Cameron: "Cuts will change our way of life"

[RedRazor]

Just out of curiosity why is vat paid on energy. Isn't vat a tax on luxury items. Basic essentials should not have VAT on them. I wonder how much of every pound earned goes on tax. Income tax, council tax, road tax then the money you have left over you pay VAT on every item you buy on every bill you pay, Jesus fuck you even pay tax on savings which you already paid tax on when you got the money to save, then you die and pay inheritance tax. Shouldn't even pay vat at all the cheeky bastards.

... and I made the point about removing VAT on fuel bills about a thousand posts back so totally agree.

[Code]

[Skidfingers McGonical]

So energy companies are being pulled up by OfGen because their profit margins have apparently doubled in a year.

 

And we was wrong to call them on it eh.

[Phoenix]

http://www.theguardian.com/business/2013/oct/29/energy-firms-raised-prices-as-wholesale-costs-fall

 

Some of Britain's big six energy companies have seen their wholesale electricity costs fall over the last three years while still putting up prices for millions of households.

The figures will put yet more pressure on the firms to explain why bills and UK profits have been going up, as they appear before a influential House of Commons committee of MPs.

According to Ofgem, Npower paid an average of £59.61 per megawatt-hour for electricity in 2010. The average wholesale price fell by 4% to £57.32 in 2011 and rose by less than 2% to £58.39 in 2012. The company increased retail prices by 5.1%, 7.2% and 9.1% respectively in those years.

Similarly, EDF paid wholesale prices for electricity supplied to households of £58.16MWh in 2010, falling by 0.6% to £57.82 in 2011 and rising less than 5% to £60.68 in 2012. In those years EDF's electricity prices to customers went up by 7.5%, 4.5% and 10.8% respectively.

Meanwhile E.ON paid £57.64MWh for its electricity in 2010, rising by 7% to £61.82 in 2011 and falling by 4% to £59.44 in 2012. It raised its power prices twice by a cumulative 20% in 2011, before cutting them by 6% in 2012.

Asked why wholesale prices appeared to be out of kilter with increases in bills, companies said network and environmental costs had been the biggest factor in higher electricity bills, which are now around £600 a year on average. However, figures from Ofgem indicate electricity network costs have only risen by £10 in each of the last four years, while green costs are rising by a similar amount. Green and social levies make up £112, or less than 9%, of the average household energy bill.

With four of the big six – British Gas, Npower, Scottish Power and SSE – announcing big price rises in the last few weeks, the companies are under increasing pressure to justify the increases, after figures from the energy regulator suggested the profit margin made by the companies per household has more than doubled from £45 to £95 over the last year. Ofgem said wholesale energy costs have gone up by just £10 in a year, while VAT, operating and other costs are up £40. The energy companies dispute this analysis and point to higher wholesale costs this winter.

Downing Street yesterday said energy companies should account for the latest round of price rises, which have averaged 9% this autumn. Energy bill increases are continuing to cause a headache for the coalition, as a new YouGov poll shows 68% of the public believes Labour's energy price feeze is workable.

Caroline Flint, shadow energy secretary, called on the companies to "come clean about why they are imposing yet another round of inflation-busting price rises this winter, when they are already making huge profits".

"Revelations about rising profits and the growing gap between wholesale costs and household energy bills highlight why answers are needed," she said. Which?, the consumer group, yesterday called on the chancellor to tackle rising bills. The group said it wants the companies broken up and an end to the "blank cheque" of allowing energy companies to charge customers whatever they like for a government scheme to cut energy usage for poorer households.

Will Straw, associate director at of the IPPR thinktank, also questioned why the big six think "profits of 5% to 6% are acceptable in a competitive market".

"In 1998, as the market was liberalised, the regulator believed 1.5% was an adequate margin for energy suppliers. Profits in other sectors like supermarkets are as low as 2%."

Asked about the wholesale power prices, a spokesman for nPower pointed to comments by Paul Massara, its chief executive, who said earlier this year: "The main factor behind rising costs is government policy and regulation to fund this country's transition to a more efficient economy, with modern infrastructure and warm, insulated homes for all."

An EDF spokesman said wholesale energy costs have "not been the main driver of increases in prices". He added: "When we last raised our prices in December 2012 we made it clear that a major driver was the increases we were seeing in the charges for transmission and distribution of energy to our customers."

He also said EDF made no profit from supplying residential homes in the last three years and said it was impossible to do a "perfect match-back between the tariff increases and the year-on-year increase in costs".

A spokesman for E.ON acknowledged wholesale prices influenced its power prices but said "energy bills are about much more than just wholesale costs", with just over 2% accounting for profit.

In the House of Lords last night, Lord Jenkin condemned the energy "oligopoly" and tabled an amendment calling for greater competition.

Another amendment in favour of decarbonising all of Britain's electricity by 2030, tabled by Lord Oxburgh, a former chairman of Shell, narrowly failed to pass.

[Scooby Dudek]

The poor energy companies, it isn't their fault. I particularly like nPower quoting their own chief executive to justify their claims.

[Scooby Dudek]

 

 

Rich people don't create jobs.

[Dr Nowt]

To parphrase a much-told joke:

 

George Osbourne, a Daily Mail reader, and a benefits claimant are sitting at a table sharing a plate of 12 biscuits.

 

 

Gideon eats 11 of them, then says to the Daily Mail reader "Watch out for him - he wants your biscuit."

 

The good thing about it is, you can swap Gideon for Energy Company major shareholder and benefit claimant for Miliband, or similar principle, and it still works perfectly.

[Josef Svejk]

Will the Red Sox change our way of life?

[Creator Supreme]

I hope Grant Shapps gets boiled in his own piss. That is all.

[dennis tooth]

Iain Duncan Smith to stack all those shelves himself
31-10-13

THE Work and Pensions Secretary is to spend the next 4,570 nights stacking shelves at Poundland.

 

 

Following a High Court decision that making benefit claimants work for free is unlawful, Duncan Smith is being held personally liable to fulfil contracts made to supply labour.

His first shift began at Poundland in Newcastle-under-Lyme at 10pm yesterday evening, when Duncan Smith was handed a branded tabard and told to “guard it with his life”.

He was then given his first official caution of the night for leaving the Povvos Suck tattoo on his upper arm exposed.

Poundland employee Emma Bradford said: “He was caught curled up trying to sleep on a pallet of cat litter in the back, which is when the manager gave him his second caution.

“Then Iain got put on pricing, and if anything he was even more useless. He wouldn’t stop asking how much everything was.”

A tired-looking Duncan Smith told reporters: “It’s challenging but good breeding is on my side, giving me the height to reach even the top shelf on the notoriously demanding cereals aisle.

“And I categorically deny any suggestion that I was given my third caution at 6am been getting caught smoking a hash pipe with a security guard out by the bins.”

[dennis tooth]

Launchpad For A Revolution? Russell Brand, The BBC And Elite Power

By David Cromwell

When someone with interesting things to say is granted a high-profile media platform, it is wise to listen to what is being said and ask why they have been given such a platform. Comedian and actor Russell Brand's 10-minute interview by Jeremy Paxman on BBC's Newsnight last week was given considerable advance publicity and generated enormous reaction on social media and in the press, just as those media gatekeepers who selected Brand to appear would have wished.

The interview was hung on the hook of Brand's guest-editing of a special edition of New Statesman, the 'leftwing' weekly magazine owned by the multimillionaire Mike Danson. In a rambling 4500-word essay mixing political comment, spiritual insight, humour and trademark flowery wordplay, Brand called for a 'total revolution of consciousness and our entire social, political and economic system.'

'Apathy', he said, 'is a rational reaction to a system that no longer represents, hears or addresses the vast majority of people'. He rightly noted that the public is, however, 'far from impotent', adding:

'I take great courage from the groaning effort required to keep us down, the institutions that have to be fastidiously kept in place to maintain this duplicitous order.'

These were all good points. But one of these institutions, unmentioned even once in his long essay, is the BBC.

Last Wednesday, from the safe confines of the Newsnight studio, Jeremy Paxman introduced his Russell Brand interview in archetypal world-weary mode like some kind of venerable patrician inviting a precocious, innocent upstart to join an exalted circle, just for a few moments. Paxman began by characterising Brand's New Statesman essay as a 'combination of distaste for mainstream politics and overweening vanity'. A Newsnight professional then flicked a switch and the prepared interview ran, filmed in an anonymous luxury hotel room. Paxman's line of attack was that Brand couldn't 'even be arsed to vote'. It continued like this:

Jeremy Paxman: 'Well, how do you have any authority to talk about politics then?'

Russell Brand: 'Well I don't get my authority from this pre-existing paradigm which is quite narrow and only serves a few people. I look elsewhere for alternatives that might be of service to humanity. "Alternate" means alternative political systems.'

JP: [sceptical look] 'They being?'

RB: 'Well, I've not invented it yet, Jeremy. I had to do a magazine last week. I had a lot on my plate. But here's the thing it shouldn't do. Shouldn't destroy the planet. Shouldn't create massive economic disparity. Shouldn't ignore the needs of the people. The burden of proof is on the people with the power, not people doing a magazine.'

JP: 'How do you imagine that people get power?'

RB: 'Well, I imagine there are hierarchical systems that have been preserved through generations.'

JP: 'They get power by being voted in. You can't even be arsed to vote!'

RB: 'That's quite a narrow prescriptive parameter that change is within the...'

JP: 'In a democracy that's how it works.'

Of course, Paxman's establishment-friendly remarks may be attributed to playing devil's advocate. But it seems clear that Paxman really does believe we live in a functioning democracy. Certainly, the BBC man has an embarrassing faith in the good intentions of our leaders. In 2009 he commented of the Iraq war:

'As far as I personally was concerned, there came a point with the presentation of the so-called evidence, with the moment when Colin Powell sat down at the UN General Assembly and unveiled what he said was cast-iron evidence of things like mobile, biological weapon facilities and the like...

'When I saw all of that, I thought, well, "We know that Colin Powell is an intelligent, thoughtful man, and a sceptical man. If he believes all this to be the case, then, you know, he's seen the evidence; I haven't."

'Now that evidence turned out to be absolutely meaningless, but we only discover that after the event. So, you know, I'm perfectly open to the accusation that we were hoodwinked. Yes, clearly we were.'

It is indeed ironic, then, that the gullible Paxman should cast himself as a hard-bitten realist challenging a well-intentioned but naïve fantasist.

As we've noted before, the notion that we live in a proper democracy is a dangerous illusion maintained by a state-corporate media to which Paxman himself is a prominent contributor. Brand confronted Paxman directly about the limited choice of policies and politicians offered to the public:

'Aren't you bored? Aren't you more bored than anyone? You've been talking year after year, listening to their lies, their nonsense – then it's that one getting in, then it's that one getting in. But the problem continues. Why are we going to continue to contribute to this façade?'

But that was about as far as Brand went. He had nothing to say about the insidious role of the BBC in maintaining support for the crushing economic and political system that is, as Brand stated, destroying the planet, creating massive economic disparity and ignoring the needs of the people. By agreeing to enter the lion's den of a BBC interview, edited and packaged as a high-profile 10-minute segment on Newsnight, knowing that he would likely boost viewing figures amongst a target younger audience without drawing attention to these parameters, far less criticising them, Brand let a major component of state-corporate power off the hook. He effectively contributed to the illusion that the BBC is a level platform for reasoned, vigorous and wide-ranging debate on the most serious issues affecting people and planet.

This matters because, as we have noted before, the most effective propaganda systems provide opportunities for some dissent while the overwhelming pattern of media coverage strongly supports state-corporate aims. And the BBC, regarded by many people as the epitome of all that is good about Britain, is arguably the most powerful media institution in this equation. After all, the BBC is still the news source for the majority of the public, and thus the establishment-friendly window through which the population views domestic and world affairs. An opinion poll published in May 2013 showed that 58% of the British public regards the BBC as the most trustworthy news source, far higher than its closest rivals: ITV (14%), Sky News (6%), Channel 4 News (2%) and the Guardian (2%).

The irony is that Brand referred in the interview to the safety 'valves' that allow steam to be let off, keeping an unjust system in place. But he was only referring to recycling and driving 'greener' cars like the Prius which 'stop us reaching the point where you think it's enough now'. So when is it 'enough now' to draw attention to the destructive role played by powerful elite news media, most especially the BBC?

More than once, Brand backed off from putting Paxman and the BBC in the spotlight:

RB: 'The planet is being destroyed. We are creating an underclass. We are exploiting poor people all over the world. And the genuine legitimate problems of the people are not being addressed by our political class.'

JP: 'All of these things may be true...'

RB: [interjecting] 'They are true.'

JP: '... but you took – I wouldn't argue with you about many of them.'

RB: 'Well how come I feel so cross with you. It can't just be because of that beard. It's gorgeous!'

The trivial diversion to the topic of Paxman's beard meant that Brand's question, 'Well how come I feel so cross with you?' was left hanging in mid-air. This is the point where Brand could, and should, have gone on the offensive about Paxman's privileged position as a supposed fearless interrogator of power, the BBC man's connection with the British-American Project once described as a 'Trojan horse for US foreign policy', and then extending to a critique of the BBC itself. There is no shortage of examples of BBC propaganda that could have been raised.

None of that happened.

A Menagerie Of Mockers

Brand's espousal of popular views on Newsnight was sufficiently unsettling, however, that reactionary voices from the media class were quick to mock, denigrate or patronise him. Former Guardian journalist Jonathan Cook explained why this is the case:

'What indicates to me that Julian Assange, Glenn Greenwald and Russell Brand, whatever their personal or political differences, are part of an important social and ethical trend is the huge irritation they cause to the media class who have spent decades making very good livings being paid by the media corporations to limit our intellectual horizons.'

Tom Chivers, the assistant comment editor of the Daily Telegraph told his readers that Brand is an 'unnecessary revolutionary', and that basically the current system of capitalism works fine apart from a few 'pockets of regression, little eddies in the forward current'.

David Aaronovitch of The Times declared via Twitter:

'In what way was Russell Brand not an anarchist version of the maddest kind of UKIP supporter?'

and:

'If you're angry enough it absolves you from actually thinking anything through. That's what I got from the Brand interview on #newsnight'

Cook provided other early responses from 'Britain's elite journalists in Twitterland' which 'illustrated the general rancour they feel towards those who threaten to expose them as the charlatans they are.'

Media commentators continued to spring up to take a pop at Brand. Robin Lustig, who until last year presented The World Tonight on BBC Radio 4, asserted that Brand is 'not only daft but dangerous'. Lustig said dismissively of Brand:

'The truth is that he has nothing to contribute, other than the self-satisfied smirk of a man who knows he'll never go hungry or be without a home.'

Joan Smith exhorted Brand in the oligarch-owned Independent on Sunday:

'Go back to your lovely home in the Hollywood Hills and leave politics to people who aren't afraid of difficult ideas and hard work. You're one celebrity, I'm afraid, who's more idiot than savant.'

Just last month, Smith was bemoaning the MPs who had voted against a possible war on Syria or, as she called it, 'intervention on humanitarian grounds'. She had written:

'We believe in universal human rights; our laws, treaties and political leaders say so.'

To be this openly credulous, to declare a belief in something because 'our leaders say so', is a remarkable admission for an ostensible journalist.

Simon Kelner, editor-in-chief of the Independent newspapers, acknowledged that Brand 'articulates a strain of thinking among a growing number of young people'.

He added:

'there was just the sense, when Jeremy met Russell, that some of the old certainties may be shifting.'

True enough. But Kelner made sure his readers knew that Brand's call to overthrow the system of capitalism that is killing the planet is 'Spartist nonsense'.

In the Observer, pro-war commentator Nick Cohen even went as far as an insidious comparison between comedian Russell Brand and fascist dictator Benito Mussolini, and slyly suggested that Brand was calling for a violent revolution. Not true. Somehow Cohen had mangled Brand's peaceful call to 'direct our love indiscriminately.'

Cohen then added:

'artists have always made a show of being drawn towards fanaticism. Extremism is more exciting and dramatic, more artistic perhaps, than the shabby compromises and small changes of democratic societies.'

For Cohen, the 'shabby compromises' include neverending support for Britain's participation in bloody wars and violent 'interventions' in Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Yemen, Pakistan...


Back To The 1980s

When the media commentariat have to resort to smears and insults you can be sure that fear of the public is playing a part. Readers may feel, then, that we are being a tad harsh on Brand. Didn't he make many cogent points, and more than hold his own against Paxman, the BBC's famed rottweiler? Indeed, yes. Brand rightly pointed out that politicians are not taking the necessary action on pressing issues such as climate:

'They're not attempting to solve these problems. They're not. They're attempting to placate the population. Their measures that are currently being taken around climate change are indifferent, will not solve the problem.'

Adding later:

'What I'm saying is that within the existing paradigm, the change is not dramatic enough, not radical enough.'

But is this really any different from what environment and social justice campaigners have been saying for decades? Go back to the 1980s, and weren't we hearing the same thing from Jonathan Porritt and the Greens, Friends of the Earth, Greenpeace and other campaigners? In many media alerts over the years, such as here and here, we have pointed out that the corporate media has long suppressed, marginalised and diverted any radical challenges to the status quo. Campaigners and activists, of whatever hue and driven by whatever issue, can no longer ignore this crucial issue.

Even in Brand's 4500-word New Statesman piece, he had very little to say about the corporate media. There were two passing mentions of 'media', but no mentions of 'press', 'journalism' or 'television'. Perhaps we should not be surprised that the well-intentioned Brand, a former 'MTV journalist', presenter of Big Brother's Big Mouth and an actor in big-budget movies, should have a bit of a blind spot when it comes to the corporate media.

George Monbiot declared on Twitter, perhaps only with part of his tongue in cheek, that:

'The realisation that Russell Brand (@rustyrockets) is in fact the Messiah is disorienting on so many levels.'

Others applauding Brand on social media included Alain de Botton and Jemima Khan. But few prominent supporters of Brand's 'revolution', if any, have said anything that is genuinely critical of elite power; especially of the corporate media, including the BBC. We have, for example, discussed de Botton's corporate-sponsored 'branded conversations' here.

It is understandable that there was much praise for Russell Brand's Newsnight interview and New Statesman essay. To a large extent, this signifies the desperation of people to hear any challenge to the power-protecting propaganda that we are force-fed every day. But two crucial factors here are that Brand was selected to appear by media gatekeepers; and that media institutions, notably the BBC, escaped serious scrutiny. If Brand was a serious threat to the broadcaster's projected image as a beacon of impartiality, he would not have been chosen.

Noam Chomsky has a cautionary note on high-profile exposure in the corporate media:

'If I started getting public media exposure', he once said, 'I'd think I were doing something wrong. Why should any system of power offer opportunities to people who are trying to undermine it? That would be crazy.'

Given all that, how likely is it that the BBC would really provide a launchpad for a revolution?

[Bobby Hundreds]

I'm not quite sure what they expect from brand, he is a comedian actor who was asked to edit the new statesman. He accepted an interview to talk about it I'm pretty sure he didn't think he would be expected to solve all the worlds problems and bring down the bbc. Maybe the journalist who wrote the article should invent utopia and bash the established media..

 

All brand did was voice his utter dispair at how the system is being run now and he's right its totally been corrupted. Take iain Duncan smith and his crusade against scroungers he was proud the half blind half deaf half paralysed brian mcardle died the day after he was told he was fit for work he said he was proud fuck the scrounging bastards, this pathological liar iain Duncan smith! who pretty much made up his whole CV has the temerity to call those without scroungers for claiming what they legally can into a system they and their family have all paid into for decades. He fucking claimed expenses for underwear and he talks of people taking the piss, he gets subsidies from the EU of upto 2 million pound a year of taxpayers money for the upkeep of his land. He is rich married to a baron and baroness's daughter yet he still claims for everyfucking little thing he can. He's a leech and he condemns people to death or to work for the benefits they have already paid for whilst he takes the cream right from the top. The system would work but the psychopaths have taken over it and its going to get worse and worse.

 

This work scheme to work for benefit its utterly disgusting. No business should be allowed to take part, you have councils laying off staff and then taking on people from these schemes so they don't have to pay. They are taking away all our rights as workers as human beings. If the aim is to get people into the habit of getting out their houses and working then have them work on community projects, for charity or bettering themselves. Don't give employers the right to slave labour because it will set the trend even further. They want a giant underclass, they want absolute poverty it makes them sick how much of their profit has to go on wages. why pay the peasants.

[Scooby Dudek]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bf013ID8lCE

 

 

From 2:30 in, interesting (obvious) points about Benefit payments.

[Phoenix]

[lifetime fan]

Benefit delays 'hit hundreds of terminally ill patients'

7 hours ago

 

The charity says changes have left cancer patients with no income

Hundreds of terminally ill cancer patients face waiting weeks and months for their income support because of a new payments system, a leading charity has warned.

 

Macmillan Cancer Support described the situation as "appalling".

 

Government attempts to simplify the system mean payments that previously took eight to 10 days are now taking eight to 10 weeks, the charity said.

 

The Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) questioned Macmillan's figures.

 

'Survive on nothing'

 

A new system for disability benefit claimants was introduced in April. Personal Independence Payments (PIPs) are replacing the Disability Living Allowance (DLA) in what ministers say is a simplification of the system.

 

But Macmillan say early indications from their advisers working in hospitals and citizens advice bureaux are that the changes have left hundreds without support.

 

Keith Boyd, who was diagnosed with terminal cancer in May, told the BBC the delay made him feel "like a second-class citizen".

 

Mr Boyd said he waited three months without income after applying for support - despite his doctor saying he should be a priority.

 

"People were telling me I was entitled to this benefit but nobody was paying it... If you had children and you were trying to survive on nothing, I don't know how you would do it."

 

'No commitment'

 

But a spokeswoman for the DWP said under the new PIPs, terminally ill cancer patients were "fast-tracked" and that under the previous system claimants had to fill in a 40-page form.

 

She said there were no "robust statistics" to back-up Macmillan's claim that the change had caused delays for hundreds.

 

"Macmillan aren't comparing like with like as DLA and PIP are completely different benefits with different claim processes.

 

"[The charity has] acknowledged that improvements in the system have been made since the new benefit was introduced in April and we continue to work with them to further streamline the process."

 

Macmillan's director of policy and research Mike Hobday told BBC Radio 4's Today programme: "The principle of a fast-track process for terminally ill patients... is still there but the fact that the processing time has gone from eight-to-10 days to eight-to-10 weeks really is appalling."

 

He said the charity was talking to DWP officials about the delays but added there was "no sign of a commitment to what the timescale should be".

 

Claims from other terminally ill patients without cancer who qualify for the enhanced PIP rate are also "fast-tracked" and do not require a face-to-face consultation, the DWP says.

[Faustus]

Bobby Hundreds, that's a brilliant post.

 

With what Brand has said, it's as if people have been brainwashed into the 'people died for the right the vote' line and have let that cloud whatever else he's said. Don't get me wrong I actually I agree that since people did die for the right to vote, that everyone should even if it is to deliberately spoil their vote (which I think would send a greater message than apathy), but it's as if everything else he said should be discarded because of that. He actually made some great points about the shifting of perspectives in party politics towards the centre so, as Chomsky said, anything beyond that is deemed as radical and dangerous.

 

Look at Milliband's statement at the Labour party conference. 'Red Ed' and all that shit because he talked about capping energy prices. What a loud of shite- you talk to people and they'd go a lot further; renationalise the whole fucking lot would be a vote winner, I imagine.

 

The whole system disgusts me at the minute, from people who danced on Thatcher's grave without knowledge or awareness of what she did with regards to what she did to their attitudes towards individualism, mass consumerism or even people who happen to be seeking one shitty job having left another, to those who simply say "Politics? Booooooring?"

 

I'm not denying that party politics is dull as fuck, but surely people have to wake up and realise that there has to be an option beyond Tory grey-coloured shite and Labour brown-coloured shite?

 

I even had an exchange earlier this week with the dad of a Tory cabinet minister who suggested that those striking uni staff were 'militant' because they had the temerity to turn down a 1% pay rise. "Isn't it enough? Everyone else is having to tighten their belts." Yeah, because the private sector has been content to accept shovelled shite for years on end, rather than demand an alternative. Shame on those for wanting enough to live on when everything else is rising out of control!

 

I fucking despise the Tory party with every fibre of my being. Labour of the 1990's and beyond aren't too far behind.

[Phoenix]

Guess MPs dont have to worry about the energy prices when they can claim the cost on expenses.

 

http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/house-shame-340-mps-energy-2671053

[Rotpeter]

Guess MPs dont have to worry about the energy prices when they can claim the cost on expenses.

 

http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/house-shame-340-mps-energy-2671053

Nothing unites the left and right like a good expenses fiddle.

[Scooby Dudek]

They only claim because their wages are so low and they have to have second homes

[Red Phoenix]

Here's a "hairbrained" idea that people like Cameron and Osborne should love :

 

The owners of a company/corporation are often the 'ideas', and the workers who create the products/deliver the service are the 'action' that turn those ideas into reality. So without the ideas the action has no direction, but without the action the ideas are useless. So the profits should be shared, and if the 'idea' creators are making ever growing and stupid amounts of profit while the other workers are scraping around just to survive, that should be illegal. There should be a set minimum profit sharing percentage at all places of work, defined by law.

 

Just waiting for Miliband to suggest it now. Ah right, he probably doesn't give a fuck and is just pretending to care so his party can be the next ones to fleece everyone but the elite. Something a lot closer to socialism seems to be the answer, and what we currently have is a piece of shit.

[Bobby Hundreds]

They slam people on minimum wage who have luxuries like an iphone. If some one has a mobile on the dole they don't ask if the contract was taken whilst they were in work they're condemned already. Yet somehow they feel their wages are not things to be spent on bills and such, buying food is a work expense paying your bills is a work expense buying a fucking duckhouse and underpants is something the taxpayer should pay for. Shit the new deputy house speaker used taxpayer money to do up her second home which she then sold for a million pound profit. They are fucking pigs feeding at the trough yet they create this idea its the poorest in society who are the cause of it all, stupid bastards jump on the bandwagon and believe them.

 

Its like a mafia has infiltrated the idea they all put on a facade and throw contradicting information so everyone is confused. One paper says there's growth in the economy another says pensioners welfare to be lowered huge cuts and selling off of state services... So the growth isn't a growth they have just took taxpayers money and propped up another area such as the housing the help to buy Ponzi scheme. Benefits for people who want to buy a 600 thousand pound house. The banks must be making a killing. Were fucked under conservative 100 percent fucked and I reckon we are pretty fucked under labour too, we'd be dead with ukip a fucking disaster. There's pretty much no way out.

[Red Phoenix]

There's pretty much no way out.

 

I think there's quite a few ways out actually : raising awareness until enough realize that some action has to be taken, bringing the country to a standstill apart from services that are needed, politicians and corporate bosses being exposed for corruption, targetting specific corporations and boycotting them until they either change or are rendered obsolete, etc, etc. The only issue is that it often requires big parts of the population for these things to work, and persistence, and we're currently so distracted and/or divided that it's not clear if we're ever going to manage that. Clearly the media being so corrupt only makes the problems worse, because when people do take action they serve to create division, but something must change eventually.

 

After all, if everyone across the world decided they'd truly had enough, every corrupt government across the planet would be out of power inside 24 hours. It's that power that we have that they're scared of, and they should be. If they're going to manipulate us like this they should expect fear, because what they're doing is so clearly wrong.

 

I don't ever think violence is right and would never support it, but even without it, there's plenty of ways of getting these current idiots either out of power, or to start making the changes that are needed. Its clearly going to take time though if it does ever happen.

[Stickman]

Guess MPs dont have to worry about the energy prices when they can claim the cost on expenses.

 

http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/house-shame-340-mps-energy-2671053

Biggest money grabbing spongers in the country but you can't call them it as they have some mealy mouthed excuse for it.

[Strontium]

Here's a "hairbrained" idea that people like Cameron and Osborne should love :

 

The owners of a company/corporation are often the 'ideas', and the workers who create the products/deliver the service are the 'action' that turn those ideas into reality. So without the ideas the action has no direction, but without the action the ideas are useless. So the profits should be shared, and if the 'idea' creators are making ever growing and stupid amounts of profit while the other workers are scraping around just to survive, that should be illegal. There should be a set minimum profit sharing percentage at all places of work, defined by law.

 

Just waiting for Miliband to suggest it now. Ah right, he probably doesn't give a fuck and is just pretending to care so his party can be the next ones to fleece everyone but the elite. Something a lot closer to socialism seems to be the answer, and what we currently have is a piece of shit.

Ah, Labour Theory of Value, it always seems to come back to this.

 

I'd be surprised if Miliband suggested anything like that as he's not a 19th century Marxist economist.

[Red Phoenix]

Ah, Labour Theory of Value, it always seems to come back to this.

 

I'd be surprised if Miliband suggested anything like that as he's not a 19th century Marxist economist.

 

Of course he isn't, and it probably always comes back to this for good reason. I don't see what's wrong with applying Marxian economics. Of course it isn't easy to apply it in today's world, but plenty of people would suggest that that's by design and not a random occurance. Am wondering if it's even possible to suggest those types of ideas nowadays without some media shills bringing up Stalin, as if what he did has anything to do with the idea of workers being paid and treated properly. In time, maybe those useful idiots will finally fall by the wayside, or start waking up instead.