If Davos Was A Toilet???

     Two days to go until the world's richest parasites gather to discuss how best to get fatter, how best to milk the system harder, how best to increase their pilfering of the earth's resources, all for their own greed and gratification. Yes, it's banquet time for the plunderers of the planet, it's Davos time, World Economic Forum time.

       On the 24th. January they will come from all over the world, to lavish in resplendent pomp and wealth, the powerful corporate moguls, the billionaires, the pampered parasites of industry, representatives of the financial Mafia, the two-faced political pundits, the heads of state, all members of that putrid mass that feeds of the backs of the ordinary people. We are expected to believe that they are indulging in this frenzy of pleasure, all for our benefit, we are supposed to believe that they are wrestling with such problems as how best to eradicate poverty, how best to share their ill-gotten wealth with the ordinary people.

      Of course if you believe that, then you probably still believe in Santa Claus. What the babbling brook of bullshit, the mainstream media, will spew out about this four Michelin star festival of indulgence, will be the usual pattern of myths, illusions, and down right lies. We will be told that between the clinking of the champaign glasses, they will be trying to sort out the inequalities in this world. When in fact all they will be doing is trying to smooth out any obstacles in their path to further exploitation of the planet and its people.

     It would be wonderful if we could, for one glorious day, turn Davos into one large toilet, then we could flush them all down the toilet in one historic moment for humanity, and the world would be a much fresher smelling place. 

 This from Global Justice Now:

     This week, 1,500 business leaders and 40 heads of state are meeting in Davos, Switzerland, for the annual World Economic Forum. They will be discussing how big business can help improve the state of the world – in their own best interests.

      The rhetoric from Davos is so deeply engrained in society that it can be difficult to challenge the power that they hold. Our new series of interactive infographics exposes seven myths that exist to perpetuate injustice and poverty across the world - find out who is really getting richer; who the real scroungers are; and how Africa is really the one aiding us.

     The world will not be saved a tiny group of the super-rich. Hope lies in challenging the power and wealth of this small elite and the orthodoxy of neoliberalism. By working with social movements around the world another world is possible.

     At Global Justice Now we are campaigning for a world where resources are controlled by the many and not the few. And the first step to do this is to debunk the myth that big business is the solution to all our problems.

Best wishes,

Alex Scrivener,
Global Justice Now

Visit ann arky's home at www.radicalglasgow.me.uk

Same Old---Rich Get Richer, Poor Get Poorer.

    They Sunday Times has just released its latest UK “rich list”, and it tells an interesting story, though perhaps one that every ordinary person the the UK already knows. Last year the rich got richer and the poor got poorer, so according to the system, everything is working fine.

     The latest figures show that the richest 1,000 British now have a combined wealth of £518,975 billion, up 15.4% from a year ago, and now accounts for one third of the UK's total GDP. Just to get into that 1,000 rich list, you need to have at least £85 million, if you hope to aspire to the top 500, then you will need to flash around £190 million.
     Philip Beresford, compiler of the list, has been doing this wee job since 1989, said: "I've never seen such a phenomenal rise in personal wealth as the growth in the fortunes of Britain's 1,000 richest people over the past year. "The richest people in Britain have had an astonishing year.--”

We have to stay with austerity, the recovery is still fragile.

 

      Of course as we would expect, that old lady that stays in Buckingham Palace, done very well this year by adding around £10 million to her already sizeable little pile of loot, bring her in at No. 285 on the list, with a tidy little £330 million.
      The list is a compilation of the usual CEO, landed gentry, TV grinning faces, and smiling celebrities, etc.. “Ordinary common one of us” Jamie Oliver and his wife, added a nice wee bundle of £90 million to their stash, bring it to a health £240 million.
      I should add that these figures are what is called “identifiable wealth”, you know the sort of stuff, land, property, race horse, yachts, works of art, and so on. It does not take into account their bank accounts, that's personal, and no doubt there will by many, and fat, and in diverse places.
      The list also points out that the number of billionaires living in the UK has topped the 100 for the first time, reaching 104, with their combined wealth shooting over the £300 billion. Britain now has more billionaires per head of the population than any other country, and in that cesspool of the financial Mafia, London, there are 72 sterling billionaires, making it the largest concentration of billionaires in any city in the world. So the rich have had an astonishing year with “austerity” meaning that they all ran to the bank shouting “Yipeeee”.

 

        While at the other end, the you and I end, we saw our incomes shrink by approximately £1,600 since 2010. We have had to cope with bedroom taxes, slave labour workfare schemes, vanishing disability allowances, rocketing energy prices, rising food prices, a greater use of food banks, zero hours contracts, wage increases of less than inflation, if they arrive at all, cuts in benefits and social services. So it is obvious where that massive increase in the “identifiable wealth” among the parasites came from, it came from you and I, they get richer and we get poorer, and we tolerate this!!!

 

Visit ann arky's home at www.radicalglasgow.me.uk

 

India, an Economic Giant!!!!

      Our babbling brook of bullshit, the media, continually spews out a vision of India as one of the world's economic giants, which in corporate greed, it is. As they follow Cameron around that country, what we see is an army of well fed, well manicured, wealthy parasites, living off the cream of a country where deprivation is endemic. Campaign after celebrity campaign goes on about the poverty in Africa, and believe me that is real poverty, but what we don't hear is that India has around 450 million people living in “dire” poverty. This is equivalent to all the poor of all the countries in Africa combined. A country lauded for its economic growth and it has more than 450 million people living on 12 rupees or less a day, (this is the measure of “dire” poverty). This army of deprivation has seen practically no reduction in the past 30 years. A recent document by the Planning Commission states that the poor of rural India were better fed 30 years ago than they are now. The Indian government's own figures reveal that of its 856 million rural population, 50% live in poverty trying to survive on less than 20 rupees a day.

       This wonderful economic growth that the Western corporate world looks at with envy, creates the same pattern as corporate growth the world over, glaring brutal inequalities. India is fourth in the billionaire league with 61 billionaires, who have a combined wealth of $250 billion, The 100 richest people in that country have assets equivalent to a quarter of the country's GDP, with its richest man having a personal wealth of $20 billion. Compare that with the fact that every second child born in India is stunted and under weight due to poverty and malnutrition.

      This is the pattern of corporate capitalist growth in country after country. Billionaires grow bloated on wealth stolen from the ones who actually create that wealth. Private jets, holiday islands purchased for friends and family, sumptuous homes dotted around the globe, personal assistants, personal trainers. All this wealth belongs to those who produce it, yet they are the ones that live in deprivation, our wealth is plundered daily by that small army of parasites, who, like all parasites, will continue to feed of our sweat and toil as long as we allow them. We need to wash our society and get rid of those parasites. 

     I'll repeat the verse from the last post:

We are the ones who knead and yet we have no bread,
we are the ones who dig for coal and yet we are cold.

We are the ones who have nothing,
and we are coming to take the world.

~ Tassos Livaditis (Greek poet, 1922-1988)

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THE TROIKA HAS SPOKEN.

         Despite the savage slashing of the standard of living of the Greek people over the last few years, despite the resulting poverty, degradation and deprivation sweeping across the general population, the financial Mafia have insisted on more of the same. According to the “Troika” (the financial Mafia's hit team) the Greek people have not been crushed enough and the Greek state apparatus agrees. It's not for the Greek government to look out for the interests of the Greek people, they are there to manage the “austerity” plans of the financial Mafia. So on top of gross hardships the people of Greece are struggling under, on top of the “austerity” cuts that are already in place, they have to be hit with a further €11.5 billion in cuts for 2013. Among other degrading measures, this will entail further cuts in pensions, raising the pension age, more cuts to public sector wages, more public sector sackings and more privatisation. Of course we are told that all this transferring of public money to the bankers is for the benefit of the Greek people. To save the bankers and bond markets from suffering from their gambling losses, the people have to be stripped naked. While the financial Mafia recoup their gambled loot, the people are promised pie in the sky in the bye and bye. While this looting goes on, the people are expected to suffer in silence and feel better knowing that the coffers of the bankers are being replenished. All that matters in this crazy, unjust, economic system (corporate fascism) is that the billionaires of this world don't lose their ill gotten plunder, the people are of little or no concern. The world that the people live in can be shit, that's OK, just don't let the leeches and the parasites lose their power and wealth.

You have to cut wages, we need a bailout.

           Of course we have to accept that if we all sit back, sleeping in the illusion that it is all happening somewhere over there and we are all right Jack, we are in for a very rude awakening. It is not a matter of the Greek people done something wrong, so have to pay the price, the Greek people done nothing wrong. It is a pan-European policy and we are all going through the stages. Where Greece is going we are following. Spain and Italy teetering on the brink, Ireland and Portugal, slipping down the slope and several Eastern European countries beside them or not far behind. There is nothing in this process that will show compassion because the people are suffering, we are not in the equation. If we don't like being ripped off by a billionaire class, then we have to sort the problem, we have to take control, we have to shape the society we want. They are shaping it the way that they want it to be, we sit back and let them or we shape it the way we want, there is no compromise. 

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IN MONEY WE TRUST.

        This society has many problems and the recent media coverage of the "floating" of Facebook on the stock market highlighted one, the adoration of money and those who have it. What a screwed up society we live in when individuals becoming billionaires can create a frenzy with hours of media coverage, and sadly the frenzy was among those who will benefit nothing from the corporate event.

This is Charles P. Pierce's take on it: 

Even given my status as an Old Guy Who Loves Facebook — a phenomenon of the modern age characterized by aggravated carpal-tunnel syndrome, a weirdly revived devotion to high-school chums, and a proclivity for throwing old Van Morrison videos out to a gaping world — I have to admit that the giddy national pageant attending Friday's Facebook IPO has left me awfully cold, and awfully pessimistic that this country ever is going to get its economic house in order in anything resembling a fair and just way. Entire news networks dedicating huge blocks of time, the way they once went live for hours covering the Mercury program, to the release of a stock onto the market. People waiting outside in Times Square for the magic moment, as though it were New Year's Eve or VJ Day, and everyone acting as though this whole thing is some kind of national triumph rather than a simple mechanism by which an incredibly wealthy recluse will become an unimaginably wealthy recluse. We get together to cheer for stock. We get together to cheer for money. We get together to cheer for zillionaires, and not a dime of it is ever going to filter down to any of those people waiting behind the barriers in New York, watching the price of the stock tick upwards as though they all had a personal stake in it.

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