http://money.aol.co.uk/2011/11/07/one-off-wealth-tax-would-solve-crisis/
http://money.aol.co.uk/2011/10/24/hmrc-boss-targeted-by-tax-protestors/
http://money.aol.co.uk/2011/11/08/ordinary-people-pay-for-tax-havens/
Not really sure what else to add?
Chat Forum
Todays news!. WTF is going on here (& rest of the world?)
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Posted 6 months ago #
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In a word: Capitalism
Posted 6 months ago # -
Thanks binners, not so sure I like this capitalism malarkey. I should stop reading the news, just makes me sad/angry/ready to start a revolution
Posted 6 months ago # -
No, it's poor regulation and legislation imo. Well - I should say imperfect.
Posted 6 months ago # -
No, it's poor regulation and legislation imo. Well - I should say imperfect.
+1Posted 6 months ago # -
No, it's poor regulation and legislation imo. Well - I should say imperfect.
Maybe you should edit the post then?
Trouble is there's no perfect system- or maybe even a good one- to fit all times and places.
AOL! - I had to check the dates on the posts
Posted 6 months ago # -
Are there any baps involved?
Posted 6 months ago # -
Nacho - Its actually Chicago School Capitalism. As advocated by an extreme right-wing, neo-con fruit loop called Milton Friedman, and bizarrely adhered to like the bible by just about everyone in power. It very much suits the ends of anyone 'in power'
If you want it described in detail, and the motivations behind it, read this
But if you're scared already, maybe not....
Posted 6 months ago # -
We are just a bunch of people muddling along trying to figure things out. Some of us are greedy, some of us are altruistic, but we all want the good things in life, by definition really. The way it's panned out, some people have more money than others, and some people have a talent for making it.
C'est la vie. Whatcha gonna do?
Posted 6 months ago # -
C'est la vie. Whatcha gonna do?
I'm making a list.
Posted 6 months ago # -
Poor regulation? but I thought the market was perfect and regulation was the problem?
Posted 6 months ago # -
The Market? 'It' finds its own equilibrium apparently. Like an eco-system. Or it would do if pesky governments would butt out and let 'It' get on with it.
I've yet to see the remotest shred of evidence to support this, but if enough rabid, right-wing swivel-eyed lunatics keep repeating it often enough, I'm sure it must be true
Posted 6 months ago # -
"KARL Marx is not exactly back, but he is being mentioned far more frequently these days, and not just on the steps of St Paul’s. I was even asked recently (by an accountant whose pay probably put him in the UK’s top one per cent of earners) whether I thought that elevated levels of unemployment meant that Marx had a point.
My short-answer was no – my longer one was that name-dropping the author of Das Kapital has become a cheap, lazy and morally indefensible way of pointing out that the present system is failing to produce enough jobs and growth, which of course is true. It is also a facile way of declaring empathy with the St Paul’s protesters, without actually having to grapple with difficult questions.
It is evident there are massive problems in our society. The question is not whether something needs to change – that is obvious. What isn’t is what exact reforms are needed. Marx is hardly the only thinker to have predicted business cycles – and given the rest of his agenda, you would have thought that those seeking answers to our woes might actually spend a little more time reading other economists who actually appreciated the astonishing growth that well-functioning capitalism could deliver.
Communism has been tried repeatedly. It doesn’t work. Most people just about remember this (though most youngsters will have forgotten by the time the next crisis comes about). Communism’s degree of failure is utterly incomparable with the failure of our present, mixed economy system (what we have is not pure capitalism or “neo-liberalism” but a weird and unstable combination of markets combined with a large public sector, high and graduated taxes, hugely powerful monetary authorities and a huge amount of regulation). Communism leads to collapse, starvation and dictatorship. For those who have forgotten about this, I would recommend the Black Book of Communism: Crimes, Terror, Repression, written by a group of French authors led by Stephane Courtois. The book details how at least 94m people lost their lives as a result of communism in the twentieth century, especially in China, the Soviet Union, Cambodia and North Korea but also in Africa, Afghanistan, Eastern Europe, Vietnam and Latin America. Communist regimes were defined by repression, executions, torture and labour camps; one gruesome episode led to the death from starvation of 4m Ukrainians in the 1930s.
The broader failings of communism, which delivered a miserable standard of living for ordinary folk, is easier to document. Two natural experiments were run last century: an unusually pure version of capitalism in Hong Kong versus real communism in China; a slightly more diluted but still highly capitalist model in post-war Germany versus a socialist system in East Germany. In both cases the triumph of capitalism was complete.
Instead of wasting time investigating the views of an economist whose overall system failed disastrously, we should be learning from those who understand that a free-market is the only possible system but who also grasp that current institutions tend to lead to booms and busts, especially if the price system is distorted by underpriced credit or underpriced risk as a result of central bank or government actions. If you are into dead economists, try reading Ludwig von Mises or F.A. Hayek. The latter predicted the crash of 1929 and the stagflation of the 1970s; their followers predicted the dot.com bubble and the collapse of 2008. Marx should remain buried."
Posted 6 months ago # -
Oh here we go. Even the merest hint that big business and the banks should maybe be kept in check from doing what they damn well like, and screw the rest of us, is 'Communism' is it?
Posted 6 months ago # -
If by equilibrium you mean incredible levels of inequality and injustice, with money going to money, power going to those with money and the poor just getting poorer, than yeah that's what it is, and more so all the time...
Posted 6 months ago # -
binners - Member
Oh here we go. Even the merest hint that big business and the banks should maybe be kept in check from doing what they damn well like, and screw the rest of us, is 'Communism' is it?
Erm, no.
Posted 6 months ago # -
So your point is......?
Posted 6 months ago # -
More, and better, Capitalism, not less...
Posted 6 months ago # -
Lazy City AM editorial, woppit - you should cite your sources.
I'm no student of Marx, but simply equating a 19th century theory with a series of despotic regimes = history of philosophy fail, IMO.
Posted 6 months ago # -
So after the car crash we all barely survived, lets drive the car into the same wall, head-on, but this time we'll turbo-charge the ****er!!!
Yip. Makes perfect sense!
Posted 6 months ago # -
More, and better, Capitalism, not less...
And in the meantime, the likes of Bob Diamond continue to take the pish. His recent dribble about banks becoming "good citizens" was - frankly - incredible.
Posted 6 months ago # -
Instead of wasting time investigating the views of an economist whose overall system failed disastrously, we should be learning from those who understand that a free-market is the only possible system
If it's all the same I'd rather not learn from idiots. Let's face it, anyone who thinks free-markets are utopia is as naive as people who think communism works.
Posted 6 months ago # -
So after the car crash we all barely survived, lets
drive the car into the sameremove the wall,head-on, but& this time we'll turbo-charge the ****er!!!FTFY
Posted 6 months ago # -
& this time we'll turbo-charge the ****er!!!
Thelma, Louise and TINA?
Posted 6 months ago # -
The definition of madness to repeat an exercise and expect a different result.
Its business as usual in the City I notice. I'll await with baited breathe the totally unpredictable, and doubtless radically different course the economy will take this time.....
Posted 6 months ago # -
Woppit!
That's brilliant. I've never read such a malignant "defintion" of communism before in my life. Who wrote that? Ronald Reagan?
LOL
Posted 6 months ago # -
Ex maoist Stephane Courtois would hardly give a favourable view of Marx would he? Especially since considering the neo-con circles he moves in now. Nothing like an ex-leftie moving over to the right whilst floundering in a self-conflicting view of being anti-totalitarian and citing Islam as being the greatest danger yet supporting Jewish extremism and a Pax Americana hegemonic agenda.
I guess the best example of the ultra leftist to ultra rightist transition would be Il Duce though alot of those 'commies' in Russia today are giving him a run for his money. You only need to look at National Bolshevism in Russia to see how laughable it is.
But there is a genuine thread of totalitarianism throughout strains of leftism and rightism. But doesnt nearly every ideology have strains of totalitarianism and fantaticism. You usually find infighting more within political factions/allies than you do of fighting the enemy. The communist versus socialist infighting in Germany in the 1930s that paved the way for national socialism is a classic example. You could argue that Bolshevism influenced national socialism more.
But I guess there is a strong case of many of those regimes named as being unsavoury though arguing that we need a more free market when the free market has proved to have failed is classic bonkerism. Self regulation is a pipe dream.
Posted 6 months ago # -
Not sure there's much point in citing the USSR as an example of where communism went wrong. Lots of countries faced widespread oppression and poverty leading to collapse and revolution, not just communist ones.
Posted 6 months ago # -
the last time our masters screwed up we landed up with the great depression and the second world war, i won't be surprised if we get somewhere near world war 3 this time.
Posted 6 months ago # -
Let alone faux-communist fascist states.
"More, better capitalism" is a brilliant slogan- obviously nuts, but still brilliant. The hand is only invisible because it doesn't exist.
Unrestricted capitalism encourages people to act like wolves not shepherds. The solution isn't to try and breed more lambs, but to keep the wolves at bay.
Posted 6 months ago # -
More, and better, Capitalism, not less...
It is very clear that the end result of capitalism is totalitarianism, you only have to look at the way businesses consume each other align themselves into cartels and in the process reduce the choice for the population. Then we have the fact that business will always distort the environment to there benefit. Yes you can argue that a business by not acting creates a gap in the market into which a different business can move, but this move can be prevented by the refusal of investment, by buying the competitor, etc.
Business does not work in the favour of the many, only the few. Business therefore must be regulated to ensure that competition exists. Therefore pure capitalism can never actually work and a totally free market will fail.
Posted 6 months ago # -
Hmmm...with the corporate tax avoidance thing, did any of the tax dodging companies put money into the Conservatives election campaign? Just wondering like
Posted 6 months ago #
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