London – just for the rich?

I’ve used a summer picture to begin today’s post; we need something to cheer us up. In the Guardian this week was news that councils in London are planning to move thousands of ‘poor’ people out of London, because they won’t be able afford the rents when housing benefit is cut. Are we surprised? People are caught between the Labour councils with their empire building and the rich Tory tax dodgers who want to have London, just for the rich.

They will need people to empty their bins and grit their roads and do other menial jobs. Who will do those jobs when there are no poor people desperate for minimum wage jobs in London? They will bring them in on HS2 of course. Live in Birmingham; work in London. You know it makes sense…

Imagine how much a empty council house will be worth in Westminster after they get rid of all the riff-raff. The schools will be half empty, they can close a few down. Maybe we can ask Starbucks to open a few more coffee houses? Maybe not, they don’t pay any tax…

The BBC reports that chimpanzees that have undergone medical experiments and are depressed, are responding to  treatment with SSRI’s (antidepressants). I think a lot of people claiming benefits will need the same treatment after the government’s benefit reduction experiments are over.

The bankers have been in the news again. Barclays are closing down their money spinning tax avoidance division according to the Guardian. That will take a billion a year out of their profits, but I’m sure they will think of some way of relieving their customers of their money.

Warren Buffet’s investment company Berkshire Hathaway has bought Heinz for 28 billion dollars according to the BBC.  This could be bad news for students who live on beans on toast, they might have to switch to a budget brand. You never know what goes into those though, look at Tesco beef burgers. No, I won’t do a horse meat joke… These big investment funds are buying up everything, even Virgin Media has been bought by Liberty Global. I wonder if they will keep Richard Branson doing the adverts? He probably has his billions invested in these companies. The rich are flexing their financial muscle and the people can do nothing about it; except maybe bring back the guillotine…

Ed Miliband wants a mansion tax so he can reintroduce the 10p income tax band. With inspired ideas like that he is bound to win the 2015 election and get us all out of the sh**.  I would have just made council tax 0.5% of the value of your home, so those with 2 million quid houses paid £10,000 and people in crappy council houses in Lambeth paid £500 a year or less. But what do I know? With poor people spending more money in the shops, they might be able to stay in business. Another major chain bit the dust this week;  they only sold posh crap, but some poor sods will be put out of work.

You might remember that the government bailed out Royal Bank of Scotland and Lloyds Banking Group. The government’s shares in those two companies have been going up in price and their combined worth is now £28.882 billions and counting.

A lot of shares are owned by private investors, but these days they buy through nominee companies like HSDL Nominees Limited, which is part of the Halifax, which in turn is part of Lloyds. It’s easier to buy through a nominee, you incur more charges if you actually want a share certificate and your democratic rights to vote and have some control over what the companies do. This is the problem with 21st century capitalism, we need democratic rights restored to shareholders who buy electronically and most of them do. If shareholders had more power and people invested directly, instead of through pension  and investment funds, companies would have to be more ethical or incur the wrath of shareholders. Obscene banker’s bonuses for helping the rich avoid their taxes could become a permanent thing of the past. Wealth isn’t just about having money to spend, it’s about having money in the bank and investments. It’s about having financial security rather than credit card debts and payday loans. The rich want the people in debt, that is monetary slavery. Money in the bank and  investments is financial freedom. Why can’t everyone be free?

Why is financial freedom, like London; only for the rich?

The robots are coming and they will do all the work according to Bloomberg Business Week. By robots, they mean computers and technology; not metal men. The computers are doing a lot of work now and generating huge amounts of money that goes to the likes of Warren Buffet, the Duke of Westminster and their super-rich cronies. Computers and technology are the new working class and  poor people are the new street beggars. Food banks are opening up in 2013. What will they bring back in the future? With people being forced out of their homes in London. How long before they reintroduce the modern equivalent of the workhouse? The Victorians also had their big lunatic asylums for anyone who thought differently to that of the establishment diktat.

I have a question for readers today. Do you remember the big rating agencies, Standard and Poor, Fitch and Moody’s downgrading many countries credit ratings? That meant higher borrowing costs for countries like Greece. They even downgraded the USA. They have threatened to downgrade the UK unless the Tory government keeps making cuts and cuts it’s debt. Where were all these rating agencies a few years ago when the UK was getting into debt under the guidance of Gordon Brown. They were very silent then. Did they think we could afford it? Maybe the rating agencies are causing the problems for countries like Portugal, Italy, Greece and Spain? Money is only the means to exchange wealth, not wealth itself and the rich have it all. How do the people who really create wealth; exchange it, without money? If you grow carrots and I grow apples and neither of us have any money. How can I buy your carrots or you buy my apples? Do we let them rot, waiting for the rich to fancy a apple or a carrot?

Tax avoidance has been in the news again. Companies might not base their operations in the UK if we insist on them paying their taxes, goes the argument. If we stopped Amazon, Starbucks and Google from trading in the UK; I think they would pay all their taxes. We do need a different tax system however, the one we have, is too easy to avoid. We have to ask why there isn’t a British company competing with Google; even Yahoo is only competing with them in a limited way.

Please comment and share you thoughts…

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