In the digital age, a Dear John letter is most likely an email or a text, ending a failing relationship. With Britain and Europe drifting apart economically and politically, we should do the decent thing and send that message. It might read as follows:
Dear Europe,
I think it's best you and go our separate ways, as this is just not working any more.
When we first got together in the 1970s, there was a real spark. You were sophisticated and exotic, you took naps in the afternoon, ate dinner late made from strange products like squid or sausages with actual meat in them. All I had was strikes, Heinz hoops and fried Spam served at 5 p.m. Without your influence, I would never have discovered the joys of sex with the lights on or driving cars that could make it out of the factory gate without breaking down.
In recent years, though, we have grown apart. You have become very controlling, trying to dictate whether I am allowed to deport terrorists for fear of breaching their human rights, banning the WI from selling home-made jam as a breach of health and safety laws or even mandating what tax rates my government may charge. I did not sign up to this Fifty Shades-inspired slave contract, to have every aspect of my national life be dictated by your mother-in-law, Germany.
All of this might not matter so much if I felt you respected or valued me. Every year 100,00s of your inhabitants head to my shores to seek opportunities they are unable to find at home, yet you treat me like some kind of pirate lurking on your coastline ready to undo your good works.
What a pity you do not want to learn from my political and cultural heritage. At the risk of picking at old wounds, the recent histories of your member states include (to name but a few) one genocidal dictatorship, five fascist states, two military juntas, three Nazi collaborators and two nations who stayed neutral in the greatest conflict in human history.
My background, in contrast, is a stable government under the rule of the law, where the rights of the individual were advanced and the role of free enterprise cherished. Of course we have made mistakes and are far from perfect. At least we take responsibility for our affairs rather than imagining an unelected bureaucracy might be the solution to our chronic corruption, cultural torpor and serial incompetence. You may learn a thing or two about civil society from me if you once listened.
I did warn you about the Euro and you branded me xenophobic. It is possible to value and respect European cultures and nation states without signing up to a masochistic, wealth-destroying currency union that benefits no one save the Bundesbank.
A divorce would be best for us both, custody of the children (Scotland and Wales) is perhaps best left to them to decide. Alex Salmond you are welcome to keep.
Love
Great Britain
Thursday, 25 October 2012
Monday, 1 October 2012
Buying Newspapers
When was the last time you paid to read a newspaper? If you live in London, remember the Metro and The Evening Standard are both free and contain remarkably little that could be called journalism. What their readers are really doing is redistributing copies from stalls at tube stations to the interiors of bus and train carriages, where cleaners then put them into rubbish bins. These days I like to be efficient so I just put the newspaper straight into the bin, unread.
I've always had a love-hate relationship with The Evening Standard, with the balance being around ninety percent towards hate. When I used to work near Oxford Circus and took the tube home, from time to time I was foolish enough to buy a copy for 35 pence, thinking surely a newspaper that was as thick as a sandwich would last me journey home. Wrong. By about Paddington, I would be into the property section, where the Standard saw its role as cheerleader in chief for over-priced, nasty new build in areas devoid of transport links, character or even a recognised place name. Their other long-running campaign was a stream of misleading, mendacious articles about the congestion charge, driven solely by the fact that some senior journalists and the editor resented paying the toll on their way to work. These days, Alexander Lebedev has turned it into a free sheet and even then, it feels like a rip off.
By my reckoning, the last time I paid for newspaper content was nine months ago, when I bought a Sunday Times and almost immediately regretted the purchase. Like all Sunday papers, it has bloated to such a flabby, over-puffed size that the main challenge is to work out which bits to read and which bits to discard at once. Twenty frustrating minutes later, when I failed to commit to a viable reading strategy, my conscience came to rescue, reminding me that it was a Murdoch rag. The inky stains it leaves on your fingers, it leaves those on your immortal soul, the angel of my better nature whispered. Into the wheelie bin it went.
My wife had a subscription to Time Out and we both valued it as a comprehensive listings magazine, with excellent reviews of every conceivable cultural activity in the capital. It seemed cheap at the price as you could always find something interesting to do from its pages. But Time Out has mutated into a free sheet also and much like the Metro is worth as much as its cover price. I'm sure there was a powerful commercial logic to their decision, but I for one will not be reading it again. Not out of spite, but it's now just a collection of PR pieces and is woefully short on reviews and content, without proper listings. If I'm going to waste my life reading drivel, might as well do it on the Mail Online crack bar where the truth about Harry's night in Vegas is finally revealed.
Maybe the era of newsprint is dead. The Guardian loses money at a frightening rate, £40 million plus per annum, The Times bleeds cash as does The Telegraph. The problem with modern newspapers is that they have embraced opinion pieces and editorialised content with gusto, to distinguish themselves from generic news content online. Unfortunately this has the potential to antagonise as many readers as it endears. For example, I might be reading The Guardian, appreciating their varied news coverage and championing of the underdog, all is well. Then entirely by accident I read an article by Polly Toynbee of such breathtaking self-righteousness and pomposity (especially when you consider her left wing credentials did not extend to educating her children in a state school) that it makes me want to buy a rifle and spend the afternoon shooting defenceless animals whilst wearing one of those T-shirts you can buy in Camden that says 'Hitler: European Tour 1939 -45'.
On the other side of the spectrum, I could be reading The Telegraph, enjoying their parliamentary pieces or cricket journalism and a gust of wind blows the pages over and my eyes alight on article by Christopher Booker about climate change. This piece is so filled with lies, distortions and deliberate falsehoods that in any other walk of life, the perpetrator would face criminal charges. Booker is in fairness merely a paid lackey of the tax-dodging Barclay brothers, owners of The Telegraph, who lurk like anthrax on the island of Sark. So to right this shameless abuse of journalist principles, I have to row a boat all the way that Channel Island and set fire to their castle.
Newspapers have created a zero sum game with the prevalence of opinion pieces. For every reader that enjoys Jeremy Clarkson ranting about speed cameras, there's another who wants to see him run over by a Prius Camper Van, ideally driven by a black lesbian in a wheelchair. The above is written by a recovering news junkie by the way, who used to watch C4 news, the news at 10 and then Newsnight all in the same day, to see the subtle differences in reporting. And I still won't pay for newspapers. Yes, I know The Guardian broke the phone-hacking scandal and The Telegraph the MPs expenses one, but I didn't buy a copy of either paper. Sorry.
Tuesday, 18 September 2012
Charitable Status
This blog is about private schools in the UK, which confusingly are called public schools, when they are by definition the opposite of being available to the public. Regents Park, though a high class green space, does not require to you to remortgage your house to avail yourself of its amenities, unlike the fees charged at 'public schools'.
I must declare a vested interest in this matter, as your humble blog scribe is a product of such an education system, a well-known London private school whose old boys run all the bits of Britain the Etonians didn't want. In my defence, I would like to stress that I have never owned a polo pony, attended a school-chum's birthday where there were waiting staff in black tie or tried to snog the daughter of an Earl. For the prosecution, I did know someone at school who had an actual Picasso in their London home and another boy who had a lift inside his house. Yes, inside, it's that bit which elevates you (pun-intended) from council tower block to extreme privilege.
Okay, it was a posh school, but my parents were ridiculous lefties if that makes any difference. Our Nicaraguan coffee was served in Nelson Mandela mugs; the bookshelves were filled with worthy Fabian writings. Of course my paternal and maternal comrades were not such ideological zealots that they would inflict genuine public education on their children. We grew up in the People's Republic of Islington in the 1980s, where state schools blended Dave Spart with a dash of Assault on Precinct 13.
Between us my brother and I had seen all of Shakespeare's history plays before the age of thirteen (yes even Henry VI) and that doesn't earn you kudos in the playground. It's a season ticket on the Train of Pain all the way to Hurt Station. Anyway, stepping off the Digression Express at Get to the F**king Point Junction, I did not go to the comprehensive down the road.
Therefore I think it does give me a perspective on an important issue: do private schools deserve their current charitable status? And the answer these days is without a doubt...no. Perhaps when I was young, when you could still buy comics in the newsagent and the internet was just a glint in a spotty computer geek's palm, it was just about possible to claim they performed some kind of charitable function. There were assisted places, where those children unlucky enough to be born into poverty might fully understand the extent of their misfortune. At my more tolerant school, they were only made to sit at the poor table for lunch while the whole school chanted 'Eat povos eat'. In other more traditional institutions, they worked as domestic staff and catamites for the governors. But conservative or progressive, private school fees twenty years ago, though high, were in the realm of the plausible for those without Swiss bank accounts.
Whilst I can't plead true hardship, both my brother and I were scholarship boys and that made all the difference between being able to serve ciabatta as opposed Safeway's value loaf. Believe or not, for two years in a row, we took a summer holiday in Britain. This was well before the concept of staycation, so going on holiday in August in the UK was neither retro cool or environmentally aware, it was just cheap(er) and rubbish. People who watched ITV took holidays in Britain, there I said it.
But, class envy aside, there was a social mix of sorts in private schools back then. As a student, I gained an excellent education in the arts, let no one let you that a knowledge of the gerund is useless, that information having been drummed into my head, I have not forgot (present prefect). My love of drama was such that every year I volunteered for the school play. Strictly speaking this was only for the cast parties, which were heavy-petting orgies. One of my fondest memories is the tongue fest that was the cast bash after the performing The Caucasian Chalk Circle. One of my least favourite memories second only to a nasty motorbike crash, is the actual play The Caucasian Chalk Circle. Berlolt Brecht should haven been tried for crimes against theatre, The Resistable Rise of Artuo Ui doesn't negate the awfulness of the rest of his writing.
So I spent time learning about Suetonius, debating the meaning of Measure for Measure (it was just a bad play, even Shakespeare had his off days - discussion over), when all I really wanted to do was undress certain girls from a nearby school. Hardy on a par with Medicin Sans Frontiers, I admit even then. These days private school's status is indefensible and you don't have to take it from me, ask anyone who works in the sector what has happened in the last twenty years. Only financiers, the landed gentry and the children of foreign oligarchs or petro princes can now afford the fees; their doors are closed to all save the parasite elite. Gone is the mixture of arts and sciences, they focus primarily on science and maths, so that the likes of Abramovich's children can dream of even more elaborate ways not to pay tax in their chosen host nation. Here the word 'host' has nothing to do with concepts of hospitality or manners, it is the larger mass on which the parasite class attaches itself.
Like everything in Britain these days, everything is for sale and if all private schools really offer is forcing houses for the children of the vampire super-rich then let's not give them the cloak of respectability of charitable status. If you want to segregate your child with the super-rich, do so, but pay in full for the privilege.
It's not about the politics of envy, who would envy the international elite?They are the most miserable, petulant breed on the planet, forever in a huff that their heli-skiing holiday didn't give them the perfect powder snow, their third guest house bath fittings are not exactly as instructed or their yacht is slightly smaller than the Sultan of Brunei's. They belong in a secure, walled community like Monaco, where they they can mix exclusively with other toxic individuals, like a giant open prison or mental institution with decent food.
Charities are a force for good, if anyone working in private education now can explain their positive benefits today, fee free to leave a comment below. Sadly their primary contribution in recent years seems to be a flow of Osborne types, steeped in Hayek and Rand, who having floated up on a wave of money and privilege, then lecture the rest of us about 'merit', 'free enterprise' and 'welfare dependency'. In keeping with their own nihilist philosophy, private schools don't deserve a tax break from the state nor should they want one.
I must declare a vested interest in this matter, as your humble blog scribe is a product of such an education system, a well-known London private school whose old boys run all the bits of Britain the Etonians didn't want. In my defence, I would like to stress that I have never owned a polo pony, attended a school-chum's birthday where there were waiting staff in black tie or tried to snog the daughter of an Earl. For the prosecution, I did know someone at school who had an actual Picasso in their London home and another boy who had a lift inside his house. Yes, inside, it's that bit which elevates you (pun-intended) from council tower block to extreme privilege.
Okay, it was a posh school, but my parents were ridiculous lefties if that makes any difference. Our Nicaraguan coffee was served in Nelson Mandela mugs; the bookshelves were filled with worthy Fabian writings. Of course my paternal and maternal comrades were not such ideological zealots that they would inflict genuine public education on their children. We grew up in the People's Republic of Islington in the 1980s, where state schools blended Dave Spart with a dash of Assault on Precinct 13.
Between us my brother and I had seen all of Shakespeare's history plays before the age of thirteen (yes even Henry VI) and that doesn't earn you kudos in the playground. It's a season ticket on the Train of Pain all the way to Hurt Station. Anyway, stepping off the Digression Express at Get to the F**king Point Junction, I did not go to the comprehensive down the road.
Therefore I think it does give me a perspective on an important issue: do private schools deserve their current charitable status? And the answer these days is without a doubt...no. Perhaps when I was young, when you could still buy comics in the newsagent and the internet was just a glint in a spotty computer geek's palm, it was just about possible to claim they performed some kind of charitable function. There were assisted places, where those children unlucky enough to be born into poverty might fully understand the extent of their misfortune. At my more tolerant school, they were only made to sit at the poor table for lunch while the whole school chanted 'Eat povos eat'. In other more traditional institutions, they worked as domestic staff and catamites for the governors. But conservative or progressive, private school fees twenty years ago, though high, were in the realm of the plausible for those without Swiss bank accounts.
Whilst I can't plead true hardship, both my brother and I were scholarship boys and that made all the difference between being able to serve ciabatta as opposed Safeway's value loaf. Believe or not, for two years in a row, we took a summer holiday in Britain. This was well before the concept of staycation, so going on holiday in August in the UK was neither retro cool or environmentally aware, it was just cheap(er) and rubbish. People who watched ITV took holidays in Britain, there I said it.
But, class envy aside, there was a social mix of sorts in private schools back then. As a student, I gained an excellent education in the arts, let no one let you that a knowledge of the gerund is useless, that information having been drummed into my head, I have not forgot (present prefect). My love of drama was such that every year I volunteered for the school play. Strictly speaking this was only for the cast parties, which were heavy-petting orgies. One of my fondest memories is the tongue fest that was the cast bash after the performing The Caucasian Chalk Circle. One of my least favourite memories second only to a nasty motorbike crash, is the actual play The Caucasian Chalk Circle. Berlolt Brecht should haven been tried for crimes against theatre, The Resistable Rise of Artuo Ui doesn't negate the awfulness of the rest of his writing.
So I spent time learning about Suetonius, debating the meaning of Measure for Measure (it was just a bad play, even Shakespeare had his off days - discussion over), when all I really wanted to do was undress certain girls from a nearby school. Hardy on a par with Medicin Sans Frontiers, I admit even then. These days private school's status is indefensible and you don't have to take it from me, ask anyone who works in the sector what has happened in the last twenty years. Only financiers, the landed gentry and the children of foreign oligarchs or petro princes can now afford the fees; their doors are closed to all save the parasite elite. Gone is the mixture of arts and sciences, they focus primarily on science and maths, so that the likes of Abramovich's children can dream of even more elaborate ways not to pay tax in their chosen host nation. Here the word 'host' has nothing to do with concepts of hospitality or manners, it is the larger mass on which the parasite class attaches itself.
Like everything in Britain these days, everything is for sale and if all private schools really offer is forcing houses for the children of the vampire super-rich then let's not give them the cloak of respectability of charitable status. If you want to segregate your child with the super-rich, do so, but pay in full for the privilege.
It's not about the politics of envy, who would envy the international elite?They are the most miserable, petulant breed on the planet, forever in a huff that their heli-skiing holiday didn't give them the perfect powder snow, their third guest house bath fittings are not exactly as instructed or their yacht is slightly smaller than the Sultan of Brunei's. They belong in a secure, walled community like Monaco, where they they can mix exclusively with other toxic individuals, like a giant open prison or mental institution with decent food.
Charities are a force for good, if anyone working in private education now can explain their positive benefits today, fee free to leave a comment below. Sadly their primary contribution in recent years seems to be a flow of Osborne types, steeped in Hayek and Rand, who having floated up on a wave of money and privilege, then lecture the rest of us about 'merit', 'free enterprise' and 'welfare dependency'. In keeping with their own nihilist philosophy, private schools don't deserve a tax break from the state nor should they want one.
Friday, 24 August 2012
Business Rates
Time to blog once more, now the Olympic buzz has worn off. I don't know how long you managed to keep that warm, fuzzy glow of British brilliance. If you had the misfortune to watch Olympic's closing ceremony then my guess is the time it took for George Michael to sing his new track. It might have worked if he'd really stuck to his new direction and crashed a sparkly taxi into one of the Spice Girls whilst smoking a joint so powerful its smoke trail can stone people in different postcodes. Seeing the set list, I decided to preserve my happy memories of the Olympic opening ceremony, the bright smiling faces of those winning Olympians - in particular Jade Jones and Laura Trott. Since when did sportswomen get so foxy ?
My post Games high lasted almost until the end of the week until I read an article which quoted leaked excerpts from a new book from the political right. Called 'Britain Unchained', it's the work of five young Tory MPs who have apparently concluded that the recession was caused by Britons's laziness and lack of productivity. The irony of being lectured on productivity by a quintet of politicians none of whom have ever worked in business, but instead come from those models of value-added industry like the law, academia and financial analysis is no doubt lost on them. I should add that the subtitle is 'Global Lessons for Growth and Prosperity',' which I'm assuming will focus on how we need to scrap those pesky health and safety laws that hold back British business from achieving its potential, like BP did in the Gulf of Mexico. Or something.
There's me thinking the recession might possibly have had something to do with financial deregulation and a dysfunctional banking system. But they're probably right, the recession was almost certainly caused by too many people looking at Facebook during work time. (On that note, what happens if you work for Facebook and during your working day you spend hours on your own personal Facebook page. Would you get a formal warning? No, it would probably be an Unlike).
You'll notice that we are more than halfway through the blog and I still haven't mentioned business rates. That's the problem with any form of taxation, as soon as you mention it, people's eyes glaze over or if you're Jimmy Carr, you make a hurried public apology. Start a conversation about local tax rates and you will be most likely be greeted by a pained expression, much like my wife assumes when I try to explain to her strictly speaking the human and cylons' battles should be silent as sound cannot travel in the vacuum of deep space. Yet those cluster of Tory tosspots writing about a subject of which they have no direct experience, business, were trying at least to ask a useful question, how do we get the economy growing again?
Perhaps the first thing we could do is create a tax system that doesn't actively penalise small businesses. I'm fortunate enough to be running a growing enterprise that has now reached the point where we need proper commercial premises. So there's a risk involved with taking on lease, staff and our reward for this is that we get to pay Islington council about £10k. For which, in return we get absolutely nothing, seriously, you have to pay extra to get your bins taken away. Unlike Jimmy Carr, I believe it's a moral obligation to pay tax so it's the not principle of paying tax I mind, this is just the way it works. This is not a tax on profits or turnover, it's a tax on taking on the liability of a lease. If you wanted to create a process that actively discourages people from growing their business, then short of dumping a container load of dead dogs in their office every Monday, I can't think of a better way of killing off entrepreneurial drive. (Expect of course if you ran a niche business reselling dog carcasses).
This is not a sob story, incidentally, we're doing fine. I am simply gobsmacked at how self-defeating and idiotic business rates are in practise. There that's my Olympic Games happiness sorted out once and for all. Back to being a whinging Pom.
And if anyone from Islington council does read this, what exactly do we get for our 10K?
My post Games high lasted almost until the end of the week until I read an article which quoted leaked excerpts from a new book from the political right. Called 'Britain Unchained', it's the work of five young Tory MPs who have apparently concluded that the recession was caused by Britons's laziness and lack of productivity. The irony of being lectured on productivity by a quintet of politicians none of whom have ever worked in business, but instead come from those models of value-added industry like the law, academia and financial analysis is no doubt lost on them. I should add that the subtitle is 'Global Lessons for Growth and Prosperity',' which I'm assuming will focus on how we need to scrap those pesky health and safety laws that hold back British business from achieving its potential, like BP did in the Gulf of Mexico. Or something.
There's me thinking the recession might possibly have had something to do with financial deregulation and a dysfunctional banking system. But they're probably right, the recession was almost certainly caused by too many people looking at Facebook during work time. (On that note, what happens if you work for Facebook and during your working day you spend hours on your own personal Facebook page. Would you get a formal warning? No, it would probably be an Unlike).
You'll notice that we are more than halfway through the blog and I still haven't mentioned business rates. That's the problem with any form of taxation, as soon as you mention it, people's eyes glaze over or if you're Jimmy Carr, you make a hurried public apology. Start a conversation about local tax rates and you will be most likely be greeted by a pained expression, much like my wife assumes when I try to explain to her strictly speaking the human and cylons' battles should be silent as sound cannot travel in the vacuum of deep space. Yet those cluster of Tory tosspots writing about a subject of which they have no direct experience, business, were trying at least to ask a useful question, how do we get the economy growing again?
Perhaps the first thing we could do is create a tax system that doesn't actively penalise small businesses. I'm fortunate enough to be running a growing enterprise that has now reached the point where we need proper commercial premises. So there's a risk involved with taking on lease, staff and our reward for this is that we get to pay Islington council about £10k. For which, in return we get absolutely nothing, seriously, you have to pay extra to get your bins taken away. Unlike Jimmy Carr, I believe it's a moral obligation to pay tax so it's the not principle of paying tax I mind, this is just the way it works. This is not a tax on profits or turnover, it's a tax on taking on the liability of a lease. If you wanted to create a process that actively discourages people from growing their business, then short of dumping a container load of dead dogs in their office every Monday, I can't think of a better way of killing off entrepreneurial drive. (Expect of course if you ran a niche business reselling dog carcasses).
This is not a sob story, incidentally, we're doing fine. I am simply gobsmacked at how self-defeating and idiotic business rates are in practise. There that's my Olympic Games happiness sorted out once and for all. Back to being a whinging Pom.
And if anyone from Islington council does read this, what exactly do we get for our 10K?
Thursday, 26 July 2012
Two Letters
When George Osborne arrived at the Treasury, he found a Post-It note written by his predecessor. It said 'Sorry, all the money's gone. Letters included for emergency use only.' Underneath were two plain envelopes, numbered one and two.
Six months ago, with British economy failing to respond to his austerity medicine, £300 billion of quantitive easing and countless initiatives to boost growth, George opened the first envelope. In the middle of the page were two words: 'Blame Me'.
Today as he digests the full awfulness of the recent economic data, Mr Osborne opens the second envelope. There he reads: 'Now sit down and write two letters.'
Six months ago, with British economy failing to respond to his austerity medicine, £300 billion of quantitive easing and countless initiatives to boost growth, George opened the first envelope. In the middle of the page were two words: 'Blame Me'.
Today as he digests the full awfulness of the recent economic data, Mr Osborne opens the second envelope. There he reads: 'Now sit down and write two letters.'
Thursday, 19 July 2012
Fibre Optic
This post is aimed at anyone living in London, anyone frustrated by perpetual roadworks and anyone who doesn't like to see large amounts of money shoved in a hole and burned. About a month ago, I made a call. Here is is, more or less verbatim, plus a few extra jokes for me, writer's privilege.
SALESPERSON: Thank you for calling Virgin Media. How we can help?
JK: I'm interested in getting fibre optic broadband.
He checked my postcode, only to say...
SALESPERSON: I'm sorry but we don't offer broadband in your area.
JK: Why not?
SALESPERSON: It's too expensive to put the cables in.
JK: Really, that seems odd. I live in Westminster, on a well-off street with a population density about the same as Hong Kong.
SALESPERSON: Sorry, there's no plans for your street.
JK: Come on. People round here will pay £5 for a tiny portion of cake from rip-off merchants Baker & Spice. There's one shop where they charge £150 for a cushion. You could charge them whatever you liked for a fibre optic connection, especially if you said it was organic.
SALESPERSON: It just don't make sense for us.
JK: What about when they dug the street up for two years to replace the water mains, why didn't you put the cables in then? We had total traffic chaos, at least you could have taken advantage.
SALESPERSON: Yeah, maybe someone should have thought of that.
'Maybe someone should have thought of that'. Those seven words say it all. Yes, maybe one of the overpaid executives at BT, Talk Talk, Virgin Media to name but a few, should have thought of that. Maybe a council leader could have thought have that; maybe Boris Johnson should have thought of that.
'Maybe someone should have thought of that'. That's the UK's motto for 2012.
'Maybe someone should have thought of that'. That's the UK's motto for 2012.
Wednesday, 4 July 2012
Wealth Creators
Nothing will now surprise me about the behaviour of British banks. I fully expect to discover that Bob Diamond and the entire Barclays Board subsist only on fresh human blood, harvested from a giant facility stocked with nubile virgins located in the wilds of East Anglia. (Keeping it secret is a lot easier than keeping it fully stocked with chaste maidens in that region).
What will it take for our politicians and the commentariat to understand that Diamond and his parasite breed are not, repeat not, wealth creators. You have to run the counter case, imagine all of this turbo finance never happened, what would the national balance sheet look like then? The answer is that nearly everyone would be better off, except bankers. No £1.2 trillion liabilities for the Treasury, house prices in the South East might bear some vague relationship with rationality, clever and intelligent people might have been encouraged to use their talents for the common good, rather than inventing ingenious ways to rip off everyone else. Modern banking subtracts value from the wider economy, simples.
I'll give you an example of true wealth creation and how back to front our value system really is. Rockstar Games is a UK based software company who rose to global fame with the game Grand Theft Auto. You may remember how morons with column inches lambasted them for encouraging violence and generally debasing the youth. Of course they couldn't present any evidence, they just asserted that if you watched the something on a screen most people couldn't help copying what they saw like psychotic suggestible sheep, with guns. In fairness, right after watching Gladiator I did stab two swords into a waiter's chest when he brought me the wrong starter, so maybe they have point.
I should mention that the two chief games developers went my school and have featured on Time's most influential people of the century. So what is my point, other than I'm never going to be able to top that. Why does it take a US magazine to celebrate British entrepreneurial and creative success? And why do we continue to brownose talentless, grasping thieves from the financial industry who have got away with the greatest fraud in human history, rather than praise our software sector which creates wealth without landing the general public with vast debts, so colossal you need a scientific calculator to type in all the zeroes?
Repeat after me, modern bankers are wealth extractors not creators. They are to free enterprise what Tony Soprano is to the construction industry. And once the British public finally wakes up to the scale of the scam, I would strongly advise that Diamond and his ilk leave this country, perhaps for some ghastly rich ghetto like Monaco.
The wonderful thing is we would all be better off. Except of course bankers.
What will it take for our politicians and the commentariat to understand that Diamond and his parasite breed are not, repeat not, wealth creators. You have to run the counter case, imagine all of this turbo finance never happened, what would the national balance sheet look like then? The answer is that nearly everyone would be better off, except bankers. No £1.2 trillion liabilities for the Treasury, house prices in the South East might bear some vague relationship with rationality, clever and intelligent people might have been encouraged to use their talents for the common good, rather than inventing ingenious ways to rip off everyone else. Modern banking subtracts value from the wider economy, simples.
I'll give you an example of true wealth creation and how back to front our value system really is. Rockstar Games is a UK based software company who rose to global fame with the game Grand Theft Auto. You may remember how morons with column inches lambasted them for encouraging violence and generally debasing the youth. Of course they couldn't present any evidence, they just asserted that if you watched the something on a screen most people couldn't help copying what they saw like psychotic suggestible sheep, with guns. In fairness, right after watching Gladiator I did stab two swords into a waiter's chest when he brought me the wrong starter, so maybe they have point.
I should mention that the two chief games developers went my school and have featured on Time's most influential people of the century. So what is my point, other than I'm never going to be able to top that. Why does it take a US magazine to celebrate British entrepreneurial and creative success? And why do we continue to brownose talentless, grasping thieves from the financial industry who have got away with the greatest fraud in human history, rather than praise our software sector which creates wealth without landing the general public with vast debts, so colossal you need a scientific calculator to type in all the zeroes?
Repeat after me, modern bankers are wealth extractors not creators. They are to free enterprise what Tony Soprano is to the construction industry. And once the British public finally wakes up to the scale of the scam, I would strongly advise that Diamond and his ilk leave this country, perhaps for some ghastly rich ghetto like Monaco.
The wonderful thing is we would all be better off. Except of course bankers.
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