The Age of Austerity?

Of course, the economy is struggling at the moment and people are angry about it. Those financial institutions which are at the centre of the media narrative about the economic crisis are probably bearing the brunt of the vocal criticisms from protesters the world over. But when things calm down and the protesters go home, and the finance ministers of the world step back from the void and find some other plaster to slap over the utter mess that is the global economy, we should remember that the media narrative about the big bad banks only tells part of the story. The banks were aided and abetted by complicit government regimes who often backed, if not demanded, some of the more extravagant lending decisions that have now created such headaches. Furthermore, those governments were the ones who rushed to the aid of said banks when they began to flounder with fistfuls of the taxpayer's cash. But the banks and the government were only responding to the demands of millions of people who wished to live beyond their means. You want to know why banks offered 110% mortgages? Because people were willing to take them on. And yeah, you can argue for government regulation to stop people from doing so and yeah, you can argue that banks should not have offered anything so ludicrous from a business point of view. But it was just the government and the banks that brought us here; it is we the people as well. Substantial numbers of the 99% that the occupy protests (falsely) claim to represent.

The reality is that people, government and banks were all irresponsible, and now it has reached a point where they are going to be forced to take responsibility for the implications of that lack of responsibility. And yeah, it is unfair that we all have to pay for it, and that our children (well, your children if you already have them/are planning to have them) will also have to pay for their/our mistakes. Yeah, to some extent the falsely created, inflated and maintained boom of the past two decades or so has changed things for the worse not just for us, but for the next generation as well. But there is something positive that can be passed on to the next generation well as being heeded by this one. And it all boils down to that one word: responsibility.

We need to make governments responsible for their actions. If they create unreasonable expectations with the services they claim to be able to provide, then they should be punished at the ballot box. If they spend billions part nationalising failed banks, then they should be punished at the ballot box. And if they studiously refuse to accept responsibility or learn from their mistakes then - you guessed it - they should be punished at the ballot box.

Then we have business - financial institutions or otherwise. Again, they need to be responsible for the outcomes of their own choices and decisions. To some extent all business is a gamble - sometimes taking a risk will really pay off, other times it will be a disaster. And businesses of all shapes and sizes need to realise this. But crucially, they need to understand that if they take a gamble and it doesn't pay off (and they don't have the funds to cover that gamble) they need to understand that the government - or, more properly, the taxpayer - will not be there to bail them out. If your business fails, then it fails; there is no recourse to the public purse.

And finally we the people - we have to understand that, collectively, we cannot always get what we want. That money, those homes, those mortgages are not rights - rather, they have to be earned. And when all this is understood, we need to get out heads around the idea that the state does not exist to make up for any shortfalls between what is in our wallets and what makes up our expectations. Yeah, the government is going to have spend less on public services. A whole host of things that people had started to take for granted will no longer be there unless they have the cash to go out and get them for themselves. Which will be deeply disappointing for some, but a true return to reality for all.

It will be interesting to see how the history books end up describing the era we are now entering. So often, I hear it referred to as another age of austerity. Yet I can't help but wonder whether it will one day be seen as the return to reality; that, far from being an aberration, it was actually the return to normality after a rather ludicrous era when all sorts of outrageous claims, such as the supposed yet largely impossible end to boom and bust, were not only made, but also widely believed.  That the myths of a comprehensive and ever more extensive welfare state were exposed, and the idea of people, businesses and governments being responsible became acknowledged as common sense once again.

Whether or not this happens is largely dependent on the people; on you and me. It is about whether we allow ourselves to be deceived by business and government on an ongoing basis, and whether we allow self-aggrandising politicians to again sell us the most improbable myths in return for votes they blatantly do not deserve. But above all it is about whether we are going to invest so much time and energy again in allowing ourselves to be deceived by ourselves, or whether we face up to a reality where the future isn't always better, and where we can't always have more and more. It's about, in short, whether we are going to face up to reality.

The coming age - of austerity, or reality, or whatever you want to call it - is going to hurt, and its going to hurt some more than others. But we can avoid a repetition of that pain in the future by keeping our feet on the ground and by making ourselves and those people and institutions around actually responsible for what they say, promise and actually do.

We can make the age of austerity into a return to reality - and in doing so, witness the ressurrection of the idea of responsibility in all of our lives.

Occupy! Why?

I'd just like to point out that I'm doing my own little bit for the Occupy protests that are sweeping the world. I'm occupying my kitchen table, writing on my laptop, with a film on in the background. Yeah, it's not a lot, but I'm pretty sure that by the end of the day I will have acheived just as much as those protesting today.

It's not that I'm utterly hostile to the case being made by some of these protestors. I do think that there is something very wrong with some of the relationships between governments and certain financial institutions/companies. I certainly think it is a terrible idea for any government to spend billions bailing out failed banks. But I have a simple solution to this - a minimal government that is neither empowered or able to afford such actions. Whereas those in these protests don't seem to have any other plan other than tax the banks more to fund the state.

Which, of course, is nonsense because, as should be clear to everyone other than the terminally retarded, the state is a big part of the problem here. It shouldn't be given more money, just as in the same way a crack addict shouldn't be given more crack. Any solution to the problems that have befallen us should not include funding a big part of those problems.

Plus, what precisely are these protests going to achieve? In fact, there is something faintly pathetic about those occupying financial districts, not least because it is a Saturday and these districts will be largely unoccupied by those that work there. It seems to me to be a splendid symbol of absolute impotence that these people are stood on the streets, making the sort of demands that those targetted will simply shrug off if they ever get around to noticing them in the first place. It is a bit like that angry toddler demanding candy from the disinterested parent. Only one side is going to win, and its the side with the power.

Of course, people should be allowed to protest if they so wish, and I hope that these people enjoy their time trying to make a difference. But take any claims that this is some sort of worldwide revolution with a pinch of salt. Come Monday, these people will be back at the work so they can pay the(ever-increasing) bills, or signing on so someone else can pay them. If change is going to come, then it will be more radical than the sort of ersatz change demanded by many of these protestors. Because not only we will have to deal with the bloated, corporatist organisations who suckle at the teat of big government, but also tackle the big government that so willing offers itself to its preferred clients. So when Westminster is being occupied at the same time as the City, people might finally be getting it...

The Daily Mash makes sense - makes more sense, anyway, than most media outlets and most politicians - on the subject of banks:

Julian Cook, from Donnelly-McPartlin, said: "I will cheerfully give a weeks' wages to the first internet Paxman complaining about our bonus system that can even vaguely explain what it is we do for a living.

"Bob Diamond earned his bonus by maximising Barclay's equity differential market by a factor of six whilst ensuring their contingent capital base stayed under 2.3% Or have I just made all of that up? You haven't the faintest idea, have you?"

And, more importantly:

But Cook stressed: "Arsing off about the capitalist system is rather like a fish complaining about the preponderance of water in its life.

"Unless,of course, you're somehow venting your dreary, uninformed fury on the internet via a computer made from twigs by a worker's collective.

"And complaining that bankers are obsessed with making money is like saying lions are obsessed with eating gazelles.

"Perhaps you'd prefer us to sit around weaving fair trade wicker baskets and then use the profits from that to lend you cheap money so you can buy all those things you simply have to have."

He added: "We could try communism but then Bob Diamond would earn millions from being in the politburo, only you'd know nothing about it because the newspaper
has just the one story and it's about how fucking great your community tractor is.

"You could try complaining, just like you are now, but then someone who works for Bob Diamond would shoot you in the face."

Well, quite.

UK Uncut Cretins

From UK Uncut - a group that seems determined to make student politics seem credible and forward thinking by comparison - I give you the concept of a bail-in. What is a bail-in, you might ask. You really don't want to know, I'd reply. But I'll tell you anyway:

Our next wave of actions will be even more exciting. A Bail-In means marching into our broken banks and building something better. Make your silent, sterile Barclays branch sing, dance, explode with life! Reclaim the space and make it into something thrilling, something that shows how much creativity the anti-cuts movement has. Let’s smash austerity with a smile on our faces. We are Cameron’s nightmare, a real big society with the vision and bravery to transform the institutions at the rotten heart of our system.

Right. So... a broken bank is what, then? One with a leaky roof or a run-down cash machine outside? Or is it one that we had to bail out? Because if it is, then you shouldn't be heading to Barclays because, as Jackart points out, they found other ways to keep going. I guess we're back at the idiot's equation when it comes to banks. The (il)logic runs something like this: I don't like bankers therefore bankers must be bad and therefore banks must be broken. It is audacious in its breathtaking stupidity.

This idea of making banks thrilling through singing and dancing also seems curious. To me, banks aren't cold and sterile - they are trying to project an image of being professional places where you can do business and where you can safely store your money. There is a reason why they don't normally have singing and dancing, my people. It's because it would be a fucking stupid idea for a bank.

And while we're on the subject, the talk of "reclaiming" a bank is also pretty stupid - at least until you realise that what we're talking about here is people invading the private property of others. Then it becomes downright malign. Think about how you would feel, Mr and Mrs UK Uncut, if I came round to your house and invaded your front room because I happen to think you are total dickheads disagree with you on this one. Wouldn't be fun, would it? But that's exactly what your bail-ins are about.

Oh, and by the way, you are not Cameron's nightmare. You are a minor irritant - like a mosquito bite on the butt cheek. If Cameron ignores you for long enough, you'll vanish. You're not going to change any institutions, rotten or otherwise, with your bland, anodyne and pathetic protests. All that will happen is that you'll look like cocks on Saturdays until you find something better to do at the weekend.

Which is rather the point. Far be it from me to champion Cameron's Big Society, but I dare say his response to this sort of guff would be "if you genuinely want to make a difference, stop interrupting businesses and do some constructive, voluntary work in your spare time". But that would be too difficult, wouldn't it? To do something that might actually be constructive. But that wouldn't get the media's attention.

Anyway targeting businesses like Barclays - which has done nothing more than trying to avoid (not evade) tax - is targeting the wrong people. Any tax bill has to be agreed with HMRC - if you don't agree with that tax bill, go bellyache to them. Furthermore, by damaging the trade of banks such as Barclays through these tedious sit-ins, you will potentially damage their future revenue and therefore decrease the amounts they will have to pay in tax in future. Which is the final irony - with behaviour like this, UK Uncut may actually be making future cuts more likely.

Absolute wankers.

Bears, Woods, etc.

From the BBC:

More than half of donations to the Conservative Party last year came from the City of London, according to the Bureau of Investigative Journalism.

In other news, bears definitely defecate in the woods and the Pope is of a Catholic persuasion.

Seems almost tedious to point out that a substantial part of the funding that keeps the Labour Party afloat comes from the unions. It also seems tedious to point out that the unions are an interest group, just like those organisations that exist in the City of London. And it seems beyond boring to suggest that just because a political party takes money from a certain area of British society doesn't mean that they are beholden to every misconceived whim of said area of British society.

Instead, I'd just like to point out that anyone who finds this news surprising or, indeed, new, is fucking stupid.

The Robin Hood Tax

There should be a website that details – and tears apart – the seemingly endless number of Facebook groups that are set up by people with a slender grip of reality. Another day brings another unthinking left-wing Facebook associate joining another idiotic group:

Robin Hood Tax is a tiny tax on bankers that would raise billions to tackle poverty and climate change, at home and abroad.

If governments took a tiny tax of 0.05% from international bankers’ transactions, it could generate hundreds of billions of pounds every year – that could stop cuts in crucial public services at home in UK, and help fight global poverty and climate change.

This is so irritating in so many ways that it really is a case of some many gripes, so little time. So I’ll focus instead on my biggest issue with this craptastic idea. It isn’t so much the damage this might do to an already struggling banking sector, nor the naïveté involved in the idea that the whole world could agree on one particular point of economic policy, when they cannot even agree on what the best basis of an economy should be. It isn’t even the ongoing stigmatisation of the banking world, despite the reality that others – such as governments and consumers – also played a crucial part in the down-turn we’re just coming out of.

No. What really fucks me off is this naïve assumption that government knows best. That if you give money to government you are automatically doing a good thing. That is, of course, total shite. Don’t believe me? Well, let’s take a look at what the British government spends its money on. War and (generally poor, not fit for purpose) weapons. More CCTV cameras, more invasions into the privacy of the people. And – best of all for these banking haters – buying large stakes in failing/failed banks. Yeah, let’s give the governments more money. Because they don’t waste it now, do they?

And this notion that the money will be used to stop crucial cuts in public spending at home in the UK – bollocks. If the government gets around to making cuts in public services, then than can do so by cutting out some of the waste within the public sector.

The Robin Hood Tax is perfect propaganda for the government. It subtly yet effectively reinforces the idea that the government is a benign entity that will do more and more good the more money we all give to it. Unfortunately, the government is not benign. It is both wasteful and, on occasion, extremely malignant. Licensing the government to take more money from the private sector is like giving a gambling addict 200 quid and pushing him into Ladbrokes. It is stupid, it is dumb and it is irresponsible.

The Robin Hood Tax – stealing from the rich to give to the incompetent. Unfortunately, the ineptitude of the government ensures any money they take from banks will not reach the poor.

Nu Labour: Bankers and the Art of Creating "The Other"

Another day, another Nu Labour attack on a section of the people of this country. And today's attack victim is that gift that keeps on giving for Nu Labour - the bankers.

Alistair Darling is drawing up plans to face down the country's top bankers by taking the "nuclear option" of a windfall tax on their bumper bonuses as part of measures aimed at the super-rich.

Oh, goody. That will incentivise bankers employed in those institutions we, the British public, now own to work hard. And in no way whatsoever will this lead to bankers and banks heading abroad, to countries where the ruling elite are not so in favour of crippling the financial services sector.

This notion that bankers should be penalised for the crime of earning bonuses is as dense as it is ignorant. Bonuses are incentives for working hard and achieving goals. That is why banks - and other organisations - pay them. If a bank pays bonuses to those who do not deserve them, then that is their own silly fucking fault. And would result, in the long term, in that bank going under - except that doesn't happen any more, since Gordon Brown uses such circumstances to posture like Superman. Assuming, of course, that you see Superman as a fat ghoul with the personality of a rancid corpse. But the notion that banks should be able to do what they think is best is abhorrent to Nu Labour. I mean, they love to be interventionist in every single aspect of every single part of British life, but no-one gets quite the same level of intrusive manipulation and control than the banking sector these days.

The government's desire to control the banking sector is not simply down to their natural obsessive compulsive need to justify their existence through constant fiddling. No, this is something more. See, bankers have become the whipping boys of society - and the government can play to the public gallery by pursuing punitive policies against them. They can argue, every time they further cripple both a sector and the people working within that sector, that these people aren't in public favour just at the moment, they are simply doing what the public want them to do. The only problem with this is that the government, through their panicked rhetoric and desperate desire not to be caught up in the financial crisis they helped to create, made the bankers into a hated class of society in the first place.

A lot of political philosophy discusses the concept of "the other"; that (under)class of people within a nation that wider society defines itself by being in opposition to. There is much debate about whether "the other" naturally exists, or whether it is created by the powers that be in order to unite a naturally divisive society behind its ruling elite. I personally think (somewhat pessimistically) that it is a mix of the two. However, what is startling about Labour is just how carefully and cynically they have worked to create "the other" across their years in power. You can actually trace the history of Nu Labour by looking at which parts of society Nu Labour have set up to be shat on.

It started with the Tories. Back in 1997, when the Tories were about as popular as bowel cancer, Labour set them up to be the evil part of British society. However, as Nu Labour got involved in various scandals and as the Tories showed themselves to be about as effective as a fart in a hurricane, that stopped working. So Nu Labour helped to manufacture another subspecies to kick around. The paedophiles. And it worked very well. They managed to whip up a hysterical storm about child sex predators, and had the baying mob ready to shred anyone who looked a bit dubious. Of course, that didn't work so well either. Partly because mobs are difficult to control (particularly when fired up by such an emotive issue as child sex abuse) and also because paedophilia remains mercifully rare - at least in the high-profile cases of child sex killings. Which left the government with a vacancy for the post of the bit of society that the UK can shit on.

Then the Twin Towers came falling down, and the government turned their attention towards Islam. It was subtle at first, talking about engagement with the Islamic community - a small yet both clever and corrosive way of highlighting perceived differences between "mainstream British society" and that of that of the Muslim section. Then, of course, it got more and more blatant as the UK invaded Muslim nations. After 7/7, the government rhetoric was at its most poisonous. But yet again "the other" refused to play ball with the government so determined to ostracise them. The vast majority of Muslims in the UK are peaceful, productive members of society; and of the minority who are not, they showed themselves (barring 7/7) to be incompetent in the extreme. I mean, it is difficult to paint a section of the British population as dangerous when their extremists carry out terrorist attacks on Glasgow airport that end with a terrorist getting their teeth kicked in by a baggage handler. Then there was the problem of the attrition of civil liberties designed to combat Islamic terrorism. They led to government defeats and both to much mirth and indignation about the crassness of such policies. And the end result of this attempt to ruthlessly stigmatise Islam in the UK? The English Defence League. Well the fuck done, Nu Labour. Hark the sound of one hand clapping.

So when the economy went down the shitter, the government - in particular the Prime Minister, desperate to preserve the utterly undeserved reputation for being an economic genius - turned to and then turned on the banking sector. Of course, bankers were in part responsible for the current recession. And many of them paid for it with their jobs. And bankers perhaps don't help themselves by being so arrogant and refusing to defend themselves in the notorious court of public opinion. Yet the government's attempt to make the whole banking sector into a scapegoat will fail - if only because at some point, in our service based economy, it is going to become clear to even the ignorant shites in Numbers 10 and 11 of Downing Street that we need a strong financial sector, rather than a crippled husk of one. But for now, they won't stop. The anti-banker rhetoric is just too useful to them.

Of course, other governments do the same thing. It will be interesting to see how long it takes the Tories to turn on their usual hate figures (such as immigrants) when they get back into power. However, it is Nu Labour who have turned this use of McCarthyism into a central government policy, and also transformed it into a constantly updating tool to both control and breed resentment within society. Their treatment of the bankers is just the tip of the iceberg; they have come to define their style of government by their ongoing cynical attempts to define British society as a whole through government sponsored resentment to a perceived bogeyman - regardless of whether the opprobrium is deserved or not. And this stands as yet another damning indictment of this hopefully moribund regime.

*Insert Comment About Pot and Kettle Here*

Lord Myners:

A government minister has told bankers "to come back into the real world" after Royal Bank of Scotland directors threatened to resign over bonuses.

City Minister Lord Myners said it was unrealistic that bankers should expect to be paid million pound bonuses.

I love - I absolutely love - this idea of a Nu Labour Lord telling bankers to come back into the real world. It is a bit like the Pope ordering President Ahmadinejad to avoid blind faith in an ancient, unsubstantiated religion. It would be funny, if it wasn't so hypo-fucking-critical.

A Spending Cut Proposal

Obviously it is the done thing in modern British politics - after years of unrealistic and unconvincing denials - to talk about spending cuts and to start ear-marking potential areas of government influence for the chop. Now, I'd like to propose a cut in spending that I genuinely think everyone can get behind. Yes, I think we should stop spending money on failing banks.

For Marxists, this sort of behaviour is simply propping up the "terrible" capitalist regime. For socialists and social democrats, this is rewarding failed rich people and taking resources away from those more "deserving" of government cash. For conservatives, bailing out failing businesses means people are absolved of responsibility for their failings by the government. And for free market capitalists, this represents yet another unwarranted and unwanted government intervention in the economy.

And for the man on the street, who has been indoctrinated with the idea that bankers are bad through a programme of government indoctrination and propaganda that truly would make Stalin proud, this is again a good thing because those bankers are pretty much evil.

I know we have already invested a lot in some of these banks, and that if we don't continue to prop them up then that investment is pretty much gone. Yet partial government ownership doesn't seem to be helping the likes of Lloyds pull themselves up out of the shit, and I can't help but think that all we are doing is increasing the amount we are inevitably going to lose when the government finds it can no longer bail these banks out.

There is such a thing of throwing good money after bad; and it increasingly looks as if funding Lloyds et al is doing precisely that.

Back!

Well, I'm back from holiday. It was very nice, thank you for asking. I dare say I have missed a great deal, but until I sit down and start doing some reading I'm not going to be able to figure out exactly what I want to comment on. And I'll be honest with you, that isn't going to happen today. But I'm sure you will all survive. Somehow. 

But whilst I am briefly on this blog, I'd just like to point out that this sort of thing sums up why I am no longer a Tory. They are jumping on the anti-banker bandwagon in the pseudo-populist manner of that shyster Tony Blair. But worst of all, it has allowed Peter Mandelson - the serpent king of spin - to criticise the Tories for being opportunistic. 

Own goal here for the Tories, and not the sort of error that the next government of the United Kingdom should be making. 

When does it stop?

When the government effectively owns every bank in the country? When the government runs out of money? Because at the rate the government is going, one of those two things is going to happen before we actually get a chance to say whether we want Gordon Brown to be Prime Minister and whether we support his policies in a General Election.

Brown's legacy will be a nationalised banking sector and a bankrupt government. He is, to be sure, the very definition of an absolute fucking disaster. The problem is, we'll all end up paying for his disastrous administration. 

Turn the Rage against Labour

We’re still playing the blame game about the credit crunch in this country, with bankers still being placed in the public stocks for merciless criticism and indignant rage. Today’s victim is Fred Goodwin, who is being castigated for having (and admittedly fucking huge) pension. The rights and wrongs of this individual case are quite frankly irrelevant as the amount Fred the Shred will be paid is a minute drop in a mighty ocean when you compare it to the amounts of money that the government is throwing at the financial services sector.

Besides, this controversial pension plan is defensible on at least one level – until very recently, it was government sanctioned. That’s right – in order to get Goodwin out of his bank, the Treasury signed off on this massive pension plan.

There is a lot of anger in this country at the moment – anger bordering on rage. Which I can understand. But I really do think we are directing it at the wrong people. Yes, a lot of bankers were crap. But business people are shit all the time. That’s why businesses fail. And ultimately there is very little we can do to those crap bankers. However, there is another target that is just as responsible for this recession, and a target that we can do something about. And it is the target that frantically tries to distract us with hate figures such as Fred Goodwin. Yep, I’m talking about our government.

Labour was first elected over a decade ago under the leadership of a photogenic, harmless looking chipmunk called Tony Blair. We are now being governed by an unelected egregious grey ghoul of a man whose pronouncements on the economy increasingly resemble the demented mumblings of Jim Jones before the Kool-Aid was passed around. Whatever we signed up for in ’97 – and indeed in ’05 – is not what we’ve got now. In fact, this whole government has been exposed as a massive confidence trick – a fraud designed to con us into spending money that we don’t have.

And, indeed, the government still doesn’t have the first fucking clue about what is going on, but that doesn’t stop the Prime Minister shovelling great big piles of our cash into a cellar in Downing Street and setting fire to it. It doesn’t stop him blaming everyone else for the calamity that he himself helped to create. Gordon Brown is determined to channel the righteous rage felt by so many in this country in any other direction that towards him. But that will only work for so long. Because at some point, Gordon will have to call a General Election.

And then we will see the anger, the rage, and the hatred. Turned against a truly deserving target – the British government. Barring Gordon Brown pulling off something absolutely spectacular, Labour is facing decimation at best at the next election. And you know what? I’m going to relish that bastard and his shitty minions facing obliteration at the next election. For all the lies, the evasions, the corruption, the thieving of the past decade. I predict the petulant rage felt by many British people towards bankers at the moment will be nothing compared to baying of the mob when we next get to vote.

I think Brown et al will learn that Goodwin and his ilk are small fry, once the British electorate gets the much larger and more deserving target of the dog-tired, waste-of-space and utterly incompetent Nu Labour government in their sights.

The Royal Bank of Scotland, The Government and The Blame

Well, this is good news:

Royal Bank of Scotland came a step closer to full-scale nationalisation today as the bank unveiled a record £24.1 billion loss and plans to raise up to £25.5 billion from the taxpayer.

I’m sure I speak for everyone in saying I for one have no problem with paying more tax to fund Gordon Brown’s lust for nationalisation. In fact, fuck it. I’ll just pay my half my salary straight to the state. Bingo. And they can fritter it away on worthless shares for shitty businesses. This all sounds, well, peachy.

While the Government's shareholding in terms of votes will be capped at 75 per cent, its economic interest in RBS - its claim on RBS's assets - could rise to 95 per cent depending on its future performance.

Right, well, that’s a fucking useful cap then, isn’t it? That makes perfect fucking sense. And what great business sense as well. The government – and for government, read your wallet and my wallet – will own 95% of a business but only have 75% of influence over it. Whoever came up with that plan what’s a good, hearty kick in the balls (or fanny flaps, let’s not be sexist here).

Mr Hester also gave a strong signal that tens of thousands of job losses are on the way at the beleaguered bank. He said he "wouldn't dissent" from reports that as many as 20,000 jobs could be lost.

Awesome. Well, I suppose we’ll have 20,000 less people on the state payroll (yep, that’s your payroll and my payroll again, ladies and gents) but it does make me question precisely why the state is effectively nationalising this bank. Surely one of the points of the government taking over this bank would be to save fucking jobs, but no.

Derek Simpson, joint leader of Unite, said: "These historic and humiliating losses ring into sharp focus just how reckless RBS's former management team have behaved. The whole country is paying the price through job cuts and repossessions on a massive scale. It is time to take control and fully nationalise this bank."

With you right up to the final sentence, Del Boy. But the last thing we should do is fully nationalise this bank. Sweet holy mother of Jesus, why would the taxpayer want this massive toxic asset on their hands? Why would they want full control of a failed business that – if it didn’t have enforced contributions from the poor fucking taxpayer – would go under?

There will be some who will hold this news up as further evidence of the failure of capitalism. Which is absolutely true. If you are a total fucking moron. What this represents is the failure of RBS. Capitalism is struggling because of the constant government interventions. The market cannot operate properly if the government steps in to prop up business that have failed.

The brutal truth is that given this loss, the market should be allowed to do what it naturally wants to do. And if that involves killing off RBS, then so be it. The government should offer to guarantee any savings in RBS, but not intervene aside from that.

There is so much fucking belly-aching about bankers – including those in RBS – getting bonuses at the moment. And yeah, it sticks in my throat somewhat as well – not least since I will be part funding the fucking bonuses the way things are going. But there are two points to make here – government owns RBS now, to all intents and purposes, so is in the position to stop those bonuses being paid. But far more importantly it is the state leading the likes of RBS in rewarding people for failure. RBS and other banks have failed, and the government has bailed them out. Is it any wonder that RBS et al think it is A-OK to pay their employees for failure when the government throws money at them because of their failure?

Blame the banks by all means, but don't forget to blame the government as well. Not least because, with all this nationalising going on, the two are rapidly becoming the same thing.

Gordon Brown on banks:

"(They should be) servants of the economy and society and never its master".

Funny that. I'd say exactly the same thing about the Prime Minister. He should be the servant of the people rather than the master of them. Which makes it a real shame that our Prime Minister is an ego-driven fuck up of the very highest order who is driven by the trappings of office and an absurd believe that he is destined to be in charge of this increasingly crippled nation. Gordon Brown doesn't understand the concept that he should be our servant. His hideous self-delusion means he just does not understand the idea that he should be servant of anyone. For him, it just does not compute. 

Gordon Brown, Drunken Gamblers and General Elections

I haven’t really commented on the second banking bailout. Mainly because I can’t really get my head around just how insane it all sounds. I keep on thinking that I must have misread something, or misunderstood what I read, or had some sort of mental breakdown and slipped into a reality where the government has less economic sense than a dead pigeon. But no, it does appear that our government really is going for the definition of throwing good money after bad.

Part of me wants to find a silver lining in this second bailout plan. After all, the idea is just so bad that there must be some good coming from it somewhere. The closest I have got to finding that silver lining is that Gordon Brown won’t be able to go on spending our money forever. Because that money will simply run out. So the silver lining I’ve found is that this second banking bailout may lead to Britain going bust. To be honest, as silver linings go, this one really isn’t great. In fact, it makes me want to take all of my money out of the bank and put it under my mattress. And stock up on canned goods.

The absolute insanity of Brown’s behaviour* is staggering. It must be abundantly clear to most people now that the first banking bailout did not work. So what does the government do? Follows the age-old prescription for madness – it does the same thing, but expects a different result. But calling Brown mad is done so often now that it is a veritable cliché. To me, Brown now resembles a drunken gambler in a bookie’s. He’s put a lot of money on a horse that doesn’t come through for him. But rather than accepting the loss and moving on, he staggers back to the counter and puts even more money on the same horse. Even though the race has been run and lost.

Just weeks ago, those claiming that the UK might go broke could be dismissed as tin foil hat wearing paranoids. Now, they look quite sage. But whatever happens, this second bailout – actually, fuck it, let’s state exactly what this is: the part nationalisation of the financial sector – will further cripple this country in the future with massive, unmanageable debt. Gordon Brown is literally mortgaging our future. His behaviour and his policies are utterly, utterly terrifying.

And yet the British people – the poor fuckers whose money is being spent by this terrible abortion of an administration – have no say on what is happening. There is only one way to redress this problem: this country needs to have a General Election. Now.

The British people must be consulted on whether they feel Brown’s ludicrous policies are acceptable or not. We need to have a say on what Gordon Brown is doing, because the ramifications of his policies are going to affect every man, woman and child in this country. And before we forget, the electorate has had no say whatsoever on Brown or his policies. At the last election, the British people voted** for Tony Blair to run the country in strong economic times, with an ambitious yet contained spending programme. We now have Gordon Brown running the economy in one of the worst recessions in living memory – and spending his way through it like there is no tomorrow. Gordon Brown is fucking this country and its economy up good and proper; no-one in this country, barring the Nu Labour drones in the House of Commons, has been allowed to have any say on his outrageous and destructive policies.

So spread the word. Mr Brown, we want a General Election. Now.

*And make no mistake about this, it is Brown doing this – his badger faced cunt of a Chancellor just follows Brown’s lead, like a crippled dog needing to be put down urgently.
**Actually, a minority of them, as it turns out.

Banks, Government: Transparency for one, nothing for the other

Gordon Brown is calling for more transparency from the banks:

The prime minister has demanded that banks admit how many "toxic assets" they have on their balance sheets. Gordon Brown told the Financial Times the banks had to "come clean" about these bad debts so people could trust them again.

Uh-huh. This would be the same Gordon Brown who is heading up a government with precisely no intention of coming clean about their own expenses, let alone their own toxic assets. Although the latter could be embarrassing; imagine Gordon saying "yeah, we've got this massive toxic asset on our books. You may have heard of it. It is called the NHS." It would be nice to see the government here leading the banks by example, though. 

Although Gordon does have a point; if the banks do come clean then maybe people will trust them again. It is a measure of how delusional, intellectually stunted and emotionally retarded Brown is that he does not realise that the same thing applies to him and his cronies in the House of Commons.