London and UK riots (started in Tottenham 10:30PM, 6th Aug)

R P McMurphy

3ndahalfof6 wrote: »

and so it starts, a guy who was looking for water went to lidl but the place was wrecked, he took a 6 pack of water and the cops stopped him,
in court he got 3mts prison and he had no previous convictions,

woman with 96 previous convictions stopped with a black binliner, in it was a drill, mobile phone accessories and other stuff, she said she found the bag on the street, suspended sentence. (scotsman)

A drill is a bit of a stupid thing to loot anyway, heavy and bulky if in a case and not worth that much money unless a top model. Would think people would be after smaller more expensive items. As for stealing water ...

wild_cat

I don't know if this has been posted yet but I think it sums things up quite well...


"The problem is not that they burn out cars, the problem is that they don't know why they are burning them out."

uberalles

Monty Burnz wrote: »

For the last 50 or more years, the solution has been to hand people free healthcare, homes, food and spending money for doing absolutely nothing. How is that solution working out? Has it benefitted those people? Or has it resulted in the creation of a seething underclass?

Ill breed them, you feed them.

Its darwinism turned on its head - survival of the fittest inverted.

Is mise le key

uberalles wrote: »

Ill breed them, you feed them.

Its darwinism turned on its head - survival of the fittest inverted.

To each according to his need, from each according to his ability.

Life as members of humanity is a little more complex than survival of the fiittest.

K-9

Monty Burnz wrote: »

So the dole is the only social welfare paid to the underclass?

No.

Anyway, you never answered my question.

denhaagenite

wild_cat wrote: »

"The problem is not that they burn out cars, the problem is that they don't know why they are burning them out."

...... They are both problems ........

Monty Burnz

Is mise le key wrote: »

To each according to his need, from each according to his ability.

Once more, for the benefit of Boards.ie users, I will list all of the successful socialist countries that have existed since the dawn of Marxism.

...
List ends.

Happyman42

Monty Burnz wrote: »

Once more, for the benefit of Boards.ie users, I will list all of the successful socialist countries that have existed since the dawn of Marxism.

...
List ends.

Yeh...the UK works doesn't it and Ireland.......

Monty Burnz

K-9 wrote: »

Anyway, you never answered my question.

Apologies, I missed it.

K-9 wrote: »

What's your point though? We should remove free healthcare and housing?

Yes, I think we should look at ways of expecting something in return for these things. For one Nobody respects things you get for free. And for a second thing, more importantly, I think that the most depressing part of life as a member of the underclass may be the absence of any challenge at all. I've drawn a comparison before on Boards with those people who win the lottery and after a few years are mired in depression, or those who inherit wealth and have no point in their existence (if you want to see a rich chav, look at Paris Hilton). Even in wildlife parks they try to vary how they feed the lions - put the food in awkward spots, or inside things that have to be ripped open - to give the lions a bit of stimulation and a challenge. They do so because it keeps the animals stimulated, happier and healthier.

So I propose looking at ways to give these people a challenge again. A way to have a good day or a bad day, a good year or a bad year. Ways to get ahead, a contest of some sort. It's what the rest of us do every day when we go to work, and it seems to keep us happier and healthier.

It's only the very rough outline of an idea and it will need a lot of thought as to the details, but I think we need to ask serious questions about whether the current approach of 'give everything, ask for nothing back' is helping or harming these people, and society at large.

Monty Burnz

Happyman42 wrote: »

Yeh...the UK works doesn't it and Ireland.......

Morlar

Monty Burnz wrote: »

Apologies, I missed it.



Yes, I think we should look at ways of expecting something in return for these things. For one Nobody respects things you get for free. And for a second thing, more importantly, I think that the most depressing part of life as a member of the underclass may be the absence of any challenge at all. I've drawn a comparison before on Boards with those people who win the lottery and after a few years are mired in depression, or those who inherit wealth and have no point in their existence (if you want to see a rich chav, look at Paris Hilton). Even in wildlife parks they try to vary how they feed the lions - put the food in awkward spots, or inside things that have to be ripped open - to give the lions a bit of stimulation and a challenge. They do so because it keeps the animals stimulated, happier and healthier.

So I propose looking at ways to give these people a challenge again. A way to have a good day or a bad day, a good year or a bad year. Ways to get ahead, a contest of some sort. It's what the rest of us do every day when we go to work, and it seems to keep us happier and healthier.

It's only the very rough outline of an idea and it will need a lot of thought as to the details, but I think we need to ask serious questions about whether the current approach of 'give everything, ask for nothing back' is helping or harming these people, and society at large.

Sorry, but as I was reading that I was picturing Joan Burton on Rté news launching Ireland's first 'Social Welfare payment mystery treasure hunt'. 'Now, here is your first clue'

stovelid

jmayo wrote: »

BTW what term would you use to describe the group who appear to spend most of their time reprimanding others for not using so called correct terminology in particular to describe people and groups ?

Non-chimps.

K-9

Monty Burnz wrote: »

Apologies, I missed it.



Yes, I think we should look at ways of expecting something in return for these things. For one Nobody respects things you get for free. And for a second thing, more importantly, I think that the most depressing part of life as a member of the underclass may be the absence of any challenge at all. I've drawn a comparison before on Boards with those people who win the lottery and after a few years are mired in depression, or those who inherit wealth and have no point in their existence (if you want to see a rich chav, look at Paris Hilton). Even in wildlife parks they try to vary how they feed the lions - put the food in awkward spots, or inside things that have to be ripped open - to give the lions a bit of stimulation and a challenge. They do so because it keeps the animals stimulated, happier and healthier.

So I propose looking at ways to give these people a challenge again. A way to have a good day or a bad day, a good year or a bad year. Ways to get ahead, a contest of some sort. It's what the rest of us do every day when we go to work, and it seems to keep us happier and healthier.

It's only the very rough outline of an idea and it will need a lot of thought as to the details, but I think we need to ask serious questions about whether the current approach of 'give everything, ask for nothing back' is helping or harming these people, and society at large.

Sounds like the US system, sounds like a plan.

Monty Burnz

K-9 wrote: »

Sounds like the US system, sounds like a plan.

No it doesn't. Thanks for giving an original idea the consideration it deserves though. I look forward to hearing your ideas.

K-9

Monty Burnz wrote: »

No it doesn't. Thanks for giving an original idea the consideration it deserves though. I look forward to hearing your ideas.

It's a rough outline...............................................

Is mise le key

Monty Burnz wrote: »

Once more, for the benefit of Boards.ie users, I will list all of the successful socialist countries that have existed since the dawn of Marxism.

...
List ends.

Oh yes, and to expand on that list, name all the sucessful capitalist countries??

None in europe for a start, take a look around.

twinQuins

Monty Burnz wrote: »

Pure socialism doesn't work just as pure capitalism doesn't work but that doesn't mean that both don't have good parts that should be taken and used independent of the rest, as many European countries do.

Monty Burnz

Is mise le key wrote: »

Oh yes, and to expand on that list, name all the sucessful capitalist countries??

None in europe for a start, take a look around.

I see wealth, freedom and opportunity unparalleled in human history. What do you see when you look at North Korea?

Monty Burnz

twinQuins wrote: »

Pure socialism doesn't work just as pure capitalism doesn't work but that doesn't mean that both don't have good parts that should be taken and used independent of the rest, as many European countries do.

Yes, 95% capitalism and 5% socialism seems to work reasonably well in Sweden.

sensibleken

Monty Burnz wrote: »

I see wealth, freedom and opportunity unparalleled in human history. What do you see when you look at North Korea?

ah monty come on. north korea as an example of socialism? really? Its like saying capitalism is shíte, just look at Pinnochet's Chile

Happyman42

Monty Burnz wrote: »

I see wealth, freedom and opportunity unparalleled in human history.

Because you are allowed to see it. Can you not accept the notion of the downtrodden? Vast communities in urban Britain that have no hope & very few ways out.
Have you ever walked around places like Toxteth? Or some of Limerick's or Dublins under resourced estates?

For those people capitalism has completely and abjectly failed.

K-9

Monty Burnz wrote: »

Yes, 95% capitalism and 5% socialism seems to work reasonably well in Sweden.

5%?

Now I see why your plan falls down.

drdeadlift

Has this thread turned into a tit for tat jabbing crap thread?

Was there any trouble on the streets of the uk last night??

DominoDub

A Great read on the riots by Russel Brand of all people !

http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2011/aug/11/london-riots-davidcameron

Is mise le key

Monty Burnz wrote: »

I see wealth, freedom and opportunity unparalleled in human history. What do you see when you look at North Korea?

So to keep in line with what you begun, name the successful capitalist countries?

Moving on from that, The single insulated Socialist State ruled by an authoritarian approach of north Korea is hardly what any real Socialist would aspire to emulate.

You see wealth, millions dont, you see freedom, freedom to create wealth only for it to be systematically funneled upwards into a minority of private hands, you see opportunity, the explosion of the riots in England that spread like wildfire would tell us that a large section of youth in society dont.

The truth of it is we are snookered no matter what road we take as a nation, the only thing people have to come to terms with is whether or not they are going to continue with the comfortable/convenient delusion that we will 'get back on track', or 'return to growth' any time soon, then you have to ask, are we prepared to allow the same self defeating system continue only to return hardship on our grandchildren.

Here is an article from 2001 and an interview with Joseph Stiglitz , in particular to note is the referencing to 'social unrest' as a result of austerity being imposed on the population of a nation, remarkably accurate to current events in England it must be noted.

JOE STIGLITZ: TODAY'S WINNER OF THE NOBEL PRIZE IN ECONOMICS

Wednesday, October 10, 2001
by Greg Palast

The World Bank's former Chief Economist's accusations are eye-popping - including how the IMF and US Treasury fixed the Russian elections

"It has condemned people to death," the former apparatchik told me. This was like a scene out of Le Carre. The brilliant old agent comes in from the cold, crosses to our side, and in hours of debriefing, empties his memory of horrors committed in the name of a political ideology he now realizes has gone rotten.

And here before me was a far bigger catch than some used Cold War spy. Joseph Stiglitz was Chief Economist of the World Bank. To a great extent, the new world economic order was his theory come to life.

I "debriefed" Stigltiz over several days, at Cambridge University, in a London hotel and finally in Washington in April 2001 during the big confab of the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund. But instead of chairing the meetings of ministers and central bankers, Stiglitz was kept exiled safely behind the blue police cordons, the same as the nuns carrying a large wooden cross, the Bolivian union leaders, the parents of AIDS victims and the other 'anti-globalization' protesters. The ultimate insider was now on the outside.

In 1999 the World Bank fired Stiglitz. He was not allowed quiet retirement; US Treasury Secretary Larry Summers, I'm told, demanded a public excommunication for Stiglitz' having expressed his first mild dissent from globalization World Bank style.

Here in Washington we completed the last of several hours of exclusive interviews for The Observer and BBC TV's Newsnight about the real, often hidden, workings of the IMF, World Bank, and the bank's 51% owner, the US Treasury.

And here, from sources unnamable (not Stiglitz), we obtained a cache of documents marked, "confidential," "restricted," and "not otherwise (to be) disclosed without World Bank authorization."

Stiglitz helped translate one from bureaucratise, a "Country Assistance Strategy." There's an Assistance Strategy for every poorer nation, designed, says the World Bank, after careful in-country investigation. But according to insider Stiglitz, the Bank's staff 'investigation' consists of close inspection of a nation's 5-star hotels. It concludes with the Bank staff meeting some begging, busted finance minister who is handed a 'restructuring agreement' pre-drafted for his 'voluntary' signature (I have a selection of these).

Each nation's economy is individually analyzed, then, says Stiglitz, the Bank hands every minister the same exact four-step program.

Step One is Privatization - which Stiglitz said could more accurately be called, 'Briberization.' Rather than object to the sell-offs of state industries, he said national leaders - using the World Bank's demands to silence local critics - happily flogged their electricity and water companies. "You could see their eyes widen" at the prospect of 10% commissions paid to Swiss bank accounts for simply shaving a few billion off the sale price of national assets.

And the US government knew it, charges Stiglitz, at least in the case of the biggest 'briberization' of all, the 1995 Russian sell-off. "The US Treasury view was this was great as we wanted Yeltsin re-elected. We don't care if it's a corrupt election. We want the money to go to Yeltzin" via kick-backs for his campaign.

Stiglitz is no conspiracy nutter ranting about Black Helicopters. The man was inside the game, a member of Bill Clinton's cabinet as Chairman of the President's council of economic advisors.

Most ill-making for Stiglitz is that the US-backed oligarchs stripped Russia's industrial assets, with the effect that the corruption scheme cut national output nearly in half causing depression and starvation.

After briberization, Step Two of the IMF/World Bank one-size-fits-all rescue-your-economy plan is 'Capital Market Liberalization.' In theory, capital market deregulation allows investment capital to flow in and out. Unfortunately, as in Indonesia and Brazil, the money simply flowed out and out. Stiglitz calls this the "Hot Money" cycle. Cash comes in for speculation in real estate and currency, then flees at the first whiff of trouble. A nation's reserves can drain in days, hours. And when that happens, to seduce speculators into returning a nation's own capital funds, the IMF demands these nations raise interest rates to 30%, 50% and 80%.

"The result was predictable," said Stiglitz of the Hot Money tidal waves in Asia and Latin America. Higher interest rates demolished property values, savaged industrial production and drained national treasuries.

At this point, the IMF drags the gasping nation to Step Three: Market-Based Pricing, a fancy term for raising prices on food, water and cooking gas. This leads, predictably, to Step-Three-and-a-Half: what Stiglitz calls, "The IMF riot."

The IMF riot is painfully predictable. When a nation is, "down and out, [the IMF] takes advantage and squeezes the last pound of blood out of them. They turn up the heat until, finally, the whole cauldron blows up," as when the IMF eliminated food and fuel subsidies for the poor in Indonesia in 1998. Indonesia exploded into riots, but there are other examples - the Bolivian riots over water prices last year and this February, the riots in Ecuador over the rise in cooking gas prices imposed by the World Bank. You'd almost get the impression that the riot is written into the plan.

And it is. What Stiglitz did not know is that, while in the States, BBC and The Observer obtained several documents from inside the World Bank, stamped over with those pesky warnings, "confidential," "restricted," "not to be disclosed." Let's get back to one: the "Interim Country Assistance Strategy" for Ecuador, in it the Bank several times states - with cold accuracy - that they expected their plans to spark, "social unrest," to use their bureaucratic term for a nation in flames.

That's not surprising. The secret report notes that the plan to make the US dollar Ecuador's currency has pushed 51% of the population below the poverty line. The World Bank "Assistance" plan simply calls for facing down civil strife and suffering with, "political resolve" - and still higher prices.

The IMF riots (and by riots I mean peaceful demonstrations dispersed by bullets, tanks and teargas) cause new panicked flights of capital and government bankruptcies. This economic arson has it's bright side - for foreign corporations, who can then pick off remaining assets, such as the odd mining concession or port, at fire sale prices.

Stiglitz notes that the IMF and World Bank are not heartless adherents to market economics. At the same time the IMF stopped Indonesia 'subsidizing' food purchases, "when the banks need a bail-out, intervention (in the market) is welcome." The IMF scrounged up tens of billions of dollars to save Indonesia's financiers and, by extension, the US and European banks from which they had borrowed.

A pattern emerges. There are lots of losers in this system but one clear winner: the Western banks and US Treasury, making the big bucks off this crazy new international capital churn. Stiglitz told me about his unhappy meeting, early in his World Bank tenure, with Ethopia's new president in the nation's first democratic election. The World Bank and IMF had ordered Ethiopia to divert aid money to its reserve account at the US Treasury, which pays a pitiful 4% return, while the nation borrowed US dollars at 12% to feed its population. The new president begged Stiglitz to let him use the aid money to rebuild the nation. But no, the loot went straight off to the US Treasury's vault in Washington.

Now we arrive at Step Four of what the IMF and World Bank call their "poverty reduction strategy": Free Trade. This is free trade by the rules of the World Trade Organization and World Bank, Stiglitz the insider likens free trade WTO-style to the Opium Wars. "That too was about opening markets," he said. As in the 19th century, Europeans and Americans today are kicking down the barriers to sales in Asia, Latin American and Africa, while barricading our own markets against Third World agriculture.

In the Opium Wars, the West used military blockades to force open markets for their unbalanced trade. Today, the World Bank can order a financial blockade just as effective - and sometimes just as deadly.

Stiglitz is particularly emotional over the WTO's intellectual property rights treaty (it goes by the acronym TRIPS, more on that in the next chapters). It is here, says the economist, that the new global order has "condemned people to death" by imposing impossible tariffs and tributes to pay to pharmaceutical companies for branded medicines. "They don't care," said the professor of the corporations and bank loans he worked with, "if people live or die."

By the way, don't be confused by the mix in this discussion of the IMF, World Bank and WTO. They are interchangeable masks of a single governance system. They have locked themselves together by what are unpleasantly called, "triggers." Taking a World Bank loan for a school 'triggers' a requirement to accept every 'conditionality' - they average 111 per nation - laid down by both the World Bank and IMF. In fact, said Stiglitz the IMF requires nations to accept trade policies more punitive than the official WTO rules.

Stiglitz greatest concern is that World Bank plans, devised in secrecy and driven by an absolutist ideology, are never open for discourse or dissent. Despite the West's push for elections throughout the developing world, the so-called Poverty Reduction Programs "undermine democracy."

And they don't work. Black Africa's productivity under the guiding hand of IMF structural "assistance" has gone to hell in a handbag. Did any nation avoid this fate? Yes, said Stiglitz, identifying Botswana. Their trick? "They told the IMF to go packing."

So then I turned on Stiglitz. OK, Mr Smart-Guy Professor, how would you help developing nations? Stiglitz proposed radical land reform, an attack at the heart of "landlordism," on the usurious rents charged by the propertied oligarchies worldwide, typically 50% of a tenant's crops. So I had to ask the professor: as you were top economist at the World Bank, why didn't the Bank follow your advice?

"If you challenge [land ownership], that would be a change in the power of the elites. That's not high on their agenda." Apparently not.

Ultimately, what drove him to put his job on the line was the failure of the banks and US Treasury to change course when confronted with the crises - failures and suffering perpetrated by their four-step monetarist mambo. Every time their free market solutions failed, the IMF simply demanded more free market policies.

"It's a little like the Middle Ages," the insider told me, "When the patient died they would say, "well, he stopped the bloodletting too soon, he still had a little blood in him."

I took away from my talks with the professor that the solution to world poverty and crisis is simple: remove the bloodsuckers.

******

A version of this was first published as "The IMF's Four Steps to Damnation" in The Observer (London) in April and another version in The Big Issue - that's the magazine that the homeless flog on platforms in the London Underground. Big Issue offered equal space to the IMF, whose "deputy chief media officer" wrote:

"... I find it impossible to respond given the depth and breadth of hearsay and misinformation in [Palast's] report."

Of course it was difficult for the Deputy Chief to respond. The information (and documents) came from the unhappy lot inside his agency and the World Bank.

Source,

http://www.gregpalast.com/the-globalizer-who-came-in-from-the-cold/

Monty Burnz

sensibleken wrote: »

ah monty come on. north korea as an example of socialism? really? Its like saying capitalism is shíte, just look at Pinnochet's Chile

So then you can furnish examples of successful communist/socialist/marxist countries? As I said, there is a problem in that most of these regimes have been overthrown by popular revolutions. There's a clue there somewhere.

Monty Burnz

Is mise le key wrote: »

So to keep in line with what you begun, name the successful capitalist countries?

Moving on from that, The single insulated Socialist State ruled by an authoritarian approach of north Korea is hardly what any real Socialist would aspire to emulate.

Switzerland.

Ok, I've given you one - now you give me one. Which socialist state would you prefer to emulate then?

Is mise le key

Monty Burnz wrote: »

So then you can furnish examples of successful communist/socialist/marxist countries? As I said, there is a problem in that most of these regimes have been overthrown by popular revolutions. There's a clue there somewhere.

Despite its many flaws & some of its leaders, how long was the USSR economy a success before it stagnated (which happened for many reasons we could open entirley different threads on)?

It was a very productive & Sucessful economy with a good standard of living for approx 60 years, it really began to grind to a halt in the late 70's early 80's until its eventual demise.

Its estimated economic output at the beginning of the 80's was equivilant to $9 trillion at that time (estimated by the USSR) with a population of 300 million.

So to answer you, the USSR was a success for a long time.

A lot of what was implemented in the USSR in the past works, it was the leaders that have brought the despise of the USSR upon it, not its economic activity of the past.

steve9859

My God, I though this was supposed to be After Hours!!

Micky Dolenz

steve9859 wrote: »

My God, I though this was supposed to be After Hours!!

And?