OccupyLSX to take on the Big Boys

Finally, after two weeks of milling around demanding nothing except the right to camp outside a church, the Occupy movement in London have finally grown a pair. No more "tranquility Tent" and vegan meditation idiots, some very astute souls have decided to take on the beast itself. The corporation of the City of London.

Yes, the city of London is a corporation - complete with a private Police force, the ancient right to have a lobbyist in the House of Commons and more Freemasonary than you can shake a rolled up trouser leg at. It is the epitome of undemocratic corporatism and it runs the UK Financial sector.

Expect some serious sparks to fly as the many layers of this ancient order of privilege is exposed to the cold hard reality of the media spotlight.

This is a revolution worth fighting for. Let's get started.

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Over the border...

I notice that our masters have struck up a deal to keep the endless stream of free money flowing, greasing the wheels of their own vanity promises to make us all rich and equal. One trillion Euros is to be produced to recapitalise the banks that lent the money to the states that made the promises they couldn't honour. Only another €4000 debt for every man, woman and child in the EU, nothing serious....

As my more astute readers will know, I have a plan that revolves around getting the hell out of here. I have achieved what I wished to achieve financially and no longer see the point in supporting a state that would happily grab 100% of my wealth if it could just find a way. Meanwhile, the promises of more wealth for all continue to spout forth from politicians in the pockets of the banks who will lend it to you, just sign here

So let's have a quick look at what happened to Greek prices when they decided to take the offer of endless EU cash that was on the table and Southern Bulgaria, the country I plan to make to make my home, that didn't. Indulge me, I am moving to a village just 40km from the Greek beaches and want to know what my carefully managed savings will buy me.

A little research tells me that Greece is around three times the price of neighbouring Bulgaria. You can find detailed prices here and here

A Greek peasant now has to find three times the money of his neighbour to buy a beer ( I'll focus on the important things). Why? All part of the dream, I'm afraid. If Greeks are going to drive BMWs like their Northern European backers, they'll have to pay the same prices as Northern Europeans, even if it means borrowing the money to do so. In the glorious EU, no one is allowed to live a simple, low cost life. That would be treason against a state that is designed to invade every aspect of your life, control your finances and your thinking and dictate how you may live. In the name of "equality"

The Greeks have now been told that they can't have any more money to buy BMWs and their wages have just been slashed by half. Yet a coffee still costs £3 and they are still burdened with the crippling and expensive debt, legislation and regulation that a Northern European is taxed to death to supply. No wonder they are rioting.

Greece was sold a pup and is now trapped in poverty. Greeks will return to riding donkeys and herding goats for a pittance but unless they drop the Euro, they'll still be paying the same rate as you or I for that mandatory EU health and safety audit or translation of their benefits forms into Latvian. Drink up Kostas, another coffee?

Brussels attempted to place Bulgaria in the same position as Greece when they joined the EU. Sofia refused to take the shilling and as such, has a flat income tax rate and corporation tax rate of 10%. Coupled with bank deposit interest rates of 7% per annum, a shrewd businessman will pay just 3% tax per annum. My kind of State. Sure there aren't as many diversity coordinators in Bulgaria as Brussels would like, and their commitment to climate change is appalling, probably best not to mention building regs or planning permission or vehicle emissions zones or disabled access and cycle lanes, but then again, Bulgarians are not hopelessly in debt to the bankers  whilst admiring a gleaming new airport either.

Sorry, Kostas my short jaunt over the border to visit the beaches of the Aegean will almost certainly involve a picnic hamper and a thermos flask. Brussels made sure of that.

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Fight fire with fire

Aw, they didn't do what we asked them to. So let's do what the EU itself does. Ask again. And again. And again. Until we get the answer we want.

Sign the NEW ePetition on an EU referendum here and keep signing until they realise they are supposed to represent us, not their party.

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147 state aided Corporations rule the world

As my readers will know, I am a fervent capitalist. It puts food on the table, allows me to sell my unique talents at market rates, drives ambition and increases my standard of living. I repeat, I have no issue with earned wealth or capitalism. It isn't perfect because more often then not, it is controlled by someone with a vested interest in distorting the market for personal gain, be that Corporations who crush or "acquire" their competition or Governments who regulate to the Nth degree so that only established players stand a chance and entry to market is effectively closed for newcomers who do it cheaper or better.

One of the major problems I have with the Occupy movement is their anti Capitalism. Their solution, socialism, has been proven time and time again to drive DOWN standards of living whilst driving UP prices for you and me. No amount of well meaning rhetoric and concern for my fellow man will ever see me take money out of your pocket against your will and hand it to someone else to appease any ingrained guilt complex I may feel. I stand ready to help people to help themselves, but that does not include the contents of my wallet without my permission.

In the effort to control markets and over regulate free trade, all governments have been rewarded by those who stand to gain most from their tinkering. It is no coincidence that a behemoth of a Lobby industry knows exactly how to get richer. Control the Politicians, who control the treasuries and the Statute books and you're pretty much home and dry in the get rich quick stakes.

So it comes as no great surprise that Corporations now dominate the markets. Take a walk down any identi-high Street. Any originality, any niche supplier is snapped up and killed or "assimilated" into the portfolio of Corporations like drones to the Borg.

A recent report in the New Scientist shows that just 147 companies control Capitalism.Complex interwoven networks propped up by States and Central banks. Here are the top twenty. I'll leave it to you to spot how many have been bailed out by Politicians using YOUR money, taken by force. Then you might like to find out how many have ex politicians on the board or fund Party coffers.

We're being robbed and there is not a single thing we can do to stop them. They are 99% of the problem

1. Barclays plc
2. Capital Group Companies Inc
3. FMR Corporation
4. AXA
5. State Street Corporation
6. JP Morgan Chase & Co
7. Legal & General Group plc
8. Vanguard Group Inc
9. UBS AG
10. Merrill Lynch & Co Inc
11. Wellington Management Co LLP
12. Deutsche Bank AG
13. Franklin Resources Inc
14. Credit Suisse Group
15. Walton Enterprises LLC
16. Bank of New York Mellon Corp
17. Natixis
18. Goldman Sachs Group Inc
19. T Rowe Price Group Inc
20. Legg Mason Inc

Don't forget, I have a new column on @Blottr today.

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Cast out!!

I note that the Dean of St Pauls Cathedral has decided enough is enough and called time on the anti Capitalist Occupy protest that invaded his courtyard last weekend. Rather brilliantly, he has used the "health and safety" universal get out clause so beloved by unions and the State to throw the few remaining jugglers and "colour therapists" off his steps.

It is a shame that the modern protest movement seem unable to unite to address what is a uniform grievance. Most people are genuinely pissed off with the State handing money, OUR money to failed banks that under proper capitalism would have gone to the wall whilst their overpaid Chairmen jumped from the top floor of their office blocks. Alas, instead, the usual rent a mob grabbed their Samba drums, crayons, stilts and loudhailers and set up "workspaces" where they could all agree with each other as long as no one actually did anything sensible. Media tents, meditation tents, crystal therapy tents. And a piano.

Meanwhile, in Greece, half a MILLION people decided enough was enough and no way were they going to pay back the money their Politicians had borrowed in their name to buy votes. Greeks are screeching that their wages have halved (well, they would when the other half was borrowed and your credit card is cut up) and no sooner had they arrived at Parliament, than the Statist communists decided to encircle the place and attack anyone who was protesting. Only one dead - this time.

This is how it works. Do not vote for Politicians who borrow money in your name if you are not prepared to pay back that debt. Do not expect money unless you have earned it and it rightfully belongs to you. Do not go and protest unless you actually know why you are protesting and have an alternative plan that can be offered, tested, tested again and proved. Simply sitting on the steps of a Church and demanding that brain surgeons be paid the same as litter collectors and aeroplanes should be banned because they are made by corporations is not the way to win over your fellow citizens.Setting up recycling facilities and art groups are not the greatest priority when the system is about to collapse. The Occupy movement STILL have no coherent demands, no theory, no alternative - well, that doesn't involve yet more of the same idiocy we have just elected out of office and bankrupted the country anyway.

For the same reason I do not belong to a political party is in all truth the same reason that Occupy has failed. Everybody wanted to be leader and everybody had an agenda that trumped their neighbours. All sought to control the herd and replace the farmer - the irony that they squatted on the steps of a Church because they were "friendly" was not lost on me last weekend.

So where now? Simple. We sit back and study what those with genuine grievances, the Greeks get up to. I suspect a collapse in their government, followed by a default, followed by a military coup, followed by a return to sanity where they herd goats and farm melons instead of borrowing French money to buy BMWs. The natural state, if you like. Sure, it will shock many of the idealists who assume every single economy can be "leveraged to engage with equality" or some such shite but you cannot escape the consequences of avoiding reality.

I have no answer for the UK. I'd like to see a major UK bank go bust - as Northern Rock should have, I'd like to see us renegotiate our relationship with the EU along the same lines as the Swiss have managed and I'd like to see more than the equivalent of a one party State filled to the brim with Party apparatchiks and spin doctors selling our souls to the highest bidders but sitting on the steps outside a church with a set of maracas certainly isn't going to do it - and why should it?

No, I'll continue my own little individual protests whilst gently extracting myself from their clutches. No TV licence for me, no census, no voting in their pointless elections and financing their vanity projects, no yielding to their demands or salivating at their promises. Like a single grain of sand circulating through an expansive highly oiled machine, eventually my presence will either produce a pearl or a seizure in a cog. I can wait, unlike most,  I have made my plans to live without state intervention or a pension from a Politician - much to their annoyance.

My final message to Occupy? Don't use the system you detest. Go off grid, stop demanding the corrupt state employ you and pay you benefits, arrange your own finances and exploit the loopholes it leaves open. Realise that Politicians only have power over your lives because you allow them to. Develop your own individual ways to avoid the system and pretty soon, you won't have to protest because the actions of banks and politicians will no longer be relevant to your life.

And then, like the Church, like the Monarchs, like every dictator or tyrant who insists you do it their way, they'll hate you because you simply don't need to. Then you win. Got it?

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Cameron: We need a referendum on the EU

Remember, this is the same person who takes half your money by force and promises you an old age pension in return. All three parties promised a referendum, a chance for your voice to be heard in our "democracy". All three have decided, on your behalf of course, that the referendum you have requested will not take place. Still think you're free?

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Do as you want, or do as you are told

If you are happy with our membership of the EU, do nothing

If you are not happy with:

• Enforced rules dictating how you may earn your living

• Enforced rules dictating a foreign Police force may roam our streets

• Enforced rules dictating what you may buy and from whom

• Enforced rules dictating how much VAT you must pay

• Enforced rules dictating how much income tax you must pay

• Enforced rules dictating who may travel through our borders

• Enforced rules dictating how your personal data is held and shared

• Enforced rules dictating how our budget must be spent

• Enforced rules dictating how you must live your life

• Enforced rules dictating what you may own

Then you have a chance, just one, to hold our elected representatives to account.

Write to your MP and tell them that you will not accept being dictated to by an unelected European elite who have unlimited access to your property, your money, your sovereignty and your life.

Do it here.

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Get out of that castle, Englishman, others need it

It isn't a coincidence that I was awoken at dawn by the Pravda box informing me that State Riot Squads with tazers were evicting owners of property from their own land this morning. Whatever your views on the traveler community, they owned that land and improved it from a fetid scrap car dealers yard into a place they could raise children in safety. Still, their crime was to "develop" the land whilst not making anyone rich. "Prime green belt land" should be worth millions, not the £50K they paid appears to be the argument from the "victims" of this heinous crime, the property developers. "If they get away with it, anyone can get away with it - uphold the law! And our property portfolios"

Then, beautifully placed came the second Pravda article. People "hoarding" the houses they bought and paid for with their own money. The crime of owning a spare bedroom, therefore denying others the "right" to own a cheap property. Old people should be bribed with er..taxpayers money, to abandon their family homes and move into smaller, specially developed high density properties, presumably on green belt land and costing a fortune to free up their houses for those who need them most (and will pay stamp duty to the Govt to move into them).

We are rapidly approaching a state where ownership of anything is to be discouraged unless it can be reclaimed by a corporation (for updating) or the State to be re taxed. Just buying it with your own money isn't enough, you have to surrender it again so it can be revalued and resold, generating profit on profit and more taxes for the treasury. Trust me, if you can be "persuaded" out of your house because you have more room than you absolutely need, it won't be long before the State decides it cannot justify allowing you to own a four door car if you are not a family or a garden if you are housebound.

Please, leave us and our money alone. We earned it, you took as much of it as you possibly could without us actually burning down Parliament and hanging you from lamp posts, so stop telling us that we cannot have what we want and have paid for. When you get the Queen to live in a retirement studio by the A12 and turn her palaces into three bed housing association flats for "the vulnerable" who cannot get on the housing ladder/property bubble, come and see me. Not before.

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EU debate 27th October

Dear Brooks,

On October 27^th 2011, you will have the opportunity to represent your constituents in a debate on the EU in our Parliament, the House of Commons, the one that represents the People (not business, not the vested interests of your Party donors, not unions, but US, the people).

I am a European. My children are Europeans and like the Swiss and the Icelanders, I would like them to remain Europeans, without being dictated how to live their lives from the unelected Committees in Brussels.

I am not interested in how much big business would lose, or how difficult it would be to extract us from the spaghetti of legislation spun by you and your predecessors to ensure we cannot leave the web we were led into. I want out.

I am happy to trade with the EU, visit the EU, discuss with the EU and spend my holidays in the EU, but just like the Swiss, I see no need to embed myself in it and be dictated to by people I can never vote for. So do us all a favour and vote for an exit, or I’ll move heaven and earth to make sure Priti Patel gets the Braintree seat when the boundaries are changed.

Love and kisses

Old Holborn

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Occupy LSX - Eye witness report

After much jazzhands and posturing via steering committees, and much lentil bake consumed, the protesters at St Pauls Cathedral have finally issued their demands.

1 The current system is unsustainable. It is undemocratic and unjust. We need alternatives; this is where we work towards them.

2 We are of all ethnicities, backgrounds, genders, generations, sexualities, dis/abilities and faiths. We stand together with occupations all over the world.

3 We refuse to pay for the banks' crisis.

4 We do not accept the cuts as either necessary or inevitable. We demand an end to global tax injustice and our democracy representing corporations instead of the people.

5 We want regulators to be genuinely independent of the industries they regulate.

6 We support the strike on 30 November and the student action on 9 November, and actions to defend our health services, welfare, education and employment, and to stop wars and arms dealing.

7 We want structural change towards authentic global equality. The world's resources must go towards caring for people and the planet, not the military, corporate profits or the rich.

8 We stand in solidarity with the global oppressed and we call for an end to the actions of our government and others in causing this oppression.

9 This is what democracy looks like. Come and join us!

I visited yesterday to see what all the fuss was about. A couple of hundred of the usual suspects were there. When you are a political activist you get to see quite a few of the same people at any protest from fox hunting to ban the bomb and sure enough, a rich seam of swivel eyed loons, frothing at the mouth and ranting about chem trails, 9/11 and fluoride in the water seemed to be the main agenda.

It became clear they had no agenda other than to simply be there in case anything important happened. It didn’t. Eventually, the self appointed “leader” decided that everyone should huddle together and make up a list of “demands”. See above.

No one is more disappointed than me. There seems to be a genuine movement building to expose the connection between our corrupt politicians and our corrupt bankers and simply say STOP, something which always has had my full support. However, much to my dismay, it wasn’t long before I uncovered the usual piles of Socialist Worker in the recycling bins along with “Stop the Cuts” and “Hands off our benefits” placards.

I sat down with a few and tried to ascertain why they were there. 50 different people gave 50 different answers, all of them involved protecting public sector jobs, abolishing student fees and maintaining a massive welfare state. Oh, and don’t give the banks any more money., And some unicorn tears to make it all better. You can’t use logic to get people out of a mindset logic didn’t get them into. Why are you at the Stock Exchange, I asked? We hate corporations, they answered whilst tweeting on their iPads and sipping a Starbucks Latte – I was deafened by Irony Klaxons blasting in my ears. Wall Street companies were bailed out but the London Stock Exchange has never borrowed money in my name, so why not go to Parliament or the Banks, where the real cowards and thieves live? “Erm…the church here has been really nice to us”

Bottom line? These protesters want MORE taxes, an enlarged welfare state, a bigger Government, State jobs and death to bankers – and a bath. Marx would have been proud of them. I give them a fortnight at most. The Police have already removed the portaloos and it can’t be long before Starbucks and Pizza Express get fed up with toilets blocked by Lentil casserole and organic dysentery. As much as I hoped people had woken up from the stupor of a decade of Labour benefit addiction, the OccupyLSX protest is nothing more than a cold turkey sweat of the terminal welfare junkies.

Meet the new boss, same as the old boss.


PS, I'm sure you will all love my Blottr column today

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Ship of Fools

It seems no one has learned a damn thing. Four years after the beginning of the banking crisis and the subsequent carnage as Politicians poured in trillions of our money to prop up the ponzi schemes and protesters are once again heading down to the City to "occupy the Stock Exchange". They may as well be occupying Billingsgate fish market for all the difference it will make.

No one has EVER forced me to buy shares. Contrast if you will, the £100,000 of PUBLIC debt carried by EVERY family in the UK, thanks to Politicians and the Central Banks raiding our currency, yet no one has demanded to occupy Parliament or the Bank of England. Germans are protesting outside the European Central Bank in Frankfurt, thousands of them who know EXACTLY where the criminals are. Us? Sitting on the steps of St Pauls Catherdral and being kettled once again by the laughing Policeman.

Wise up fools. Go for the bankers and the Bond traders. Go for the Politicians who expect you to work harder and longer to pay for their narcisstic promises. Go for the REAL theives, the ones whose hands you are not allowed to remove from your own pockets, the ones who use the LAW to steal your money and place your children in debt. Let me know when you do, and I'll be there, on the front line, as usual. Ranting that people are richer than you is the politics of envy, nothing more and as history proves, just makes everyone pennyless.

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Fox Fucks Off

And about time too. I remember when the slightest hint of a whiff of lavender would have a minister resigning in an instant.

Let me make myself clear. I do not want ANYBODY who assumes authority over me to be open to blackmail. Hague did it, Fox did it. Taking young men away on "business trips" might be very liberal and trendy in our PC bubble we have created for ourselves, but most of the world doesn't live by our morals - and no one has to deal with them more than our Defence or Foreign Secretaries.

Clean up your act guys, it's a dangerous place out there. Now of course, the REAL challenge is going to be finding a replacement who isn't a millionaire, a closet poof, in the pay of lobbyists or defence companies and has a clean record that cannot be exploited by those who seek to exercise power over those who hold power over us. I'm not holding my breath.

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Rejoice!! Glorious 5 year plan announced!!

You have to love Ed Balls. "Something must be done!" he screeches "This is something. Do it"

Now call me cynical but I have yet to meet a UK Government who plan anything in the long term. All activities by the powers that be are designed with the sole aim of short term gain and re-election so they can keep their greasy hands on the levers of power and deep in the pockets of the tax victims (I refuse to call them taxpayers, it isn't optional, after all). Let's have a look at Ed's Glorious 5 Point Plan to return Britain to the boom, boom, boom of those wonderful Labour years under Gordon "the ruiner" Brown.

• Repeating the bank bonus tax - and using "the money to build 25,000 affordable homes and guarantee a job for 100,000 young people" - that'll be the banks that will need recapitalising because they have..er..no money, right?
• Bringing forward long-term investment projects, such as schools, roads and transport, to create jobs - No Ed. We are a trillion in debt because of your PFI specials and my kids certainly do not want any more piled on them
• Reversing January's "damaging" VAT rise now for a temporary period - why temporary Ed? If you want people to consume, reduce the consumption tax permanently.
• Immediate one-year cut in VAT to 5% on home improvements, repairs and maintenance - ah, and create a housing bubble as Dawn and Keith rush out to buy a Jacuzzi to add a few quid to the value of their two up, two down in Droitwich? Boom and bust, remember?
• One-year national insurance tax break "for every small firm which takes on extra workers, using the money left over from the government's failed national insurance rebate for new businesses" - "money left over" ? Ed, there isn't any money, you gave it all to the banks, remember?

 There is a global adjustment under way, Ed. A monumental fight between the banks, Corporations and Politicians and us, the ever suffering public who serve them. We, as a planet, have run out of money we never had in the first place (yet strangely will have to repay). We cannot afford what we cannot afford, as Greece is slowly finding out. Promises from Politicians are as worthless as the bonds they sell to finance it. The game is up. Poor? Cancel your fucking SkyPlus box and stop ordering Dominoes pizzas from your iPhone then. Try and make do with last seasons nylon football shirt, no matter what the shame. Jobless? Go and join the Poles in the factories and the fields actually earning a living until things look up again. 

Pay off your debts and start living within your means, just as 2/3rds of the planet has to.Ask the older generation how they managed without a iPhone or a television in every room because no matter what our elected Emperors may tell you, we are not clothed in fine silks supplied by them, we are skint. Proper skint, naked and utterly exposed to the cold wind of reality.

Humpty Dumpty sat on a wall,
Humpty Dumpty had a great fall.
All the king's horses,
And all the king's men,
Couldn't put Humpty together again.

“You can ignore reality, but you can't ignore the consequences of ignoring reality.” Ayn Rand

 

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For better, for worse.....

I had the misfortune to hear Vera Baird on Radio 4 earlier, demanding that forced marriages should be left as they are, as to prosecute the perpetrators would only "alienate the victim from their immediate family."

After a short lie down, and a trip to the garden to retrieve the radio, I composed myself.

I understand that humans in groups develop their own cultures. We have no inner core value so invent them to suit our surroundings and ensure the survival of the fittest. If it doesn't succeed, the group die out. Yes, it's that old monster, evolution.

Some cultures have decided that the best way to ensure wealth, power and property are transferred correctly is to arrange marriages - actually a smart idea, if both partners consent. Then some cultures have decided to really keep it in the family and forcibly marry you to your own cousin, presumably to reduce the amount of presents at Christmas. One set of Grandparents keeps the bills down.

Alas, nature has a way of dealing with this. Genetic defects soon put a stop to that little game. Ask the Ashkenazi tribes of Israel of the Pakistani tribes of Bradford how well that is going. It isn't. We weren't designed for forced marriage (read procreation) to close relatives. Studies show that the "natural state" is that a man and a woman part after seven years of child raising to increase the genetic chances of successful offspring. don't put all your eggs in one basket as they say. Probably a lot of sense in that argument. Not many species marry for life.

Back to Vera. Vera is not dumb, she once held high office in this land. Vera attained high office by pandering to every culture she encountered in the hope that it would increase her share of the vote. Vera knows that women are enslaved by marriages they never agreed to, yet Vera will not and cannot upset the multi cultural apple cart for fear of losing influence - I would have love to have seen her offering dinner to cannibals in exchange for votes, but I digress.

Vera. If prosecuting the immediate family of those who abuse a girl is "cruel" and "unnecessary", because it would alienate her from her "loving family", why did we not hear you decrying the rights of victims of Paedophilia to challenge their tormentors for the same reason? Not enough votes in it?

Of course a Fabian like Vera will always take the side of those who tell, not ask. Never, ever, trust a Politician. Ever. Bastards.

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November 5th Walk, Westminster

It would be a shame to let a November 5th pass without protest at that most sacred of institutions, the Royal Palace of Westminster, so I have decided that this years protest WILL take place.

For those who are unaccustomed to my November 5th walks, it involves large amounts of beer, Guy Fawkes costumes, a great deal of humour and a willingness to poke the great and the good on their own turf. no one usually gets arrested, although we all usually get stopped and searched, giving us all the perfect opportunity to show that we know our rights and tell those who would usurp them where to get off - "no officer, you may not detain me".

Past walks have been a great chance for likeminded Libertarian or anarchist individuals to meet up and of course, as this time it falls on a Saturday, you'll have no excuse to confuse tourists, test your law skills, upset the ground staff at Hogwarts, get in the paper and on the tellybox and show that you care a little for the abuse of our rights and freedoms by the 650 idiots who pretend to act in our name and with our mandate.

So it's time to dig out the V for Vendetta masks (or a Burqa - try removing that, Constable) and meet up with me to discuss how we continue to be the thorn in side of those who would be our masters, using money taken by force from us, the people.

 

Meet Saturday November 5th, 11am, Chandos Pub (cheap ale), Trafalgar Square, London.

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Our Jobs, who art in Heaven

 Apple Store in San Francisco, right now

Our Brave New World

The New God has risen unto Heaven, avail yourselves of more Soma and pity the savages with iPhone3s

Hours after the sad but not unpredicted demise of a senior industrialist, points of sale of his products have been inundated by faux worshippers to the religion of consumerism, bereft that their ability to display their wealth and status may be drastically afffected by the absense of the man who made the lives of little people a bit more interesting by giving them shiny things.

Excuse my cynicism. I am an anti consumer. Whilst I can recognise that Steve Jobs was extremely creative, and a cut throat businessman determined to succeed, he was and will remain in my eyes a human being, not the new Messiah. I have never owned an Apple product because I believe money is too precious to squander by displaying to others how much of it you have. And that was the marketing ploy of Steve Jobs. Design something that works, then create an image of something unattainable to the masses, treble the price and watch the demand soar. Mass produced designer goods created to make sheep look a bit less like sheep whilst acting more like sheep. Display your individuality by buying what no one else around you can afford (yet ship millions). Offer special versions in white plastic and watch the faithful queue through the night to be yet more unique and attain a higher order in the Holy Church of Apple.

I find no comfort in humanity from watching wannabee Alphas fall on their knees at the departing of "our Jobs", devasted that their desire to be admired for owning a "product" may be coming to an end. How will they attain their superior intelectual status and affirm their now that "the creator" has i-shuffled off this mortal coil? Is our society so shallow and baseless that we can only be happy if we own what others cannot?

Steve Jobs will not be mourned by the majority of humanity. He created extremely expensive consumer products, designed to be built, shown off and discarded by the fools whose money could not wait to part from them. Out there, families are cutting back yet would never dream of owning an outdated model of any of his products, lest they be judged to have failed. No private number plate on the four year old car to disguise its age, Apple would never allow that. No, you buy new, you upgrade, you stay with the Alpha elite or you become a Beta, destined to merely work and consume, rather work, consume and be admired.

So long Steve,

Signed

John the Savage

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The State Bank of Debt

The Collective debt, not just of our profligate politicians, keen to please all of the people all of the time using our own money, but of our private households is truly astounding. Long gone are the days of careful spending, budgeting, saving, putting something aside for a rainy day, we are all maxed out on credit cards, personal loans and mortgages.

Just today, the Belgians and the French have been called upon to support Dexia Bank after it was revealed that those wise chaps had bought up huge chunks of Greek debt that will never be repaid by the Greeks, so it’s down to the taxpayer once again to support a bank that became too big to fail. Cameron advises that the UK starts to pay off private credit card debt (in other words, save the banks) whilst grabbing as much taxation as possible to pay off the debt racked up by the previous Government. All in all, your money is either going straight to the banks or via Government to the banks.

Meanwhile the European Central Bank is issuing worthless bonds it is not allowed to issue, whilst dictating to elected politicians how they must set their budgets and pensions. Voters in Southern Europe now have no say over how their country is run, a diktat is issued from unelected bankers and EU Officials in Brussels. The ballot box is now redundant, the banks grow bigger and more powerful and the theft of your money and labour by States and banks continues unabated.

Of course, I take a great interest in things Bulgarian at the moment, as I have decided to base myself there. Yesterday, their Parliament suggested that any Govt that has a deficit greater than 3% should be declared illegal (UK is currently around 10.7%, Greece has 10.5%). The prime minister politely reminded other EU states that if they paid out the same rate of pensions as Bulgarians receive, they wouldn’t be in the mess they are wallowing in. Of course, with income tax and corporation tax fixed flat at 10%, the Bulgarian state knows it has little money to play and has no desire to enslave its citizens yet again. No running to the Central Bank in Sofia and printing off a few billion Lev to fund a shiny motorway, Bulgarians deal in good hard cash, hoarded under the mattress for decades.

Remember, debt IS slavery. Money is the crystallization of labour and if you create money before the work is done, you are a slave to that money. It owns you and your future labour. The past 50 years have seen one of the biggest scams ever perpetuated by banks and politicians- have it now, your kids can pay, they’ll earn more than you ever did anyway and will be able to afford what you cannot. Suddenly kids have realised that a degree in Aromatherapy and the Medium of Dance is not worth £9000 a year (now they have to pay for it, not me) and they are pretty soon going to twig that all this State debt is going to have to be paid off by them because we don’t have any money. Whatever we have is already being fleeced off us by the State every time we spend or earn (up to 73% tax for some low earners SOURCE).

The solution? Let the banks that acquired the profligate debt caused by Politicians fail. To the wall with them, begone foul moneylenders. The cosy relationship between banks and the access to taxpayers money must stop. Until it does, the very real risk of a bank becoming a functioning State, able to dictate policy over citizens, able to extract taxes instead of charges and able to control the entire money supply is simply too great to tolerate.

Don’t say you weren’t warned.

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The Pit of Despair

Ian Duncan Smith has landed the blame for the UK riots where it needs to be landed. The destruction of families and the welfare State.

Our youth have no need to work. The benefits paid by an army of State “facilitators” will be enough for them to get by on, and those pricey designer phones or trainers can always be funded by nefarious drug dealing. No parent there to stand in the way of our up and coming gangsta and remind him of his responsibility as a citizen, the State assumed that role decades ago.

Well done Tyson. This certificate is because you almost attended some lessons last year, this gold certificate with stars is because you showed such promise as a footballer and this shiny medallion is for being the most caring 16 year old father in the class. Now off you go into the big wide world and show them all what our fantastic education system has created.

An opportunist thief, with no hope of independent income or aspiration other than to own designer shoes and a hat that may make your peers respect you. The voice that demanded “your rights” from your hairy lipped Fabian teachers while you sucked your teeth at them for asking you to sit still in class now demands “your rights” from society in general as you demand money from the Job Centre to top up your iPhone, innit. Respect, braaaap.

We really have allowed a truly horrible experiment on humans to take place under our very noses. As much as the vile psychological experiments with the emotions of new born apes shocked us during the 60’s, we allowed politicians to do exactly the same with our children.

“These experiments involved rearing newborn monkeys with surrogate mothers, ranging from toweling covered cones to a machine that modeled abusive mothers by assaulting the baby monkeys with cold air or spikes”

So now we have swathes of inner cities full of bitter, uncaring, violent youth, denied the chance of a loving family by a political system that replaced the parent with a benefit cheque, the home with a “council flat” and affection with material unearned “rewards”. No future for them, just a lifetime of misery, created by  a step parent who has long lost interest in what it adopted and created.

No wonder it’s so fucking dangerous out there after dark.

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