It is impossible not to reflect that the kind of social breakdown that made streets of Britain look like the streets of Bagdad immediately after 2003 fall of Saddam indicates that City greed and thieving practices reached the inner city.
Bankers are got away with their crimes of stealing money from the taxpayers by organising a massive global pyramid scheme. Moreover they were rewarded for they with hefty benefits and bonuses. To the rioting yobs it looks as if they were given handout bags with trainers and mobile phone by the police when they were leaving looted shops.
What compounded the effect is that a lot of MP's were helping themselves with expenses. They got away with it. "It was a muddle not a fiddle" for most of them to quote a classic phrase. For yobs the MP's are thieves who were allowed to get away with thieving. The mainstream press, the beacon of elite and status in the society, were generating stories (therefore big money) through illegal means (phone and e-mail hacking). The got away with it. The police, a very senior one, was helping themselves by taking bribes from journalists for breaking the law (disclosing confidential information). They got away with it. And so on.
A very few yobs are able to express these so clearly (but one or two suggested just that when questioned by the journalists). But they have perception that those in authority - captains of the financial world, politicians, social elite (like journalists), the police - are criminals. So what they are doing are simply joining them. As they are yobs they are not committing en masse white collar crimes through insider dealings or giving dodgy credit ratings, but, in line with their social station in much more unsightly way, looting and causing mayhem. As it seems this is less dangerous than white collar crimes: since it is immediately visible it is dealt with instantly. Whilst the white collar crimes have a very long term eroding effect. The effects of which we see on the streets of Britain now.
But the outcome is predictable. The yobs will be punished (quite rightly) with harsh sentences whilst financial criminals will be rewarded with even more bonuses. And the social breakdown and moral destruction will continue. You may ask yourself where it all ends.
PS. Nobody should be in any doubt that this article excuses the rioters and yobs. It does not. They are criminals. However it is a reflection that whilst the government is rightly very quick to condemn and fight unsightly physical violence and robbery of the inner cities, it is nurturing the financial thuggery of the City. Basically financial yobs hold the government by the throat.
Bankers are got away with their crimes of stealing money from the taxpayers by organising a massive global pyramid scheme. Moreover they were rewarded for they with hefty benefits and bonuses. To the rioting yobs it looks as if they were given handout bags with trainers and mobile phone by the police when they were leaving looted shops.
What compounded the effect is that a lot of MP's were helping themselves with expenses. They got away with it. "It was a muddle not a fiddle" for most of them to quote a classic phrase. For yobs the MP's are thieves who were allowed to get away with thieving. The mainstream press, the beacon of elite and status in the society, were generating stories (therefore big money) through illegal means (phone and e-mail hacking). The got away with it. The police, a very senior one, was helping themselves by taking bribes from journalists for breaking the law (disclosing confidential information). They got away with it. And so on.
A very few yobs are able to express these so clearly (but one or two suggested just that when questioned by the journalists). But they have perception that those in authority - captains of the financial world, politicians, social elite (like journalists), the police - are criminals. So what they are doing are simply joining them. As they are yobs they are not committing en masse white collar crimes through insider dealings or giving dodgy credit ratings, but, in line with their social station in much more unsightly way, looting and causing mayhem. As it seems this is less dangerous than white collar crimes: since it is immediately visible it is dealt with instantly. Whilst the white collar crimes have a very long term eroding effect. The effects of which we see on the streets of Britain now.
But the outcome is predictable. The yobs will be punished (quite rightly) with harsh sentences whilst financial criminals will be rewarded with even more bonuses. And the social breakdown and moral destruction will continue. You may ask yourself where it all ends.
PS. Nobody should be in any doubt that this article excuses the rioters and yobs. It does not. They are criminals. However it is a reflection that whilst the government is rightly very quick to condemn and fight unsightly physical violence and robbery of the inner cities, it is nurturing the financial thuggery of the City. Basically financial yobs hold the government by the throat.
This comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteleave and go where though?
ReplyDeleteThe US worked for me -- MIRAS (mortgage interest relief against tax) still in force and house prices still tumbling. These aspects make a house 66% cheaper to buy over here over the lifetime of the mortgage.
ReplyDeleteOnce a more favourable exchange rate ensues, likely prompted by Fed QE3 or devaluation, I shall transfer my £ savings into $ and good riddance. I'm buggered if going to be forced to pay the debts of incautious UK borrowers with my own hard-earned savings. We have crossed a dangerous threshold in this country -- todays's generation have been shown, quite clearly, that it makes no sense to save and they are encouraged to borrow instead: the very mindset that fuelled house price inflation in the first place, and got us all into this mess.
Britain won't survive with a society composed of a middle class exchanging ever-more expensive houses with each other, welfare dependents, and public sector expectants. I could weep for the lack of good governance in this country (largely a product of that maggot Gordon Brown), but instead I emigrated. I suggest You do the same.
Yes, I like this analogy. We are about to lay to waste the lives of several hundred young people with criminal records for stealing a pair of shoes and smashing windows when bankers (and their regulators/BOE) sit on their piles of tax-exempt off-shore bonuses passing judgement on them despite themselves having swindled the British taxpayer out of £billions and causing many of them to lose the value of their pensions and savings. We truly live in a screwed-up world and even though it's there in the open, we continue to allow the rich to get richer and poor to get poorer.
ReplyDeleteGreg,
ReplyDeleteYou might find the following brings a chuckle.
http://nathanieltapley.com/2011/08/10/an-open-letter-to-david-camerons-parents/
Awesome overview of events, please keep it up :)
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ReplyDelete