Cameron: "Cuts will change our way of life"

[Rushies tash]

That's the thing though isn't it - it's not actually anyone's doorway, it looks like a service entrance to some office block. Or a dry sheltered place for the night for someone with fuck all.

Turns out they were flats after all. My bad. Still sends out a damning message as to the way our society is headed. Even Boris wants them removed.

 

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-27760215

 

Thousands of people have signed a petition urging the mayor to remove studs that are meant to repel rough sleepers from a block of flats.

 

Residents at the private flats on Southwark Bridge Road, south London, say they appeared a few weeks ago after someone had been sleeping rough there.

 

The homelessness charity Crisis has called them brutal.

 

London Mayor Boris Johnson has called on the developer to remove the studs immediately.

 

Southwark Council said it was aware of the concerns and would look into any health and safety or planning issues.

 

'Ugly and stupid'

The company that manages the flats has not yet explained why they put them in.

 

The petition has been signed by more than 4,000 people.

 

The mayor's spokesman said: "The mayor believes these spikes are ugly, self defeating and stupid.

 

"Southwark Council are investigating, which is the right thing to do, but the mayor is clear: the developer should see sense and remove the spikes immediately.

 

"There are far better ways to tackle rough sleeping on London's streets."

 

'Wrong' message

Homeless charities say the studs, which are a few centimetres tall, are "inhumane".

 

Katharine Sacks-Jones from Crisis said: "For the last three years in London we've seen a 75% increase in rough sleeping because of a lack of affordable housing and cuts to benefits.

 

"They're the issues we need to tackle, not putting studs in the pavement, which will do nothing to help people out of homelessness."

 

One resident, Sandra Kyle, said: "The first time I saw someone lying here, I didn't like it as I didn't like having to walk by them - that sounds very selfish - but when I saw those studs, I thought what a good idea."

 

However her husband Trevor Kyle, who works in a nearby shelter, said: "A lot of them are my friends and it's almost harmful - if you lie on those you're going to get spiked and it sends out that message, which I think is wrong."

[Skidfingers McGonical]

[KMD7]

http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/jun/09/french-public-debt-audit-illegitimate-working-class-internationalim

 

As history has shown, France is capable of the best and the worst, and often in short periods of time.

On the day following Marine Le Pen's Front National victory in the European elections, however, France made a decisive contribution to the reinvention of a radical politics for the 21st century. On that day, the committee for a citizen's audit on the public debt issued a 30-page report on French public debt, its origins and evolution in the past decades. The report was written by a group of experts in public finances under the coordination of Michel Husson, one of France's finest critical economists. Its conclusion is straightforward: 60% of French public debt is illegitimate.

Anyone who has read a newspaper in recent years knows how important debt is to contemporary politics. As David Graeber among others has shown, we live in debtocracies, not democracies. Debt, rather than popular will, is the governing principle of our societies, through the devastating austerity policies implemented in the name of debt reduction. Debt was also a triggering cause of the most innovative social movements in recent years, the Occupy movement.

If it were shown that public debts were somehow illegitimate, that citizens had a right to demand a moratorium – and even the cancellation of part of these debts – the political implications would be huge. It is hard to think of an event that would transform social life as profoundly and rapidly as the emancipation of societies from the constraints of debt. And yet this is precisely what the French report aims to do.

The audit is part of a wider movement of popular debt audits in more than 18 countries. Ecuador and Brazil have had theirs, the former at the initiative of Rafael Correa's government, the latter organised by civil society. European social movements have also put in place debt audits, especially in countries hardly hit by the sovereign debt crisis, such as Greece and Spain. In Tunisia, the post-revolutionary government declared the debt taken out during Ben Ali's dictatorship an "odious" debt: one that served to enrich the clique in power, rather than improving the living conditions of the people.

The report on French debt contains several key findings. Primarily, the rise in the state's debt in the past decades cannot be explained by an increase in public spending. The neoliberal argument in favour of austerity policies claims that debt is due to unreasonable public spending levels; that societies in general, and popular classes in particular, live above their means.

This is plain false. In the past 30 years, from 1978 to 2012 more precisely, French public spending has in fact decreased by two GDP points. What, then, explains the rise in public debt? First, a fall in the tax revenues of the state. Massive tax reductions for the wealthy and big corporations have been carried out since 1980. In line with the neoliberal mantra, the purpose of these reductions was to favour investment and employment. Well, unemployment is at its highest today, whereas tax revenues have decreased by five points of GDP.

The second factor is the increase in interest rates, especially in the 1990s. This increase favoured creditors and speculators, to the detriment of debtors. Instead of borrowing on financial markets at prohibitive interest rates, had the state financed itself by appealing to household savings and banks, and borrowed at historically normal rates, the public debt would be inferior to current levels by 29 GDP points.

Tax reductions for the wealthy and interest rates increases are political decisions. What the audit shows is that public deficits do not just grow naturally out of the normal course of social life. They are deliberately inflicted on society by the dominant classes, to legitimise austerity policies that will allow the transfer of value from the working classes to the wealthy ones.

A sit-in called by Occupy France at La Défense business district in Paris. Photograph: Afp/AFP/Getty Images

A stunning finding of the report is that no one actually knows who holds the French debt. To finance its debt, the French state, like any other state, issues bonds, which are bought by a set of authorised banks. These banks then sell the bonds on the global financial markets. Who owns these titles is one of the world's best kept secrets. The state pays interests to the holders, so technically it could know who owns them. Yet a legally organised ignorance forbids the disclosure of the identity of the bond holders.

This deliberate organisation of ignorance – agnotology – in neoliberal economies intentionally renders the state powerless, even when it could have the means to know and act. This is what permits tax evasion in its various forms – which last year cost about €50bn to European societies, and €17bn to France alone.

Hence, the audit on the debt concludes, some 60% of the French public debt is illegitimate.

An illegitimate debt is one that grew in the service of private interests, and not the wellbeing of the people. Therefore the French people have a right to demand a moratorium on the payment of the debt, and the cancellation of at least part of it. There is precedent for this: in 2008 Ecuador declared 70% of its debt illegitimate.

The nascent global movement for debt audits may well contain the seeds of a new internationalism – an internationalism for today – in the working classes throughout the world. This is, among other things, a consequence of financialisation. Thus debt audits might provide a fertile ground for renewed forms of international mobilisations and solidarity.

This new internationalism could start with three easy steps.

1) Debt audits in all countries

The crucial point is to demonstrate, as the French audit did, that debt is a political construction, that it doesn't just happen to societies when they supposedly live above their means. This is what justifies calling it illegitimate, and may lead to cancellation procedures. Audits on private debts are also possible, as the Chilean artist Francisco Tapia has recently shown by auditing student loans in an imaginative way.

2) The disclosure of the identity of debt holders

A directory of creditors at national and international levels could be assembled. Not only would such a directory help fight tax evasion, it would also reveal that while the living conditions of the majority are worsening, a small group of individuals and financial institutions has consistently taken advantage of high levels of public indebtedness. Hence, it would reveal the political nature of debt.

3) The socialisation of the banking system

The state should cease to borrow on financial markets, instead financing itself through households and banks at reasonable and controllable interest rates. The banks themselves should be put under the supervision of citizens' committees, hence rendering the audit on the debt permanent. In short, debt should be democratised. This, of course, is the harder part, where elements of socialism are introduced at the very core of the system. Yet, to counter the tyranny of debt on every aspect of our lives, there is no alternative.

[Section_31]

Yes yes, but the French are an economic basket case, unlike Britain which is built on firm foundations like an inflated housing market and coffee shops.

 

France is like Greece, where people retire at 23 and sleep for four months of the year.

 

The real model to aspire to is China, where, unknown to many, tank man didn't die at the hands of the authorities but poured hia entrepreneurial dynamism into starting a fake swizzels factory.

[Jairzinho]

Scary how right wing a lot of the comments below the article are.

[KMD7]

Scary how right wing a lot of the comments below the article are.

 

 

It  really is.  I'm no economist but the article makes perfect sense to me.

[Section_31]

I often wonder just how much wealth there is among young people, as opposed to debt.

 

When I drive through the upmarket suburbs of a town or city I always just assume there's nobody living there under 40.

 

Most people who own a house of any description are often sibsidised heavily by their parents, likewise so are students. That generation was the last to have real wealth in my opinion, to have the wage, pension and job security to build their own wealth.

 

People live above their means like never before (I wonder how many students would recognise the digs in The Young Ones these days) because everyone is encouraged to spend, but there's nothing going in the top, it's all just coming out the bottom.

 

Society wants us to spend but won't give us the money to do it, so we have to find means fair or foul and the price will come further down the line, as it did before.

[Bobby Hundreds]

Face it its all completely fucked for the majority of us and its only going to get worse. Super duper smiley face.

 

I seen they are increasing the fine for speeding on the motorway to 10 grand and the fine for no tv license is going up to 4 grand. I just don't see how fines like that are justice, to some people 10 grand fine is nothing, a pain in the arse but won't have a huge impact for many more it would totally destroy them not just the person who went over the limit but the entire family of the person involved. That's not an even hand to me. The whole fine shit annoys me anyway the police and the courts seem to be entirely about collecting debt for a mafia government. Some old pensioner got twatted and the lad gets 3 months but if he hasnt got a tv license the fucker would of got a 10 grand fine.

 

It seems bananas at a time when people are on the bones of the arse, I know the idea is don't speed then but everybody goes over sometimes even if its absent minded you look down and your a few miles over. As for the tv license fuck that shit the whole thing should be scrubbed what am I paying for a few fucking wildlife documentaries and a right wing bias piece of shit. Fuck your eastenders and country file bollocks.

[Jairzinho]

Face it its all completely fucked for the majority of us and its only going to get worse. Super duper smiley face.

 

I seen they are increasing the fine for speeding on the motorway to 10 grand and the fine for no tv license is going up to 4 grand. I just don't see how fines like that are justice, to some people 10 grand fine is nothing, a pain in the arse but won't have a huge impact for many more it would totally destroy them not just the person who went over the limit but the entire family of the person involved. That's not an even hand to me. The whole fine shit annoys me anyway the police and the courts seem to be entirely about collecting debt for a mafia government. Some old pensioner got twatted and the lad gets 3 months but if he hasnt got a tv license the fucker would of got a 10 grand fine.

 

It seems bananas at a time when people are on the bones of the arse, I know the idea is don't speed then but everybody goes over sometimes even if its absent minded you look down and your a few miles over. As for the tv license fuck that shit the whole thing should be scrubbed what am I paying for a few fucking wildlife documentaries and a right wing bias piece of shit. Fuck your eastenders and country file bollocks.

 

Why? They don't give a fuck. They fucking hate you, Bobby.

[Bobby Hundreds]

Everybody hates me, my missus has put homeless studs on my side of the bed.

[Nelly-Szoboszlai]

Everybody hates me, my missus has put homeless studs on my side of the bed.

That is bad!

 

What are their names?

[Stu Monty]

Fines like that aren't justice. They aren't meant to be. They're just further grabbing of cash.

 

It's okay though because if you feel you want to take to the legal system you can have decent representation through...oh...oh no...you can't can you.

 

Almost as if it's by design.

 

And that's with the Liberals in power. Access to justice for those without wealth reduced. Hardly a peep from them.

[Strontium]

I suppose suggesting that people don't speed on the motorway in the first place is too simplistic.

[moof]

Up the limit then.

[Jairzinho]

Up the limit then.

Every single law is perfect, you fucking idiot.

[Strontium]

I don't think anyone said that. However, it is the law, and I don't think it's unreasonable that there be consequences for transgressing the law. Pretty sure it's not just liberals who think that way too.

[Jairzinho]

Consequences which fit the crime. Unlike these.

[Rushies tash]

I don't think anyone said that. However, it is the law, and I don't think it's unreasonable that there be consequences for transgressing the law. Pretty sure it's not just liberals who think that way too.

It's not the law though, it's the disproportionality of the punishment. In some countries, they have the same laws about petty theft as we do. Except there the poor and desperate have the possibility of their hands being removed rather than a police caution.

[Bobby Hundreds]

I recieved an email from one of those petition sites saying the government are selling off the land registery. It states the Land Registry has a 98% satisfaction rating with people who’ve used it. It’s also entirely self-financing, and passes its profits on in reduced fees. So why sell it off. The same with the Royal Mail which was making profit I'm not quite sure how its in the publics interest.

[Strontium]

Consequences which fit the crime. Unlike these.

It's for our independent courts to determine what punishment fits the crime.

 

And £10,000 is the maximum fine. Your blue collar worker doing 80mph in his Skoda Fabia isn't suddenly going to be copping a 10 grand fine. That'll be for your overpaid sportsman doing 110mph in a Murcielago. 2 and a half grand is nowhere near enough of a fine for him - even 10 grand is scarcely better. There's an argument it should be even higher still.

 

I'm also pretty sure even crap cars are fitted with speedometers. So, you know, don't do the crime if you don't want the fine.

[Stu Monty]

I suppose suggesting that people don't speed on the motorway in the first place is too simplistic.

 

Yes, it is. In the same way that you can ask people not to litter without fining them £10k for doing it. But you know that. Because you're not a cretin. 

 

Stop treating the forum like fucking question time where you make pathetic defences of government policy. It's testing my patience severely. If you want to be treated with respect then show some. Don't insult people's intelligence like some blert in a rosette at a door, or on the tv, spinning for tiny victories and refusing to communicate like an honest human being.

 

If you want to be spoken to like Danny then post like him. If you want to be spoken to like a member of the Liberal Democrats, who cannot be expected to criticize Lib Dem policy, pissing down people's legs and telling them it's raining then you won't be afforded the same luxuries. Nor should you.

[Stu Monty]

And I don't want to feel like I'm always having a pop at you but the fact you feel it acceptable to allow your party to geld you for the five years it's in power is very much one of the core aspects of what's wrong with politics in this country. All the more depressing when it's not even 100% power you've given your balls for, it's a few bits of policy here and there and a whole raft of vindictive shit that you dare not speak on for fear of people thinking ill of you.

 

Theon Greyjoy: The Lib Dem of GoT.

[Bobby Hundreds]

Free school dinners muthafucka

[Strontium]

Yes, it is. In the same way that you can ask people not to litter without fining them £10k for doing it. But you know that. Because you're not a cretin. 

 

Stop treating the forum like fucking question time where you make pathetic defences of government policy. It's testing my patience severely. If you want to be treated with respect then show some. Don't insult people's intelligence like some blert in a rosette at a door, or on the tv, spinning for tiny victories and refusing to communicate like an honest human being.

 

If you want to be spoken to like Danny then post like him. If you want to be spoken to like a member of the Liberal Democrats, who cannot be expected to criticize Lib Dem policy, pissing down people's legs and telling them it's raining then you won't be afforded the same luxuries. Nor should you.

Actually, I really do think wealthy people who drive at twice the speed limit should be fined more than they currently are.

 

My opinion on that has absolutely nothing to do with any party.

 

Sorry if that disappoints you.

 

If you want, you can tell me why multi-millionaires should only be fined £2,500 for doing 120 on the motorway.

 

And nobody has ever, or will ever, be fined £10,000 for dropping litter. So that is a total straw man.

[Rico1304]

Is it one of the Skando countries that fine based on disposable income?

Think some playboy was fined £100k for speeding - let me check.