There are many elements to the current economic system that threaten to tear it apart; so many that we will have to approach the design piecemeal, with the hope of eventually integrating all the pieces into one flowchart.
One aspect is the benefits trap. Undermining our domestic workforce by putting them in competition with far lower-paid people around the world has meant wages have stagnated, while in order to keep up with inflating living costs those out of work cost more to keep and those in work often need some form of in-work financial supplement.
The gap then narrows to the point where the unemployed cannot afford to work and the lower paid wonder why they bother to work. Responding to Sunday's post here, "Jack Ketch" says:
" A life on welfare today probably gives you a better standard of living than a working man had 40-50 years ago"
Bollocks does it! If I wanted to live in that kind of poverty, the soul destroying grinding poverty of Granddad's era, I'd go get a job....and yes I am genuinely on benefits. We pull in something like £1k a month cash in hand and the rent is paid. Going to work is a luxury many can't afford, that's the stone cold truth.
As the old song goes:
I was outside a lunatic asylum one day, busy picking up stones
When along came a lunatic and said to me, "Good morning Mr. Jones,
Oh, how much a week do you get for doing that?" "Thirty bob!" I cried.
"What, thirty bob a week, with a wife and kids to keep?
Come inside, you silly bugger, come inside."
"Come inside, you silly bugger, come inside, you ought to have a bit more sense.
Working for your living, take my tip, act a little screwy and become a lunatic.
Oh you get your meals most regular and a brand new suit besides.
What's thirty bob a week with a wife and kids to keep?
Come inside you silly bugger come inside."
See here from 2:05 for a visual metaphor:
Jean Tinguely - Homage to New York (1960) from Stephen Cornford on Vimeo.
4 comments:
Even most of the wealthy make their money out of what is essentially parasitical activities such a house price inflation and the legal profession.
Politicians will, however, find anything to blame but globalization; it is the god of our age.
It crosses a line beyond which there is no point any more.
JD comments:
Tales about becoming a lunatic have been around for a long time, the date of the video appears to be 1960. But are those tales based on any observable reality? Or are they a figment of some music hall artist's imagination? It has now become a 'fact' that we are all layabouts and enjoy being kept by the state. It is a constant in letters to the papers and comments on their web pages.
In my experience it is not true at all. At the bottom end of society which is where I have lived and worked for a great part of my life I have only on rare occasions come across people who do not want to work. In fact you illustrated that recently with your own experience as a hospital porter.
People want to work and I tried to outline the reasons for that in my post you have titled "Why Work?"
I saw the latest Keiser Report this morning and he was talking to Michael Pento and Pento was very forthright. He said the politicians and Wall St come up with crazy ideas and when they don't work they come up with even crazier ideas. These people are lunatics; all they have succeeded in doing is increase unemployment and the idiotic 'robot revolution' will make the unemployment figures even worse.
The austerity they all advocate and which is being implemented everywhere is the exact opposite of what needs to be done. As Max Keiser pointed out all this 'helicopter money' and perpetuating and increasing debts has produced a system which he calls Capitalism without Capital!
He also showed in the first half of his programme that in India Modi's scheme of calling in large denomination notes has backfired spectacularly. Those large notes were not 'black' money at all. Something like 99% have been exchanged by the bank. The result has been a reduction in the amount the Bank has paid to the Government plus an increase in bankruptcies among small and medium sized businesses and an additional 5 million unemployed!
But will our 'leaders' learn from their failure? Don't be silly, they are not intelligent enough.
That Keiser report is probably up some where on the RT site and is well worth watching if you have not already seen it.
[Ed.: https://www.rt.com/shows/keiser-report/403008-episode-max-keiser-1122/]
Re: the lunatic song / rhyme. Quoted from 'Rommel- Gunner who?' by the late great Spike Milligan. Known vintage circa the late 1920's. Marching song for British troops.
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