The Conservative government's latest scam upon the poor : Lloyds Bank shares taking the shirt off my back

The Chancellor of the Exchequer, George Osborne has decided that people other than the large financial institutions should be able to buy some shares in Lloyds Bank.* How kind Mr Osborne is to the little man with a bit of money behind him. Of course we all know that these shares will end up in the hands of the major shareholders of the big financial institutions anyway but even if supporting the failed capitalist system by purchasing these shares may be profitable for some, what has happened to the Lloyds Bank which we, the poorer taxpayers and all our citizens employed or unemployed,  took ownership of when we rescued it with our taxes?  What with the Conservative government's austerity measures, many of us cannot afford to buy shares even if we did mistakenly think it a good thing to do?  What's really crazy is that we should need to buy shares in something we already own. I may have got this wrong but to the capitalist's way of thinking isn't taking a person's property without their permission, without paying for it and selling it to another party considered a form of theft?

Other than the shirt on my back which ,unless I choose to give it to someone else ,I've always believed that as a human right, to be mine alone, I do have a few items that I own,  along with all my fellow citizens, including, for example, the United Kingdom's greatest achievement,  National Health Service. In addition to the taxes I happily pay as an owner to fund the National Health Service, so that everyone can have the same level of health treatment, will I now be expected to further pay other institutions for something I already own?   Some might accurately say to me, "You already do pay them," since  so much of the work of the National Health Service is now hived out to companies whose sole motive is making large profits.

It seems we are forced to accept a government, which gained less than 40% of the popular vote,  that is umbilically connected to the interests of Capital which are in turn fed by inequality. The driver of inequality - returns on Capital that exceed the rate of economic growth - continually creates discontent as well as undermining democracy (see, for instance, Thomas Piketty, 2014).  In the case of the sale of Lloyds Bank shares, democracy is undermined because resources belonging to everyone are, in effect, being taken away from a less well off section of our community and made available only to the better off.

Be it the National Health Service, other currently publicly owned essential services or Lloyds Bank shares what we are seeing is a warning sign on the road ahead.  Think you own that shirt on your back ?  don't be sure of it.


*Source :  BBC


Reference :

Thomas Piketty (2014) Capital in the Twenty-First Century   Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press

It's all Greek to me, and I understand it.

July 6th, 2015,

The Greeks understand the capitalist system and refuse to kowtow to it as I am afraid the rest of us  do.

The Greek people have worked out that the capitalist system demands that people involved in producing actual, real, things within the system at one level or another should always be in debt. Creative, productive people should, the system insists, not be happy with what they've got but they should expand to make greater profits and to do this they should borrow more money. So debts are incurred and grow, as is the nature of the system, inexorably.  Debt exists because the lenders gamble (yes, gamble, there is no science to this apart from the knowledge of human fear) that most people will repay their debts and much more for fear of humiliation. The relatively few people controlling this system make lots and lots of MONEY (rub hands together and cry "tee hee hee") by asking people to borrow more and more and pay more and more interest. People who default from these debts are whipped into line by making the interest payments greater. Most give into this threat.

What the Greeks realise, unlike sheep (who are OK but humankind is supposed to blest with the gift of reason and rationality), is that the capitalist system can't survive if, a) people say to the financiers. "We are not going to pay back our debts and their concomitant extortionate interest rates",  and b)  "We're not going to borrow any more money from you solely on your terms."  This effectively puts an end to the capitalist system and don't be kidded by the capitalist system's propaganda that it can't be replaced by a different, equable society. It can. Watch this space.

What George Sand said about poverty and illness

In her book Josef Ziska, George Sand suggested :

 'Poor workers or sick people you must always struggle against 

those who tell you to "Work hard to live badly."'

Ring any bells ?

Does a moneyed economy wrest control from the people? We're still waiting for Leftie

In the 1950s, the English journalist W. J. Weatherby, who wrote for the The Guardian but spent much of his career in the United States, once interviewed the celebrated and controversial American playwright, Clifford Odets at a time when Odets was despondent about the world politic. Indeed he had been called in May, 1952 before the House of Un-American Activities  to bear witness to his political sympathies. Odets had briefly been a member of the Communist Party in the early 1930s.

During his interview Weatherby asked Odets if he was concerned about the state of the world politic and Odets first replied, “What’s the problem?” before providing another question in answer to his initial  query. “In America  -  I won’t talk about the rest of the world -  the problem is, “Are peace and plenty possible together with the democratic growth to use them? ”Can you have democracy and growth or does a moneyed economy by definition wrest control from the people?”

Is the jury still out on this question?

Freedom and greed

Freedom is possible only if democracy develops into a society in which the individual's growth and happiness is the aim and purpose of its culture; in which the quality of a person's life is not measured  by material gain or by power; in which the individual is not subordinated to or manipulated by any power outside himself, be it a state or by economic apparatus and finally, a society in which an individual's conscience and ideals are not the internalization of external demands, but are really her or his own and express the aims that result from the peculiarity of her or his self. * 

*Adapted from The Fear of Freedom by Erich Fromm  published in London by   Routledge (1999) p233.  First published in 1941.

No worries, this is not targeting the wealthy. You can go on making us much as you like

Human beings represent one of so many different living species inhabiting Earth and if we accept and interpret Darwinian theory as one in which each of the different species living in our world and the universe is involved in a struggle commonly referred to as the survival of the fittest then freedom as Erich Fromm describes it would not only be a forlorn hope but also a foolish one. One accepted 'wisdom' is that human beings with our ability to "reason' and prognosticate are the most intelligent creatures on our planet but this chooses to forget that we are the most destructive of all living species, one that has systematically devised ways of not only killing its own kind, but equally, in its quest to find even more destructive methods of doing this, has found a way of destroying all life on our planet. We are also a species busy purloining, and using up, all the earth's natural life supporting resources. 

But all this is to assume that Darwinian theory and what has followed from it effectively banishes altruism. When we desire to help those who are less fortunate than ourselves we show ourselves capable of being a civilised society. Evolutionary theorists still struggle to understand the presence of altruism in many species. Those creatures who herd do so as a way of trying to protect the weakest as well as the strongest.

Human beings no longer seem to do this as often as they once did. The most powerful system in the human social environment is our economic one and it is predominantly based on what is best for its self-preservation rather than what is best for all humankind. Those few who have inordinate power within this system have attempted to persuade us that what is good for the system is also good for all of us. This has been called "the drip down effect." However all the evidence suggests that the relatively small number of rich people continue to get richer while the poor are becoming poorer.

The real trouble is that our economic system only has life breathed into it because it relies upon the exercise of less considerate, less generous human characteristics : self interest and greed. Communities without these qualities are considered to be primitive and under-developed. 


In his novel Raised from the Ground which has as its background the gradual change from an agrarian feudalism towards capitalism in Portugal the novelist, Jose  Saramago observes

The best machine is always the one most capable of continuous work, properly lubricated so that it doesn't jam up, frugally fed, and if possible, given only as much fuel as mere maintenance requires, and, in case of breakdown or old age, it must, above all, be easily replaceable, that's what all those human scrapyards known as cemeteries are for, or else the machine simply sits, rusting and creaking at its front door, watching nothing at all pass by or else gazing down at its own sad hands, who would have thought that it would come to this.     p344



It is a sad reflection on how we live today that we've often heard the beggar asking, "Have you got any spare change please?"  How often - though not always - is the predominant spoken or unspoken response, "You'd do a lot better if you got off your backside and tried harder."  We forget that the beggar is the ultimate and inevitable bottom of the pile "loser" in a society governed by the selfish competitive financial system that is capitalism, which is solely based on there being far more losers than there are winners. Where can the losers find freedom?

Sometimes, as a means of making ourselves feel righteous, we still try to re-kindle the dying embers of our sympathy for freedom, equality and justice, bemoaning what we see as the excess of wealth in others and yet, on reflection, we can often be surprised to find just how far we are up the on the scale of affluence and how far we have become toadies to the system, acquiescing as we do, while so many are deprived of what we would understand as a decent human life. The danger is that we become persuaded that the material deficit of others is a sign of our righteousness.

Freedom and greed

Freedom is possible only if democracy develops into a society in which the individual's growth and happiness is the aim and purpose of its culture; in which the quality of a person's life is not measured  by material gain or by power; in which the individual is not subordinated to or manipulated by any power outside himself, be it a state or by economic apparatus and finally, a society in which an individual's conscience and ideals are not the internalization of external demands, but are really her or his own and express the aims that result from the peculiarity of her or his self. * 

*Adapted from The Fear of Freedom by Erich Fromm  published in London by   Routledge (1999) p233.  First published in 1941.

No worries, this is not targeting the wealthy. You can go on making us much as you like

Human beings represent one of so many different living species inhabiting Earth and if we accept and interpret Darwinian theory as one in which each of the different species living in our world and the universe is involved in a struggle commonly referred to as the survival of the fittest then freedom as Erich Fromm describes it would not only be a forlorn hope but also a foolish one. One accepted 'wisdom' is that human beings with our ability to "reason' and prognosticate are the most intelligent creatures on our planet but this chooses to forget that we are the most destructive of all living species, one that has systematically devised ways of not only killing its own kind, but equally, in its quest to find even more destructive methods of doing this, has found a way of destroying all life on our planet. We are also a species busy purloining, and using up, all the earth's natural life supporting resources. 

But all this is to assume that Darwinian theory and what has followed from it effectively banishes altruism. When we desire to help those who are less fortunate than ourselves we show ourselves capable of being a civilised society. Evolutionary theorists still struggle to understand the presence of altruism in many species. Those creatures who herd do so as a way of trying to protect the weakest as well as the strongest.

Human beings no longer seem to do this as often as they once did. The most powerful system in the human social environment is our economic one and it is predominantly based on what is best for its self-preservation rather than what is best for all humankind. Those few who have inordinate power within this system have attempted to persuade us that what is good for the system is also good for all of us. This has been called "the drip down effect." However all the evidence suggests that the relatively small number of rich people continue to get richer while the poor are becoming poorer.

The real trouble is that our economic system only has life breathed into it because it relies upon the exercise of less considerate, less generous human characteristics : self interest and greed. Communities without these qualities are considered to be primitive and under-developed. 


In his novel Raised from the Ground which has as its background the gradual change from an agrarian feudalism towards capitalism in Portugal the novelist, Jose  Saramago observes

The best machine is always the one most capable of continuous work, properly lubricated so that it doesn't jam up, frugally fed, and if possible, given only as much fuel as mere maintenance requires, and, in case of breakdown or old age, it must, above all, be easily replaceable, that's what all those human scrapyards known as cemeteries are for, or else the machine simply sits, rusting and creaking at its front door, watching nothing at all pass by or else gazing down at its own sad hands, who would have thought that it would come to this.     p344



It is a sad reflection on how we live today that we've often heard the beggar asking, "Have you got any spare change please?"  How often - though not always - is the predominant spoken or unspoken response, "You'd do a lot better if you got off your backside and tried harder."  We forget that the beggar is the ultimate and inevitable bottom of the pile "loser" in a society governed by the selfish competitive financial system that is capitalism, which is solely based on there being far more losers than there are winners. Where can the losers find freedom?

Sometimes, as a means of making ourselves feel righteous, we still try to re-kindle the dying embers of our sympathy for freedom, equality and justice, bemoaning what we see as the excess of wealth in others and yet, on reflection, we can often be surprised to find just how far we are up the on the scale of affluence and how far we have become toadies to the system, acquiescing as we do, while so many are deprived of what we would understand as a decent human life. The danger is that we become persuaded that the material deficit of others is a sign of our righteousness.

The Trade Union voice is now the only voice of moderation in England

In the post-election social climate which is emerging in England, we begin to see just how much in the coming years the rich will get richer and the poor will get poorer.  We are left to ponder where the voice of moderation and concern will come.

While we know that the right wing propaganda of the national press, the BBC, the Conservative Party and sadly some misguided elements of the Labour Party insist to the contrary, the trade union voice is now the only voice of moderation in England.

Among many other things trade unions believe in are:

• the fair distribution of the resources and wealth of our country,

• sustaining a caring, concerned community for all, supported by everyone and financed proportionately by everyone,

• proper jobs with fair wages and a welfare system that supports all those in our community who for any reason need help,

• the end to exploitative zero hour contracts,

• publicly owned utilities, water and energy, provided to meet the primary needs of each of one of us and not to enrich the shareholders of private profiteering companies, 

• a National Health System, paid for from the public purse  -   not exploited by "for profit organisations"  -    to meet the health needs of all in our community,

• an education system offering everyone, according to their needs, an opportunity to enjoy the same standard of education, funded and run by the local community as a community resource, and not open to private companies wishing to make a profit out of our children,

• welcoming immigrant workers where there is a demand for them to take jobs which pay a living rather than a minimum wage and is not so exploitatively low that it puts local people seeking work at a disadvantage, 

• good quality public services provided from the public purse which employ workers who enjoy wages and conditions at the rate they were before they were slashed away by the cost machete of the profit seeking privatisation process,

• allowing people to live in the communities they have always lived in and reversing the process of the social cleansing of people from their own neighbourhoods to far flung places in order that landlords can make more money,

• the utter idiocy of retaining the Trident nuclear weapon merely for the purpose of allowing politicians to fantasise about how big their organ is. 

These are just a few of the moderate ideas from voices within the trade union movement.  It would be good if our media and even our politicians would acknowledge and perhaps act upon them.

The post-election New Labourites : the working class can kiss my arse, I've got the foreman's job at last.

That nice, soft, self-satisfied, ageing yuppy middle class Bohemian section of the newly trounced Labour Party have found their voice again. They tell us that we Labour voters must become middle class and aspirational just like their splendid hero, the illegitimately warlike and very wealthy Mr Blair used to tell them way back when they first started to repay their student loans.

They claim that the man in the pub - that's me -  is all wind and piss when I complain they are less interested in ending poverty and inequality and more interested in earning more spondulix for themselves.  They say I am not sufficiently aspirational. But why shouldn't I have an aspiration that all adults in the UK should earn at least £20,000 per annum ?  I mean within the next year not in a notional never arriving future.

In demanding that I stop complaining and take action, do they mean I should rob a few banks and hand out the money to the poor? What actions will they take ? Will each of them earning more than £50,000 a year, in addition to the taxes they pay, donate an annual  £10,000 of their salaries to share equally amongst the less well off people ?  Or will they all agree to have the same pay as an office cleaner ? Now that would be action.

Should I just shut up when I meet with parents receiving benefits who, while they struggle and try their best with the personal resources they have, are described and treated as scroungers on society ?

Should I be happy that an MP earns such a high salary while a 23 years old graduate earns zilch one week, £25 pounds the next and the following week is told that she's not needed anymore. Ah ! the convenience of the zero hour contract !

Who is going to shout out for people who are struggling personally and financially ? Who is going to take urgent action on their behalf? Certainly not our political representatives. Over the years I've sent emails and written letters to Tony Blair, "Lord" Mandelson and to a number of other Labour politicians about the matters I am writing about here.  I have never received a personal reply that particularly addressed the issues I raised. Most of the time I have received no reply at all. I guess they were all doing more important things.

As well as being running scared of a discredited media, Blairites/New Labourites are capitalists. They are with the bankers. That's OK.  For them at least,  it's a free country and they can believe in whatever they want but they should not be representing the Labour Party. They should start a new party  : "The Foreman's Job Party"  Oh! but maybe that was what they did in 1997.

So what am I and others like me supposed to do? As a person who votes for the Labour Party, I don't want to be - as the Blairites insist I should  -  an aspirational member of the middle class.  I, along with millions of others, aspire to share with true equality the earth's resources. Instead of blowing out their hot air in the Commons, in The Lords and on Question Time why don't they actually roll up their sleeves and get working for a fair and just human community. Take action. Make something happen now.

They won't be doing this because for them at a personal level the risks are too great and the financial rewards are not sufficient.

They won't be doing it for another reason too and I'll tell you about it. Last year I went to my bank to say my £1,000 of savings was giving me an annual interest of less than one quarter of a percent which meant the value of my money was actually decreasing. I asked if they had an account with an interest that would maintain the value of my savings. I was told they did not but if I had savings of £5,000 they would have been able to give me an account with an interest rate of 2%. I asked why I couldn't get that rate with my £1,000 savings. "That," I was told, as any self-satisfied aspirational Blairite will know, "is not the way it works." If you earn more than £50,000 per annum there's a chance you might be able to spare £5,000 to save if you're on £15,000 a year or less, or working on a zero hour contract you've no chance.

And that folks is how the rich always get richer and the poor get poorer. Let's have a Labour Party focused on dealing with sharing the resources of  the world fairly rather than on media easy style and self-aggrandisement.

It is easy to understand why the issue of Scottish independence is once more dominating our political scene.

The majority of Scottish voters must be puzzled that so many of their English neighbours have a lemming like drive to be "ruled" over and certainly pushed over by a small band of privileged, rich and powerful "superiors."  Why do they vote themselves into relative poverty and at the same time create downright poverty for so many others ?

The Scottish National Party has said it wants to bring an end to austerity and to confront the factors that create inequality. The Scottish people deserve credit for voting so overwhelmingly for these humane intentions. The Scottish National Party will find it difficult to achieve these aims with a Conservative  government at Westminster. Given that the Scottish National Party has 56 of Scotland's 59 Westminster parliamentary seats and the Conservative Party has only one, the Tories cannot in all conscience govern Scotland with any sense of legitimacy without the assent of Scottish National Party MPs. Considering that the two parties are diametrically opposed on so many issues, any Conservative hopes of relying on the acquiescence of  the Scottish National Party at Westminster are likely to be dashed. 

It is easy to understand why the issue of Scottish independence is once more dominating our political scene.

Lloyds Bank shares and me : where's our reward for rescuing the Black Horse.

Along with all the other taxpayers who baled out Lloyds Bank, I have, by allowing my taxes to be put into Lloyds, enabled the said institution to cover its debts to the extent that it was able to continue trading.

A woman I was talking to yesterday (April 21st, 2015) told me that the Tory Party is generously proposing, now Lloyds is up and trading, that as a United Kingdom citizen I will be able to buy shares in the bank if I have £250 or more.    But I don't have £250 to spare because I spent it on donating my taxes to rescue the Black Horse Leviathan. The latter, I am assured by those who claim to know,  is an institution managed by a few people with massive financial brains who will leave the country if they are not paid an annual salary and bonuses amounting to several times more than I will ever earn in my entire life.  I say to them. "Leave our shores and go to those places where there is a clamour for failed bankers."

My fellow citizens and I -  while suffering the deprivation foisted upon us by government imposed austerity -  still found some hard earned dosh to rescue Lloyds and so is it unreasonable to suggest that we as owners of Lloyds be given rather than sold these shares ?

Alas, this is not how the world's predominant economic system works for it is predicated upon the idea that the rich always get richer and the poor, poorer.