by craig on January 26, 2015 in Uncategorized
The
entire purpose of this blog is to ask you to think outside the box. It
therefore cuts across the lines of dogma of any group, and is formed purely by
my own independent thought. As I have frequently stated, if anybody agrees with
every point I make, something is wrong.
This is going to annoy both left on
Greece and right on banks, and my own party on the SNP and Labour. Here goes.
The citizens of the United Kingdom
gave 45,000 pounds each, every man woman and child of them, direct to the
bankers in bailouts. We will be paying off that money in taxes – with vast sums
in interest to the same bankers, from whom we borrowed virtual money they did
not have, to give to them as real money – for generations to come. Quantitive
easing gives yet more money to the bankers, cash in place of risky bonds they
wish to dump.
When you add it all together
including interest, every man, woman and child in the UK will pay over 100,000
pounds each to the bankers, to bail out the bankers from the mess their own
extreme greed had created. Indeed it is possible to argue rationally that the
payment will be infinite, as the debt incurred will never be repaid but
continually rolled over, and interest payments continue.
We did not have to do this. We could
have let the bad banks go bust, started new ones, and boosted the economy by
spending just 20% of the money we have given the banks on crucially needed
public infrastructure works – railways, renewable energy, housing, insulation,
hospitals, schools etc. But Gordon Brown and New Labour decided just to give
money to the bankers instead.
In Greece, the people have actually
given much less to the bankers for bailout than people in the UK. It is
important to acknowledge that the causes of the Greek financial collapse are
different. Greece was rather a recipient of bad lending, a country which
received loans it could not possibly afford. Due to corrupt networks of elite
collusion embracing both government and private sector, much of this money was
simply siphoned out of the country into overseas accounts in London and Cyprus.
The British people are suffering from the banking collapse through being forced
to bail out the bankers. Greece is more in the position of somebody in a huge
house who could not afford the mortgage – except for the vital distinction that
all the people in Greece were paying the mortgage, but the large majority
living in sheds behind the mansion.
I welcome Syriza’s victory as an
indication that people are not content just to accept the narrative given them
by the mainstream media and the parties in the pocket of corporations. I hope
that they negotiate hard and force the banks to take a huge haircut on Greek
sovereign debt. I acknowledge their commitment to social justice. But I do hope
they will be realistic with both themselves and their people on the amount of
blood, sweat and tears that is going to need to go in to building a productive
Greek economy. An example of Keynesian stimulus is much needed by the rest of
Europe.
Gordon Brown’s bank bailout was
probably the biggest single gift any politician has ever given his corporate
masters in the entire history of the world. It is worth reminding ourselves
just how very right wing the Red Tories are. Not to mention the fact their
front bench remains littered with war criminals. I therefore have grave
reservations about Nicola Sturgeon’s weekend interview indication that the
People of Scotland want a Labour Government with SNP support. I don’t. I am not
going to elect somebody to represent me as chief bag carrier to a war criminal.
The SNP leadership remain infected by
managerialism. It is easy to convince yourself you are doing good things while
not changing anything fundamental, and at the same time building a very well
paid career and a personal powerbase. I don’t want devo-max, I don’t want more
powers, I don’t want something “as close to federalism as possible”. I want
freedom for my country. I want independence. I want to live in a country which
does not illegally invade other countries, collude in torture, carry out mass
surveillance of its citizens, or possess nuclear weapons. The idea of running
the Union a little bit better, making it a teeny bit more humane and competent,
does not interest me. Nor does dulling the edge of austerity, when it is going
to behead us anyway.
Besides which I am absolutely
convinced the Tories will win the election, which will make all this jostling
for position look rather foolish.
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