No Wonder We Are Feeling Vexed Lately

A number of items have caught my attention in these last few days. Things which have strengthened my belief that we are expected to line up quietly, while the economic and political elite, spit on us.

Energy giant, NPower are accused of not paying corporation tax for three years running, despite a 9% price rise and a 34% increase in profits.
The other energy firms have been paying out "fat cat" bonuses totalling £5 million.
Meanwhile, more than 24% of the UK population are officially living in energy poverty.
NPower have used the investment in future energy resources, as the reason for ducking the tax bill. It is standard accounting practise apparently.
I might be swayed if they were investing in our future with philanthropic motives, but they're not. They are investing so that the directors can get bigger bonuses and shareholders can get higher dividends.
Who said that firms who invest in future energy infrastructure, should be able to offset their tax liability?
I bet whoever it was is not sitting in a cold, dark room right now.

Chairman of food giant, Nestle, Peter Brabeck-Letmathe, calls for water to be privatised and says that the idea of water as a basic human right, is an extreme view.
Nestle is the worlds largest food company and 27th largest company. It employs 270,000 people directly.
As Chairman of this organisation, Brabeck-Letmathe, could be said to be at the very top of the food chain. According to Darwin, this guy should be some kind of superhuman but all I see is a sociopath, someone who cannot empathise with the people in Brazil, who's water supply is destroyed so that Nestle can sell it to rich westerners, or those children who process cocoa, who are forced to work in conditions that Brabeck-lemathe wouldn't allow his dog to endure.

The actions of NPower executives, Nestle fat cats, and the governments that allow them to operate with impunity, have not gone unnoticed.

There is an answer to all this. Simply stop playing the game. The whole merry go round relies on our cooperation.

The Housing Benefit Bill Will Be Higher After Bedroom Tax

Frank Field recently pointed out, that the bedroom tax will ultimately cost the government more in housing benefit than at present.
Because of the shortage of suitable council properties, families who need to downsize in order to receive full housing benefit, will be forced to rent privately.
As private rents are usually much higher than for council properties, the overall housing benefit bill will ultimately rise, despite an initial saving.

The great council house sell off has resulted in (according to the Daily Mirror last week) 70% of ex-council homes ending up in the hands of private landlords. We are now reaping the consequences in welfare terms.

There can be no way to allow aggressive capitalism to bring suffering and deprivation to the population, unless there is still the underlying belief in "Social Darwinism"
This philosophy is ingrained into the subconscious of western thought due to its excessive promotion by the Royal Society and those merchants who were offered a degree of scientific legitimacy through its precepts.

We need to astablish a code of common decency. If business adopted a fair appproach to social issues, the government would not have to stump up to redress the inequalities that result from it.

It reads like a page from the humanist manifesto doesnt it?
Strange that, because my personal understanding is that there is a sinister side to humanism.

Do you know who lives in your neigbourhood?

Cyber terrorism is on the increase. Recent hacks have proved that the systems we rely on for our daily surf, e-mail etc are highly vulnerable.
We are fools if we believe that access to the Internet will still be available, in the midst of serious civil unrest.
So who are your on line buddies? do you have their names and addresses? Phone numbers? Probably not.
You are going to feel awful lonely when the net gets turned off. Nothing is designed to cause widespread confusion more than a shut down of communication channels. Apart from not knowing how your friends and family are, you will lose touch with the common consensus (to the extent that we are able to know it via the web) The mainstream media will be our only source of news. How frightening! but do not worry, it matters little what they want you to know as long as you don't believe it.
For example, need to know the weather? Look outside. How high is inflation? Go shopping, you will find out soon enough. The problem is that we have stopped (or never learnt in the first place) thinking for ourselves. We have become conditioned to roll over to the collective knowledge of society, without realising that, society doesn't really know anything apart from what it is told is the truth. This is invariably not the truth at all.
Mostly, what we are told in place of truth, results in someone, or some organisation, making profit. Look at the way that government think tanks have industry insiders insinuated into them so that they and up preferring the profitable course of business rather than that which is best for the public.
Its shameful that government have allowed this state of affairs to come about while, all along, pretending to represent the people.

So...  get to know your neighbours. Help them out with their garden if you can, Fill in a form for them if you are good with that type of stuff.
Just talk to them. You may find that they can sew up your son's school trousers or have some other amazing skill.
It may transpire that you and they, will be working together to overcome some serious obstacles one day. Its good to know who they are in advance.

Adam Smith's Invisible Hand

Economist, Adam Smith's "Invisible hand of God" wasn't just invisible, it was never there in the first place.
As famous quotations go, it is as appropriate as, "Just like That" or ,"Now you see it, now you don't",  sayings which could easily sum up the sentiments of those who's wealth "disappeared", as if by magic at the sleight hands of Smith's Laissez Faire economic theory.

Smith did espouse altruism but it appears to have been discarded in the rush to own everything in the world.
Some reports, like this one, which suggests that those who died in the Irish potato famine, were a result of the British government's strict adherence to Laissez faire policy, rather than crop failure which was widespread throughout Europe at the time, do not convey any sense of compassion whatsoever.

I'm not knocking free enterprise but rather, the absence of responsibility whereby the less fortunate, suffer as a consequence of commerce. It is a lack of personal accountability that is the problem.
The irony is that those who benefit most from free market economics are also the most tax efficient, leaving the burden of taxation, squarely on the shoulders of the working class.

Socialism is an evil, made necessary by the greed of unscrupulous merchants, many of whom, would in any other walk of life be possibly regarded as sociopaths.

The existence of these two systems of government side by side, has created a false dichotomy, a dialectic through which "Big Business" has been able to strengthen and consolidate it's position in  government and society.

Bedroom Tax in Chaos?

According to saturday's Mirror, the Bedroom Tax is in trouble.

A judge had ordered that two severely disabled children should not have to sleep in the same room. The same is true if one of the children requires through the night care. It might transpire that many families with disabled children may be eligible for FULL housing benefit and council tax benefit, including the repayment of any arrears.
Families with children who may fall into this category, will have to present their case to the local authority, who at this point in time, have no idea of how to make the assessments needed.

This system, which has cost millions to implement, is showing signs of being unworkable.

The new Universal Tax Credit system is the same. It may prove an expensive mistake, in that the cost of implementation, including social costs, may exceed the savings made.

The system appears to be "Hamstrung" by political correctness. It all comes down to who is deemed to have the greater right.
In the case of the Bedroom Tax. The disabled children were considered to have more rights to a decent nights sleep, than the government's rights to deprive them of benefit.

Every one has rights, some more than others, but what of the right to be right? As Phillip E Johnson points out, that's when we hear the grand, Sez who?"

57 Bedroom Tax protests this Saturday throughout the UK



A series of protests against the "bedroom Tax"were organised via Facebook yesterday.

Its remarkable how social networks play a part in mobilising protests. We all saw how Facebook and Twitter were instrumental in the Arab Spring uprisings, particularly in Egypt, where the networks were closed down in an effort to thwart demonstrators.

While the people of Egypt, have a right to dislike, even detest, the tyranny under which they live, that discontent was very effectively harnessed by NGOs which were connected with western intelligence services.
Probably the most obvious of these organisations was "Freedom House", which ran courses designed to equip young Egyptian activists in the effective use of social networks to organise demonstrations.

In a Freedom House article entitled, “New Generation of Advocates: Empowering Civil Society in Egypt,” It stated that:

Egyptian visiting fellows from all civil society groups received unprecedented attention and recognition, including meetings in Washington with U.S. Secretary of State, the National Security Advisor and prominent members of Congress. In the words of Condoleezza Rice, the fellows represent the “hope for the future of Egypt.”

Freedom House fellows acquired skills in civic mobilization, leadership, and strategic planning, and benefit from networking opportunities through interaction with Washington-based donors, International organizations and the media. After returning to Egypt, the fellows received small grants to implement innovative initiatives such as advocating for political reform through Facebook and SMS messaging.

It seems that this article is no longer available. They were found out. Egypt court adjourns trial of 'US spies' to April

The Bedroom Tax demonstrations share a common element with the Egyptian revolt. It is the discontent of the people, being harnessed or even hijacked by big organisations with an agenda.

So what do we do? If we sit and do nothing, we are walked all over by self serving politicians, if we protest, we fulfil the agenda of another set of self serving politicians. They may even be the same lot.

Here is a suggestion. The real battle is for your attitude. This is the key area in which it is determined where you stand on everything.
I say that part of the answer is to ease off, on the concept that, "Freedom" is a licence to live in utter selfishness.

Red Nose Day: The Caring face of Communitarianism

I can't take Red Nose Day seriously any more. Here is why.

In relation to projects in Britain, people are giving money to help socially disadvantaged individuals who should be supported through the taxation system. instead of out tax pennies going into the bottomless pit of failed bank's balance sheets.
The gradual removal of the welfare system causes more domestic hardship, particularly those who are seriously ill, having benefits stopped by ATOS, than can ever be cured by buying red noses. And we are meant to feel guilty that we should be helping  more, when in reality, our government is "rolling us over".

The other side of Red Nose Day which deals with the plight of people in the "Third world", really hits the "guilt button" because was are mostly sitting in comfortable houses watching extreme poverty on flat screen TVs while we enjoy tea and biscuits.

As individuals, we are not responsible for the plight of the starving nations.
Collectively, we have a responsibility, but when our government decides to spend the aid budget on "peacekeeping", IE tanks and soldiers, I get the impression that those who really need the help, are unlikely to get it.

The ones who are able to fix this mess, are the ones who caused it. Criminals from the worlds of business and government. I say criminals because they lie and cheat, they steal, and even kill, by their actions.

The way I see it, this farce is one of the caring faces of Communitarianism,  Big Society, Political Correctness, Transformational Marxism, Common Purpose. or whatever you wish to call it.

Tragedy and Hope

I just discovered that a new PDF version of Quigley's classic "Tragedy and Hope", is available for free download HERE Follow the link and be sure to download a copy to your computer in case it disappears again.

 

Here is an excerpt from the introduction by Michael L Chadwick.

 

 

"Tragedy and Hope: A History of the World in Our Time was published in 1966 and is

clearly one of the most important books ever written. Professor Quigley was an

extraordinarily gifted historian and geo-political analyst. The insights and information

contained in his massive study open the door to a true understanding of world history in

the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. In fact, if the scholar, student, businessman,

businesswoman, government official and general reader has not thoroughly studied

Tragedy and Hope there is no way they can understand the nineteenth and twentieth

centuries. It is a work of exceptional scholarship and is truly a classic. The author should

have received a Nobel Prize for his work".