Six months after Manuscripts Don't Burn last posted on the developing "Bloodless Civil War" in the West, the UK Guardian and Observer newspapers have finally begun to speak out about this elephant in the room - that our government is on the ropes, thanks to the attacks of the corporate fascist business interests, including big banksters and media tycoons.
Let us be under no illusions about this Civil War: we are LOSING. We are well on the road to fascism in the UK - the corporate fascists, through their control of the media, have distracted the public's attention away from their fraudulent theft of BILLIONS of UK taxpayer current and future earnings, and focussed them on the mere PENNIES which the MPs (admittedly greedily, foolishly, and in bad faith) have been squeezing out of the system.
The result is an emasculated government, unable to resist the inroads of the corporate fascists, who can set baying mobs of proles on them at the drop of a headline. It's an extremely worrying situation when the government is fighting the interests of the corporate fascists AGAINST the interests of the people it's supposed to represent.
It's truly alarming how history repeats itself. Just when you need a government strong enough to resist the corporate fascists in big business and media from removing even more of your civil rights and pouring ever of your taxpayers' money into their back pockets, you have a government which must waste its time utterly on the defensive as the corporate media instigate witch-hunts about cleaning bills and decorating expenses for *PENNIES*, while BILLIONS UPON BILLIONS of pounds disappear unaccountably into private pockets. Focus on people's natural resentment for authority, distracting them from the biggest corporate heist in history.
"Hey - MP! Give us some more BILLIONS in bailout money, or we'll get our mates to run some more articles about your twenty-grand expenses, your career will be toast... heh heh heh."
You can see where all this is heading. Next stop: a nice clean corporate revolution to replace all these shoddy MPs with some nice shiny people who all the papers and television stations say are brilliant, so of course they must be. And who just happen to be great friends with those nice businessmen. And in the meantime, your savings shrink, prices soar, and you spend the next 2 generations paying off the money you're giving to the corporates while your standard of living heads back to the thirties.
Well, as long as they put some scapegoat MPs in the stocks and let you pour your hatred on them, it's okay, isn't it?
Recipe for coup d'etat: discredit the current government; create conditions of extreme poverty, instability, unemployment; foment disorder; identify scapegoats; step in and "restore order". Manipulate the proles correctly and they'll cheer you all the way, and even volunteer to make their own chains...
So what can we do? The key to this dilemma is in our own minds. Time and again Manuscripts Don't Burn sees accusations flung of being "left-wing" or "right-wing" as the chaos intensifies. But this is the point: these days, the old right wing vs left wing dichotomy is yet another corporate-sponsored straw man.
Let's repeat that: this isn't about left-wing versus right-wing.
There are many things which unite all of us across the political spectrum against the usurpation of our political system by corporate interests, and promoting a false opposition between "right wing" and "left wing" serves only to divide us when we shouldn't be. It serves the corporate interests perfectly to encourage the illusion that we should fight one another, not them.
The dichotomy today is not between right wing and left wing, but between corporate corruption, and elected government. Corporate corruption doesn't care what shade of political colour it goes by - that's just window-dressing, witness the fact that it currently makes no odds whether new labour or tory are in power. Corporate corruption wants to remain in the shadows, distracting us with lights, smoke, and mirrors of the familiar pea-under-the-shell of so-called parliamentary democracy. We have a one party corporate state masquerading as a two-party democratic one. Plus the Lib Dems, the only party with any real policies - and look what the corporate media nobblers have done to them - no one will vote for them with a barge pole.
Until we realise that it's our democratic system we're actually fighting for, and not some ephemeral old-fashioned right vs left, the corporates will continue to win, leaving us dazzled and distracted.
All believers in a democratic system, right wing or left wing or whatever, need to join forces to kick these bastards in the nuts and reclaim our country. All else is delusion.
Bring back Glass Steagal. Prosecute these bastards. Dismantle the corporate fascist machine of big business-government-media before it finally tears our society apart.
Ironic it's the anniversary of the Wall. They're building another, right now, and we're letting them.
But Manuscripts Don't Burn says this: we're onto you, you bastards. Spread the word. This will not stand.
Sunday, 8 November 2009
Thursday, 28 May 2009
The Second English Civil War has begun
Manuscripts Don't Burn would like to comment on the (currently) bloodless civil war developing in the United Kingdom.
Up until the moment the economy began to collapse, the UK had been increasingly ruled by a cartel of government / civil service, media and press barons, and big business - a particularly chummy form of corporate fascism. Recently that cartel has started to come apart at the seams, and we are witness to (and in many cases victims of) the fallout.
Where did it start?
The media used to be so *friendly* with the government, towing the party line and casting positive spin on its antics as it sucked up to the banksters. Alternative voices were squashed, all in the name of "growth", "profit", and "efficiency". The media were the public face of big business (indeed, being OWNED by big business, they could be little else), but as big business began to own government, too, the media increasingly showered praise on the political class. One, big, happy corporate fascist dictatorship, milking the proles and living off the fat of the land.
Then, at some point the government started to clamp down on public freedoms, in preparation for the inevitable economic collapse. 911 was the catalyst; it postponed the recession which the 1998 crisis should have precipitated, and gave governments breathing space to put draconian laws in place. Somewhere that crossed over to include press freedoms, and investigative journalists were laid off in their thousands. As recently as the G20, the government tacitly authorised our out-of-control police force to beat up journalists at the G20 et al. And all the time, public pressure mounted on the government to take actions which ran counter to what big business wanted to see - endless bailouts, and the distribution of wealth from the poor to the rich: the usual solutions to a depression.
So - the tax hike for the high earners. A sop to the masses. More than hurting the pockets of media and press barons, and banksters alike (although the latter are still stuffing their pockets with "windfall" bailouts as quickly as they can), that stung the corporate fascists' pride. How dare this government act against them! Don't they know who they work for? Almost immediately afterwards, the "expenses scandal" breaks out. A status quo which has existed for decades is suddenly in the spotlight, and the government is in the media's firing line.
Coincidence? No such thing. It's a power struggle, a confused, crappy struggle, between short-sighted greedy vested interests. The factions aren't even clear-drawn; there are parts of the government fighting the media and the banksters, parts collaborating, parts just trying to get by any old how whilst they stuff their pockets and head off to better climes.
At times like this, beware of distractions. Beware, too, of being manipulated. The media, instructed by their press baron owners and bankster chums, *want* the government pilloried until it backs down or collapses.
And heaven forbid we should get media-led political reform. Guess whose benefit that would work towards?
Not ours, comrades. Not ours. None of this is for our benefit - it never is.
Up until the moment the economy began to collapse, the UK had been increasingly ruled by a cartel of government / civil service, media and press barons, and big business - a particularly chummy form of corporate fascism. Recently that cartel has started to come apart at the seams, and we are witness to (and in many cases victims of) the fallout.
Where did it start?
The media used to be so *friendly* with the government, towing the party line and casting positive spin on its antics as it sucked up to the banksters. Alternative voices were squashed, all in the name of "growth", "profit", and "efficiency". The media were the public face of big business (indeed, being OWNED by big business, they could be little else), but as big business began to own government, too, the media increasingly showered praise on the political class. One, big, happy corporate fascist dictatorship, milking the proles and living off the fat of the land.
Then, at some point the government started to clamp down on public freedoms, in preparation for the inevitable economic collapse. 911 was the catalyst; it postponed the recession which the 1998 crisis should have precipitated, and gave governments breathing space to put draconian laws in place. Somewhere that crossed over to include press freedoms, and investigative journalists were laid off in their thousands. As recently as the G20, the government tacitly authorised our out-of-control police force to beat up journalists at the G20 et al. And all the time, public pressure mounted on the government to take actions which ran counter to what big business wanted to see - endless bailouts, and the distribution of wealth from the poor to the rich: the usual solutions to a depression.
So - the tax hike for the high earners. A sop to the masses. More than hurting the pockets of media and press barons, and banksters alike (although the latter are still stuffing their pockets with "windfall" bailouts as quickly as they can), that stung the corporate fascists' pride. How dare this government act against them! Don't they know who they work for? Almost immediately afterwards, the "expenses scandal" breaks out. A status quo which has existed for decades is suddenly in the spotlight, and the government is in the media's firing line.
Coincidence? No such thing. It's a power struggle, a confused, crappy struggle, between short-sighted greedy vested interests. The factions aren't even clear-drawn; there are parts of the government fighting the media and the banksters, parts collaborating, parts just trying to get by any old how whilst they stuff their pockets and head off to better climes.
At times like this, beware of distractions. Beware, too, of being manipulated. The media, instructed by their press baron owners and bankster chums, *want* the government pilloried until it backs down or collapses.
And heaven forbid we should get media-led political reform. Guess whose benefit that would work towards?
Not ours, comrades. Not ours. None of this is for our benefit - it never is.
Saturday, 23 May 2009
No Revolution, please, we're British
Aren't we living in strange times? You know when something is DEEPLY wrong when the Daily Telegraph starts calling for revolution. You know you're being manipulated into something unspeakably unpalatable when conservative broadsheets start talking about ditching a political system 300 years old for something more "efficient". Now where have we heard that before...
Britain's political system is hardly modern or forward-thinking. It's a muddle-headed hybrid of old and new, traditionally held together by a dose of common sense and respect for past and hope for future. However, as we've seen, it's open to terrible abuse.
The classic sign of a society's descent into banana republic territory is the abandonment of the principle of the universal applicability of the Law. When politicians get away with fraud, the police with assault, and the banksters with outright treasonable theft, and nothing is done, while the rest of us are fined and harrassed for putting our rubbish in the wrong bins, you know we've lost the plot. And then when the SAME politicians and their corporate media overlords start wittering about revolution, you know the game's afoot: the abandonment of lawful government stands before us, the hysterical seizing of a political and economic free-for-all which will lay this country waste.
Manuscripts Don't Burn believes the UK stands on a knife edge. The media is profoundly culpable in manipulating the public to a point where we're ready to throw the baby out with the bathwater. Doesn't anybody know their history? No, of course not: 30 years of educational denudation has put paid to that. Revolutions are DISASTROUS, people! Wake up! They're invariably led by a small cabal of middle-class business interests whipping the masses up into a frenzy, and serve to replace one lot of predictable bastards with another, wholly unknown and unpredictable lot. Let's have a think about revolutions for a moment, and see how successful they were: English Revolution, led to Cromwell and the banning of Christmas; French Revolution, led to cultural carnage and the dictator Napoleon; the Russian Revolution, led to 70 years oppression; the Nazi Revolution - 'nuff said; the Chinese Revolution - 30 million dead; the Cambodian Revolution - Pol Pot and the Year Zero; the Iranian Revolution - hanging gays from the top of cranes. We could go on. There's ONE - maybe - example to counter this litany of chaos and disaster: the American Revolution, which chucked out the British monarchy and started the Great American Experiment. But perhaps that failed with the coup d'etat after Kennedy's death; it's a little too early to say.
Get the message? REVOLUTIONS DON'T WORK.
So what does? TRUTH AND RECONCILIATION. The rule of law MUST be reaffirmed. And, of course, that's the last thing the politicians, police, and banksters want. So, instead, they're trying to con us into abandoning our social system and delivering our futures lock, stock, and barrel into their authoritarian hands.
As students of history, Manuscripts Don't Burn doesn't hold out much hope for a happy outcome for the UK. Economically bankrupt, it's about to enter a political Dark Night of the Soul. Our only hope is that in 10 or 20 years time, when it emerges from its suffering, it'll emerge as a more grown-up, responsible, and less hysterical society. Something a little more... European...
Good luck everyone.
Britain's political system is hardly modern or forward-thinking. It's a muddle-headed hybrid of old and new, traditionally held together by a dose of common sense and respect for past and hope for future. However, as we've seen, it's open to terrible abuse.
The classic sign of a society's descent into banana republic territory is the abandonment of the principle of the universal applicability of the Law. When politicians get away with fraud, the police with assault, and the banksters with outright treasonable theft, and nothing is done, while the rest of us are fined and harrassed for putting our rubbish in the wrong bins, you know we've lost the plot. And then when the SAME politicians and their corporate media overlords start wittering about revolution, you know the game's afoot: the abandonment of lawful government stands before us, the hysterical seizing of a political and economic free-for-all which will lay this country waste.
Manuscripts Don't Burn believes the UK stands on a knife edge. The media is profoundly culpable in manipulating the public to a point where we're ready to throw the baby out with the bathwater. Doesn't anybody know their history? No, of course not: 30 years of educational denudation has put paid to that. Revolutions are DISASTROUS, people! Wake up! They're invariably led by a small cabal of middle-class business interests whipping the masses up into a frenzy, and serve to replace one lot of predictable bastards with another, wholly unknown and unpredictable lot. Let's have a think about revolutions for a moment, and see how successful they were: English Revolution, led to Cromwell and the banning of Christmas; French Revolution, led to cultural carnage and the dictator Napoleon; the Russian Revolution, led to 70 years oppression; the Nazi Revolution - 'nuff said; the Chinese Revolution - 30 million dead; the Cambodian Revolution - Pol Pot and the Year Zero; the Iranian Revolution - hanging gays from the top of cranes. We could go on. There's ONE - maybe - example to counter this litany of chaos and disaster: the American Revolution, which chucked out the British monarchy and started the Great American Experiment. But perhaps that failed with the coup d'etat after Kennedy's death; it's a little too early to say.
Get the message? REVOLUTIONS DON'T WORK.
So what does? TRUTH AND RECONCILIATION. The rule of law MUST be reaffirmed. And, of course, that's the last thing the politicians, police, and banksters want. So, instead, they're trying to con us into abandoning our social system and delivering our futures lock, stock, and barrel into their authoritarian hands.
As students of history, Manuscripts Don't Burn doesn't hold out much hope for a happy outcome for the UK. Economically bankrupt, it's about to enter a political Dark Night of the Soul. Our only hope is that in 10 or 20 years time, when it emerges from its suffering, it'll emerge as a more grown-up, responsible, and less hysterical society. Something a little more... European...
Good luck everyone.
Tuesday, 21 April 2009
Cor... ain't it quiet?
Is it us, or has everything suddenly gone quiet on the economic cataclysm front since Obama's Imperial Passage? Sure, we've had plenty of police brutality and slanderous emails to keep our salacious palates slaked, but - erm, hello? The global economy, vanishing up its own backside with a dreadful, schlupping sound? Anybody?
Noooo... It's the elephant in the room. Manuscripts Don't Burn would like to break radio silence following the media fanfare today that - Thank God! - we've finally had a month where we've ACTUALLY had deflation, despite the corporate media and government banging on incessantly about how HUGE the danger is. And we only had to cook the books a bit! Huzzah!
Here's our question: is anybody out there actually experiencing deflation in their everyday lives? Mmm? No. Thought not. Next question: is anybody out there actually experiencing humongous inflationary problems with council taxes, utility bills, even food, whilst their wages / salaries / pensions / incomes remain static, if not falling? Whoa there! Thought so!
Yup, they're lying to us again. And we're swallowing it. Doesn't anybody *read* histories of the Great Depression? We're now heading for the nightmare scenario: falling wages and out of control inflation. God help those of us who have debt.
Bottom line: in order to justify stuffing their pockets with taxpayers money past, present, and future, it's necessary for the Powers That Be to convince us all there's a terrible, terrible danger for life, liberty, and the Safety of the Whole Goddamn World if they don't. And deflation is the bugbear.
Ask any economist who isn't on the payroll of the corporate fascists. A bank is failing? Let it fail. We'll have 12 months economic mayhem as all the banks go bust, then we'll straighten out. But no - capitalism is all about the socialization of the losses of the rich, ie the poor people pay for the rich people's losses by increased taxes. So that's what we're being forced to swallow, like it or not. This way, the agony will drag out for the next 3 years, churning through the real economy, creating massive unemployment, collapse, civil unrest, shortages, misery, and probably down and out rationing, war, and clamp-down. Then, when we finally hit rockbottom and we've finally given absolutely everything we've got to the Corporate Feudalists, and are all much, much, poorer, we'll have a nice decade of austerity and backbreaking work to build it all up again. Lest we forget? Don't make us laugh.
Here's another one, a "Lest We Forget" for the 21st century: BOHICA. Bend Over, Here It Comes Again.
Beware Chancellors saying it'll be over by Christmas! Just as well that nice Mr Obama is such a smiley, smiley man. Lovely. Ration coupon, anybody? Or how about a nice war bonds? Got to do your bit!
Noooo... It's the elephant in the room. Manuscripts Don't Burn would like to break radio silence following the media fanfare today that - Thank God! - we've finally had a month where we've ACTUALLY had deflation, despite the corporate media and government banging on incessantly about how HUGE the danger is. And we only had to cook the books a bit! Huzzah!
Here's our question: is anybody out there actually experiencing deflation in their everyday lives? Mmm? No. Thought not. Next question: is anybody out there actually experiencing humongous inflationary problems with council taxes, utility bills, even food, whilst their wages / salaries / pensions / incomes remain static, if not falling? Whoa there! Thought so!
Yup, they're lying to us again. And we're swallowing it. Doesn't anybody *read* histories of the Great Depression? We're now heading for the nightmare scenario: falling wages and out of control inflation. God help those of us who have debt.
Bottom line: in order to justify stuffing their pockets with taxpayers money past, present, and future, it's necessary for the Powers That Be to convince us all there's a terrible, terrible danger for life, liberty, and the Safety of the Whole Goddamn World if they don't. And deflation is the bugbear.
Ask any economist who isn't on the payroll of the corporate fascists. A bank is failing? Let it fail. We'll have 12 months economic mayhem as all the banks go bust, then we'll straighten out. But no - capitalism is all about the socialization of the losses of the rich, ie the poor people pay for the rich people's losses by increased taxes. So that's what we're being forced to swallow, like it or not. This way, the agony will drag out for the next 3 years, churning through the real economy, creating massive unemployment, collapse, civil unrest, shortages, misery, and probably down and out rationing, war, and clamp-down. Then, when we finally hit rockbottom and we've finally given absolutely everything we've got to the Corporate Feudalists, and are all much, much, poorer, we'll have a nice decade of austerity and backbreaking work to build it all up again. Lest we forget? Don't make us laugh.
Here's another one, a "Lest We Forget" for the 21st century: BOHICA. Bend Over, Here It Comes Again.
Beware Chancellors saying it'll be over by Christmas! Just as well that nice Mr Obama is such a smiley, smiley man. Lovely. Ration coupon, anybody? Or how about a nice war bonds? Got to do your bit!
Thursday, 29 January 2009
THE BIG LIE
Time to roll out the old Goebbels quote:
If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it. The lie can be maintained only for such time as the State can shield the people from the political, economic and/or military consequences of the lie. It thus becomes vitally important for the State to use all of its powers to repress dissent, for the truth is the mortal enemy of the lie, and thus by extension, the truth is the greatest enemy of the State.
The lie we're being told now is the biggest in our lifetimes. It's the biggest crime Manuscripts Don't Burn has seen in the UK in all our lives. It's so big, so brazen, and so obvious, most people would rather not see it at all.
We've said it before in these pages and elsewhere, and doubtless we'll say it again: the rich bastards are re-appropriating all the country's wealth. They're stealing your assets from you. It's the biggest redistribution of wealth in the UK since the Second World War. It reverses the post-war redistribution of wealth from rich to poor - since 1980 with Maggie's "reforms" we've been seeing a gradual retrenchment, a transfer of wealth *backwards*, from poor to rich. Via cheap mortgages, plentiful debt, and now this manufactured economic crisis, we are being returned to an economic status quo of roughly pre-WW1 proportions. Vast numbers of us are being reduced to poverty; to miserable indentured tenancy in cramped slums; to precariousness, illiteracy, malnourishment, and ill-health.
And it is DELIBERATE. Make no mistake. This is not the government going "oops! we accidentally screwed up the entire economy beyond all recognition, ah well you'll have to pay for it for the next couple of generations whilst we give all your money to these nice banking chaps". No - this is no "whoops, missus" moment - this is clear, damning evidence that the British corporate government is NOT ACTING IN THE INTERESTS OF ITS POPULATION.
We'll stop now. It's as clear as day. But well-meaning folk keep trying to give those Nice Mr Government people advice on how they can make it all better. THEY DON'T WANT TO. THEY'RE GIVING YOUR FUTURE EARNINGS TO THE RICH.
It's like turkeys voting for Christmas.
If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it. The lie can be maintained only for such time as the State can shield the people from the political, economic and/or military consequences of the lie. It thus becomes vitally important for the State to use all of its powers to repress dissent, for the truth is the mortal enemy of the lie, and thus by extension, the truth is the greatest enemy of the State.
The lie we're being told now is the biggest in our lifetimes. It's the biggest crime Manuscripts Don't Burn has seen in the UK in all our lives. It's so big, so brazen, and so obvious, most people would rather not see it at all.
We've said it before in these pages and elsewhere, and doubtless we'll say it again: the rich bastards are re-appropriating all the country's wealth. They're stealing your assets from you. It's the biggest redistribution of wealth in the UK since the Second World War. It reverses the post-war redistribution of wealth from rich to poor - since 1980 with Maggie's "reforms" we've been seeing a gradual retrenchment, a transfer of wealth *backwards*, from poor to rich. Via cheap mortgages, plentiful debt, and now this manufactured economic crisis, we are being returned to an economic status quo of roughly pre-WW1 proportions. Vast numbers of us are being reduced to poverty; to miserable indentured tenancy in cramped slums; to precariousness, illiteracy, malnourishment, and ill-health.
And it is DELIBERATE. Make no mistake. This is not the government going "oops! we accidentally screwed up the entire economy beyond all recognition, ah well you'll have to pay for it for the next couple of generations whilst we give all your money to these nice banking chaps". No - this is no "whoops, missus" moment - this is clear, damning evidence that the British corporate government is NOT ACTING IN THE INTERESTS OF ITS POPULATION.
We'll stop now. It's as clear as day. But well-meaning folk keep trying to give those Nice Mr Government people advice on how they can make it all better. THEY DON'T WANT TO. THEY'RE GIVING YOUR FUTURE EARNINGS TO THE RICH.
It's like turkeys voting for Christmas.
Wednesday, 21 January 2009
Ask Not What Your Banks Can Do For You...
People keep assuming that this disastrous situation is some kind of accident. That our political leaders have somehow been terrible silly-billies and - oops! - accidentally impoverished most of the population of the UK for a generation to come and given all the money to a bunch of cut-throat rich bastards. Whoops! Golly - how silly of them! Can't think what came over them...
This situation is deliberate, and unfolding correctly. Thirty years ago Maggie commenced a great redistribution of wealth in the UK, from the poor to the rich, reversing the more egalitarian redistributions which had taken place since the Second World War. This "great redistribution" has continued steadily since, with each successive government simply being clerks and spokespeople for the big business and landed interests who pushed onwards with this redistribution at all costs. This so-called "collapse" is simply another stage in this process.
We now face a return to the pre-war status quo - possibly even pre-WW1 status quo - of a vastly impoverished majority living lives of indebted indenture in squalid tenements whilst a minority corporacy pull the strings of government and economy. And, to recap, none of this is accidental - it's been happening gradually, over the past generation.
The problem is of course that most people are trying to resolve this situation as if it is some big, silly mistake, some oops-missus accident that just accidentally happens to land BILLIONS of taxpayer pounds in the pockets of the super-rich, at the head of an unprecendented massive transfer of assets (property, etc) from poor to rich.
Let's be clear: we will achieve no solution whilst we treat this situation as an accident. The government, the banks, the corporacy, are managing this so-called collapse in their own interests, and simply foster talk of fixes as a distraction whilst sequential bailouts transfer ever-increasing amounts of wealth into their pockets at our expense.
We will only resolve this situation once we recognise that the "system" is ACTIVELY BEING MANAGED AGAINST OUR OWN INTERESTS. Tony Benn, bless his cotton socks, once said that the best thing about democracy was that it was possible to change government without bloodshed.
Not this time, Tony. This time, they're even making us pay for our own handcuffs...
Manuscripts Don't Burn is afraid civil disobedience or abject submission are the only "choices" here. Knowing the mindset of the British, we (along with hundreds of thousands of others) have provisionally liquidated our assets and left the country... We see no need to starve in an open prison and be forced to pay for the privilege.
This situation is deliberate, and unfolding correctly. Thirty years ago Maggie commenced a great redistribution of wealth in the UK, from the poor to the rich, reversing the more egalitarian redistributions which had taken place since the Second World War. This "great redistribution" has continued steadily since, with each successive government simply being clerks and spokespeople for the big business and landed interests who pushed onwards with this redistribution at all costs. This so-called "collapse" is simply another stage in this process.
We now face a return to the pre-war status quo - possibly even pre-WW1 status quo - of a vastly impoverished majority living lives of indebted indenture in squalid tenements whilst a minority corporacy pull the strings of government and economy. And, to recap, none of this is accidental - it's been happening gradually, over the past generation.
The problem is of course that most people are trying to resolve this situation as if it is some big, silly mistake, some oops-missus accident that just accidentally happens to land BILLIONS of taxpayer pounds in the pockets of the super-rich, at the head of an unprecendented massive transfer of assets (property, etc) from poor to rich.
Let's be clear: we will achieve no solution whilst we treat this situation as an accident. The government, the banks, the corporacy, are managing this so-called collapse in their own interests, and simply foster talk of fixes as a distraction whilst sequential bailouts transfer ever-increasing amounts of wealth into their pockets at our expense.
We will only resolve this situation once we recognise that the "system" is ACTIVELY BEING MANAGED AGAINST OUR OWN INTERESTS. Tony Benn, bless his cotton socks, once said that the best thing about democracy was that it was possible to change government without bloodshed.
Not this time, Tony. This time, they're even making us pay for our own handcuffs...
Manuscripts Don't Burn is afraid civil disobedience or abject submission are the only "choices" here. Knowing the mindset of the British, we (along with hundreds of thousands of others) have provisionally liquidated our assets and left the country... We see no need to starve in an open prison and be forced to pay for the privilege.
Monday, 19 January 2009
Economic Collapse: Golem XIV summarises the situation again
On this historic day, Manuscripts Don't Burn would like to present Guardian commentator GolemXIV's excellent summary of the UK government's latest bailout plan. Thank you GolemXIV! The lunatics are indeed running the asylum; we see dark days of protest and bloodshed ahead.
*****
This could be the most expensive suicide note in history!
This plan is exchanging a possible run on the banks with a possible run on the whole country, its tax base, and its currency.
Let's be clear about what we are insuring. We are going to insure stuff that the insurance world refuses to insure. How great is that. Insurers such as AIG did insure this stuff. Only problem is AIG itself is bankrupt. Bailed out three times already for over $100B and still dropping like a stone.
We are going to insure securities and derivatives based on Mortgage and corporate debts. Very many, if not most, originated in the US. By definition all these debts are close to worthless. And yet we are going to guarantee to pay the morons who bought the assets - or derivatives based on the value of those assets - either the full price tey paid or something near to it.
Which raises the question - To what level are we insuring them? If it's up to the full face value then as a nation this is a suicide note. I can only hope the insurance is based on a much lower valuation of but shares. But my guess is that even if there is a lower valuation it will still be suicidally high. Only the higher value will please the 'markets'. AKA the people who created the mess in the first place.
Why are they doing this? The reasoning is that the banks are going to continue to take massive losses. They all know this. The governments don't want to have to pay huge lumps of cash to cover these losses before they have to. Cash injections are large lumps. Insurance is only paid as and when each 'asset' has to come to the market and be declare formally dead. So insuring means we don't have to make one vast lump payment.
The down side however, is that our potential losses are potentially unlimited.
I know Darling says they will look at the assets and declare a limit. Yeah fine. But in practical terms the insurance plan will only 'restore confidence' if it is seen to work over the long term going forward. Which means even if they declare a limit, when we reach that limit they will be force do t extend it. For if they don't then all the money spent up to that point will have been wasted. SO the government will tell us we can't waste all the money spent so far, we must 'see it through'.
I know they banks will 'pay' us a premium. But that premium will be paid with the cash we gave them 6 months ago. So they won't be paying anything.
We don't have any of the money we are pledging. And what is more we are not going to be able to borrow it. So we are going to print.
*****
*****
This could be the most expensive suicide note in history!
This plan is exchanging a possible run on the banks with a possible run on the whole country, its tax base, and its currency.
Let's be clear about what we are insuring. We are going to insure stuff that the insurance world refuses to insure. How great is that. Insurers such as AIG did insure this stuff. Only problem is AIG itself is bankrupt. Bailed out three times already for over $100B and still dropping like a stone.
We are going to insure securities and derivatives based on Mortgage and corporate debts. Very many, if not most, originated in the US. By definition all these debts are close to worthless. And yet we are going to guarantee to pay the morons who bought the assets - or derivatives based on the value of those assets - either the full price tey paid or something near to it.
Which raises the question - To what level are we insuring them? If it's up to the full face value then as a nation this is a suicide note. I can only hope the insurance is based on a much lower valuation of but shares. But my guess is that even if there is a lower valuation it will still be suicidally high. Only the higher value will please the 'markets'. AKA the people who created the mess in the first place.
Why are they doing this? The reasoning is that the banks are going to continue to take massive losses. They all know this. The governments don't want to have to pay huge lumps of cash to cover these losses before they have to. Cash injections are large lumps. Insurance is only paid as and when each 'asset' has to come to the market and be declare formally dead. So insuring means we don't have to make one vast lump payment.
The down side however, is that our potential losses are potentially unlimited.
I know Darling says they will look at the assets and declare a limit. Yeah fine. But in practical terms the insurance plan will only 'restore confidence' if it is seen to work over the long term going forward. Which means even if they declare a limit, when we reach that limit they will be force do t extend it. For if they don't then all the money spent up to that point will have been wasted. SO the government will tell us we can't waste all the money spent so far, we must 'see it through'.
I know they banks will 'pay' us a premium. But that premium will be paid with the cash we gave them 6 months ago. So they won't be paying anything.
We don't have any of the money we are pledging. And what is more we are not going to be able to borrow it. So we are going to print.
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