one case). Very few are family scions.
I don't believe in a conspiracy by billionaires. But I'm just saying that a rising share of GDP going to the rich, and a falling share going to the poor, doesn't stop people from making money. It just means less effort goes into making smart phones and more goes into space journeys. I would also disagree with you that families don't keep their wealth, regardless of what happens to one family. The children and grandchildren of most very wealthy people stay very wealthy.
What tends to happen is that it is very rare that a business can be made truly sustainable over multiple generations. Typically what happens is that the business gets run down and goes bust or is sold at some point. From then on it's just a question of what the starting point is, minus tax, how many times it is divv'ied up and how much gets spent. But at some point it runs out. When the starting point is large enough, though, there can be generations of traction - the Astors, for instance, have done very little for 100 years, but because the first was so wealthy the descendents still have several hundred million.
Our situation is slightly different. Partly the starting point was very high (a few years ago the Sunday Times reckoned the founder of the business left just under £3bn in today's money). The other point is that we have made the business sustainable by creating a culture that sees ownership as a temporary act of chance: it is a trusteeship on behalf of all of Sir Richard's descendents. The partners get paid a decent wage, but don't take any money out of the business. In many ways it's more like a mutual than anything else (albeit with a rather limited membership). [I'm from the 11th generation, just for reference]
What is lobbying other than a conspiracy by plutocrats against the public?
Yes, because poor people have never lobbied their elected representatives.
Yeah but poor people generally can't offer seven grand a day.
Could you give us an example of a lobbying effort of a big company which has successfully led to us all becoming poorer?
(The only really successful lobbying effort I can think of is the Green lobby. But this is a conspiracy of the poor against the rich. Just one year of BP's cashflow would be sufficient to acquire all three of the world's largest wind companies, and the ten largest solar players. So it's hardly evidence of the rich successfully buying the political system and twisting it in their favour.)
Ah yes, us metropolitan, urban elite have been conspiring behind your back again. Shall I tell you the plan?
Basically, we're engineering a temporary boom in London, on the back of foreign slave labour. This will be used to give the *illusion* of prosperity.
Then, because essentially everyone in London earns more than the minimum wage, we can scrap it there without anyone noticing. Our next move will be to point to London and say "Look! We scrapped the minimum wage, and everyone is happy." We'll then scrap the minimum wage everywhere.
The final stage of our cunning plan will be to replace all the Brits in jobs with low paid Albanians, Afghanis and Alaskans. Essentially, our sole goal - as Jacques Delors told me over fois gras and caviar at the Bilderberg meeting last week - is the destruction of British culture and the British worker.
After that MODERATED
The funny thing is, I don't consider that to be completely unlikely.
As a matter of interest, who are these billionaires running the plantation economy? And to who are they expected to sell their products, if the general population is reduced to poverty?
Each other, surely?
There's only so many iPhones a man can own. Or so many Ferraris.
Look, I would tend to agree with have too much income inequality. I would think that in any mature corporation, the boss shouldn't earn more than 5x the average income.
Even doing this, it's worth noting, will not stop inequality. Larry and Segei earn $1 a year. They're worth $20 billion each because they built an amazing business.
And it's worth noting that -as the Rausings are proving- your time at the top is typically very short. Families (like Charles') who keep wealth for many generations are the exception rather than the rule. If you look at the top ten richest people in the world, Gates, Buffett are essentially self-made. Carlos Slim, the Mexican telecoms billionaire, I don't know about. Larry Ellison is very definiately self-made. The Koch brothers I don't know. Li Ka-Shing is self-made.
If the billionaires are passing it around among themselves, they're not doing a very good job of it, given that so many of the top 25 have managed to get there by their own shoe string. In fact, if you look at the list from two decades ago, who would still be on there? Many billionaires have come and gone (and committed suicide in at least one case). Very few are family scions.
I don't believe in a conspiracy by billionaires. But I'm just saying that a rising share of GDP going to the rich, and a falling share going to the poor, doesn't stop people from making money. It just means less effort goes into making smart phones and more goes into space journeys. I would also disagree with you that families don't keep their wealth, regardless of what happens to one family. The children and grandchildren of most very wealthy people stay very wealthy.
But it is equally worth remembering that the economic situation is caused by people voting by their wallets. When you buy an iPhone, you are choosing to send your money to Foxconn in China and to Apple in California. We used to made TVs in the UK. It turned out that people voted with their wallets, and chose to buy products made in China and Japan instead.
Socrates, when you bought your car, did you look at a Bristol? After all, that's British made, and I'm pretty sure that the guy who owns it doesn't make much money at all. You could have voted with your wallet for lower inequality and a British manufacturing base.
Long-term economic success is built on innovation and unlimited cheap labour provides short-term profit but kills innovation.
I assume that the access to unlimited cheap labour in China, as peasants left the countryside and went to the cities, killed innovation there.
Oh wait, no it didn't.
And I assume the incredibly low wage levels of post world war 2 Germany prohibited economic success there.
Oh wait, no it didn't.
China was catching up to the pre-existing Western plateau. Germany was rebuilding to the pre-existing Western plateau. My argument only applies to countries which are at the plateau already.
Long-term economic success is built on innovation and unlimited cheap labour provides short-term profit but kills innovation.
I assume that the access to unlimited cheap labour in China, as peasants left the countryside and went to the cities, killed innovation there.
Oh wait, no it didn't.
And I assume the incredibly low wage levels of post world war 2 Germany prohibited economic success there.
Oh wait, no it didn't.
China was catching up to the pre-existing Western plateau. Germany was rebuilding to the pre-existing Western plateau. My argument only applies to countries which are at the plateau already.
But China continues to have an influx of inexpensive labour from the countryside, and yet is incredibly innovative.
If I am running Google or Intel or Glaxo, why does the influx of cheap labour lessen the importance to me of innovation?
@Charles, One of my colleagues has a Bristol. Much of my car was made in Norfolk.
My Dad had a Beaufighter when I was a teenager. Beautiful, but even with an extra fuel tank he couldn't drive from home to London and back without needing to fill up...
Dan has written his article again. This time it contains this little gem:
"To be fair to Twigg, it’s not his fault he hasn’t got a policy to speak of, and therefore no means of sensibly critiquing the Coalition’s. It’s common knowledge within the shadow cabinet that if he tried to come up with one, Ed Miliband would sack him. Or rather, Christine Blower of the NUT would be on the phone telling him to sack him. And Ed being Ed, he probably would."
Ah yes, us metropolitan, urban elite have been conspiring behind your back again. Shall I tell you the plan?
Basically, we're engineering a temporary boom in London, on the back of foreign slave labour. This will be used to give the *illusion* of prosperity.
Then, because essentially everyone in London earns more than the minimum wage, we can scrap it there without anyone noticing. Our next move will be to point to London and say "Look! We scrapped the minimum wage, and everyone is happy." We'll then scrap the minimum wage everywhere.
The final stage of our cunning plan will be to replace all the Brits in jobs with low paid Albanians, Afghanis and Alaskans. Essentially, our sole goal - as Jacques Delors told me over fois gras and caviar at the Bilderberg meeting last week - is the destruction of British culture and the British worker.
After that MODERATED
The funny thing is, I don't consider that to be completely unlikely.
As a matter of interest, who are these billionaires running the plantation economy? And to who are they expected to sell their products, if the general population is reduced to poverty?
Truly, I don't believe there's some gigantic conspiracy at work.
But, as a university student in the late 80's, I had real confidence in my country's governing class. Now, I don't. I don't know if they're merely incompetent or actively malevolent.
Me too, but remember that was in an age where the demographics were much more favourable to economic growth / prosperity, and as a result, it seemed that our political class taking credit for the relative bonhomie exuded a sense of control. Right now, if any of us were in charge at 10 and 11 Downing Street, we'd fare no better than the current incumbents, however good our intentions are. I've never thought for one moment that Gordon Brown (who I particularly disliked) had malevolent intentions, or any of the other occupants that I've known, Mrs T onwards. Being in an enormous down cycle, as we are right now in terms of demographics (and social mood), its extremely easy to be immensely frustrated. I choose to take a philosophical view of it all - life is subject to cycles in all sorts of things, always has been and always will be. I think you just have to recognise the cycles for what they are, and use them to your advantage - no one person is powerful enough to alter the natural course of things. So the state of the world, determined by these cycles is pretty much a given, and you've got to make the best of it, even if it is in the most challenging part of the cycle in 1,000 years, based on the Elliott Wave model that I like to quote.
Long-term economic success is built on innovation and unlimited cheap labour provides short-term profit but kills innovation.
I assume that the access to unlimited cheap labour in China, as peasants left the countryside and went to the cities, killed innovation there.
Oh wait, no it didn't.
And I assume the incredibly low wage levels of post world war 2 Germany prohibited economic success there.
Oh wait, no it didn't.
China was catching up to the pre-existing Western plateau. Germany was rebuilding to the pre-existing Western plateau. My argument only applies to countries which are at the plateau already.
But China continues to have an influx of inexpensive labour from the countryside, and yet is incredibly innovative.
If I am running Google or Intel or Glaxo, why does the influx of cheap labour lessen the importance to me of innovation?
Is China really that innovative? They are very good at reducing labour costs, but it takes a German to be great at process innovations (Siemens is the past master) and the Americans are best at design (although the Brits and the Scandis aren't half bad either)
What is lobbying other than a conspiracy by plutocrats against the public?
Yes, because poor people have never lobbied their elected representatives.
Yeah but poor people generally can't offer seven grand a day.
Could you give us an example of a lobbying effort of a big company which has successfully led to us all becoming poorer?
(The only really successful lobbying effort I can think of is the Green lobby. But this is a conspiracy of the poor against the rich. Just one year of BP's cashflow would be sufficient to acquire all three of the world's largest wind companies, and the ten largest solar players. So it's hardly evidence of the rich successfully buying the political system and twisting it in their favour.)
The Wall St. banks lobbying in the late 90s for the banking regulations they wanted which led to massive over-leveraging and the credit crunch.
(I assume something similar led to the UK's "light touch" regulation also.)
The tax regulations which allow companies to register their brand in a tax haven and then transfer their business profits to the tax haven by paying to use the brand.
I'm sure i could remember a few more if i put my mind to it.
Ah yes, us metropolitan, urban elite have been conspiring behind your back again. Shall I tell you the plan?
Basically, we're engineering a temporary boom in London, on the back of foreign slave labour. This will be used to give the *illusion* of prosperity.
Then, because essentially everyone in London earns more than the minimum wage, we can scrap it there without anyone noticing. Our next move will be to point to London and say "Look! We scrapped the minimum wage, and everyone is happy." We'll then scrap the minimum wage everywhere.
The final stage of our cunning plan will be to replace all the Brits in jobs with low paid Albanians, Afghanis and Alaskans. Essentially, our sole goal - as Jacques Delors told me over fois gras and caviar at the Bilderberg meeting last week - is the destruction of British culture and the British worker.
After that MODERATED
Yeah, very funny. Maybe some can afford to make a joke of it. But the average joe 'striver' (employees and employers) getting shafted by the smugly amused all right jacks is what's driving the disenchanted vote imo.
Carola: I just don't understand who these 'them' are who are supposedly running such a scam. Let's not forget, under the labour government you could get a peerage for lending the party a few hundred thousand quid. So a position of influence could be got by *lending* the cost of a not very nice two bedroom flat in Shephard's Bush. Why would the political elite need to stoop to such lengths if they were being secretly bankrolled by billionaires?
Two weeks ago I had dinner with Google's ex-CEO, Eric Schmidt. You know what he cares about? He cares about making really cool products that people want to buy and which will make him money. He might put down $30,000 to get a seat at a fundraiser for a Presidential candidate, but really, the way he makes his money is by making things people want to buy. The great business successes really don't give a shit about doing anything other than making something you might want to buy. You think Apple is a success because they made things in China? Nope: everyone made things in China. Apple is a success because they made things people want to buy. Steve Jobs interest in politics is about the same as my interest in my wife's shoes. If anything he was less interested (I am required to say 'they look great, honey'.)
I know they're just interested in making money.
And the way they make money is by making products and services people want to buy, and by doing it as cheaply as possible.
That's not a plantation economy, that's capitalism, and that's the driver of the West's economic success over the last 500 years.
The economic success of this country over the last 500 years was built on innovation.
For example, cheap labour creates short-term profit but undermines the innovation which leads to long-term profit.
Unconstrained capitalism is self-destructive.
"The economic success of this country over the last 500 years was built on innovation."
The economic success of this country was built on us being able to do things more cheaply that our competition abroad. We did this through ruthless automation, which led to the destruction of whole ways of life. The relentless driving down of costs created by the stocking frames and the pinning jenny put journeyman weavers out of jobs, and instead resulted in children paid peanuts working in 'dark satanic mills'.
Now that sucks: and I am all for a more equal society. (Or rather, I am all for creating a society with equality of opportunity.) But your reading of history is partial and inaccurate.
Cutting costs through Innovation - like i said.
Wait. Now I'm confused. So it's OK to lay off British workers to increase profits, if it's done because a machine is now doing the work. But it's not OK to lay off British workers to increase profits, if it's done because the work is being done by someone who speaks Polish.
Investment in new technology tends to lead to higher productivity and/or quality with corresponding higher earnings for those workers still employed as they need to be more skilled to operate the new technology.
So the employers gain and the workers gain, the ex-workers lose. Temporarily if an expanding economy is able to create employment opportunities for them and they are able to retrain to take them, permanently if not.
Replacing the existing workforce with a cheaper one doesn't increase productivity. But it does create a wealth transfer from the employees to the employers. In particular those employers which have most opportunities to enact this transfer of employees.
There are other issues as well at an national macroeconomic level.
Dan has written his article again. This time it contains this little gem:
"To be fair to Twigg, it’s not his fault he hasn’t got a policy to speak of, and therefore no means of sensibly critiquing the Coalition’s. It’s common knowledge within the shadow cabinet that if he tried to come up with one, Ed Miliband would sack him. Or rather, Christine Blower of the NUT would be on the phone telling him to sack him. And Ed being Ed, he probably would."
Constructive huh? Do you think Dave and Ed should do a swop with Ashcroft and Hodges?
Dan Hodges is a great example of wonderful British design.
He's identified a niche in the market, stamped his brand all over it, and now just keeps on churning out the same low cost product. Satisfies his target customers and they keep coming back for more. What's not to like about his business model?
Long-term economic success is built on innovation and unlimited cheap labour provides short-term profit but kills innovation.
I assume that the access to unlimited cheap labour in China, as peasants left the countryside and went to the cities, killed innovation there.
Oh wait, no it didn't.
And I assume the incredibly low wage levels of post world war 2 Germany prohibited economic success there.
Oh wait, no it didn't.
China was catching up to the pre-existing Western plateau. Germany was rebuilding to the pre-existing Western plateau. My argument only applies to countries which are at the plateau already.
The influx of cheap Mexican labour sure did knock out innovation in California.
Ah yes, us metropolitan, urban elite have been conspiring behind your back again. Shall I tell you the plan?
Basically, we're engineering a temporary boom in London, on the back of foreign slave labour. This will be used to give the *illusion* of prosperity.
Then, because essentially everyone in London earns more than the minimum wage, we can scrap it there without anyone noticing. Our next move will be to point to London and say "Look! We scrapped the minimum wage, and everyone is happy." We'll then scrap the minimum wage everywhere.
The final stage of our cunning plan will be to replace all the Brits in jobs with low paid Albanians, Afghanis and Alaskans. Essentially, our sole goal - as Jacques Delors told me over fois gras and caviar at the Bilderberg meeting last week - is the destruction of British culture and the British worker.
After that MODERATED
The funny thing is, I don't consider that to be completely unlikely.
As a matter of interest, who are these billionaires running the plantation economy? And to who are they expected to sell their products, if the general population is reduced to poverty?
Each other, surely?
There's only so many iPhones a man can own. Or so many Ferraris.
Look, I would tend to agree with have too much income inequality. I would think that in any mature corporation, the boss shouldn't earn more than 5x the average income.
Even doing this, it's worth noting, will not stop inequality. Larry and Segei earn $1 a year. They're worth $20 billion each because they built an amazing business.
And it's worth noting that -as the Rausings are proving- your time at the top is typically very short. Families (like Charles') who keep wealth for many generations are the exception rather than the rule. If you look at the top ten richest people in the world, Gates, Buffett are essentially self-made. Carlos Slim, the Mexican telecoms billionaire, I don't know about. Larry Ellison is very definiately self-made. The Koch brothers I don't know. Li Ka-Shing is self-made.
If the billionaires are passing it around among themselves, they're not doing a very good job of it, given that so many of the top 25 have managed to get there by their own shoe string. In fact, if you look at the list from two decades ago, who would still be on there? Many billionaires have come and gone (and committed suicide in at least one case). Very few are family scions.
I don't believe in a conspiracy by billionaires. But I'm just saying that a rising share of GDP going to the rich, and a falling share going to the poor, doesn't stop people from making money. It just means less effort goes into making smart phones and more goes into space journeys. I would also disagree with you that families don't keep their wealth, regardless of what happens to one family. The children and grandchildren of most very wealthy people stay very wealthy.
I echo a lot of what you say here Socrates. There is no 'conspiracy' by the rich, What we've observed over the past 30 years, when the credit bubble really started in earnest in the early 1980's is a hand-in-hand growth in equality. With the abandonment of Bretton Woods and the Gold window in August 1971, the first dozen or so years with strong trade unions around the world largely saw credit creation going straight into wage inflation, which largely kept inequality unchanged. When that began to change, and more of the credit creation went into fuelling the great stock market and property bubbles. Those with first access to the leverage gained mightily. Leverage has the effect of distributing gains unevenly, think of a night at a casino for starters. A few will do well, at the expense of the vast majority. We've had pretty much the same with the economy as a whole. That's not to say that people haven't bettered themselves from humble backgrounds, but social mobility has declined inevitably. Whilst the great credit based economy is on its last legs, when it falls apart, the exact reverse of what we've seen over the past 30 years will be true - those at the very top right now will lose out most. Societies throughout history have never been stable long term with as much inequality as exists now. I well remember my Tory student days in the mid-1990's thinking inequality didn't matter providing there was equal opportunity to be wealthy. Well inequality does matter as it turns out for societal cohesion, but fixing it rests squarely with having a sound monetary and financial system (based on gold) rather than our current fiat currency and (less than) fractional reserve banking. Trying to fix inequality in terms of levelling down or government interventionwill never work, only a sound monetary system can deliver, with no recourse to financial speculation on unproductive assets. Financial leverage on productive enterprises up to a point is fine - there is a world of difference between financing to increase economic production (having a basis to pay back initial outlay) and financing non-productive assets which does no such thing.
hunchman: your point about leverage is an excellent one. And I think you're right that too many governments are trying to actively debase their currencies, which will hurt the poor and the middle classes disproportionately (albeit it will be a hidden tax).
How does debasing hurt the poor and the middle class? Most of them don't have any savings to debase. If your savings to income ratio is low, you'll do well out of the thing. It's those with a lot of savings per pound of current income that get hit.
Ah yes, us metropolitan, urban elite have been conspiring behind your back again. Shall I tell you the plan?
Basically, we're engineering a temporary boom in London, on the back of foreign slave labour. This will be used to give the *illusion* of prosperity.
Then, because essentially everyone in London earns more than the minimum wage, we can scrap it there without anyone noticing. Our next move will be to point to London and say "Look! We scrapped the minimum wage, and everyone is happy." We'll then scrap the minimum wage everywhere.
The final stage of our cunning plan will be to replace all the Brits in jobs with low paid Albanians, Afghanis and Alaskans. Essentially, our sole goal - as Jacques Delors told me over fois gras and caviar at the Bilderberg meeting last week - is the destruction of British culture and the British worker.
After that MODERATED
Yeah, very funny. Maybe some can afford to make a joke of it. But the average joe 'striver' (employees and employers) getting shafted by the smugly amused all right jacks is what's driving the disenchanted vote imo.
Carola: I just don't understand who these 'them' are who are supposedly running such a scam. Let's not forget, under the labour government you could get a peerage for lending the party a few hundred thousand quid. So a position of influence could be got by *lending* the cost of a not very nice two bedroom flat in Shephard's Bush. Why would the political elite need to stoop to such lengths if they were being secretly bankrolled by billionaires?
Two weeks ago I had dinner with Google's ex-CEO, Eric Schmidt. You know what he cares about? He cares about making really cool products that people want to buy and which will make him money. He might put down $30,000 to get a seat at a fundraiser for a Presidential candidate, but really, the way he makes his money is by making things people want to buy. The great business successes really don't give a shit about doing anything other than making something you might want to buy. You think Apple is a success because they made things in China? Nope: everyone made things in China. Apple is a success because they made things people want to buy. Steve Jobs interest in politics is about the same as my interest in my wife's shoes. If anything he was less interested (I am required to say 'they look great, honey'.)
I know they're just interested in making money.
And the way they make money is by making products and services people want to buy, and by doing it as cheaply as possible.
That's not a plantation economy, that's capitalism, and that's the driver of the West's economic success over the last 500 years.
The economic success of this country over the last 500 years was built on innovation.
For example, cheap labour creates short-term profit but undermines the innovation which leads to long-term profit.
Unconstrained capitalism is self-destructive.
"The economic success of this country over the last 500 years was built on innovation."
The economic success of this country was built on us being able to do things more cheaply that our competition abroad. We did this through ruthless automation, which led to the destruction of whole ways of life. The relentless driving down of costs created by the stocking frames and the pinning jenny put journeyman weavers out of jobs, and instead resulted in children paid peanuts working in 'dark satanic mills'.
Now that sucks: and I am all for a more equal society. (Or rather, I am all for creating a society with equality of opportunity.) But your reading of history is partial and inaccurate.
Cutting costs through Innovation - like i said.
Wait. Now I'm confused. So it's OK to lay off British workers to increase profits, if it's done because a machine is now doing the work. But it's not OK to lay off British workers to increase profits, if it's done because the work is being done by someone who speaks Polish.
Investment in new technology tends to lead to higher productivity and/or quality with corresponding higher earnings for those workers still employed as they need to be more skilled to operate the new technology.
So the employers gain and the workers gain, the ex-workers lose. Temporarily if an expanding economy is able to create employment opportunities for them and they are able to retrain to take them, permanently if not.
Replacing the existing workforce with a cheaper one doesn't increase productivity. But it does create a wealth transfer from the employees to the employers. In particular those employers which have most opportunities to enact this transfer of employees.
There are other issues as well at an national macroeconomic level.
But you're only looking at one side of the equation - producers. Someone's standard living depends on both their income and their expenditure. If producers cut costs, consumers gain too.
On the markets, more down to come in the short term, but still one last high in the US around about 20th-25th July around the corner I think. Its still not time to turn mega-bearish just yet, patience, patience, patience!
Long-term economic success is built on innovation and unlimited cheap labour provides short-term profit but kills innovation.
I assume that the access to unlimited cheap labour in China, as peasants left the countryside and went to the cities, killed innovation there.
Oh wait, no it didn't.
And I assume the incredibly low wage levels of post world war 2 Germany prohibited economic success there.
Oh wait, no it didn't.
China was catching up to the pre-existing Western plateau. Germany was rebuilding to the pre-existing Western plateau. My argument only applies to countries which are at the plateau already.
The influx of cheap Mexican labour sure did knock out innovation in California.
Who gives you this crap?
Cheap Mexican labour didn't go into Silicon Valley though, did it? It went into agricultural work, particularly fruit picking, and that industry probably has seen less innovation.
There was a reason the North won the US civil war.
What is lobbying other than a conspiracy by plutocrats against the public?
Yes, because poor people have never lobbied their elected representatives.
Yeah but poor people generally can't offer seven grand a day.
Could you give us an example of a lobbying effort of a big company which has successfully led to us all becoming poorer?
(The only really successful lobbying effort I can think of is the Green lobby. But this is a conspiracy of the poor against the rich. Just one year of BP's cashflow would be sufficient to acquire all three of the world's largest wind companies, and the ten largest solar players. So it's hardly evidence of the rich successfully buying the political system and twisting it in their favour.)
The Wall St. banks lobbying in the late 90s for the banking regulations they wanted which led to massive over-leveraging and the credit crunch.
(I assume something similar led to the UK's "light touch" regulation also.)
The tax regulations which allow companies to register their brand in a tax haven and then transfer their business profits to the tax haven by paying to use the brand.
I'm sure i could remember a few more if i put my mind to it.
That's a fair point, certainly as far as the US goes and the breaking down of Glass-Stegall. But here in the UK, I think it's fair to say the burden of regulation increased between 1990 and 2007, rather than the reverse.
I think the origins of the financial crisis were two-fold: (1) allowing retail banks to gamble with money that was government guaranteed. And (2) a belief that house prices always rose, and therefore no amount of debt - so long as it was secured on a house - was excessive. The government had nothing (really) to do with the second, except in that it loosened explicit controls in the early 1980s. It was much more culpable in the first case, in that the Big Bang allowed financial markets firms (in particular stockbrokers) to be owned by corporations.
But you're only looking at one side of the equation - producers. Someone's standard living depends on both their income and their expenditure.
If producers cut costs, consumers gain too.
That was one of Mrs Thatcher's great observations: she said (and I'm paraphrasing here), I am always being asked to think of the interest of the producer, I think we should spend a little more time thinking about the interests of the consumer.
The name of the district, etc. in bold indicates that it shares the same boundaries as a parliamentary constituency. Unless I've missed any, this is the list of authorities in that category:
1. Chiltern / Chesham & Amersham 2. High Peak 3. Derbyshire South 4. Devon North 5. Castle Point 6. Hertsmere 7. Isle of Wight 8. Gravesham 9. Burnley 10.Pendle 11.Leicestershire North West 12.Great Yarmouth 13.Kettering 14.Mansfield 15.Taunton Deane 16.Cannock Chase 17.Spelthorne 18.Crawley 19.Bromsgrove 20.Worcester 21.Wyre Forest 22.Anglesey / Ynys Môn
Long-term economic success is built on innovation and unlimited cheap labour provides short-term profit but kills innovation.
I assume that the access to unlimited cheap labour in China, as peasants left the countryside and went to the cities, killed innovation there.
Oh wait, no it didn't.
And I assume the incredibly low wage levels of post world war 2 Germany prohibited economic success there.
Oh wait, no it didn't.
China was catching up to the pre-existing Western plateau. Germany was rebuilding to the pre-existing Western plateau. My argument only applies to countries which are at the plateau already.
But China continues to have an influx of inexpensive labour from the countryside, and yet is incredibly innovative.
If I am running Google or Intel or Glaxo, why does the influx of cheap labour lessen the importance to me of innovation?
1) I don't see the evidence for China being innovative at all at the moment. It might be when it's fully caught up.
2) Less need for innovation based competition in the industries they sell their services too.
" and I am all for a more equal society. (Or rather, I am all for creating a society with equality of opportunity.) "
Its a line we all recite but do any of us really believe it when we properly think about it.
Who are the PB commenters ?
A bunch of affluent, educated middle class Westerners.
And we're affluent, educated middle class Westerners mostly because of the fortune of our birth into affluent, educated, middle class Western families.
Give or take we hit the jackpot in life when we were born.
The problem is that being born into affluent, educated middle class Western families will no longer be enough to ensure an affluent, educated middle class western lifestyle for future generations.
And for those lower down the socioeconomic scale the difficulties increase.
But you're only looking at one side of the equation - producers. Someone's standard living depends on both their income and their expenditure.
If producers cut costs, consumers gain too.
That was one of Mrs Thatcher's great observations: she said (and I'm paraphrasing here), I am always being asked to think of the interest of the producer, I think we should spend a little more time thinking about the interests of the consumer.
I didn't know she said that. But it's what I've always thought the emphasis should be and I like her a bit more for it.
It's not really income inequality that gets up peoples noses, it's the constant squeeze on the living standards of the lower to middle classes that makes life seem a neverending battle to maintain even the status quo. Energy and travel costs for example are constantly rising at rates beyond any increase in the income to pay for them.
Squeezing more and more people into more crowded living areas, with no open spaces and stressful commuting conditions, reduce the quality of life for the vast majority. Building small flats and houses en masse in already densly populated areas will just make things worse. People only look upwards in anger when they feel they are the only ones bearing the brunt of any pain during economic downturns. That's why lower income tax up to the average salary, a cap on energy and other utility bills, (sod green energy taxes), lower fuel costs via reduced petrol taxes, and similar ideas would go a long way to relieve the burden on the working masses. I don't think people are generally hung up about bosses pay or jealousy over the lifestyles of the rich. They just want less pressure on themselves and their families in hard times. The privitised utilities need stronger oversight, there are still too many monopolies that are distorting the market and ramping up prices. Some companies just have a license to print money.
Seeing everything through an East Germany circa 1970 style prism is not the solution. All parties should ignore the rich at the moment, concentrate efforts on the other workers in society. Stop bleeding, and allowing others to bleed people dry.
Total and utter cnuts like those who's destiny in life is to ease their own green conscience by grinding the average consumer down, whilst profiteering from lobbiyists etc are the true enemy. Hypocrisy will not be tolerated and examples should be made.
Ah yes, us metropolitan, urban elite have been conspiring behind your back again. Shall I tell you the plan?
Basically, we're engineering a temporary boom in London, on the back of foreign slave labour. This will be used to give the *illusion* of prosperity.
Then, because essentially everyone in London earns more than the minimum wage, we can scrap it there without anyone noticing. Our next move will be to point to London and say "Look! We scrapped the minimum wage, and everyone is happy." We'll then scrap the minimum wage everywhere.
The final stage of our cunning plan will be to replace all the Brits in jobs with low paid Albanians, Afghanis and Alaskans. Essentially, our sole goal - as Jacques Delors told me over fois gras and caviar at the Bilderberg meeting last week - is the destruction of British culture and the British worker.
After that MODERATED
Yeah, very funny. Maybe some can afford to make a joke of it. But the average joe 'striver' (employees and employers) getting shafted by the smugly amused all right jacks is what's driving the disenchanted vote imo.
Carola: I just don't understand who these 'them' are who are supposedly running such a scam. Let's not forget, under the labour government you could get a peerage for lending the party a few hundred thousand quid. So a position of influence could be got by *lending* the cost of a not very nice two bedroom flat in Shephard's Bush. Why would the political elite need to stoop to such lengths if they were being secretly bankrolled by billionaires?
Two weeks ago I had dinner with Google's ex-CEO, Eric Schmidt. You know what he cares about? He cares about making really cool products that people want to buy and which will make him money. He might put down $30,000 to get a seat at a fundraiser for a Presidential candidate, but really, the way he makes his money is by making things people want to buy. The great business successes really don't give a shit about doing anything other than making something you might want to buy. You think Apple is a success because they made things in China? Nope: everyone made things in China. Apple is a success because they made things people want to buy. Steve Jobs interest in politics is about the same as my interest in my wife's shoes. If anything he was less interested (I am required to say 'they look great, honey'.)
I know they're just interested in making money.
And the way they make money is by making products and services people want to buy, and by doing it as cheaply as possible.
That's not a plantation economy, that's capitalism, and that's the driver of the West's economic success over the last 500 years.
The economic success of this country over the last 500 years was built on innovation.
For example, cheap labour creates short-term profit but undermines the innovation which leads to long-term profit.
Unconstrained capitalism is self-destructive.
"The economic success of this country over the last 500 years was built on innovation."
The economic success of this country was built on us being able to do things more cheaply that our competition abroad. We did this through ruthless automation, which led to the destruction of whole ways of life. The relentless driving down of costs created by the stocking frames and the pinning jenny put journeyman weavers out of jobs, and instead resulted in children paid peanuts working in 'dark satanic mills'.
Now that sucks: and I am all for a more equal society. (Or rather, I am all for creating a society with equality of opportunity.) But your reading of history is partial and inaccurate.
Cutting costs through Innovation - like i said.
Wait. Now I'm confused. So it's OK to lay off British workers to increase profits, if it's done because a machine is now doing the work. But it's not OK to lay off British workers to increase profits, if it's done because the work is being done by someone who speaks Polish.
Investment in new technology tends to lead to higher productivity and/or quality with corresponding higher earnings for those workers still employed as they need to be more skilled to operate the new technology.
So the employers gain and the workers gain, the ex-workers lose. Temporarily if an expanding economy is able to create employment opportunities for them and they are able to retrain to take them, permanently if not.
Replacing the existing workforce with a cheaper one doesn't increase productivity. But it does create a wealth transfer from the employees to the employers. In particular those employers which have most opportunities to enact this transfer of employees.
There are other issues as well at an national macroeconomic level.
But you're only looking at one side of the equation - producers. Someone's standard living depends on both their income and their expenditure. If producers cut costs, consumers gain too.
Certainly but consumers also have to be producers themselves otherwise where will they get the income to be consumers.
What we've had is a relative shift from production to consumption in Britain especially and the West generally.
The extra money needed to fund this being provided by debt.
Long-term economic success is built on innovation and unlimited cheap labour provides short-term profit but kills innovation.
I assume that the access to unlimited cheap labour in China, as peasants left the countryside and went to the cities, killed innovation there.
Oh wait, no it didn't.
And I assume the incredibly low wage levels of post world war 2 Germany prohibited economic success there.
Oh wait, no it didn't.
China was catching up to the pre-existing Western plateau. Germany was rebuilding to the pre-existing Western plateau. My argument only applies to countries which are at the plateau already.
The influx of cheap Mexican labour sure did knock out innovation in California.
Who gives you this crap?
Cheap Mexican labour didn't go into Silicon Valley though, did it? It went into agricultural work, particularly fruit picking, and that industry probably has seen less innovation.
There was a reason the North won the US civil war.
Californian wine industry is arguably the most innovative (along with Australia) in the world and relies on up to 70% illegal labour from Mexico.
I suspect there's not much illegal Mexican labour working in the Australian wine industry.
Ordinary people didn't mind bastardy yuppies in the 80s - in fact they found them quite amusing - because they could envisage either themselves or their children becoming rich in the future. People are angry today because they don't see much chance of that.
But you're only looking at one side of the equation - producers. Someone's standard living depends on both their income and their expenditure.
If producers cut costs, consumers gain too.
That was one of Mrs Thatcher's great observations: she said (and I'm paraphrasing here), I am always being asked to think of the interest of the producer, I think we should spend a little more time thinking about the interests of the consumer.
I didn't know she said that. But it's what I've always thought the emphasis should be and I like her a bit more for it.
The market to an extent allows the interests of consumers to predominate.
The problems arise in those areas where the producers have a near monopoly and support from the state in upholding it.
Long-term economic success is built on innovation and unlimited cheap labour provides short-term profit but kills innovation.
I assume that the access to unlimited cheap labour in China, as peasants left the countryside and went to the cities, killed innovation there.
Oh wait, no it didn't.
And I assume the incredibly low wage levels of post world war 2 Germany prohibited economic success there.
Oh wait, no it didn't.
China was catching up to the pre-existing Western plateau. Germany was rebuilding to the pre-existing Western plateau. My argument only applies to countries which are at the plateau already.
But China continues to have an influx of inexpensive labour from the countryside, and yet is incredibly innovative.
If I am running Google or Intel or Glaxo, why does the influx of cheap labour lessen the importance to me of innovation?
Is China really that innovative? They are very good at reducing labour costs, but it takes a German to be great at process innovations (Siemens is the past master) and the Americans are best at design (although the Brits and the Scandis aren't half bad either)
Yeah, the Chinks are only good at mass production, what with their slitty eyes and all.
What dribbling, racist rubbish. China was an advanced civilisation when we were worshipping the moon.
China probably worshipped the Moon, too. What's interesting to me is the way that China's rulers retarded economic development up till 1980. An intelligent observer in 1900 would have expected China to be like Japan - yet it didn't happen for 80 years.
" and I am all for a more equal society. (Or rather, I am all for creating a society with equality of opportunity.) "
Its a line we all recite but do any of us really believe it when we properly think about it.
Who are the PB commenters ?
A bunch of affluent, educated middle class Westerners.
And we're affluent, educated middle class Westerners mostly because of the fortune of our birth into affluent, educated, middle class Western families.
Give or take we hit the jackpot in life when we were born.
The problem is that being born into affluent, educated middle class Western families will no longer be enough to ensure an affluent, educated middle class western lifestyle for future generations.
And for those lower down the socioeconomic scale the difficulties increase.
Nail hit on head. We can't wish for millions of Chinese and Indians to remain on the brink of starvation, just to spare us from competition, but our future isn't great.
"Truly, I don't believe there's some gigantic conspiracy at work.
But, as a university student in the late 80's, I had real confidence in my country's governing class. Now, I don't. I don't know if they're merely incompetent or actively malevolent."
@Sean_F Back in the 80's we had four TV channels with allotted news programmes, radio and the dead tree press delivering our political news. You couldn't visit a site like PB to discuss the latest up to date 24 hour rolling news on digital channels, or turn on your twitter link to watch the Westminster Lobby or the general public openly mocking our politicians.
That confidence in our governing classes was less about them being more competent or less malevolent, and more about a time before the onset of the X Factor generation and explosion of the internet. At the end of the day, we get the politicians we deserve. Indeed, the country voted Blair back into Office despite Iraq and various other New Labour scandals.
"Trident, the Met’s anti-gang unit, estimates there are around 250 gangs in the capital alone, selling drugs, carrying out muggings and sometimes stabbing each other."
Pretty much only the BBC and the political class left to admit the problem exists.
Interesting thread, read while listening to TSE's *great* Agnetha link. I was a fan of all four individuals when they had their pre-Abba careers - used to listen to them on Svensktoppen (the equivalent TOTP) on Sunday mornings, so it's a real memory lane piece for me.
LOL. You should copyright that. Dan Hodges is a great example of wonderful British design.
He's identified a niche in the market, stamped his brand all over it, and now just keeps on churning out the same low cost product. Satisfies his target customers and they keep coming back for more. What's not to like about his business model?
Long-term economic success is built on innovation and unlimited cheap labour provides short-term profit but kills innovation.
I assume that the access to unlimited cheap labour in China, as peasants left the countryside and went to the cities, killed innovation there.
Oh wait, no it didn't.
And I assume the incredibly low wage levels of post world war 2 Germany prohibited economic success there.
Oh wait, no it didn't.
China was catching up to the pre-existing Western plateau. Germany was rebuilding to the pre-existing Western plateau. My argument only applies to countries which are at the plateau already.
But China continues to have an influx of inexpensive labour from the countryside, and yet is incredibly innovative.
If I am running Google or Intel or Glaxo, why does the influx of cheap labour lessen the importance to me of innovation?
Is China really that innovative? They are very good at reducing labour costs, but it takes a German to be great at process innovations (Siemens is the past master) and the Americans are best at design (although the Brits and the Scandis aren't half bad either)
Yeah, the Chinks are only good at mass production, what with their slitty eyes and all.
What dribbling, racist rubbish. China was an advanced civilisation when we were worshipping the moon.
China probably worshipped the Moon, too. What's interesting to me is the way that China's rulers retarded economic development up till 1980. An intelligent observer in 1900 would have expected China to be like Japan - yet it didn't happen for 80 years.
China was the richest country in the world from about 1AD to 1700AD. Then the Brits took over for a century and a half, maybe two at most, then the Americans took over in about 1870.
Are you sure? I would've picked India (or rather the various empires/states/etc) to have been richer than China for at least a good chunk of that period.
(Agree with general point about Chinese riches through that era compared to Europe).
BTW, am starting to think that TIGER WOODS may be starting to shed some of his charisma. Just too much stupid, purely ego-driven drama. We've already got the Kardashians for that kind of bullcrappy.
Speaking of uberhype, Boston Patriots have just signed up Tiger's current girlfriend's ex-boyfriend, Tim Tebow.
Comments
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politics/conservative/10116032/It-is-time-for-Lord-Ashcroft-and-the-Tory-party-to-part-company.html
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-22847986
Already seen the PS4 video, but it's a very astute and quite amusing kick in the nuts for Microsoft, whose PR approach to the Xbone appears to be sub-optimal.
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/zerohours-contracts-for-workers-to-be-reviewed-by-coalition-8656328.html
Though I think I saw a tweet or something today re scraping the minimum wage in London? Mooted anyway.
Arf - the Brighton walrus makes it into the header!
It was turning a corner and having one present himself face on that was a little disconcerting...
Ah yes, us metropolitan, urban elite have been conspiring behind your back again. Shall I tell you the plan?
Basically, we're engineering a temporary boom in London, on the back of foreign slave labour. This will be used to give the *illusion* of prosperity.
Then, because essentially everyone in London earns more than the minimum wage, we can scrap it there without anyone noticing. Our next move will be to point to London and say "Look! We scrapped the minimum wage, and everyone is happy." We'll then scrap the minimum wage everywhere.
The final stage of our cunning plan will be to replace all the Brits in jobs with low paid Albanians, Afghanis and Alaskans. Essentially, our sole goal - as Jacques Delors told me over fois gras and caviar at the Bilderberg meeting last week - is the destruction of British culture and the British worker.
After that MODERATED
http://www.conservatives.com/News/News_stories/2013/04/Andrea_Jenkyns_selected_for_Morley_and_Outwood.aspx
http://player.stv.tv/programmes/road-referendum/2013-06-11-2000/?yes
The globalist billionaires who own the political class want to create a plantation economy competing solely on labour costs.
It's getting more and more obvious.
Young girl gets raped at 13 by a 17 year old. Conservatism of her home town makes her keep the baby. The rapist is let out on bail, and likely to get between probation and a couple of years. The victim gets slut shamed as a pregnant teenager.
http://www.indystar.com/article/20130605/NEWS/306050112/An-Elwood-girl-became-pregnant-sexual-assault-13-Her-story-illustrates-growing-problem-Indiana-?gcheck=1&nclick_check=1
Anyway, taking away the distracton of kids whooping and cheering at every possible opportunity, I'd say it's apreety good action movie. Very easy to compare it with last years masterpiece 'The Avengers' due to the ott amount of general destruction and mayhem. It's not amazing, but well worth seeing. Second best movie this year after Star Trek I'd say.
More importantly, been scanning through the last thread on the bus home. Someone brought up IHT again I see, and as usual the word stealing got used. If inherited wealth isn't the ultimate definition of unearned income-for the recipient, then I don't know what is. Probably the economically most inefficient way of allocating wealth there is, after the national lottery. For example, what exactly did the Milibros do to either earn or deserve their bonanza from marxist daddy? A bonanza they did their best to avoid paying tax on I may add. Hypocrite overload as always.
When you earn money it's yours, if you give it away to family it becomes a gift. Tough if it gets taxed heavily again. It shouldn't have been taxed when you worked for it of course. As usual punish people for doing positive things, reward their kids for doing nothing.
Just as an update on my fave topic, the Roma invasion of Stockholm. The begging and pickpocketing situation is reaching critical mass, really is becoming an obscenity and blight on the city.The Rumainian government is quite happy to see the back of them of course. Glad the EU is chucking truckloads of money at the country whilst they are partaking in ethnic cleansing on an epic scale. These people should be in their own country and being educated and integrated into society. It's so pointless them coming here or moving to the UK en masse next year, just more problems and understandable racial tension await. Believe me, this is the worst cultural clash I have ever seen, the normally placid Swedes are furious, and I have heard comments from usually sane and hippiesque people that would have you covering your ears in shock. This mix is incendiary, and it's coming big time to a town you live in soon.
Cue cries of racist bigot...
That's really disgusting and I'm shocked the mods don't ban him for it.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2013/jun/12/low-wages-not-benefits-holding-britain-down?CMP=twt_gu
Two weeks ago I had dinner with Google's ex-CEO, Eric Schmidt. You know what he cares about? He cares about making really cool products that people want to buy and which will make him money. He might put down $30,000 to get a seat at a fundraiser for a Presidential candidate, but really, the way he makes his money is by making things people want to buy. The great business successes really don't give a shit about doing anything other than making something you might want to buy. You think Apple is a success because they made things in China? Nope: everyone made things in China. Apple is a success because they made things people want to buy. Steve Jobs interest in politics is about the same as my interest in my wife's shoes. If anything he was less interested (I am required to say 'they look great, honey'.)
It's entirely reasonable to critique supranationalism, without people assuming that you believe in some Jewish conspiracy.
Look, I would tend to agree with have too much income inequality. I would think that in any mature corporation, the boss shouldn't earn more than 5x the average income.
Even doing this, it's worth noting, will not stop inequality. Larry and Segei earn $1 a year. They're worth $20 billion each because they built an amazing business.
And it's worth noting that -as the Rausings are proving- your time at the top is typically very short. Families (like Charles') who keep wealth for many generations are the exception rather than the rule. If you look at the top ten richest people in the world, Gates, Buffett are essentially self-made. Carlos Slim, the Mexican telecoms billionaire, I don't know about. Larry Ellison is very definiately self-made. The Koch brothers I don't know. Li Ka-Shing is self-made.
If the billionaires are passing it around among themselves, they're not doing a very good job of it, given that so many of the top 25 have managed to get there by their own shoe string. In fact, if you look at the list from two decades ago, who would still be on there? Many billionaires have come and gone (and committed suicide in at least one case). Very few are family scions.
That's not a plantation economy, that's capitalism, and that's the driver of the West's economic success over the last 500 years.
There's nowhere to go after seeing that performance. It was like the absolute pinnacle of conspiracy insanity. With a healthy dose of total w**kerness thrown in as a bonus.
For example, cheap labour creates short-term profit but undermines the innovation which leads to long-term profit.
Unconstrained capitalism is self-destructive.
The economic success of this country was built on us being able to do things more cheaply that our competition abroad. We did this through ruthless automation, which led to the destruction of whole ways of life. The relentless driving down of costs created by the stocking frames and the pinning jenny put journeyman weavers out of jobs, and instead resulted in children paid peanuts working in 'dark satanic mills'.
Now that sucks: and I am all for a more equal society. (Or rather, I am all for creating a society with equality of opportunity.) But your reading of history is partial and inaccurate.
Socrates, when you bought your car, did you look at a Bristol? After all, that's British made, and I'm pretty sure that the guy who owns it doesn't make much money at all. You could have voted with your wallet for lower inequality and a British manufacturing base.
What is really worrying is seeing who the government seem to be taking advice from - see http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/newsbysector/banksandfinance/10114361/RBS-should-be-more-like-a-Canadian-bank-according-to-Davide-Serras-Downing-Street-show-and-tell.
As I do not want OGH to fall foul of m'learned friends, I can say no more.
Put it this way, were I Governor of the Bank of England or, indeed, Chairman of the FCA, I would be raising both eyebrows as high as they would go.
As for me, I don't own a car. I'm part of the metropolitan elite.
I'm a bit 'Taylor-ish' when it comes to mankind, all in all.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pB74Wxp8BWw
But, as a university student in the late 80's, I had real confidence in my country's governing class. Now, I don't. I don't know if they're merely incompetent or actively malevolent.
And I think you're right that too many governments are trying to actively debase their currencies, which will hurt the poor and the middle classes disproportionately (albeit it will be a hidden tax).
Bloody capitalist greedy Tory scum......oh wait.
What is lobbying?
Oh wait, no it didn't.
And I assume the incredibly low wage levels of post world war 2 Germany prohibited economic success there.
Oh wait, no it didn't.
Our situation is slightly different. Partly the starting point was very high (a few years ago the Sunday Times reckoned the founder of the business left just under £3bn in today's money). The other point is that we have made the business sustainable by creating a culture that sees ownership as a temporary act of chance: it is a trusteeship on behalf of all of Sir Richard's descendents. The partners get paid a decent wage, but don't take any money out of the business. In many ways it's more like a mutual than anything else (albeit with a rather limited membership). [I'm from the 11th generation, just for reference]
(The only really successful lobbying effort I can think of is the Green lobby. But this is a conspiracy of the poor against the rich. Just one year of BP's cashflow would be sufficient to acquire all three of the world's largest wind companies, and the ten largest solar players. So it's hardly evidence of the rich successfully buying the political system and twisting it in their favour.)
(I still bought a second hand BMW though...)
If I am running Google or Intel or Glaxo, why does the influx of cheap labour lessen the importance to me of innovation?
http://www.carmagazine.co.uk/ImgGalleryTn/4/65404/6027_12581.jpg
"To be fair to Twigg, it’s not his fault he hasn’t got a policy to speak of, and therefore no means of sensibly critiquing the Coalition’s. It’s common knowledge within the shadow cabinet that if he tried to come up with one, Ed Miliband would sack him. Or rather, Christine Blower of the NUT would be on the phone telling him to sack him. And Ed being Ed, he probably would."
http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/danhodges/100221432/you-show-me-your-education-policy-and-ill-show-you-mine-michael-gove-steals-diane-abbott-away-from-ed/
Constructive huh? Do you think Dave and Ed should do a swop with Ashcroft and Hodges?
(I assume something similar led to the UK's "light touch" regulation also.)
The tax regulations which allow companies to register their brand in a tax haven and then transfer their business profits to the tax haven by paying to use the brand.
I'm sure i could remember a few more if i put my mind to it.
So the employers gain and the workers gain, the ex-workers lose. Temporarily if an expanding economy is able to create employment opportunities for them and they are able to retrain to take them, permanently if not.
Replacing the existing workforce with a cheaper one doesn't increase productivity. But it does create a wealth transfer from the employees to the employers. In particular those employers which have most opportunities to enact this transfer of employees.
There are other issues as well at an national macroeconomic level.
He's identified a niche in the market, stamped his brand all over it, and now just keeps on churning out the same low cost product. Satisfies his target customers and they keep coming back for more. What's not to like about his business model?
If producers cut costs, consumers gain too.
http://www.acting-man.com/?p=24041#more-24041
On the markets, more down to come in the short term, but still one last high in the US around about 20th-25th July around the corner I think. Its still not time to turn mega-bearish just yet, patience, patience, patience!
http://www.pretzelcharts.com/2013/06/spx-and-bkx-no-material-change.html
Good night all.
There was a reason the North won the US civil war.
I think the origins of the financial crisis were two-fold: (1) allowing retail banks to gamble with money that was government guaranteed. And (2) a belief that house prices always rose, and therefore no amount of debt - so long as it was secured on a house - was excessive. The government had nothing (really) to do with the second, except in that it loosened explicit controls in the early 1980s. It was much more culpable in the first case, in that the Big Bang allowed financial markets firms (in particular stockbrokers) to be owned by corporations.
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0At91c3wX1Wu5dHBJLWkxVDlsdHZXMnFTQjNDUEE2MGc#gid=0
The name of the district, etc. in bold indicates that it shares the same boundaries as a parliamentary constituency. Unless I've missed any, this is the list of authorities in that category:
1. Chiltern / Chesham & Amersham
2. High Peak
3. Derbyshire South
4. Devon North
5. Castle Point
6. Hertsmere
7. Isle of Wight
8. Gravesham
9. Burnley
10.Pendle
11.Leicestershire North West
12.Great Yarmouth
13.Kettering
14.Mansfield
15.Taunton Deane
16.Cannock Chase
17.Spelthorne
18.Crawley
19.Bromsgrove
20.Worcester
21.Wyre Forest
22.Anglesey / Ynys Môn
2) Less need for innovation based competition in the industries they sell their services too.
Its a line we all recite but do any of us really believe it when we properly think about it.
Who are the PB commenters ?
A bunch of affluent, educated middle class Westerners.
And we're affluent, educated middle class Westerners mostly because of the fortune of our birth into affluent, educated, middle class Western families.
Give or take we hit the jackpot in life when we were born.
The problem is that being born into affluent, educated middle class Western families will no longer be enough to ensure an affluent, educated middle class western lifestyle for future generations.
And for those lower down the socioeconomic scale the difficulties increase.
Squeezing more and more people into more crowded living areas, with no open spaces and stressful commuting conditions, reduce the quality of life for the vast majority. Building small flats and houses en masse in already densly populated areas will just make things worse. People only look upwards in anger when they feel they are the only ones bearing the brunt of any pain during economic downturns. That's why lower income tax up to the average salary, a cap on energy and other utility bills, (sod green energy taxes), lower fuel costs via reduced petrol taxes, and similar ideas would go a long way to relieve the burden on the working masses. I don't think people are generally hung up about bosses pay or jealousy over the lifestyles of the rich. They just want less pressure on themselves and their families in hard times. The privitised utilities need stronger oversight, there are still too many monopolies that are distorting the market and ramping up prices. Some companies just have a license to print money.
Seeing everything through an East Germany circa 1970 style prism is not the solution. All parties should ignore the rich at the moment, concentrate efforts on the other workers in society. Stop bleeding, and allowing others to bleed people dry.
Total and utter cnuts like those who's destiny in life is to ease their own green conscience by grinding the average consumer down, whilst profiteering from lobbiyists etc are the true enemy. Hypocrisy will not be tolerated and examples should be made.
What we've had is a relative shift from production to consumption in Britain especially and the West generally.
The extra money needed to fund this being provided by debt.
The problems arise in those areas where the producers have a near monopoly and support from the state in upholding it.
Some parts of the public sector for example.
But, as a university student in the late 80's, I had real confidence in my country's governing class. Now, I don't. I don't know if they're merely incompetent or actively malevolent."
@Sean_F Back in the 80's we had four TV channels with allotted news programmes, radio and the dead tree press delivering our political news. You couldn't visit a site like PB to discuss the latest up to date 24 hour rolling news on digital channels, or turn on your twitter link to watch the Westminster Lobby or the general public openly mocking our politicians.
That confidence in our governing classes was less about them being more competent or less malevolent, and more about a time before the onset of the X Factor generation and explosion of the internet. At the end of the day, we get the politicians we deserve. Indeed, the country voted Blair back into Office despite Iraq and various other New Labour scandals.
http://www.economist.com/news/britain/21579000-britain-has-gangsters-it-deserves-not-police-it-needs-gangland-britain
"Trident, the Met’s anti-gang unit, estimates there are around 250 gangs in the capital alone, selling drugs, carrying out muggings and sometimes stabbing each other."
Pretty much only the BBC and the political class left to admit the problem exists.
LOL. You should copyright that.
Dan Hodges is a great example of wonderful British design.
He's identified a niche in the market, stamped his brand all over it, and now just keeps on churning out the same low cost product. Satisfies his target customers and they keep coming back for more. What's not to like about his business model?
(Agree with general point about Chinese riches through that era compared to Europe).
BTW, am starting to think that TIGER WOODS may be starting to shed some of his charisma. Just too much stupid, purely ego-driven drama. We've already got the Kardashians for that kind of bullcrappy.
Speaking of uberhype, Boston Patriots have just signed up Tiger's current girlfriend's ex-boyfriend, Tim Tebow.