England and Europe in turmoil

Europe, the world perhaps, and definitely England are in turmoil.
11 state leaders have been toppled recently because of the financial crisis and more will fall. At the moment even the Coalition Government in the UK cannot come to grips with their responsibilities as a government.
Why?
Simply because they don’t listen, don’t understand their responsibilities as representatives of the people – and quite frankly are totally consumed by one thing only: being in power.

The kind of politicians we elect (or who put themselves forward) are incompetent money-grabbers and because power corrupts, they have created a chasm between themselves and the general population. Despite 200 years of economic theories (Keynes, Adams, Marx, et al.) we still don’t possess the ideal recipe for responsible governance.

The post war years with hope and signs of a peaceful future (1950s-1990s) have ended in global chaos. The very moment we had economic prosperity, human greed and lust for power took over and new incumbents joined the fray.

In the relatively well regulated world – normally called the West – it has slowly but surely begun to create the same socially divisive borders as we saw in past centuries.
This is paradoxically driven by an unheard of technological development (communication, electronics, computers) and the social, economical and cultural differences in the world in the wake of the second World War, creating the opportunity for asset rich states to “suck” the underdeveloped world.

It was initially a slow process, as we in the West do have some sort of a magnifying glass aimed at the politicians, making outright corruption difficult.
But as I have always maintained: “if they can, they will” – and as it proved: they could and they would.

The paradox is that the fast technological development also created a fertile ground for our demise, while the “sucker states” learnt and copied the rich countries.
The “poorer states” took over production and assets – or we even handed it to them on a silver tray - and the “rich states”, who had become specialists in the juggling of credit to pay for our exorbitant lifestyles, discovered they couldn’t pay themselves top salaries any more. So, while selling our crown jewels, the credits dried up – and everyone started to look around for a rich uncle.

There was none – but there was a lot of 3rd world countries with resources, willing to take over, work for less and using their new found power.

Are we surprised? We only have to look at what happened at the time of the Black Death in the 14-15 Century. With the Lords of the Manor in trouble and fewer labourers willing to do the slave-jobs, workers could begin to demand their share of life’s rewards.

Our learning is all in the history, if we care to look.

In other (shorter!) words: in the West – certainly in England - the good life has come to an abrupt halt, as the income to pay for a credit based lifestyle dried up, asset distribution has become unrealistic and the opportunity to “suck” others has vanished.

So – if we can’t “suck” other countries, as they have also collapsed, where do the politicians, i.e. the powers that be and who want to continue to be, turn?
Simple!
The answer is: Inwards.
We see it in various degrees in all European countries.

As human beings, as a species, we have hardly left the African Savannah, mentally spoken.
With the mentality of hunters and gatherers our behaviour has not changed much from the daily fight for survival.
We are still tribal, i.e. grouping into political parties and nurturing superstitious tendencies to form religious factions. We also naturally divide ourselves into “chiefs and Indians” and we still consider “the others” our enemies.
This is not new – just read “Lord of the Flies” by Golding or “1984” by Orwell.

It is said that you can tell a nation by the way it treats its elderly.
Coming from a country (Denmark) that praised itself of “few have too much and fewer too little”, I am watching the English Tories (Cameron/Osborne) in awe.
The 28th annual British Social Attitudes report from the National Centre for Social Research's is stomach churning reading.
It confirms, that my observations from 30 years ago concerning this island’s anachronistic class society, were correct – and that it has become worse.

Lord this and Lady that?
Who cares.
This school or that school?
Who cares.

Well – obviously a small group cares: Lord and Lady this and that care.
And they are the ones running society these days!
They have created a divide between ‘the haves and the have-nots’.
For the socially conscious of us this is hard to stomach.
The result is a growing disinterest in politics by us, the ordinary people.

We have entered a period of class war, as witnessed during the London riots and the fact that child poverty is more rampant than ever, elderly people die of hypothermia and pensioners are being robbed through a tax system that favours the rich.

Privatisation and greed has created a system with extortionate property and rental prices, the latter in particular, as the English have never understood the rental market other than as a source of extracting even more money from those who don’t own a home – in contrast to the rest of Europe, where rented quality apartments are considered normal, affordable and a must.

Energy and fuel prices are crippling and the banks, owned by the tax-payers, are allowed to stop lending and focus on own profit and bonuses, rather than on the banking objectives that are a vital part of the economic process.

While support of problem ridden parts of the world is a virtue, paying £bill to Pakistan and India and ignoring the old and the poor in our own country is disgusting.

Everything the present Tory government has done points in the direction of a deplorable attitude towards the less well off in society: granny tax, tax on state pensions, forcing people with just a little money in the bank to sell their houses in order to pay for old age nursing, relief of tax on the rich, hypocritical statements like “we are all in it together”, moving the venerable NHS from a social “serve all” towards a private money-spinner – every single item and the many mistakes that Cameron/Osborne have made, illustrate their lack of listening ears and total disinterest in what the population wants.

The statement that “we will continue to make unpopular decisions for the best of the country” is a smack in the face of the constituents,

England is doggedly tied to it’s class structure,.
Where once there were three main classes: working, middle and upper class, we now have an underclass and an upper-upper class and the disparity has never been sharper or more breath-taking in its extreme.
It is these divisive structures, captured in the British Social Attitudes report, which hold that poor and unemployed people are ‘lazy’ and the architects of their own impoverished misfortune.

To top it all, our politicians have allowed an unchecked huge influx of non-producing immigrants, who demand the implementation of their own culture and legal system while many of them “suck” us for benefits and threaten us with death and revenge once they have the majority.

We need immigrants to keep the wheels turning, but why not demand the simple things even the Romans 2000 years ago applied: speak our language, work - and respect our laws.

It is hardly rocket science and it kept the Romans in the black for 700 years – so why not for us?
Instead we have created a user and benefit society with surreal contrasts, such as a man, who is good at kicking a leather bag full of hot air around on a grass field, can become a multi-millionaire, while a woman who takes care of the sick and dying can barely make ends meet.

Will Cameron/Osborne listen?

Will Labour do much better?
The track record from 1997-2010 makes me wonder.

The creation of the Euro was a HUGE mistake.
Two major proponents, Kohl and Mitterand in the 1990s, were ostensibly unable to spell the word "economics" and yet they pushed ahead with an illusionary political idea that had the heading "Failure" written across it from the start.
Economic union without fiscal union?
Even a 6th former could see it was wrong for 3rd rank economies like Ireland, Greece, Spain and Portugal to have access to credit on a par with Germany. It opened the ball for a spending spree never seen before - and now the boomerang has returned.
In England Blair sanctioned the Euro idea based on the thought, that it would make business transactions much easier. Fortunately there was massive resistance to swap the £ with the Euro.
The joke is, that the UK has fared considerably better than the Euro-countries, but how Blair/Brown managed to lead the UK into a position as Europe's most indebted country (way over £1.4trill) is beyond me - and perhaps most other people.

So what now?
Alternatives, anyone?

We need a paradigm shift, but who will lead?
Mark Zuckerberg, perhaps ;-) !!!!

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