Retired in Euskadi

I would agree; we have nothing to pat ourselves on the back for.

What really gets me is the wholesale fashion for dumbing down of our whole Judaeo-Christian history to the level of inconsequence. What's happened in the past has happened & we cannot change it; nor should we "apologise" because it cannot be undone. All we can try to do is learn from the past mistakes & resolve not to repeat them, though that also is a tall order looking at some of our policies!

cricketman

Well exactly, the problem is that Britain has always relied on repressing the rest of the world in order for the nobles and upper class to get rich - and this history continues unabated

Pocaloca

Plus ça change ...

World's 100 richest people got $241 billion richer in 2012

All the money the banks "lost".
All the money taken from the hospitals.
All the money taken out of education.
All the money they've taken from the poor, the sick, the unemployed.
It hasn't all just simply disappeared. It had to go somewhere.

Dick Dasterdly

Ah yes, much like the Spanish did in the Americas you mean and would still love to be able to do now, if they hadn't cocked it all up.

Domino

didn't have you down as a communist, but then didn't they do the same thing ??

cricketman

I'm not a communist, but then I'm not a liberal capitalist. I think I'm a "sustainable capitalist", to put a label on it. Maybe it will catch on

amideislas

Yeah, I fondly remember when I first realised that idealistic liberalism consistently achieved the opposite of the intended effect.

I sense you might actually be peeking out of the closet now. Welcome to sunlight, CMan.

amideislas

OK, you win... we're far worse off than we have ever been (except for Spain, of course, which is the only utopia on the planet).

Back in the old days, everybody used to be so prosperous, so kind, and never treated anyone with disrespect, never engaged in racism, aggressive behaviour, sexual misconduct, greed or fraud, corruption, war, murder, or any other unthinkable act. These things are all products of the last 50 years of evolution. Before that, it was never heard of.

Unlike the "good old days" virtually everyone on the planet (except for the Spanish, of course) is now racist, a greedy banker, a thief, a sexual deviate, a liar, a murderer, an extortionist, a corrupt war-mongering politician, or some other sort of criminal (or so you often seem to believe).

Too bad we can't go back to the good ol' days when all that ugly stuff was either swept under the rug, or denied altogether. Ignorance was indeed bliss, wasn't it?

notacontrathinker

This assumes a zero sum world economy when in fact the wealth of the world is constantly growing.

You assume Peter must be robbed to pay Paul when in fact Peter is growing and so is Paul.

All the money the banks "lost".

The money was never there to be lost. What was lost was the inflated value of assets on their books.

All the money taken from the hospitals.

No money was taken from hospitals - only that which was used to pay for goods and services.

All the money taken out of education.

Ditto

All the money they've taken from the poor, the sick, the unemployed.

Money was taken off the rich in taxes to pay the poor, the sick, the unemployed.

If the rich didn't get richer, it would mean they weren't paying taxes, and public spending wouldn't be what it is.

"All the money taken" is in fact the reduction of public spending not underpinned by taxes and borrowed by extravagant governments.

cricketman

Not at all - you have mixed up thinking

The world isnt getting richer, it is getting more in debt. The world is in debt to itself in the tune of trillions of dollars. Money isnt made, it is invented by governments and banks, they simply type some numbers into a computer and it appears

The mega-rich take the invented money from the national institutions and then expect everyone else to pay it back

Pocaloca

Oh I must have got it wrong then. So the banks didn't really need bailing out because they never had the money in the first place? Spain isn't littered with unfinished hospitals, and schools aren't being forced to increase class sizes? Public sector workers haven't had their pay cut by 22% on average? And all those rich people pay their taxes like dutiful citizens?

I must be reading the wrong papers.

Retired in Euskadi

You seem to have something against the rich. Nothing wrong with having wealth as such. It's how you acquire it & what you do with it that counts. If certain people wish to send their children to Eton, so what?

The rich & the poor will always be with us.
There are many rich people who give a lot of their money away without needing to.
There are many poor people whose only desire is to become richer.
And the vast majority of us probably lie somewhere in the middle.

Yes, there is a lot of inequality in the world, whether financial, spiritual, physical, political or economical.
In the end, probably the system we have is a great deal better than the lot of the poor people in places like North Korea, Cuba, sub-Saharan Africa, not to mention Arab dictatorships like Syria or Yemen.
I've yet to see hoards of people queueing up to go & live in Cuba, North Korea, Russia or the Arab dictatorships.
But don't let us become complacent either.
Let's be a bit more positive about the world.

cricketman

I have nothing against the rich per se, I myself am incredibly rich, relatively...

The argument that we have it better than countries under repressive regimes is one that is trotted out regularly to make sure that we "thank our lucky stars" and maintain the status quo

That doesnt change my opinion that our economic system is built on a house of cards and inherently unfair

Btw, the biggest problem that regimes have that go against their neighbours political thinking, is that they then have nobody to trade with. This is Cuba's biggest problem. It is actually a country that is run incredibly well (I've seen it for myself). Something for the UK to think about when discussing whether to leave the EU...

notacontrathinker

The world isnt getting richer

The tangible wealth of the world is increasing. There are more houses, buildings, shops, roads, railways, airports, ports, cars, trains etc,etc,etc, and more people with full bellies wandering around the planet than in all it’s history.

The world is in debt to itself in the tune of trillions of dollars

Debt is not evil. Should I walk around in sackcloth and ashes because I have taken out a car loan ? Add up all the car loans, mortgages, loans for other goods for all the people in the world, and it WILL come to trillions. Trillions is a fairly new word used by the press to try and scare us. We love to be scared. Move along there, there is nothing to see here.

Money isnt made, it is invented by governments and banks, they simply type some numbers into a computer and it appears

Impossible. There is a money market out there that insists this is not done.

The mega-rich take the invented money from the national institutions and then expect everyone else to pay it back

How do Richard Branson, Bill Gates and wotsisname Zuckerman et al actually do this ?

So the banks didn't really need bailing out because they never had the money in the first place?

More or less correct. The treasury put in place measures to ensure that if there was a run on the banks the government would guarantee payment. The run didn’t happen and the money wasn’t really needed. For doing this the government managed to pick up a couple of cheap banks. The losers were the owners of the bank.

The British government were able to do this because their word is as good as gold around the world, whereas someone like defaulting Iceland’s word is now worth doodly squat.

Spain isn't littered with unfinished hospitals ?

Shouldn’t have started them in the first place without a full and viable financial plan. Any idiot can start a hospital, get the credit for it then quietly drop it.

schools aren't being forced to increase class sizes ?

Do you mean there were too few pupils in the past to fill the classrooms and it is now being brought up to the correct level, or do you mean there has been bad planning. After all you should be able to extrapolate from the number of births the school places required years ahead. What’s this got to do with the mega-rich ?

Public sector workers haven't had their pay cut by 22% on average ?

You shouldn’t borrow to increase the public sector, because when you can’t borrow anymore, you have to lose workers or pay everybody less.

And all those rich people pay their taxes like dutiful citizens?

I suggest to you that the mega-rich pay scrupulous attention to their tax affairs, and would try extremely hard to avoid even inadvertently ending up in a cold jail cell.

However, if we are talking Spanish rich, or even ever-so-slightly Spanish rich, then ‘no’. Tax evasion seems to rival pentanque as the national sport.

I must be reading the wrong papers

I am cursed (or blessed) in the last eight years by not being able to get hold of British newspapers very easily here, and I’ve only just been re-hooked upto the inter-thingy. My information tends to come from TV – BBC, SKY, CNN, Al-Jazeera, Euronews, and the Spanish Channels.

Now I know these channels give a slanted view of the world, but after coming out of quarantine I am appalled by the unresearched garbage spouted out by all the British press and accepted as gospel by seemingly intelligent people.

How many papers correctly forecast Guadiola’s move to MB? Right! Now apply that to the rest of the crap they pump out.

cricketman

Excellent post

This should be copied and supplied to schools everywhere to show how your average man on the street has no idea about how the economy works You've managed to supply the wrong answer to every question. Well done!