"You mean like North Korea?"

As I've written about Bill Gates before (back when he was blubbering about 'creative capitalism') I couldn't help but find this clip quite interesting. He seems to be saying inequality has brought us great advances, while also suggesting that the situation hasn't worsened in terms of growing inequality. He scorns distributional efforts, but says he's for certain tax increases (though he claims to be in the dark about Scandinavian tax precedents). He shows his true colours in his obnoxious denial of Microsoft's record of avoiding tax (which you can read about here). We know he's for health-care reform in the US and he's against a raise in the minimum wage. Meanwhile he makes it clear that his preferred method is charitable gestures. On this matter some have been inclined to question his interest in genetically-engineered seeds to be distributed in the developing world.

Kennedy's words on November 22nd 1963.

I've just been flicking through Ira Stoll's book on John F Kennedy. The Stoll thesis is that the Kennedy administration was a conservative rather than a liberal government. He points to Kennedy's record in economics, as well as in foreign policy, to support his case. This seems to me to be at least healthy in terms of historical inquiry. The American empire, if it is in long-term decline, should be at the beginning of a lot of self-reflection that may not be very pleasant, but it is necessary medicine. The way in which the Vietnam war is conceptualised is key to this. The Kennedy legend is a big part of that and has to be dislodged for a proper critique of imperialism. Not that I expect that, or should expect such a thing, from an intelligent conservative columnist and analyst such as Mr Stoll. It is not to herald Kennedy as a conservative icon, but to deal with the hagiography around him.

A good chapter in Stoll's book is on the day of the assassination itself. Kennedy was set to deliver a speech prating on the fortunes of tax-cuts (for the upper-crust) and the boost to the war budget. That was the speech that the assassination prevented. Nothing a peacenik ought to scoff at. Fortunately, Kennedy did manage to speak publicly and proudly of his achievements earlier that day. It was at a breakfast at the Fort Worth Chamber of Commerce that the President stated:

We have increased the defense budget of the United States by over 20%; increased the program of acquisition for Polaris submarines from 24 to 41; increased our Minutemen missile purchase program by more than 75%; doubled the number of strategic bombers and missiles on alert; doubled the number of nuclear weapons available in the strategic alert forces; increased the tactical nuclear forces deployed in Western Europe by over 60%; added five combat ready divisions to the Army of the United States, and five tactical fighter wings to the Air Force of the United States; increased counter-insurgency forces which are engaged now in South Vietnam by 600%.

So there goes the line that the President was a dove looking to slam the breaks on the American war-machine. I've already stated my position on the various theories around the assassination, and Stoll's book interests me precisely because I don't see Kennedy as a heroic liberal figure. I think this quote supports the line that I have taken up. Specifically, that the Kennedy administration was completely wedded to the imperial project of asserting the power that the US had gained in the climax of WW2. The Vietnam war is to be considered a part of the efforts to maintain this hegemonic stance and to snuff out the currents of independence in the region. In fact, the US more or less accomplished this aim by installing dictatorships in Indonesia and the Philippines while bombing Laos, Cambodia and Vietnam into the Jurassic period. The ripples off of these events would leave millions dead in Cambodia and Indonesia (including a genocide in East Timor) on top of the bloodbath in Vietnam. It was all for stability. You can tell it went well because the East Asian economies almost fell into an abyss in the 1990s.

Permanent Austerity.

Bound in white tie, but not gagged, merely primed for performance as always, the Prime Minister finally admitted what some of us had suspected from before the beginning. In his speech David Cameron came out with the rhetoric of small government, that we have to do more with less and shrink the state to a more effective role. So the point of the austerity measures is not to reduce the deficit necessarily, it is to slim down the size of the state. Of course, it is worth saying that the ideological mission of a shrunken state is one and the same with the claims to 'necessity'. It is no coincidence that the claim that the spending cuts are 'necessary' comes with added promises of greater 'productivity', 'innovation' and 'efficiency'. In fact, a government euphemism for cuts is 'efficiency savings'. This is the lexicon of neoliberal managerialism.

If we are to take David Cameron on his word then we might say that the austerity is meant to be perpetual and never ending. The key part being when he said "We are sticking to the task. But that doesn't just mean making difficult decisions on public spending. It also means something more profound, it means building a leaner, more efficient state.  We need to do more with less. Not just now, but permanently." The sight of the Prime Minister in his white little frock at the throne dripping gold and these words coming out of his mouth was something to be seen. Unfortunately the irony of the Head of Her Majesty's Government proselytising on the virtues of 'small government' is lost on conservative opinion. Meanwhile the handful of liberal and leftish rags immediately seized on the words of the Prime Minister. But no one should be so surprised really.
 

Just observe the fact that the original proposals by George Osborne were meant to reduce the deficit to naught by 2015 and now the plans to wipe the deficit have been extended to 2020. To this picture we may add the claims that the NHS is facing a shortfall of £10 billion, that was back in 2010, it was Andrew Lansley, who used the figure to justify the cuts he was making at the time. Now there is talk of a coming shortfall by the end of the decade of £30 billion. One wonders if Cameron's lot will ever feel they have lowered the rate of spending far enough. Every problem of the public services and welfare state are seized on by these vultures as proof of the need for deep cuts. The various scandals to be endured by the NHS of late fit the example perfectly. Hunt will make a statement on the problem at hand (which is no doubt real) to buttress his position as a competent Health Secretary coming up with the prescription for a better health service. Cuts and more cuts.

The examples the Prime Minister reaches for are quite interesting for this reason. He singled out for praise the accomplishments of Michael Gove, the 40% cuts to administrative staff at the Education Department to be specific. Then there are the 3,000 'free schools' and academies set up under the watch of Gove. He lumps in the shrinkage of the department with the use of public assets and money to ensure education for the children of sharp-elbowed middle-class parents. 'Free schools' are established at the expense of the tax-payer and even at a cost to comprehensive and other state schools in terms of resources. This is the same ministry to rearrange the pensions system for teachers with the hopes of devaluing their retirement funds by 15% and raising their payments by 50%. Over the same timeline you'll find tuition fees introduced and raised almost at every university to £9,000, apparently to reduce the deficit when HE funding accounts for 0.7% of GDP.


This is the manifest reality of what Cameron means when he speaks of a "leaner, more efficient state". The idealised slim-line state of libertarian imaginations is not to be taken seriously as a realistic prospect. Really we're looking at the possibility of living in a society where the social safety-nets is non-existent while the state intervenes to create markets, boost supply and ensure vast profits. There will be plenty of bailouts to come. In some respects the neoliberal period seems much more like a state of flux than a rigidly set social order. It is partly identifiable by its oscillations, the sudden shift in gears from taking a chainsaw to financial regulations to diving into the public purse to save the lemmings before they go over the cliff. Though it is a very narrow and restricted spectrum with serious limitations. There is only so many regulations to burn and so far the taxes can be cut.

Jumping each hurdle might become much more difficult as we go long. Crises will offer opportunities to reconstitute the economic formations as they were prior to them. Schumpeter called it 'creative destruction': the field of competitors is wiped clear for old forces to go from strength to strength. A better diagnosis from Naomi Klein would be economic 'shock therapy' whereby the crisis provides a cover for a series of assaults to be launched on the living standards of working-class people. It's worth bearing in mind that the current order took shape in the way that the Thatcherites circumvented the crisis of social democracy: 1) cutting public expenditure, 2) privatising state industries, 3) smashing the unions and 4) deregulation of finance. Incidentally the average rate of growth in the 70s was 2.5% and it remained the same in the Thatcher decade. So those who think the austerity is about high rates of growth are sadly mistaken, at best.

Not surprisingly then 0.8% of growth is enough for George Osborne to declare a great victory, a strange position given that there has been no opposition in Parliament to his agenda. Only a brat as expensively educated as the Chancellor could perceive competition in a game rigged in his favour. The Cameron lot want to patch up this sorry set-up, not to fundamentally alter its trajectory. The failures of the past are accentuated, and framed in a certain way, by the abstract principles of today. A high-rate of public expenditure is measured by a criterion not of the social democratic era. The 1970s was a terrible time in British history not because it necessarily was so awful, but because the conditions differ so greatly to today. To be specific, the scope of the state - particularly in the ways that helped poor people - in those days is what outrages conservative-minded people.

The standard of a high level of government debt was changed by the Thatcher-Major era. Suddenly it was set at a benchmark of 40% when this country has seen rates as high as 250% in the wake of World War Two. And that was a well managed economic situation. The Labour government of 1945 established a social democracy complete with the trimmings of a welfare state and universal health-care. The story of how the social democratic post-war consensus developed systemic problems and crises is a long one and a subject for a different article. What may be said is that the failures of that epoch have been accentuated in the years since. The abstract principles of today are applied to those yesteryears with the self-serving results one would expect. The rightward trend of discourse leaves the state-led settlement of the 50s and 60s looking almost Soviet to too many people today. This is the death of social democracy.

The Evacuation of Meaning.

 

 

You may have heard recently that the Labour Party has rediscovered itself as the revolutionary vanguard ever ready to play dictatress to the proletarians of the UK. Unfortunately the slogan won’t be ‘Peace, Bread, Land’ exactly because Ed Miliband has pledged to freeze energy prices for 20 months, to protect the minimum wage, repeal the bedroom tax and to incentivise private companies to develop on the land they own. No promises to reverse course on tuition fees, certainly not on ‘free schools’, the coming sale of Royal Mail and the on-going privatisation of the NHS so ignored by most of the mainstream media. If you read The Telegraph, The Daily Mail, The Sun and The Daily Express you will of course know this is the most radical position ever taken in the last thirty years. That is only demonstrative of just how deeply the termites have spread and how well they have dined. Tony Blair and Peter Mandelson have condemned Ed Miliband’s positions for abandoning the New Labour script of triangulated means to compete for the Conservative vote and, naturally, taking the working-class vote for granted. The Blairites are totally on board for the Cameron prescription of fiscal conservatism (for the poor anyway) to restructure the welfare state and public services.

The right-wing commentariat are on the offensive to safeguard the existing order (or should that be disorder?) of bloated energy oligopolies and the particular approach Cameron has taken to pumping up a housing bubble in London. The bedroom tax has appeal because gutting the benefits system will make some in the public feel good that Nicky Welfare isn’t getting away with spending his £60 a week on lager anymore. That’s the only discussion we’re allowed about benefits. No one wants to talk about the fact that Nicky Welfare’s housing benefit doesn’t go on his drinking habits, but it does go straight into the pockets of a landlord. The housing crisis is not up for discussion anymore. The Conservatives and Lib Dems have been hard at work trying to patch up the system as it was when Gordon Brown was in the Treasury. All of them will talk the talk about the need to build more houses to stoke the chronic shortage and lift people out of dilapidated housing. There is no serious commitment to extending public money to building more social housing. Instead the government and the so-called left-wing opposition are signed up to selling off these houses thereby feeding the same processes of debt and property speculation which laid the basis for the last crash.

 

At the same time, the Labour Party has not reclaimed Clause 4 to recommit itself to the nationalisation of industries and assets. Instead Miliband waffles as the NHS is sold off bit by bit and even as the delegates vote unanimously in favour of renationalising the railways the Labour leadership looks for the door. Yet ‘Red’ Ed can’t help himself from affirming a vague commitment to an even more vague democratic socialism. It seems like just five minutes ago Ed Miliband was calling himself a “modern progressive social democrat” and affirmed a commitment to a “responsible capitalism”. It shows how far things have gone, Tony Blair knew what he had to say to get ahead back in 1983 when he described himself as a socialist influenced by Karl Marx. Keep in mind ‘Red’ Ed is the same leader looking to chuck out the troublesome unions, while he has taken the side of Boris Johnson in his support for a “use it or lose it” policy on land ownership. Even Margaret Thatcher maintained a 60p tax for nine years, but Ed is so ‘red’ for supporting the 50p rate. The truth is the spectrum has moved considerably to the Right and now the much lauded centre is hardly a bastion of moderation. At best Labour offers to hold back a bit more than the Conservatives: austerity lite, rather than austerity.

 

Meanwhile the liberal press is in just a bad shape as it agrees with the right-wing analysis for the most part. The liberals love the idea that the socialist movement and its project are long dead. To them Ed Miliband is a nuanced centre-left politician, better than Tony Blair but not as bad as Tony Benn. It’s just another variation on the Third Way paradigm of New Labour and New Democrats. There is virtually no difference in rhetoric as Miliband has been oh so very careful not to distinguish himself from the odious stench of Blairism. Nor has he set out to distance himself from the Brown mound. He doesn’t want to define himself or to be defined and yet he expects to win an election on the same old pablum. The conservative press have already laid down their script, as they had done from day one, Ed Miliband is a leftist and his failures are to be taken as failures of the Left. The liberals more or less have swallowed so much of the premise as to tie themselves to this conclusion. When it came to Syria the Labour leader was distinguished not by his success but by his failure to push through his ‘yes’ motion. It would’ve made his father proud. It might only be reasonable able to hope Miliband can produce more of these fuck ups once in office.

This article was originally written for and posted at the Third Estate on September 27th 2013.

The Boris Johnson Symptom.

 

In recent years there has not been a more significant symptom of disarray within the Conservative Party than the undiluted veneration of Boris Johnson. This is especially the case with the constant talk of Boris becoming Party Leader and maybe even Prime Minister one day. The Conservative Party must be aware of the fact that they haven’t won a majority government in more than 20 years. It’s hard to picture the traditionalists being massaged into ecstasy by a Prime Minister BJ, perhaps even less so than Prime Minister DC. So it must be about the desperation in the knowledge that the Party seriously needs popular appeal. The right-wing adoration for Boris ranks in high farce. There were those who claimed his re-election in 2012 was down to his strong conservative principles. Toby Young has bet £15,000 with Nigella Lawson that, by 2018, Boris will be Tory leader and, in the imagination of some, a prospective Prime Minister. Then in 2012, that custodian of the sacred foetus, Nadine Dorries came out in standard reactionary flair to berate David Cameron as a ‘sheep in wolf’s clothing’ before fawning over the imaginary prospect of a Boris Cabinet.

 

The prospect remains a realistic one in the minds of many. Yet we’d do better to examine the Boris phenomenon with more serious eyes. If we assume that Boris is sensible (a risk we may live to regret) then surely the Mayoral office is much more suited to his attributes. It’s not that he is an effective politician due to his strong conservative principles. The efficacy of the Johnson persona is his relatively detached relationship with power which lends great prowess to the anti-political role of a clown. As Mayor Boris enjoys the freedom to rail against the government and not commit to anything. In a higher office Boris would lose this non-committed freedom and be held to rigorous scrutiny within Parliament and in the press. No amount of bluster from foolish reactionaries and eejits will change this obvious flaw in the delusion. It was precisely the anti-political purity of Boris Johnson by comparison with Ken Livingstone that secured the glass testicle for the Conservatives. Boris doesn’t come across as a politician. He’s a combination of the Wodehousian aristo and a political tabula rasa. Behind the blank veneer you find, at best, the incoherence of market liberalism.

 

Last week Boris put forward a series of proposals for a ’2020 vision of London’ which he claims as his own. Apparently the future will be a ‘golden age’ in transport for Londoners. The programme is exactly what we would expect from the anti-political populist who has run City Hall for five years now. The prospect of 75% automation has the mouths of many commuters watering profusely. Smashing the last of the strong trade unions in this country is a cause endorsed by liberals as well as conservatives. It’s a broad based appeal to the urban poor who don’t want their lives disrupted regularly by strikes (and with good reason); as well as the suburban middle-classes who hope the roads may be less congested if the unwashed hordes are shuffling about underground. The regressive fare hikes are defended as necessary measures in austere times, yet it was Boris who closed the deal with Venezuela for cheap oil – a deal cut by Mr Livingstone to maintain low bus fares. There is no talk of necessity when it comes to slamming the breaks on the congestion charge to rake in petit-bourgeois votes. Simultaneously the £12 billion development of Crossrail 2 no doubt offers prospects for speculators, just as the extension of the Jubilee line cost £3.5 billion while it raised land values for speculators to rake in £13 billion.

 

Much has been made of the late date at which these proposals have been put forward. It is five years since Boris strode into City Hall on horseback leading a populist cavalry against ‘Red’ Ken and only three years until the next Mayoral election. It’s possible that the plan has been timed so that only a few of the proposals actually come into fruition. The safe bet would be that the transport reforms will pass, but the aim of building 400,000 new homes may not. After all this city is not for the poor, it’s for the wealth-creators in Canary Wharf. The London working-class find themselves battered by such regressive taxes as VAT and the exorbitant travel fares which absorb so much of the wage packet. Meanwhile the housing benefit reforms are likely to force many out of their homes as the question of extreme rents remains unanswered and even unacknowledged.

 

Take note, the so-called plan to build 400,000 new homes for the next decade amounts to releasing more publicly-owned land to be developed (probably by private companies) combined with greater borrowing for local government to boost building projects and a ‘use it or lose it’ measure to ensure private investment leads to development. The Mayor advocates the devolution of power – particularly over property taxes – to City Hall in order to further facilitate greater investment. All the while Boris Johnson argues that there is nothing to be gained from regulating the financial colossus in the City. It would seem this is more of a plan for profitability than anything else. It’s possible then that the houses may be built, but in what form we can only speculate. We can gauge as much from the fact that City Hall approved the construction of a block of luxury flats in Elephant & Castle as part of a billion-pound gentrification project. Just as we can expect similar efforts in Hammersmith around the Westfield centre where land values have risen. It’s plausible that the local working-class will be pushed out to make way for very nice houses for the more bourgeois.

 

With all this in mind, it seems there is an uncertain future for the Conservative Party with its shrunken talent pool. It seems probably that Cameron will hold onto his position simply because there isn’t a serious contender to unseat him. That goes for Ed Miliband, who poses little serious opposition to Cameron’s government in terms of policy. We can thank the Labour Party for helping to keep Margaret Thatcher in office for 11 years and we shouldn’t shirk to place the blame where’s its due come 2015. Not that we should really care that the Conservative Party seems a bit short of an effective leader, as it has been since the hag was slain, as what’s really lacking is opposition. The economy is still struggling to drag itself out of this slump, for the ruling-class there aren’t any clear answers at hand. Likewise, there aren’t any obvious ways for the Establishment to circumvent the problems incurred by economic crisis and electoral despair. In short, the signs of disarray within the Conservative Party are to be welcomed as much as the timidity of Labour and Lib Dem is to be despised.

This article was originally posted on the Third Estate on June 15th 2013.

The Perils of Tax Populism.

 Cutting Both Ways.
 

 The cause of raining in corporate tax swindlers was once the monopoly of UK Uncut in its Vodafone protestations. Now it has been coopted by the political class, firstly by that shirker Ed Miliband and then by George Osbourne that dangerous radical who went to St. Paul's. Unfortunately, for Ed Miliband the language of ‘responsible’ capitalism is hardly anything radical and can be, demonstrably, filched by the less than scrupulous Tories. There was a time when talk of ‘responsible’ capitalism would have been a compromise too far for the Establishment Left. Even Andrew Neil thought it proper to point this out to Rowenna Davis. It looks like triangulation from the Right. Tax reform will be a bit of prog bait for the Coalition to wag at us (along with gay marriage) at the next election. Of course, the oik at the Treasury is just a poseur when it comes to serious tax reform.

 We can debate what this tells us about the Chancellor and the way his mind works. For quite some time the question was whether Osbourne knew what he was doing. There was no theory and the oik had no formal education in economics. The whole aim of deficit reduction seemed to revolve around the prospect of re-election in 2015, incidentally the Coalition are failing by their measures in that department. It is possible that the Coalition have pushed the austerity measures to the limit and have decided to slow down just in time for the General Election. So we find it is either a case of idiocy or wanton cynicism. If the Treasury are going to patch together a minor tax reform then it is more about appearances than content. This would mean that the Chancellor, or at least his advisors, are aware of the problem of tax evasion and avoidance. It is plausibly about the coming electoral battle. The Conservatives are painfully aware that they have not won a majority in over 20 years.

 Miliband has made his move, a bet on mansion tax. For a long time it looked like Ed Miliband was struggling to find the formula. The New Labour token of the ‘hard-working majority’ to the Blue Labour waffle about a ‘squeezed middle’. Well, first it was Blue Labour, then there was this brief gust about ‘predistribution’, and then, finally, settling on One Nation Labour pilfered from the One Nation Conservatism of Disraeli. Each instance can be seen as another attempt at triangulation. All the while Ed hasn’t promised us anything concrete, on the meritorious grounds that he doesn’t want to lie to us. And who could disagree with that? Just picture it, the Labour slogan at the next election: Don’t Expect Much! The success of Blairism was its lies, the Prime Minister was a conman and many of us wanted to be conned. That’s why so many liberals lapped up the drivel about WMD. Now little Ed has to appear to have found the formula even if he hasn’t.

 The trouble with the current Miliband (surely, the better of the two) is that he remains a creature of the End of History proclaimed by Fukuyama. The fall of the Berlin Wall and triumph of liberal capitalism signaled the end of the old politics of class. We had finally gotten past all of that. The new mission would be the Third Way, not even social democracy, more like a neoliberalism with a human face. Much like soft pornography this ‘soft-core’ capitalism promises everything except the penetration shots. Endless economic Progress without the harsh social costs. This is why Miliband still seems to be stuck in the spirit of the 1990s. Most of his leadership has been characterised by meandering around labels and the need for a new triangulation. First you nick planks from the opposing platform with the hope of bagging the votes and money that will follow it. Then you test the water to tune the policies perfectly to the ears of the votes you have yet to win.

 

 All of this falls back on the assumption that the traditional working-class base can be relied upon to turn out and cast an automatic vote for Labour MPs. All the while the liberal commentariat are kept on board with the lesser evil allure of the platform. Notice that when the Bradford byelection disrupted the natural order you had liberal journalists lining up to slime George Galloway. Sadly, it seems more likely that Labour could lose its seats to the populism of right-wing demagogues from parties like UKIP. No wonder Miliband bungled efforts to pander to anti-immigrant sentiment in the days when he was still testing the water. After so many botched attempts at populist appeals Miliband has chosen redistribution over predistribution. When in doubt turn leftwards. It reminds one of when Gordon Brown tried to squeeze back into those tight socialist trousers of yesteryear and started to bark at the market ‘fundamentalism’ he had bought and sold for over a decade.

 The Labour Party has yet to change much with the better Miliband at the helm. Like Brown and, indeed, Blair, Ed Miliband buys the fundamental lie that the primary goal of any government, whether short-term or long-term, ought to be deficit reduction above all else. Tax reform is certainly compatible, if not more effective, to that end given the deficit is more to do with revenue than expenditure. It could well be the common ground fought over at the next election. If the Coalition are serious about deficit reduction they will be much more interested in taxation. Up to now cuts have been a useful means to the continued transformation of the welfare state and public services. If the goals of tax justice can be coopted then it may be time to reposition ourselves and make more radical demands. It is not enough to simply try to preserve the remnants of social democracy.

This article was later posted on the Third Estate on March 3rd 2013.

Nick Clegg didn't say 'Sorry'.

The much maligned Liberal Democrat leader opened his video address with the words 'I would like to take this opportunity to put a few things straight...' He's chosen to apologise at this time as it has become impossible to ignore the ratings pit that the Liberals are currently living in. Now the only mission left is to try and slither out of this sorry hole. Clegg goes on, oh how he goes on, 'We made a promise before the election, that we would vote against any rise in fees under any circumstances - but that was a mistake. It was a pledge made with the best of intentions. But we shouldn't have made a pledge that we weren't absolutely sure we could deliver. I shouldn't have committed to a policy that was so expensive when there was no money around.' He then throws in a dash of realpolitik 'Not least when the most likely way we'd end up in government was in coalition with Labour or the Conservatives, who are both committed to put fees up.'

Here's comes the magic 'There's no easy way to say this,' brace yourself for it, 'we made a pledge, we didn't stick to it and for that I am sorry.' It's not clear what exactly Clegg is apologising for here, but then he adds 'When you've made a mistake you should apologise.' Clegg is emphatic 'I will never again make a pledge, unless as a party we are absolutely clear about how we can keep it. I accept that won't be enough for everyone, but I owe it to you to be up front about it.' Notice politicians never do anything wrong, at worst they're just 'mistaken'. It's always an 'accident' when it sends approval ratings into a downward spiral. Clegg knows full well what he means when he says 'And I don't believe it should cast a shadow everything else that the Liberal Democrats are achieving in government. When we're wrong we hold our hands up, but when we're right we hold our heads up too.' So it was right to rise tuition fees even though there is no economic reason for fees.

It's been widely recognised among serious economists - even by Thatcherite Samuel Brittan - that the cuts are totally unnecessary. The current rate of government debt amounts to 65% of GDP, while it was over 180% of GDP when the NHS was established. Not only are these cuts unnecessary, they have actually increased the rate of borrowing rather than decreased it. The UK government has committed itself to a high level of unemployment for years to come, but it would actually be a better way to reduce deficits if we cut unemployment to raise tax-revenue. Yet Clegg claims that the Lib Dems are 'fighting' to rebuild the economy, while it has been driven into a double-dip recession and there's no end in sight. He also claims spuriously that the Lib Dems are 'defending' the vulnerable. Contrarily, we find Jeremy Hunt talks about opening up health-care to be rinsed of £20 billion by private companies and there's even talk of £8 billion cuts to the NHS on the horizon.

Furthermore, the UK government has slashed benefits for the disabled by £4 billion and has contracted Atos to throw as many disabled people off of the dole line as they can. The Daily Mirror has reported that 32 people died a week last year after being deemed 'fit to work' in this way. The government has actually imposed quotas on job centres to knock three people a week off of benefits and people claiming JSA can live in fear of losing their stipend of £60 a week for six months at most. As part of workfare claimants were bussed in to steward the Jubilee unpaid and without accommodation. So much for 'fairness' in present-day Britain. It's the basic assumption of widespread social democratic values that the state should guarantee a safety-net at least for the vulnerable. It's Nick Clegg who has led the Liberal Democrats to betray this liberal principle in his willingness to be escorted over to the right by austerity junkies David Cameron and George Osborne.

The Debt of Self-Made Men.

An American Mythology.

It was an interesting sight earlier this year to see Newt Gingrich rail against the "vulture capitalism" of Mitt Romney. The insinuation is that the Massachusetts moderate was in on gobbling up the profits gained out of laying-off thousands of American workers in the 1980s. It was a welcome criticism frankly. But it was also bizarre to hear this coming from a prominent conservative Republican. A Democrat could not take such a stance on a Republican opponent and be left standing without being dubbed a 'socialist'. Certainly the Republicans do not oppose such rapacious market forces that allowed Romney to enrich himself. Not just because the notion of a free-market is what flows through the veins of American conservatism. But it has to be stressed that each of the candidates for the nomination are essentially parasites. And this is actually representative of the primary constituents of the Republican Party - specifically, the filthy rich.

You have to remember that the United States of America would not exist if it weren't for a process of genocide, slavery and war which laid the groundwork for capitalism. The apologists of the free-market paint a picture of a society of self-owning individuals who earn in proportion to their own merits. So the capitalists are the people who have risen to the top of the system through their own efforts. This is a picture which conveniently excludes a lot of history. The system of private property was established through theft and violence. This is what the supposed market society of meritorious men is built upon. The legitimate right to property is predicated on an illegitimate and immoral act. No account of the exchange and accumulation of private property can justify the transformation of what was unowned into what can be owned. If the system was established through theft, rape and murder how can decent conduct justify that system later on?

The expropriation of the commons laid the ground for the accumulation of wealth. The workers are the creators of wealth which is then expropriated through the capitalist system, accumulated in far fewer hands and concentrated in property. This is the process which enriched Mitt Romney and has been defended by every Republican and Democratic administration. The average worker is effectively rinsed dry by these people over the course of a life time spent slaving away at work. It is in the workplace where they slave away to amass the revenue which will eventually compose the profits for the boss and the wages of the workers. This is exploitation at the fundamental level, the workers toil so that the bosses don't have to. You'll find this demystifies the notion of 'job creation' that politicians often talk about, really the word they're looking for is 'profits'. The worker will be lucky to hold onto something worth saving as they are rinsed further through passive consumerism.

You will know the justifications for all of this off by heart. You might tell yourself that this is just the way the world works, it's human nature. Supposedly, after thousands of years we discover our nature is best expressed in a system we've only just discovered in the last 200 years. You will tell yourself that if the poor didn't have to work then they wouldn't. If this were true, as Karl Marx would remind us, "bourgeois society ought long ago to have gone to the dogs through sheer idleness; for those of its members who work, acquire nothing, and those who acquire anything do not work." The workers must work for a wage, so that the rich don't have to. Capitalism requires poverty then, not to make sure people work hard but to keep one class working for the gain of another class. The system is indebted to feudalism and slavery, which provided the material conditions for its prosperity. Even if the capitalists are 'self-made' the end of capitalism and class are still justified.

Brand Obama - Prospects for a Second Term.

It has become fashionable to attack Barack Obama not just from the Right but from the Left as well. We should not lose sight of the magnitude of the election of the first African-American to the Presidency, especially as it was slavery which built the White House and provided the material conditions necessary for American capitalism. But the election of Obama was not the fulfilment of the dream that we all pay lip-service to. The ideological goal-posts of America have been shifted under Obama in a way which was unthinkable under just another white male politico. With that in mind it is impossible to deny that Obama would be a better President if he had not backed the coup in Honduras and slashed the wages of Haitian workers in the aftermath of the earthquake. The same goes for the way Obama has extended the war in Afghanistan to Pakistan. Let alone the drone attacks on Somalia which have been conveniently ignored in the mainstream media.

It has been a long strange trip since 2008 when the first African-American became President-elect and the American people were ready to say "Adios!" to George Bush. That year the Obama campaign team won the award for the Best Marketing Campaign, with commiserations to Apple and Nike. The election was the subject of an enormous flow of corporate dough and grass-roots campaigning which succeeded in electing Obama. Soon the word was out that the US had finally gotten over it's silly little race problem, it had become a "post-racial" society overnight and just around the corner the 'birthers' were on their way to tell the world that the President was a "closet Kenyan". There had already been attempts to pin the label of Muslim to Obama's lapel, the point being to call him a "terrorist" without actually saying it. Soon the favourite substitute for the n-word was "socialist". By now we can listen to the odious Newt Gingrich calling Obama a "food stamp President". Notice all of this has no relation to reality.

There is very little of substance for Republicans to complain about. Obama has conceded on health-care reform (which were conservative changes anyway) as well as the Bush tax-cuts, the National Defense Authorization act and on the stimulus which was wiped out by cuts at other levels. So the GOP shout about debt and they would love to run on economic issues, but they can't win on the economy because their policies only appeal to the top income brackets. The Republicans need more than just the ultra-rich to vote for them, the Democrats can appeal to ethnic minorities, gays and women to seek refuge in their party. The GOP are in a truly desperate situation. It was most astonishing to see the Republicans take a contorted anti-capitalist position last year, when they tried to block the rise of the debt-ceiling and in doing so acted to undermine the accumulation of wealth. At this point Karl Marx would just smugly remind us that "the contradictions of capitalism work in mysterious ways."

It is common knowledge that the outcome of American elections are basically bought. Back in September, Obama had the lead on Romney with a gap between them of over $50 million. Now we find the Republicans have leaped in front of the Democrats by almost $6 million. In 2008 Obama raked in around $750 million which was far more than McCain could muster. The estimates for the costs of 2012 are running as high as $11 billion and probably about $2 billion poured into the campaign war-chests. The core base of the Obama campaign were the same financial institutions which caused the Crash of '08. The small donors to Obama's campaign should not be ignored, but they amounted to $300 million at most which still leaves $450 million on the table. Large donors have been donating enormous amounts of cash in small chunks as to appear as small donors in the stats. This is something the Obama campaign encouraged from day one and probably still does.

It is corporate interests which shape American politics and every so often there is a convergence with working-class interests. The Obama health-care reforms were designed to drive down the costs entailed by the private system on manufacturing companies. It costs General Motors $1,000 more to produce a car in the US than it does in Canada. A system of universal provision would have a significant impact on the deficit, it would reduce it heavily. This is why a national health service is an inevitability.  In fact the Republican Party put forth these proposals when Clinton pushed for health-care reform in the 1990s. The former draft-dodging pothead Newt Gingrich is still a defender of the individual mandate and Mormon vulture Mitt Romney imported the same reforms in Massachusetts. Both Gingrich and Romney have been attacked for this by the ultra-Right for whom there is no "pure" conservative. These are the people who want to reduce the deficit through cuts and no tax increases, but insist on a "strong military" which costs $1 trillion.

The deciding factor could be turnout in this election, there is an extreme disillusionment in the electorate and both parties could feel the brunt of this. But it isn't just apathy in this situation which could tip things over. The GOP are well aware that the White House could be seized if they the opposition simply doesn't vote against them. Remember George Bush only came to power because the GOP managed to disqualify black voters in Florida. On average the Americans who earn less than $100,000 lean towards the Democrats, that actually accounts for 75% of the population - which only had 36% of the vote in the 2010 midterm elections. The forces of reaction are well aware of this, thus the Republicans have opted to make it as difficult as possible for Americans to vote. It was conservative Paul Weyrich who told a gathering of evangelical leaders in 1980 "our leverage in the elections quite candidly goes up as the voting populace goes down." Almost 40 states have introduced measures to deliberately hinder voters.

The voter is now expected to provide proof of citizenship before registering in some states, ex-felons have been barred from voting, in some states you'll need to produce a government-issued ID before you can vote. This would exclude that 10% of American voters, 18% of the youth and 25% of black voters. This is comparable to the use of poll taxes and literacy tests to prevent blacks from voting out the racists in the South. Ironically, the Republicans have pulled this off on the grounds that there needs to be tighter guidelines to eliminate "fraudulent voters". Naturally the same billionaires who bankrolled the Tea Party are in the shadows seeing to it that the cogs in the machine are well oiled. This could be the divine, or should that be satanic, intervention to save the Republicans grabbing at political power wildly. It's even possible that the GOP are looking towards 2016 at this point. With that in mind, we should remember the words of Hunter S Thompson "The race is not to the swift, nor the battle to the strong, but to those who see it coming and jump aside."

Blizzards of Shame!

How long must this go on?

You may have heard of the recent discovery the long lost Bulldog spirit has been found finally as it was manifested in Mr Cameron when he said "No!" to Merkozy. It was not national interests David Cameron was defending, it was the interests of banks who don't want to be taxed or be regulated that he was defending. The revolting servility this filthy Tory has shown has nothing to do with patriotism, though it is symptomatic of the whorish relationship between the Conservative Party and the financial colossus in the City of London. The fact that this can even be considered patriotic is the sign of the crass state of the political discourse in this country. The nationalist Right are experiencing something of a resurgence amidst this economic turmoil, so there's nothing to lose in a bit of flag-waving especially after a round of shit-flinging on the Continent. The choice we face is between Brussels and Washington, but European integration cannot be anti-democratic as it is right now. Cameron is no democrat for standing in opposition to the treaty, the politics of Cameron have a great deal of commonality with Angela Merkel and Nicolas Sarkozy.

David Cameron seems to embody the Progressivism of Victorian liberalism, at once a creature of the market forces as well as a cultural puritan and a proponent of history as progress. The crisis is just a cyclical phenomenon to him, in the long-term it is a blockage to the path of the march towards a utopia of the free-market. The theoretical doctrines of monetarism have been replaced by a pragmatism which cuts through theory to the reality, where the old state system of health-care and education has to be discarded. The debt has to be managed through a deficit reduction which will thereby enable us to circumvent this obstacle. The key elements here feed into one another: the market is perfect so the crisis is cyclical not structural and will pass in time, therefore there are no grounds to justify state intervention to create jobs and the deficit is the real issue. The regulation and taxation of financial institutions has to be stopped then, as the problem will pass as the structures of finance are adjusted through the reforms being implemented already.

In the light of Mr Cameron's transformation from Etonian Toff to British Bulldog, the talk of Christian values is quite interesting. David Cameron has listed the following as Christian values: responsibility, hard-work, charity, compassion, humility, self-sacrifice, pride in working for the Common Good and honouring the social obligations to family and community. This is where Mr Cameron's edge in public relations (which used to be called 'propaganda' in more honest days) comes across in his presentation. The man knows how to dress an agenda and not just the monkey he keeps for a deputy. Cameron can spin the line on it's head and roll out commonsensical rhetoric at just the right moment. No one opposes the basic concepts Cameron endorsed and for this reason they do not require endorsement. What matters most about the endorsement relates to the standards he has set in office already. For instance, the banks clearly are not about "self-sacrifice" as made evident by their refusal to tolerate even modest levels of progressive taxation and regulation.

It shouldn't be a surprise that Cameron is looking after the principle constituents of the Conservative Party. This cultural conservatism is superstructural to the economic base which it has the potential to undermine and may be threatened by itself simultaneously. In other words, the endorsement of Christian values amounts to an outgrowth of market liberalism. The particular appreciation of charity in Cameron comes out of the harsh Victorian hatred of the undeserving poor as it posits a deserving poor, which should be helped and has been shafted by the welfare state. Compassion should be rationed then. Humility too, only applies to the poor who should know their place. Of course, the banksters have no time for responsibility and any hard work which actually produces things has largely declined in this country. And yet the masses are meant to be committed to sacrifice themselves for the super-rich. These supposedly Christian pronouncements by Cameron reveal a profound hatred for the working-class in this country.

Can you taste the Irony?

The liberal philosopher John Locke provided a theoretical justification for private property, market relations and bourgeois conceptions of freedom. But it was the Whig circles in which Locke moved that would eventually bring down the King and in turn provide the incentive for Locke to provide such a justification in the first place. Locke was a close friend of Lord Shaftesbury who founded the Whig Party, though Locke did not share the Paganism of Shaftesbury and a number of the aristocrats of the day. The ruling-class feared that the Catholic King was loyal to the Vatican, so there would be a forced rival of Catholicism in the country which would mean violent upheaval. The violence that it would take to the reverse the process which established the Church of England and Protestantism would inevitably undermine the power structure. So the Pagan ruling-class conspired to overthrow a Catholic King in order to install a Protestant King and maintain the status quo.

Shaftesbury's friend John Locke was eager to provide a philosophical justification for the replacement of King James II with William of Orange. The foundations of liberalism were laid with a Christian gloss in the defence of the interests that the English ruling-class had vested in property. Christianity was for the poor and the ruling-class remained Pagan in Britain until the 19th Century. The liberal pronouncements of John Locke gave the coming market system a language of natural rights and freedoms. After feudalism had crumbled it ceased to be the 'natural order' and from then on capitalism would be considered in accordance with human nature. The irony is that the nationalism behind Cameron's veto comes from the old Pagan logic and not any kind of Christian value. Here we find a return to the Paganism of the British ruling-class as opposed to the Christian poor. In Christian love there is no hint of the Pagan logic that we must privilege our own clan above the rest.

An even greater irony is that the decision to veto the treaty may have actually maintained the limited democracy we endure in this country. The move was made to secure the interests of banking and finance, not out of any Bulldog patriotism. So the enemies of social democracy may have saved the possibility of a return to Keynesianism in Britain. As the treaty enshrines balanced budgets, near zero-deficits and has effectively abolished expansionary public spending in doing so. This shouldn't be a surprise to anyone as the European Union was a right-wing project from the very beginning. This was just the latest attack on social democracy and a testament to the appalling state of affairs in Europe. We have only to turn to the unconscionable vandalism of Greece - a country which should have been allowed to default - to find an even more telling instance. The European elites are stopping at nothing to use this crisis to tear apart the welfare states created after WW2.

Not only would it seem that this is a time of creative destruction, but the social democratic model of yesteryear cannot save itself. We are caught between a giant douche and a turd sandwich, to borrow from South Park, in that we face a choice between Washington and Brussels. The reason that European integration should be pursued along lines which are democratic and offer an alternative model to that of predatory American capitalism. Meanwhile the Right will continue to shout as though the choice is between Whitehall and Brussels. There can be no referendum on the capitalist system and so we have to take a stand together as Europeans. There is a long way to go in this area, as we have yet to establish trade unions which can represent the European workers as a whole of entire industries. The kind of national discourse available in the United States is not available in the European Union yet. Complete withdrawal is just a nationalist delusion that has already been ruled out by globalisation. The more fundamental struggle is a fight against capitalism.

See also:
The Left must call the Right's bluff
Class Warfare

Democracy is not a given

Solutions for whom
We cannot abandon Euroscepticism to the Right

The Eurosceptic Reaction.

"Angela Merkel is an unfuckable lard-arse." - Silvio Berlusconi 

As the crisis hit the Eurozone we have seen the usual wing-nuts of the Conservative Party go ballistic on the question of EU membership once again. It has led to amusing spectacles of toffs talking tough, with Jacob Rees-Mogg spitting out with references to Shakespeare's Henry V not to mention Bagpuss. John Major has labelled the plan a "heat-seeking missile" aimed at the City of London. It is interesting to find that the defence of banking and the matter of national sovereignty converge in the hollow heads of Conservative politicians. The possibility of a financial transactions tax across Europe is well overdue, actually it is a decent step towards a tax on international banking as a whole. The Eurosceptics are opposed to any move on the part of the state to tax the wealthy, while they muddle up the intervention to save the mega-rich from higher taxes with some kind of patriotism. Unsurprisingly, the banks have pumped £42 million into the Conservative Party since 2005. Some might think these people want to pull-out of the EU so our country can become a plaything of international finance.

Meanwhile good old-fashioned Europhiles like Michael Heseltine are still standing by the Euro, for we should not forget that the Euro was always a right-wing project and the European Central Bank does not care about unemployment. It was the old Tory position which was held by everyone from Churchill to Heath. It was renegades like Enoch Powell who were so vehemently opposed to integration with the Continent. It is no coincidence that the same opposition within the Conservative Party, as well as from UKIP, comes from admirers of Powell. This is the irony of the situation, David Cameron has a lot in common with Angela Merkel. Both of them are conservatives in leading states, not to mention deficit hawks, who are suspicious of the French. The nationalism of Powellite thought provides easy answers to the problems festered by the untrammeled forces of the market. It is no coincidence that Enoch Powell stuck to his line on immigration as Thatcherism, which he supported, broke the back of the working-class.

The answer to the Eurozone crisis is not withdrawal and British schadenfreude is neither wise nor appropriate in a time of such turmoil. The parochial attitudes of nationalism are most unbecoming for the UK, whether it be the resentment with which foreigners are greeted; the deluded view of our own past or the suspicion of our neighbours. It is convenient for the dispossessed, and even more for those who dispossessed them, to spread the lie that the EU is the source of everything wrong with Britain. The people of this country have been fucked over by the mega-rich and their allies, we deserve answers and we look for them. Sadly in the wrong places often. The despair at Whitehall has been channeled towards Europe, benefit scroungers and immigration, so that the fears of working-class people might converge with the elite interests. We have seen the lowest voting turn-outs in Britain since the establishment of the vote. Only fear can drive people forward in this supposedly post-political age.

The position of 'national sovereignty' has a convenient blind-spot, from where we can't see Trident is a part of the American nuclear-command system. Not one of these people seem to care that the British foreign policy is just an extension of the American foreign policy. The last independent decision on foreign policy was over 40 years ago when Harold Wilson refused to support the criminal war in Indochina and send British troops to die in Vietnam. US foreign policy has often trumped the decisions of British policy-makers. It was Dean Acheson who remarked at the peak of the missile crisis in 1962 "Britain is our lieutenant, the fashionable word is partner." The British ruling-class prefer the fashionable word to the blunt truth. At the height of the missile crisis in 1962 US planners treated Britain with utter contempt, keeping the UK government in the dark as they took actions which could have led to the destruction of Britain in a nuclear exchange with Russia.

The so-called "special relationship" is mostly an illusion generated by the close proximity of interests that the British elites share with the American ruling-class. This is the reason it is only "special" on this side of the pond. The Common Good does not enter into this at all and the working-classes of both countries are mere playthings. At the same time the British elite experience a duality of interests, torn between the US and the EU, as well as a fear that the UK might lose its position as Uncle Sam's lieutenant in Europe. If you want to see a real special relationship look at American relations with Israel. Still it has to be said that the miserable liars who govern us have relationships of convenience with American Presidents. Think of the millions Tony Blair is currently shoveling into his pockets as he rubs salt into the wounds of people devastated by US foreign policy. The Medal of Freedom has been awarded to Tony Blair, John Major and Margaret Thatcher for their subservience.

In the Cold War a united European state had the potential to stand as a social democratic bloc independent of the US and the Soviet Union. The superpowers could have been balanced off against this bloc. Now there is only the American empire, with emergent powers in the East, to which Britain has become a mercenary state without the political grandeur of Israel. We shouldn't kid ourselves with referenda: the choice is not Whitehall and Brussels, it is between Washington and Brussels. Europe still has the potential to emerge as a bloc of independence from American power, there is still a long way to go before the EU is perfect of course. The democratic deficit in Brussels is an embarrassment, but the democratic deficit in Washington is a disgrace and only the American people can solve that problem. We have yet to build a solid European labour movement and organise a serious push for a greater standard of living in Europe. The struggle will be a difficult one granted, but there is no future with the Americans.

The Republican Hypocrisy on Debt-Ceiling.

 

 

Nixon raised the debt ceiling 9 times for a total increase of 36%.

Ford raised the debt ceiling 5 times for a total increase of 41%.

Reagan raised the debt ceiling 18 times for a total increase of 199%.

George H.W. Bush raised it 9 times for a total increase of 48%. 

George W. Bush raised the debt ceiling 7 times for a total increase of 90%.

 

The disagreement between the Republicans and the Democrats is over the ratio of spending cuts to tax hikes. The Republican Party want 85% spending cuts and 15% tax increases but the Democrats want 83% in cuts and 17% in tax rises. Of course there are some who want to see 100% spending cuts and no tax hikes at all, those people are fucking mental!

Obamarama - the Republican Drama.

Starve the Beast.

The talks between the Democratic administration and the Republican leadership have broken down just days before the deadline for the decision on the ceiling on borrowing for $14.3 trillion. There is the real possibility of an American default for the first time in the country's history. The results of which could be catastrophic for the US economy and other economies around the world. The shock-jocks and attack dogs have been out of control for years. We can hear Rush Limbaugh yelling that the GOP can't cave in or Obama will be re-elected in 2012. The negotiations will effect the next 10 years of American life, which might be the reason for the stalemate initiated by the Republicans as there could be a Republican administration in office by then. The policies initiated in the next 10 years will effect the pretext for a second Republican term in 2020. A huge surplus would provide the means for another round of tax-cuts, which would in turn create another deficit and the means to cut even further into programmes for the poor.

Just a couple of days ago Larry Elliot thought that the Republicans are not serious about tipping the US economy over the edge and taking the global economy down into recession once more. Rather the GOP will push this as far as they can and walk away after Obama has made major concessions (which he already has). The GOP will allow the debt-ceiling to be raised but in a way which is satisfying for the Tea Party. If the government was actually shut down as it was briefly in the 1990s it functioned to make Bill Clinton look like a statesman and raised his popularity among the electorate. Today 67% of Americans support Obama in his approach to taxes and spending on this issue. It is possible that the Republicans are looking to walk a fine line between a disaster which would only benefit the Democrats and a cop-out that will leave the Tea Party outraged. It is a serious possibility that the GOP are willing to instigate an economic crisis for indirect political gains, Obama has conceded an awful lot already and there will be a Republican administration in office by 2017.

The organs of the Republican machine have been about a "Starve the Beast" fiscal strategy for a long time, which differs from Goldwater conservatism in that taxes are cut in order to secure lower levels of spending. The approach actually generates huge amounts of debt as spending easily exceeds tax-revenues that have been slashed to bits for the benefit of about 1% of Americans. But this is part of the grand plan as the debt then acts as a means to call for more spending cuts. Keep in mind the huge changes in fiscal policy over the past few decades. In 1950 taxes on corporate profits accounted for 38% of tax revenue and by the 1990s it had been shrunk to 10%. Over the same time period income tax for the highest earners was chiseled from 91% in the 1950s to 28% in the 80s, with the 1990s marked out by a moderate tax increase. Now there is a moderate tax rise on the table, as the Democrats are arguing for a ratio of 83:17 cuts to taxes in tackling the debt whereas Republicans think a ratio of 85:15 is optimal. The narcissism of fine distinctions if there ever was one.

The Starved Beast.

So we now know how to contextualise John Boehner when he said "In the end, we couldn't connect. Not because of different personalities, but because of different visions for our country." Keep in mind, Boehner is the man who personally handed out checks on the floor of the House to sway a vote on tobacco subsidies and backed the bailouts as he was in the pocket of Goldman Sachs and Citigroup. The "Gang of Six" which Boehner belongs to has put forward a plan to cut $3 trillion in spending and to reduce marginal rates in order to relieve the rich of about $1.5 trillion in taxes. The plan aims to reform social security in that the costs of living will be shifted to the extent that the benefits the elderly receive today will be reduced as they get older and older. It is likely that this would lead to a huge rise in impoverished retirees. The premise of necessity of this deal provides a means through which cuts in social security and health-care can be imposed without any fuss from the public. This is the work of the Wall Street wing of the Democrats and the Republican Party as a whole.

At a time when around 45% of Americans oppose tax-cuts for the rich and 55% oppose tax-cuts for corporations, according to a recent Gallup poll. 71% of Americans and 51% of Republicans are opposed to the way the GOP have acted. It's no wonder when you think about. The American tax-payer pays more income tax than General Electric did from 2008 to 2010, when the company paid no taxes and received $4.7 billion from the IRS as it pocketed $7.7 billion in profits. The company has a team of lawyers and accountants working around the clock on ways for GE to avoid taxes altogether. The asses of non-financial companies are sitting on a cushion stuffed with $2 trillion in inert dollars that produce nothing and only earn a minuscule interest. Just 10% of that sum could be used to pump $200 billion into the US economy. Naturally, the Republicans continue to run with the line that the average corporation is overtaxed and actually pays the majority of taxes in the country.

As Ralph Nader has pointed out the 35% statutory tax rate for corporations is an absolute joke. Most corporations are adept at avoiding taxes and do so on a massive scale. These corporations include: American Electric Power, Boeing, Dupont, Exxon Mobil, FedEx, General Electric, Honeywell, International, IBM, United Technologies, Verizon Communications, Wells Fargo and Yahoo. According to the Citizens for Tax Justice "from 2008 through 2010, these 12 companies reported $171 billion in pre-tax US profits. But as a group, their federal income taxes were negative: $2.5 billion." The actual 35% rate would have raised $59 billion if it had been implemented properly. The highest rate was paid by ExxonMobil over three years it paid over 14%, whilst its net tax rate was a minuscule 0.4% on $9.9 billion in pre-tax profits. Since Obama took office in 2009 as of 2011 there has been a 40% increase in corporate profits. These are the same crowd who'll benefit most out of the "Gang of Six" proposal.

The Media's Greek Myths.

 Greedy, Lazy and Venal.

The narrative which has sprung up around the crisis in Greece has taken a ethnic-cultural line, just as the French claimed that the financial crisis was an "Anglo-Saxon disease" which has nothing to do with the Continent. Now we hear that the Greeks are "venal" as well as "lazy" and "greedy" even from the commentariat and not just from the Right. We are told that the protests are really about keeping the "Greek Gravy Train" flowing, you will have no doubt heard of the rail workers who are paid £60,000 a year and the shameful way hundreds of professionals are being allowed to retire at 50 - though the average retirement is actually 62. What you won't read about is the way that a lot of Greeks have not been paid in months and even more are unemployed. The same goes for the other racist claims, the Greeks are supposedly a "lazy people" and yet they work around 2,120 hours a year compared with about 1,712 hours a year in Britain and 1,473 hours a year in Germany. Out of the OECD countries Koreans are the only people who work longer hours than the Greeks.

The "out of control" spending in Greece amounted to 44.6% of GDP from 2001 to 2007, which was not a huge deviation from the European average for most of the decade. The relatively high level of public debt in Greece, before the crisis, goes back to the 1980s when the country was still recovering from the military junta that ruled the country from 1967 to 1974 with the support of the US. There is a genuine fiscal weakness in Greece and it is not in public expenditure, it is the low level of tax revenue which was exacerbated by the recession that has led to a consequent fall in tax revenues as the level of unemployment rises. So it should not be a surprise that tax revenue is a lot less than predicted as the cuts hit ordinary Greeks. As the crisis hit Greece there was a jump in spending to 50.4% of GDP in 2009 and that is still the average expenditure in Europe. From 2001 to 2007 the total spending of the EU amounted to 50.7% of GDP, out of the 27 member-states 13 had spent more than Greece.

Then there is the line that the greedy Greeks have eaten the bailout funds and have continued to live in an excess of luxury. It is as if these are the spoiled brats of Europe who must be knocked in line with the rest of us! The austerity measures introduced previously have reduced public spending by €700 million than the IMF and the EU had demanded. €110 billion was handed over to European banks and Greece has been saddled with still more debt and rising interest payments. A bailout is not intended to pay for Greek welfare, it is intended to stabilise the European banking system and drive the Greek economy into meeting austerity targets. The impact will be no growth in Greece for years to come and a significant fall in the standard of living. The Greeks are expected to sign on for a €12 billion loan installment which will prevent a default for the time being, the preconditions for the loan are the austerity measures that were only just passed despite popular opposition.

Greece has not been bailed out, but the banks have been and the European country that has defaulted more than any other in the last century is Germany. Germany was excused from reparations to countries that it had invaded. The loans and occupation costs Germany had pressed out of the countries it had occupied in World War II were not paid back. Especially not to the Greeks. Germany didn't even pay back the US for the loans that were used to pay the reparations levied on Germany after World War I. As Albrecht Ritschl said, Germany was the biggest debt transgressor of the 20th Century. The decision on Greece has been delayed on the next bank bailout in the EU, the package could be around €160 billion which is meant to further the cuts that have already bled public services dry in the country. But it is true that a default on the debt is inevitable, it is only a matter of when and how at this point. The default should have come earlier rather than later, which is what is most likely to happen.

It is undeniable that the Greek government has some responsible for the mess, especially in regards to the collection of taxes, but the links of the crisis to the Greek national character and culture are nonexistent. The crisis is an economic one, it is international in scale and the responsibility of all Western politicians. We should keep in mind that it is Sweden that spends the most out of the European countries and yet there is no debt crisis. The reason being that the tax system is a lot better in Sweden, the same is true of France and Denmark. Greece was welcomed into the Eurozone with open arms before being encouraged to give up the Drachma for the Euro. The situation seems to confirm that a monetary union requires fiscal and political union, whilst the average Greek is being forced to pay for the errors of politicians and the recklessness of the European banking system. Naturally the Right has jumped at the opportunity to use this crisis as a stick to bash the European Union with.