@HarveyRabbit8 -
I'll provide a further public service announcement.
It's a link to a video captioned "Call to FOX News to ask why there is no coverage of Occupy Wall Street".
Make of that what you will. I haven't made anything of it except that I probably make too much effort with comment is free.
@CoffeeandSunflowers -
"Call to FOX News to ask why there is no coverage of Occupy Wall Street"
Make of that what you will. I haven't made anything of it except that I probably make too much effort with comment is free.
Just a guess, but Fox News is about the news, and Occupy Wall Street has done nothing new for quite some time. Setting up a satellite truck to have a reporter tell us, "Nothing new today at Occupy Wall Street" doesn't seem like a reasonable use of people and equipment at a news network.
@timecop - Fox news is about the news is it? Well, I am sure that is news to everyone here.
@Strummered -
Not to put too fine a point on it, but Occupy Wall Street has been equally not covered on any network, news or otherwise, because they haven't done anything noteworthy or newsworthy. Other stuff is happening, but they aren't doing any of it.
There will be a pop quiz. The answer, when it happens, is "Nope. Nothing today."
@timecop - An eminently reasonable point as to why there has been a lack of Occupy coverage - there's at present nothing to cover.
Although Fox weren't exactly keen on coverage of them when they were doing stuff. Communist infidels, etc.
My bafflement was more about why this video was shared at this particular moment in time - but ours is not to question why.
@Citizen0 07 May 2013 5:13am. Get cifFix for Firefox.
Fox News is barred from Canada because Canadian law forbids deliberate lying being passed off as news.
Gee, Canada sounds nice.
@Citizen0 -
I wish we held that same value.. But we
are steeped in the stinking sludge of corruption and toffee- nosed
politics. The BBC and mainstream media are bought and paid for.
I
can't remember such a nasty and vindictive government in my time.
IDS,Grayling, Gove, Shapps, Cameron, It reads like Nurumberg.
@sedan2 -
By BRIAN STELTER New York Times
Published: November 20, 2011
As police officers cleared protesters last week from Zuccotti Park in Lower Manhattan, the birthplace of Occupy Wall Street, they made sure most reporters were kept blocks away, supposedly for their own protection.
The Media Equation: For a Movement, a Question: What Now? (November 21, 2011)
But in almost every other respect, mainstream news media outlets have been put right in the middle by the movement.
Newspapers and television networks have been rebuked by media critics for treating the movement as if it were a political campaign or a sideshow — by many liberals for treating the protesters dismissively, and by conservatives, conversely, for taking the protesters too seriously.
The protesters themselves have also criticized the media — first for ostensibly ignoring the movement and then for marginalizing it.
Lacking a list of demands or recognized leaders, the Occupy movement has at times perplexed the nation’s media outlets.
Short memories here at the Guardian. There was very little substance to cover during Occupy Wall Street after the initial occupation of Zuccotti Park, The reporters questions were answered with gobbledegook that was aimless and repetitive. After a while, even the New York Times lost the faith.
Those who don't like Fox News under any circumstances obviously abhor alternative voices aimed at different viewpoints, preferring media outlets face slammed into leftish talking points. Hey, different strokes for different folks. Please note that rarely does anybody on the right demand that opponents be silenced.
Absolute intolerance is almost exclusively the province of the smug, self regarding left these days, certain that the world would stampede in their direction if only the propaganda of opponents was silenced.
It isn't news unless you already know the lyrics and can sing along?
@timecop - The video is from September 2011, when Occupy was at full swing, creating news left and right.
@Covenant -
And by November 20, 2011, the New York Times was covering the coverage, since the "movement" itself had settled into a groove that was a self-justifying campout that had failed to establish any list of what it was there to accomplish or to put forth any form of leadership to develop or express those goals or demands.
A good time was had by all, the cops got a lot of overtime, the pizza place got a lot of business, but the reporters drifted away when every day there was little to say. The Internet has archives of the whole period, and the summary of accomplishments adds up to almost squat other than putting a few new cliche's into the language.
It will probably develop into something mythical like Woodstock, but with better johns at Starbucks and amateurs on bongo drums instead of Hendricks and Country Joe. Occupy? Gimme an "F!".
@Citizen0 -
@timecop - Fox News is barred from Canada because Canadian law forbids deliberate lying being passed off as news.
Canada (from wikipedia)
In
2003, the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission
(CRTC) rejected a Canadian Cable Telecommunications Association (CCTA)
application to bring Fox News to Canada due to concerns that Fox News
U.S. and Global Television were planning to create a combined
American-Canadian news network. In 2004, after a Fox News U.S. executive
said there were no plans to create a combined channel, the CRTC
approved an application to bring Fox News to Canada.
Fox News
Channel is offered by Access Communications, Bell TV, Cogeco, Eastlink,
Manitoba Telecom Services, Rogers, SaskTel, Shaw Cable, Shaw Direct and
Telus TV. Vidéotron, Canada's third-largest cable company, has not added
Fox News Channel to its lineup.
@Citizen0 - Fox News is barred from Canada because Canadian law forbids deliberate lying being passed off as news.
That's just what we need here.
@timecop - amazing, I can hardly believe it. Wikipedia eh ?
My my.
Can you tell me where I can buy a shovel ?
@tobias7 - Yes, that is the usual English spelling.
@timecop - it is the existence of occupy and the circumstances which led to its existence is the news which is ignored by all networks
@RonJB 07 May 2013 7:12am. Get cifFix for Firefox.
" Fox News is barred from Canada because Canadian law forbids deliberate lying being passed off as news.
Gee, Canada sounds nice."
It is, but our appalling government, led by the dreasful Stepehen Harper is busy trying to let an equivalent of Fox News in. Only constant petitioning has so far kept these evil lying bastards out.
@Strummered - Too right.
News? Fox? It is the news as per Murdoch and the moral right in America. That means: no homosexuality, so divorce, no sexual ambiguity - as they see - no abortion. Not forgetting the anti Democratic Party. All very pious (they think!) and the religious right support the station. Judgemental, rich and condescending. Caught out in telling a huge amount of lies. Still what else can you expect from a station financed by Murdoch?
News? Fox? You'll be lucky @ time cop.
@dgrb 07 May 2013 6:08pm. Get cifFix for Firefox.
Oh well, there goes my immigration application.
@timecop - I think you ought to watch the programmes on Fox before you tell us all that Fox is all about news?
Fox? News? It's a joke right?
Lies, innuendo, judgement upon people who are gay, divorced or who have an abortion - not matter what the circumstances.
Fox News? This is the sort of thing Fox News people actually abide by:
"You know the Age of Enlightenment and Reason gave way to moral relativism. And moral relativism is what led us all the way down the dark path to the Holocaust."
News? I don't think so!!!
@xpressanny -
My how smug of you! And strummered and valencia and the rest. Fox News may not be your favorite channel, but in recent weeks its total audience almost matched that of the cumulative audience of all its competitors. You may insert any insult you care to here about the audience, but if your primary goal is to make a network you don't like go away, that isn't happening any time soon.
CNN has been referred to as the Clinton News Network, and MSNBC is nothing more than a full time shill for the administration. People tune to what they are comfortable with, as I am sure you do. What I watch is really none of your business, but it is not that hard to get Fox north of the border on most of the cable plans or over the Internet.
This whole thread reeks of confirmation bias by the left that they are the chosen ones that nobody truly appreciates. That the left sets the current standard for intolerance of the views of others is entirely lost on its members. In their world view, people who profoundly disagree with them are not only stupid, they are evil.
We'll note the contempt and remember it next election.
@corisco -
It is also news that something got hit by a car that left a grease spot on the highway. It is not news that the grease spot is still there the day after, or the day after that. The media is not ignoring the grease spot, because it was only news when it was created. Nor is the media ignoring occupy, because occupy is no longer worth the time and coverage.
@timecop - That's says more about the amount of moral right there are in American then doesn't it? It isn't a "smug" answer either. It is factual answer.
The comments are not about right and left either. This is all about very powerful, influential and very rich people backing a station that tells the nation what it wants the nation to hear. News? It is even less worthy than the news here. And that bias takes some beating!
Fox has been in huge trouble for telling so many lies. Not unlike our press. Murdoch certainly knows how to tell as many porkies over there as he does here. So much power in one man's hands. Deeply worrying.
@xpressanny -
Sorry, but every station on every network is run by somebody with a point of view. Some of them agree with you, some disagree. That is a factual answer. You are not always right, and others are not always wrong, and your biases are every boit as evident to others as theirs are to you.
You like the news channels to parrot your world view, and I understand that What I find odd is that you don't have the courtesy to let others do the same, although that is a constant failing on the part of the left.
It.s not just that you disagree with Fox. You and your chorus want them silenced, don't you?
@timecop -
You like the news channels to parrot your world view, and I understand that What I find odd is that you don't have the courtesy to let others do the same, although that is a constant failing on the part of the left.
Chance would be a fine thing.
Fox - Appellate Court Rules Media Can Legally Lie.
By Mike Gaddy. Published Feb. 28, 2003
The court did not dispute the heart of Akre’s claim, that Fox pressured her to broadcast a false story to protect the broadcaster from having to defend the truth in court, as well as suffer the ire of irate advertisers. Fox argued from the first, and failed on three separate occasions, in front of three different judges, to have the case tossed out on the grounds there is no hard, fast, and written rule against deliberate distortion of the news.
The attorneys for Fox, owned by media baron Rupert Murdoch, argued the First Amendment gives broadcasters the right to lie or deliberately distort news reports on the public airwaves.
@dgrb 07 May 2013 6:08pm. Get cifFix for Firefox.
It is, but our appalling government, led by the dreasful Stepehen Harper is busy trying to let an equivalent of Fox News in.
But you are the home of Naked News. You should accept nothing else that diminishes the awesomeness of that concept.
This comment was removed by a moderator because it didn't abide by our community standards. Replies may also be deleted. For more detail see our FAQs.
@xpressanny -
Urban legend.
Clearly, the story that FOX News got a court ruling in favor of its right to “lie” in its news broadcasts has become something of a talking point among the cable news channel’s detractors. There’s only one problem – the story as popularly told is completely false, and is based almost exclusively on hysteria, hyperbole, and half-truths.
There was indeed a lawsuit filed by journalists Jane Akre and Steve Wilson over their dismissal from FOX affiliate WTVT in Tampa, Florida. After that fact, however, the story is far different than how it is popularly portrayed.
To begin with, the popular portrayal almost always omits the rather crucial fact that Akre and Wilson lost almost every one of their claims at the trial court. As the Florida Second District Court of Appeal noted in their ruling:
Akre and Wilson sued WTVT alleging… that their terminations had been in retaliation for their resisting WTVT’s attempts to distort or suppress the BGH story and for threatening to report the alleged news distortion to the FCC. Akre also brought claims for declaratory relief and for breach of contract. After a four-week trial, a jury found against Wilson on all of his claims. The trial court directed a verdict against Akre on her breach of contract claim, Akre abandoned her claim for declaratory relief, and the trial court let her whistle-blower claims go to the jury. The jury rejected all of Akre’s claims except her claim that WTVT retaliated against her in response to her threat to disclose the alleged news distortion to the FCC.
0@timecop -
rejected all of Akre’s claims except her claim that WTVT retaliated against her in response to her threat to disclose the alleged news distortion to the FCC.
and that was the whole point, Foxed views (co-producers of the Triple Trade Tower demolition) do not have a News licence like the rest of the corporate (right wing money seeking) outlets but an 'Entertainment' licence, which is why they run opinion pieces on the news and not 'the news' itself, actual facts are antithetic to the Murdochratic pissoffole and for them to claim otherwise would leave them open to legal redress.
Walmart heads Fortune 500 list
The
richest family in the world apparently (115 billion), and the British
taxpayer is paying to send them free workers (Asda) who get paid the
princely sum of £70 a week.
Thank the Coalition, and thank Labour.
@kingcreosote - They are all inadequate psychopaths who demand that we worship their hatred of basic human decency. And their apologists... yeuch.
@kingcreosote - it seems to me some of these mega rich people need psychological help. It's ludicrous to lose your sense of self-worth to the extent you become depressed if you're not sitting right at the top of the pile. I know status matters to us all to some extent, but these very rich people seem to have a real problem with their self-esteem
@jessthecrip 06 May 2013 9:39pm. Get cifFix for Firefox.
The mega rich are encouraged by huge tax breaks to shit on the poor.It is almost institutionalised and become the given.
@jessthecrip 06 May 2013 9:39pm. Get cifFix for Firefox.
I'd bet they've got a team of psychiatrists on stand by. I've never understood the obsession that wealth and material possessions define who you are when every semblance of self has been sacrificed to get them? Everything has a price, and working 20 hours a day, 7 days a week to beat Bob's regional sales targets needs a reality check.
@jessthecrip -
I know status matters to us all to some extent, but these very rich people seem to have a real problem with their self-esteem
Yes, status does matter to all of us, whatever it is founded upon - it could even be the denial that it matters - and it is connected with our sense of self worth, of course.
The blubbing billionaire prince, who has to have extremely unambiguous reminders of his fabulous wealth around him at all times, probably does have a low self-esteem. His material worth appears to represent his intrinsic worth. He may have no talent for anything and possess no skills. So, essentially, his money is him, and if people believe that it amounts to less than it actually does, then there is less of him.
Poor bastard, depending upon how much damage he is capable of inflicting upon others.
@TBombadil 06 May 2013 11:30pm. Get cifFix for Firefox.
Yes but how did we let King, Queen, Prince and Princess go so cheap?If status is the real motivator then the answer is for the State to sell honors.
Knighthood - £1M
Baron - £10M
Viscount - £100M
Earl - £1B
Marquess - £10B
Duke - £100BThat should sort out the national debt.
In fact, we pay some of them!
@Stephen Hudson -
Yes but how did we let King, Queen, Prince and Princess go so cheap?
That's OK they just make the honor look more valuable in the eyes of the status seekers.
Essentially one gets an honor for making a contribution to the nation. The contribution could be in kind as it is now or financial. At present some people get honours for making secret contributions to Party funds, far better to make it open and above board as a contribution to the nation.
@kingcreosote - If I were born as ugly as Murdoch or Trump I would hate the World too, and try my damndest to remake it in my image. And how futile would that be, as this remaking is ugly and hence never going to be satisfactory. But more shame to those who enable the likes of Murdoch and Trump, especially those who purport to represent our interests, namely politicians
@jessthecrip - I'd say it was all coded in that well known phrase and saying that instinctively pops from between the lips and reveals the inner person when losing an argument, "I can buy and sell you!"
@TBombadil - But then how will the political parties get their donations?
@TBombadil - why would it cost a thousand times more to become a Marquess than a Baron when few people know the difference between them anyway? And why sre you so obsessed with the national debt when Britsin owns the Bank of England and therefore has an infinite credit limit?
BTW the idea of selling honours is not new. Baronets were invented for purely financial reasons - although they did it a bit differently in those days: it was by invatation only, and there was also a fee for rejecting the official offer of a baronetcy.
@heavyrail -
why sre you so obsessed with the national debt when Britsin owns the Bank of England and therefore has an infinite credit limit?
I am not obsessed with the national debt, but the Government gives the impression that is the only thing that matters. They use it as a reason to destroy the NHS, the education system (including tuition fees), and as a reason to delay action on AGW induced climate change.
@heavyrail 07 May 2013 3:16am. Get cifFix for Firefox.
why would it cost a thousand times more to become a Marquess than a Baron when few people know the difference between them anyway? And why sre you so obsessed with the national debt when Britsin owns the Bank of England and therefore has an infinite credit limit?
So, you have the same view of economics as Zimbabwe?
Let's just print more money!!!
Absolutely fantastic if you want to turn the pound into another Rupee or Philippine Peso.
Are you aware that when Bill Gates was at his height, his personal wealth (not Microsoft's) was greater than the GDP of the Philippines?
Did what Bill Gates did for a living constitute more value than the 79 million people who were living in the Philippines at the time? (Especially when Microsoft was convicted twice for illegal business practices)
@TBombadil - Wonder who would get to be Duke of Earl's Court? Duke, duke, duke, Duke of, oh alright I'll go then.
@Stephen Hudson - absolutely not - I'd never persecute out biggest export industry! And I'd certainly not advocate running deficits so high that the pound collapses. But public borrowing is no more inflationary than private borrowing - indeed it can even be less inflationary when it's spent on things that improve productivity (such as infrastructure). And right now there's a shortfall in private borrowing, and hence a shortfall in private spending, and therefore there's a shortage of jobs available. More public borrowing and spending is needed to fill the gap until the private sector gets going again.
As for Bill Gates, I didn't specifically know but it doesn't surprise me. Wealth and income are of course very different, but the market value of his work was several orders of magnitude greater than that of the average resident of the Philippines. 'Tis a similar story for many ooor countries, whatever the value of their currency.
@TBombadil -
There is a traditional justification for that: it is precisely what James VI & I invented the rank of Baronet for.If status is the real motivator then the answer is for the State to sell honors.
Knighthood - £1M
Baron - £10M
Viscount - £100M
Earl - £1B
Marquess - £10B
Duke - £100BThat should sort out the national debt.
you could be onto a winner there. I'm not sure but the
State could actually manage to shift some of those titles for those
types of sums. Even if the State only sold one of each then it would go
some way....
Perhaps we could introduce prizes for paying
taxes. Maybe we need to treat the rich tax dodgers like children so we
could say to people like Philip Green that who ever pays the most tax
(calculated as a proportion of total income of course) gets to be called
the King of the Universe and we'll use some of the money to put on a
Jubilee to celebrate their mere existence.
@TBombadil - the "state" do sell honours dont they ????
via party donations.
@jessthecrip -
but these very rich people seem to have a real problem with their self-esteem
A gnawing guilt in the darkness of their soul, perhaps.
@TBombadil - Lloyd George already tried this; hence, the Honours (Prevention of Abuses) Act 1925.
@eminexion - Im not sure it his low self esteem hes just found out theres a few more richer than him
@Stephen Hudson - Everything considered, I think Gates gives off a better smell, than most of the plutocracy.
@ButcherCameron - Oh how brilliant is this! Wonderful comment!!!
@jessthecrip - How true!
I noticed today that Lewis Hamilton has covered his back and arms in tattoos, just like Beckham and Kevin Petersen. So many of them with so much money and all they can spend it on is Tattoos?
Something very wrong to my mind. Then the mega rich have so much money which they stick in their off shore piggy banks thus evading tax? Why? When is enough enough? They have so much and could do so much good with what they have but do they? No they want more and more and more and more. Just have an insatiable appetite for ever more money! Then a lot of them have so much they drink it away, drug it away or both or worse!
It is a sickness! Money just seems sometimes to cause people to kill themselves having got all they want and often excess in drugs and drink and bang life is suddenly over and not worth living anymore.
The Rolling Stones concerts are going to cost a fortune. And then we find that a couple of them were talking about how many millions of pounds they have between them. They don't need the money and they could have given it away to charity. They haven't and not likely to do that. Money has to mean more money and greed goes on and on.
“He who is greedy is always in want.” - Horace
The problem being others have to suffer because of it.
@Strummered - "Neither burning heat, nor winter, fire, sea, sword, can turn you aside from gain. Nothing stops you, until no second man be richer than yourself." Him again.
@JoeSpots - Wilfred Owen's entire poem ironises its final line. I suggest you read it.
@GeorgeMonbiot - Is there a good philosophy that deals with satisfying want in a positive way?
A book, or talk, youtube video or article, anything like that?
@GeorgeMonbiot - Wow, what have you done to these poor people to make them so angry? Astonishing.
I see nothing in your article that any sane human being could disagree with, yet I see this more and more in CIF, perfectly sane, reasonable arguments are made, ad hominem attacks ensue.
On a personal note, I've recently moved from London to a small city in Eastern Finland. My quality of life has improved significantly. Whilst it would be naive to argue that globalisation has had no impact on this part of the world, the residual legacy of classlessness, humility, integrity and equality remains. When one is not surrounded by advertising, grotesque inequality, status anxiety and display, desire melts away.
I can see the main equitable solution it to invent a "game" for these people. We will make a huge monument to the winner.
The rules are simple - make as much money as you can over a period of 10 years .............but you start from zero.
The entrance fee is your entire wealth.
Everyone happy all round.
@Strummered - How about "Oh reason not the need"?
The first and last words on man's requirement to have more than just the basics of survival I'd've thought. Once you accept that, who's to say where the line should be drawn as to what's reasonable and what isn't in respect of worldly acquisitions?
It's easy to demonise the rich, but I very, very much doubt any who criticise them on CiF would give much wealth away, were they to acquire it. So their attacks are, I'm afraid, largely made from envy.
Monbiot's attack on capitalism's underlying tenets is perfectly reasonable in itself, but suffers from a lack of a viable alternative. Let's not forget he also seriously thought he could arrest Blair through a website, and that we should cap UK salaries at £500k. While back in the real world...
@tommyboy79 - but he's not asking for the complete
overthrow of the capitalistic system! We can start with a growing
awareness of its harmful effects and then perhaps move towards a fairer
system which looks after people's well being.
Yes, sounds all airy
fairy but that's because we think there can be no alternative. At least G
M is asking the right questions and trying to increase awareness.
And
the old chestnut that if one won the lottery one wouldn't give it away
is a nonsensical non-starter and doesn't in any way diminish the thrust
of the argument.
@Strummered - Mind boggling technological progress since Horace but none it seems in the way of moral/f ethical progress for humanity since, collectively at least. Our attempts to govern ourselves through the collective become subverted in the most toxic manner, be it through the sovereign state, democracy, socialism/ communism etc etc. Perhaps given our consistent failures, instead of trying to 'progress' by regulating or escape our nature, or whatever we conceive our nature to be, we should be trying to regress back to our natural state. No doubt a fate that awaits us given our current trajectory
@GeorgeMonbiot -
"greedy bastards"
nctad 2013.
@darylrevok -
Yes, but 2000 years ago Horace wrote that line, which generations of schoolboys all over Europe had to learn from the Renaissance on, without irony, and that was JoeSpots's point. (I presume he knows Owen's poem, too.)@JoeSpots - Wilfred Owen's entire poem ironises its final line. I suggest you read it.
@JoeSpots - But does that automatically discredit everything else he said? Of course not.
@JoeSpots - Indeed so. That reply to you was a good example of the arrogance of ignorance.
@epinoa - "The rules are simple - make as much money as you can over a period of 10 years .............but you start from zero."
I can better that- start with whatever you have now, and whoever finishes with the least wins. Timespan? Whole life. Used to be called Christianity...
@Marrocco -
I can better that- start with whatever you have now, and whoever finishes with the least wins. Timespan? Whole life. Used to be called Christianity...
The extremely rich established churches don't seem to have picked up on that idea.
@toperic02 - I guess it's fair enough to ask the questions, yes, and of course Monbiot has a place in this debate, I just think he's a bit pie-in-the-sky.
And I'm sorry but the fact that the number of people who've greatly benefited from the capitalist system who've ever given away significant, life-changing amounts of it are so vanishingly small IS highly relevant, and not at all "nonsensical".
There are examples of course - google "Tom Shadyac" for instance. If more people followed suit, then I'd be less suspicious of the anti-capitalist brigade having more than a whiff of rank hypocrisy about them.
Also, how much have Warren Buffet and Bill Gates pledged to charity again? Quite reassuring that capitalism's greatest beneficaries assume such responsibilities I'd've thought, but do you ever hear a whisper of that sort of thing from Monbiot?
Finally, who is to say what we should laugh at (as this article rather cheaply encourages us to do) as a symbol of excess? Do you eat the absolute cheapest food you could, or sleep on the cheapest bed, or wear the cheapest clothes and give the rest to charity? No? Why not? "Reason not the need" my friend (NB if you haven't read that speech from King Lear in a while I'd give it a go - it has a lot to say on this subject, and dare I say it Shakespeare is rather more eloquent than Monbiot).
Whether it's a fancy car or a skyscraper, who are any of us to draw anyone else's line for them?
@TruculentSheep - Amen to that. But he still has an awful lot to answer for.
None of which, I cheerfully concede, has any relevance at all to GM's original article.
@tommyboy79 - Lear says that before he feels the storm over his unsheltered head. Then he says:
'Take physic, pomp:
Expose thyself to feel what wretches feel.
Then distribution should undo excess
And each man have enough.'
(Quoted
from memory, but near enough). Read the whole speech. Put it on a
banner at the gates to Downing St. Found a political party based on it -
people are looking for change at the moment. Even some of the megarich
might just realise that they'd be much happier if *that* was the sort of
change they made for once.
@selfishjean - "Take physic, pomp,
Expose thyself to feel what wretches feel,
That thou mayst shake the superflux to them,
And show the heavens more just"
Your mis-remembering is actually quite an interesting interpretation of the original! Sort of one possible meaning of the gist, couched in modern political language.
Not calling you out, I think it's a great point. Lear is mega-rich and mega-powerful and knows nothing at all of the things that really give life meaning. All of which suggests as much as anything that the purely materially wealthy often have the greatest poverty of spirit. Perhaps we should pity them. I'm certainly not comfortable with the barely disguised mockery of this article.
@Strummered - What a great quote Strummered. That is the rub isn't it. The filthy rich want more and more and more.
What makes me so angry is having to listen to these mega rich politicians telling the poor that they are the drain on the economy whilst they take money from all of us hand over fist. I will now be my usual boring self: £165 a week for groceries: second homes and the furniture and even hanging baskets - ala Ms Beckett - to the tune of £10k. Now we are told that Joe Public will have to make up their pension shortfall!!
Rich, mega-rich cronies and paymasters evading tax and taking as much from all of us as possible? Plundering the poor into the ground. The hypocrisy stinks like a cesspit.
You couldn't make it up. You really couldn't!
@VarmintRaptScallion - If you're serious, Epicureanism. Start with the Letter to Menoeceus and the Principal Beliefs/Doctrines (Kuriai Doxai). Epicurus is the guy Horace is borrowing from. Here's a translation of an ancient poem praising Epicurus ('Neocles' son'):
'You toilers in the workshops of evil,
you who start quarrels, even wars, to sate
your love of money, always wanting more:
when nature offers wealth, it knows its bounds.
The road that's paved with empty judgements goes
precisely no-where, for it never ends.
And where did Neocles' wise son hear this?
From the mouths of goddesses, the Muses;
Or else from Delphi's holy oracle.'
Athenaeus
If you're just being sarky, then go boil your head.
@UnashamedPedant - thank you. Surprising how easy it is to get traduced around here!
Envy, competitiveness and ambition are absolutely to be found in the rich, but the 'politics of envy'? No. That's just to misunderstand the concept, and I suspect purposefully so.
@Scheissegal - I see the politics of envy, as conceived by Thatcher's government, as something of a myth. Reasoned objections to greed, rapacity, growing inequality and environmental destruction were deliberately interpreted or spun as envy. In reality, people were motivated above all by a sense of injustice: a very different impulse.
@Scheissegal - This is yet another vapid , simplistic article; assuming that the only reason for wanting cuts is for income tax purposes. No mention of the vast sums of tax monies that are squandered on vanity projects/corruption/non collection etc. I want all of these cut to a cost of zero (nothing to 'consultants'/lawyers fees/'sustainability managers' useless IT projects) which will not only free up cash for health/education/infrastructure but will also allow me to pay less tax. Where's the green eyed envy in that ? And I'm sick to death of both the pig ignorant lying right and left evading tax collection and using this non collection to further their own moronic propagandas. To bone headed Osbourne -wouldn't you have less to whinge about re falling tax revenues (& therefore 'justifying' more cuts) if you actually collected what is owed and sewed up loopholes? And to the idiot labour councillors who waffle on about the "Terrible impact of the cuts";perhaps if you collected the hundreds of millions of council tax owed that you cant be arsed to do (coupled with sacking the 'Twitter Tsars' etc) all the services the public wants and needs would be secure.
@GeorgeMonbiot - So, George, it is as I suspected. You don't like the term and it gets under your skin so you have purposefully misused it.
It's just, "Oooh, they've called me something nasty. I know - I'll call them the same thing back". I don't always agree with you, but at least you usually put a well-argued case forward. This sort of playground stuff is below you.
@GeorgeMonbiot - yes.
many times it is deliberately spun, though I suspect there are a fair few who actually believe it, either because they cant imagine being motivated by anything else themselves, or because they have dehumanised those poorer so much, that they cannot imagine them having any noble motivations whatsoever, or because it is too emotionally inconvenient for them to think about.
none of which are good.
@Scheissegal 06 May 2013 9:12pm. Get cifFix for Firefox.
Tax avoidance has always been a rich man's sport, they nevertheless try and encourage the gullible to copy their ways, this increases the deficit and acts as a double whammy on the gullible as it opens the way for more cuts in public expenditure.
This nasty little cycle of events has been going on now for thirty -forty years, the relentless drive means that the tax burden falls on those who can least afford it, VAT is the classic rich man's cop out, they don't pay it, V.A.T. a poor man's tax.
Thatcher knew exactly what she was doing when she raised it from 7.5% to 17.5%, saying you only pay when you spend. Classic Cynical Tory Ploy !!!!
@GeorgeMonbiot -
Reasoned objections to greed, rapacity, growing inequality and environmental destruction were deliberately interpreted or spun as envy. In reality, people were motivated above all by a sense of injustice: a very different impulse.
What rubbish. 'Reasoned objections', indeed! All they amount to is lefties saying 'You have; I want' about things they haven't earned but someone else has.
@ScatterHerEnemies - Indeed, who could possibly deny that being born a prince in a country that has vast oil reserves by an accident of paleozoic geography is anything other than earning your wealth?
Obviously when a company has thousands of employees who do the actual making and selling of stuff the actual creation of wealth is down to the select few in the boardroom who do all the important work, so they deserve to be taking home a few hundred times more than the people on the shop floor actually doing something productive.
@ScatterHerEnemies - Might be for our so called socialists such as Blair, Brown who saw the private sector as nothing but a walking tax bag to fund vote grabbing schemes such as pensioners benefits etc.
But for the real left, taxation is there to help the downtrodden, and correct for blatant market failures. Yes, indeed there is an element of "I want" in demanding taxation. But this is desire for a fairer and more just society, and nothing to do with the material enhancement of their own lives, which the Right seem to think is the only purpose of government.
@rebeccazg -
they cant imagine being motivated by anything else themselves
Pretty much sums it up, I think. The 'politics of envy' trope is a product of unreflective projection.
It's not just the very wealthy whose lives are wrapped up in this relentless search for self-worth through net worth; it's increasingly endemic in the culture of their willing and best-paid servants as well - managers, administrators, professionals....
It seems pretty clear that the fact that the 20% actually have to budget and plan to maximise their self-worth (New iPhone or posher music lessons for the mini-me....? Impressive holiday or new car...? AGA or built-in home theatre...? Look at them pouring over their bank statements and brochures...) actually drills the discipline deeper into their beings. Though perhaps 'depth' is the wrong metaphor when dealing with so inane a set of responses.
Regardless, the capitalist market is a stern and - more to the point - a ubiquitous and relentless master. There's no limit to it's ability to ooze into every crack in our lives and our beings, and to subject everything to its deadly quantifying logic.
@ScatterHerEnemies - You don't offer much beyond an assertion, really; no evidence or argument. I don't recognise this envy, in me or the people I know. We don't aspire to own yachts or football teams. Of course we'd love it if fate dropped it in our laps, but we wouldn't want to make the sacrifices involved in fighting for it. For the most part, we're happy to be warm, fed, and well, to have time to spend with the people we love, and enough freedom to express ourselves and occasionally enjoy new experiences or beautiful things.
As for people who've earned massive wealth, good on them. But how many of the really, outrageously rich have earned it? How many were born to wealth and privilege? How many are little more than gangsters who haven't been caught yet? And even the legitimately successful have benefited from society and the work of others, and have had a slice of luck- there are many clever, hard working people who have failed financially through no fault of their own.
And when those people behave as though they're above the law, too important and special to comply with rules set by democratic governments, but threaten to flounce off with their money like a spoilt toddler if not given everything they want, when their insistence on amassing more and more wealth comes at the expense of our ability to achieve our modest and reasonable goals, of the good of humanity as a whole, then that makes us angry. Not envious, angry. Do you see the difference?
@ScatterHerEnemies - Please expand on what you mean b 'earned'. You could begin by expanding on how Murdoch earned his billions, for example. Or how the Royal family and Saudi 'princes' earned theirs or the Sultan of Brunei. Please explain how inheritance and corruption and screwing over others equates to 'earning', unless of course that is exactly what you mean
@ScatterHerEnemies - Absolute rightist nonsense
The sort of stuff that has been mendaciously spun since Thatcher's time.
Your post is subjective right wing tosh
This is yet another vapid , simplistic article
...followed by...
I want all of these cut to a cost of zero (nothing to 'consultants'/lawyers fees/'sustainability managers' useless IT projects)
cash for health/education/infrastructure but will also allow me to pay less tax
pig ignorant lying right and left
moronic propagandas
Nice use of irony, overall a good piece of satire. Would give it a 6/10. That's assuming you weren't actually being serious?
My post above in response to @Meltingman by the way...
@Meltingman -
if you actually collected what is owed and sewed up loopholes?
A G8 meeting is about to come up, Top of the agenda is tax havens. David Cameron is, I think, Chairman ! Perhaps the others would appreciate a little more information ?
David Cameron's dad was worth £10 million. He left £2.5 million in his UK will. £7.5 million in tax haven shares went to .... ?
Action YOU can take to Investigate Tax Havens
There is a petition "David Cameron: Resign" on Change.org.
It's important. Will you sign it too? Here's the link:
http://www.change.org/en-GB/petitions/david-cameron-resign-5
@TheSpidermonkey - That's an exceptionally well-reasoned and eloquent post and probably deserves to be a guardian pick.
Next time the rabid right-wingers on CIF claim that the left are simply after the "hard-earned" capital of corporate bigwigs, they can be directed to this message which outlines the difference between enviousness and a sense of fairness.
Thank you.
@Meltingman - I do take your point. One of the many irritations of New Labour was the vast amount of money they wasted on consultants and public/private sector initiatives. The fact is they threw more money at the key services and some of it did stick but there were significant amounts squandered. You had the big accountancy firms both facilitating widespread tax dodging and also bleeding the Treasury dry by selling pointless management consultancy services. So they screwed over the State at both ends. Unfortunately the public sector is a sitting duck for aggressive private sector selling and one sided contracts which then do not get challenged due to the embarrassment factor.
@Meltingman -
This is yet another vapid , simplistic article; assuming that the only reason for wanting cuts is for income tax purposes.
This is an article about greed, not taxation policy - I rather think you've read into it what you wanted to see.
@GeorgeMonbiot -
George, perhaps you could’ve pointed out how the plutocrats of classical Greece conducted themselves to affirm their status and power to their peers and the community at large.
They literally spent oodles of their of wealth on funding festivals, games, on monuments… a grand gesture that showed a man’s worth was only when they spent their wealth on what was be to be seen, to be enjoyed by its citizens upon whose backs and goodwill such fortunes can be accumulated on… perhaps a kind of Nietzschean “unbermensch” that revelled in life and their good fortune.
Instead our Billionaire’s secret their wealth in tax havens, in vaults
filled with artistic works that few will see, and hide away on Tropical
islands like some trolls… No dignity no honour… No sense of the noble…
For all intense and purposes no better than a peasant adorned with aristocratic garb… or the herd they despise so much…
No I don’t envy these poor billionaire’s… on the contrary, with their
lack of imagination to use their wealth imaginatively and creatively and
resultant clownish behaviour they're a great source of mirth and as
befits a clown’s true social stature, pity…
Alas poor Yorrick… sigh
@Cosmodemon - Yep, very fair point. However what I will say is that reading CIF comments generally (not this thread in particular), I'd claim about 40-50% of those that talk about fairness actually are envious, with the remainder being genuine (I stress that is purely based on me reading into various comments and coming to that conclusion from the way they write).
That said, you touch on an interesting one....inheritance...I was talking to someone the other day, quite a few years older than me, with children. Now they were quite angry about inheritance tax, they never received an inheritance and have savings to give to their children when they die. They don't want to give them the money now as they still plan to do some living, but once gone, obviously they have no use for the remainder and want their children, not the government to receive it.
I'd consider it perfectly fair for the children to receive their money (I've hardened my line here as previously I've stated I was slightly pro-inheritance tax), even though I suspect (including a house) it may be above the 600k threshold for a married couple.
Why is it fair, that the money they have saved and paid tax on should get taxed again and (mis)spent by the government?
Surely if governments did their job properly this money would be taxed first time round and then would not need to be taxed again upon death!!!!
@evilbanker 07 May 2013 1:48pm. Get cifFix for Chrome.
It is entirely fair, because it is the children whose (future) assets are being taxed, on the very reasonable grounds that they have done absolutely nothing at all to earn or deserve them. The deceased has paid the taxes required to amass the fortune. The beneficiaries haven't, so they have to pay the IHT to get hold of it.
@evilbanker -
There's nothing stopping living people giving away their money to others while they're alive.
@citizenJA - Well yes and no, if they gave it away and then died within the next 7 years it would be taxable.
Also, people (such as in this case) don't necessarily want to stop living and give all their money away, they just want to give away whatever is left!
@ShinyScalp - 'The deceased has paid the taxes required to amass the fortune'
Thus the money has been taxed as you say. Just because they choose to give this money to their family, that doesn't remotely make it fair that it should be taxed again!!!
To look at it another way, if I give you £1,000 and live for 8 more years its then tax free and rightly so, but if I die straight away you get hit with a tax bill. You have done nothing in either scenario, yet in one you get taxed.
That is not fair.
@evilbanker - Surely tax is not based on the source
of the money. I thought it was based on your income
wherever it comes from.
@greven - Absolutely, in our society that is the case. But why should that be the case, especially in this scenario?
@evilbanker - there can be no envy without first greed.
@Squiff811 - Hmm not so sure about that, if 2 people are starving and need food or they will die, person 1 doesn't know person 2 exists. Person 1 sees an apple and eats it, person 2 appears and sees person 1 eating the apple.
Neither are greedy, but person 2 is almost certainly envious.
@JelicaGavrilovic - JS Bach, in a different context, in what I believe is the most beautiful of all his cantatas, Ich habe genug (I have enough):
Welt, ich bleibe nicht mehr hier,
Hab ich doch kein Teil an dir,
Das der Seele könnte taugen.
(World, I will not remain here any longer,
I own no part of you
that could matter to my soul.)
@GeorgeMonbiot - prefer 'es ist genug' but only because of Alban Berg; bit of a philistine when it comes to Bach's cover versions.
(listening now and it's very lovely........ I wonder how someone racked with envy could enjoy such things: surely there'd always be the suspicion that since they themselves didn't come up with it, it's either worthless or a threat)
@GeorgeMonbiot - there is a Concert by Konstantin Wecker where he makes a brilliant joke about the world going to the dogs being all his fault because all the bankers were such huge fans of his song "genug ist nicht genug" . (enough is not enough) (I would post a link but there is no youtube permitted in my workplace.. could distract us from working! )
@UnforcedError -
Crap. Utter bollocksy crap.
George Monbiot pretentious? What - because he quotes a bit of Bach for god's sake?
Your's is a cheap and stupid shot.
@ClareLondon - In Britain High Culture is a class marker and provides opportunities to rattle your jewelry in appreciation. There was no revolution in the UK. There was no cultural revolution either where all culture became property of the republic. High culture in Germany and France have quite different connotations.
@UnforcedError - My aren't you on your high horse. Bach!
Gad bless 'im. The student's friend. Just the right tone and emotional
decibel level to get anyone through the long nights of writing papers
without distraction.
These days, I play him when reading novels for the same reason.
@UnforcedError - I don't think that it is pretentious. If you wanted to be really negative you could say that it is somebody showing off their knowledge (but if people didn't do that how could others learn?). For me pretentious is where people give the impression of having a deep knowledge of something, when in fact they don't. That's my opinion for what it's worth.
@UnforcedError - And your point is?
And the relevance of your post is precisely?
@murielbelcher - The rich are not happy with all their money.
Oh, come on! That is so weak. The central premise of an article for a national newspaper? Pathetic! And what was he listening to as he wrote it. A bit of Bach.
You take this seriously?
It's like listening to the sermon of a vicar on Sunday.
@UnforcedError - There is much scientific evidence to prove that having loads of wealth does not make you happy. For a start, much money and effort is often taken place trying to protect that wealth which suggests a life of constant insecurity. There is also much evidence that in countries - like the U.K. - where there is growing inequality between the wealthiest and the poorest in society, there is greater illness and unhappiness - and not just amongst the poorest. " The mark of a civilised society is how it looks after it's poor".
@UnforcedError - My father was a printer and proud (he
wouldn't be these days) Labour party member. What did he listen to?
Mozart, Beethoven, Mahler etc. What did he read? Tolstoy, Dickens and
the odd Agatha Christie. I could go on.
"High culture", as you put it, is not the exclusive domain of the upper classes.
There are, as far as I know, no Promenade concerts in Germany or France
@UnforcedError -
Rubbish. You can like Bach without being upper or middle class. It's just music. You don't have to be rich to read books either. I find the French attitude to "high culture" rather stuffy and limiting though it does have some good points like a refusal to dumb down. The French and Germans have class snobbery by the bucketload.
To equate poverty and lack of "high-culture" is ridiculous. People are poor through chance and misfortune, it says nothing about them as individuals or their musical tastes.
@domfloyd - It's showing off that you have time to spare from making money and therefore must feel you have enough of the stuff to be getting on with, and if you're only the 2nd richest person in the world that means you must be the first - so yaaah, booo, art-licking swankpot...
@Codlingsby - That's it, yes: real pretentiousness is
professing knowledge, culture and skills you haven't got, just as real
snobbishness is trying to associate yourself with status, possessions
and noblesse-oblige manners that you can't quite attain to. And like
'envy' and 'hard work' and 'laziness' they usually get attributed to the
wrong people. The Right has its own Newspeak, and, whatever other
information they're making sure as few of the ruled class as possible
ever get hold of, they're very anxious that we should all learn their
language and forget our own.
When no-one's left capable of speaking the truth it'll end up looking like a kind of equality...
@UnforcedError - What a rubbish thing to say. Pathetic.
Gross inequalityand a lack of social mobility in the UK may well be better explained by a political system which has ensured that access to both State and private education is skewed towards the rich and very rich more than by capitalism itself. This inequality was entrenched by Blair governments under the odious , Orwellian , claim of "choice" which was in fact a system which ensured that those who shouted loudest got the most. And those were the greedy haves ; beggaring the have nots.
@haward - This thinking transcends current politics, and is worse under the torys. I doubt it would be any different under any one party, save for perhaps the greens or lib dems with majority control.
The big issue is that business has a massive say over how this country is run, and they have their fingers in many political pies. The only way to control this would be to introduce more socialist policies. Not the type of socialist thinking that a few crazy Americans go out about, but the like of which you find in countries like Norway.
"After the basics for survival are taken care of, money cannot bring people any more happiness than they would experience without it."
This keeps being said in happiness economics (the quote is from the wiki on this topic, cited from Gregg Easterbrook). Whether or not you agree with the whole school of thought, there's something pretty resonant for me about this quote.
@profangus - Brilliant.
The German comedian Henning Wehn quotes David Cameron as saying that he really believes this country's best days are ahead of it. How is that going to happen? Wehn asks. You used to own half the world...
In truth Cameron knows this is a country on the decline, which he and his mates are only interested in asset stripping. They don't value innovation and creativity, because they don't understand it. Instead they call British workers lazy, and talk about a "global race" in which our competitor is China, not Germany. They see the future of the UK as being a low regulation, low wage sweatshop economy.
It makes me sick when righties pretend they are patriotic. I hope for better for my country than isolation and a new serfdom.
@TheSpidermonkey - Another excellent comment. I'd vote for you, whoever you are.
@TheSpidermonkey - A truly wonderful post! I salute you SM.
It is utterly disgusting what is happening.
@selfishjean - So would I vote for you Spidermonkey
My experience of Bob Diamond is of writing to him to ask him why his credit card division were so cr@p that they couldn't do the basics of running my account billing process. He didn't reply but I got a letter from a member of his team promising to fix all the problems. She didn't, but she was polite at least.
I wouldn't be a Barclays customer if the only alternative was a Bank run by Bernie Madoff. If that is the result of Bob D's self challenging then he may as well admit he was in it for the money.
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Yes if only we could rewrite human nature we'd all be better off AND the world wouldn't be threatened with armageddon.
Sadly, back in the real world, the one in which we live, this is completely impossible. In a nation facing the privatisation of the NHS, tax cuts for the rich and VAT hikes, disabled people thrown to the wolves, the opening up of planning laws and the tearing up of health and safety 'red tape', our population perceive the following as the matters of most political importance:
immigration and wind farms
There
really is no hope George. Sure, for people like us, accustomed to the
scientific method, we can see matters as they really are and adopt
corresponding positions. This doesn't make us right or perfect: we're
still parochial and biased, still prepared to tolerate all manner of
ills that are out of our immediate sight. But fundamentally we can tell
the difference between right and wrong regardless of how it plays out
with regard to our genetic fitness.
For the masses however, this
isn't the case. They care only about what benefits their reproductive
interests: that means the in-group/out-group thinking, the chit-chat,
the celebrity worship, the populist politics: anything that promises
greater immediate short-term benefits for their genes.
It's a case of feed, fuck and fight, and nothing more.
You may hope for a better future where people appreciate the bigger picture, but your hopes are in vain.
We're doomed, and we deserve to be.
Don't despair. I agree with your observations wholeheartedly and I share your concerns on the future of this country and indeed the world.
However, we must stand and fight. The country, hell the world, cannot afford to give up on reason and the scientific method. We simply cannot lose this argument so don't ever give up on arguing it's case.
@PoonButter - reason is part of the problem. Read john Gray's critique of the enlightenment in Straw Dogs.
@ReluctantDissident - You are so right. Democracy clearly does not work because of the reasons you state. We need philosopher kings/queens.
@theomatica - Democracy just doesn't exist anymore and I am not sure it every did!
WH Auden saw the danger that was coming to Europe with the rise of Hitler long before anyone would even consider it apart from Churchill who was considered a nutcase.
Brecht saw the dangers ahead for Europe due to the rise of National Socialism!
We need those who will speak out, saying what will happen to this country if the present austerity by the rich on the poor continues. Where will we be in ten years time?
Whilst this is a good article, I have no idea why it the title
is applicable - sure some rich people are sad because they're not as rich as they'd want to be, but that's not the "politics of envy" - it's just plain envy.Why the politics of envy are keenest among the very rich
@Kracatoan - Mind you, what defines "the politics of envy" seems completely different depending on who you talk to - so sure, why not.
@Kracatoan - wait: so you're unsure of the difference between the politics of envy (ie. politics based on envy) and envy.......... what's troubling you? If I can help I will.
Take for example the politics of agriculture: if a person pursues this agenda, what they care about is agriculture and everything they propose in the political domain will reflect this interest.
The politics of envy is the same. There's no more to it than that: the political interests of rich people are based on their assessment of their worth vis-a-vis their peers in terms of wealth.
@Kracatoan 06 May 2013 8:52pm. Get cifFix for Firefox.
Perhaps envy has driven them to be obnoxious rich gits, but that doesn't account for the aristocracy and people simply borne into wealth who should know better.
@kingcreosote - No, it doesn't, I suppose the only explanation is that some people are nice and some people aren't - but if you aren't nice and are born into wealth people tend to notice more than if you aren't nice and are born into poverty.
@Kracatoan 06 May 2013 9:16pm. Get cifFix for Firefox.
Nasty people with wealth have screwing us all for centuries.
@Kracatoan - The political envy is directed at the welfare state, or the commonwealth
I remember reading about Prince Alwaleed & just thinking this is Alice in Wonderland stuff, here we have a Saudi Prince gifted with as much unearned wealth as anybody could hope for crying like a wean because he hadn't been reported as fantastically rich enough.
It's obscene.
@kristinekochanski - glad to see they finally recognised your stabilising influence over these boards, and yes you're right of course.
@kristinekochanski 06 May 2013 8:52pm. Get cifFix for Firefox.
Obscene? No, insane.
@kristinekochanski - You reminded me of my neighbour from Tollcross there with your "wean" lol.
The principal aim of any wealthy nation should now be to say: "Enough already".
Yet they just say 'we want more', and by 'we' they don't mean us, only that we've got to work harder to increase their profit margins. Bob Diamond once made a comment about the importance of work/life balance, I don't think it applied to the people at the bottom end of the scale.
@Calimocho - And yet the David Siegal in the article wrote that letter to his employees, telling them to vote for the 1%, said that he was the only one in the company who worked hard and they were all just riding on his coattails. Its here. If you can bear the self-pitying victimhood of the super rich.
@Helen121 07 May 2013 2:32am. Get cifFix for Firefox.
Thank you for the link - when Siegal takes an inevitable fall I don't think his employees will be in any rush to support him, and rightly so.
They are self-selecting, when you think about it.
There must be people at various grades in multinationals (and less formally delineated in wealthy families) who've thought; the hell with it, I don't feel like working all weekend to secure that promotion, because if I put another conservatory on the house I won't be able to get in and if I buy another Jaguar I'll have to hire someone to carry my car-keys and my head hurts so the hell with it. We don't hear about them, we only hear about the weird minority who just couldn't stop themselves
@JimNolan - JimNolan
06 May 2013 8:54pm
Recommend
5
They are self-selecting, when you think about it.
There must be people at various grades in multinationals (and less formally delineated in wealthy families) who've thought; the hell with it, I don't feel like working all weekend to secure that promotion, because if I put another conservatory on the house I won't be able to get in and if I buy another Jaguar I'll have to hire someone to carry my car-keys and my head hurts so the hell with it. We don't hear about them, we only hear about the weird minority who just couldn't stop themselves
On of my grandfathers rose to Consultant, got bored with hospital life, and bought out an elderly rural GP. Each morning about 9-30 they'd bring the trap, or later the car, to the door with a bottle of claret and some shooters sandwches under the dash and he would set off into the country to see his patients. The other grandfather was a scientist and fought for the last fifteen years of his career not to be promoted away from his lab bench to a desk.
A friend, a company director, said to me a few years ago, I've more money than I need to live on for the rest of my life, they're paying me so much I've no longer the slightest financial interest in the continuing success of the company. A llittle later he persuaded them to let him retire and spent the nest ten years of his life cycling round France.
@Phud - that is because of stupidity and bad advice.
Anyone can be happy with money, they just need to listen to a couple of experts.
@Phud - And ignore all the stories* about working class lottery winners who pay off the mortgages and debts of everyone they're close to and then retire to a nice little place somewhere, eat out twice a day and send their washing to the laundry, hire a gardener and a cleaner, and maybe take up a new hobby or two?
* There are no such stories, of course, because nobody wants to hear about that.
@JST1171YTF - There are three good ways to lose money. Horse races, which are the quickest; fast women, the most pleasurable and taking the advice of experts, which is the most certain.
@JimNolan - Didn't this paper do something like that the other day when they profiled the guy that won the Euromillions and, after the perfunctory buying of flash houses and cars was over with, used his winnings to get Newport County back into the Football League?
Leo Tolstoy said it all in his short story entitled "How much land does a man need?" Turns out it is about 6 feet by 3 feet - just enough room for his coffin.
http://www.online-literature.com › Leo Tolstoy
Or you could try reading the New Testament
Someone's got it in for the Saudis and they are planting stories in the press.
@UnforcedError - Bobby Dylan has a quote for most occasions.
@kernowken -
Bobby Dylan has a quote for most occasions.
A few million dollars for every occasion too?
Perhaps the answer to that is blowing in the wind.
@kernowken - whoever it is they better cut it out quick, but when they will I can only guess.
@UnforcedError - Idiot wind, blowing every time you move your teeth
@Cosmodemon - You're an idiot babe, and it's a wonder that you still know how to breathe.
@UnforcedError - Who could possibly have an animus against Saudi princes?
The throne is the clue, sitting on it all the time when in flight, I mean. I suspect piles. The pain's something awful and you never really know what's going on down there; creates a certain state of mind too: inward-looking, obsessive . Definitely piles. He'd be much happier if he got them seen to.Never mind that he has his own 747, in which he sits on a throne during flights.
@JimNolan - Yes, of course you're right. Which only goes to prove, yet again, that the rich are different...
@glamorganist - Well someone should have told Prince Alwaleed that if you try to eat gold, you end up shitting a big ingot. That would give you a massive pile.
Walmart heads Fortune 500 list
The
richest family in the world apparently (115 billion), and the British
taxpayer is paying to send them free workers (Asda) who get paid the
princely sum of £70 a week.
Thank the Coalition, and thank Labour.
@ButcherCameron - In the US many of their workers have to rely on food stamps, because their wages are so low.
As well, Walmart are one of the companies that have done their best to avoid paying employee health insurance, so that Obamacare picks up the tab.
The company is adept at feeding of ordinary peoples taxes to line its pockets, even to the detriment of those who work for them.
@ButcherCameron - not to mention the 'special' shopping card handed out to benefit claimants instead of their benefit in cash. A card that can only be used at ASDA...
so not only might you have to work there for nothing, you might be forced to shop there and give them your benefits also..
@ButcherCameron - Chinese businessmen refer to Walmart as the crocodile. They are dangerous people to do business with. It seems like they run rings around our politicians in any negotiations.
To get this article straight, it does hinge on a cranky Saudi billionaire, by birth-right, having more mental issues than sense. And a US property developer losing some of his fortune and some landmark building, allegedly being depressed. Depression, as we could read elsewhere on these pages this weekend being not not confined to the poor and a serious issue for whoever it hits. Hold the press.
And from those two nut jobs we swiftly, in a monumental non-sequitur, progress to cuts in services, tax cuts, of course only for the rich and the usual whinge about corporations, and so on ending up on the inequality bandwagon. Well done.
In the end we arrive at some interesting argument, namely that
has given us wealth beyond measure, but has taken away the chief benefit of wealth: the consciousness of having enough ...
which kind of contradicts the first two thirds of the article and pretty much of what Tonybee, Williams et al usually sprout on these pages.
I don't know about you George and less about the bubble you live in but where I live most people are pretty content with their lives, struggling here and there sometimes but on this May bank holiday we were all working in our gardens, having a barbecue and a couple of drinks and we, in my community, usually don't give a damn about who has the biggest car or the newest gadgets.
Very middle class? Perhaps, but what a way to enjoy life...
@KrawuziKapuzi - A good post, I really don’t get some of the CiF posters and the ATL writers (who to be fair are clearly only writing what they think the readers want). You read so much anger and even hatred directed at newspaper caricatures, the childish Saudi prince, the greedy banker, the delusional property developer complete with his trophy wife. Everyone has their two minute hate about what a “despotic neo liberal hell hole” we live in and then goes back to the sports pages or potters off to do something else.
It’s a bit like the Daily Mail running an article about how the UK is “swamped” with illegal immigrants and “scroungers” on benefits and their readers spitting toast crumbs and marmalade across the table in outrage, before getting off their chair to go and wash the car in say, Kent or Cheshire.
If it is such a problem (as George maintains) then why not spend at least, say a single paragraph of the article suggesting a potential solution? Instead this reads like comfortably off journalist has a bit of a dig at super rich – I guess George didn’t want to ruin his Bank Holiday by spending too much time on this one.
@EllisWyatt - I've got a suggestion: punitive tax rates on excessive earnings to force more equality into income distribution.
It is really the out of touch 'Let them eat cake', Attitude .This is why a picture of an African child covered in flies, has more impact on the wealthy individual,than a U.K. pensioner freezing to death in winter! There is a sort of 'it has to be your fault' .This becoming an increasingly punitive state,sees austerity at home as a virtue rather than problem! There is no 'big society'. Lets not forget 'She that must be obeyed'. Society d'ont exist.
The answer is to take pleasure from the gift of pure being.
Who said that KK ?
@firethetowelfolder - "Secret …. There is no secret. Anyone with eyes can see the way to live …. By watching life, observing nature, and cooperating with it. Making common cause with the process of existence …. By living life for itself, don't you see? Deriving pleasure from the gift of pure being .… Life is its own answer. Accept it and enjoy it day by day. Live as well as possible. Expect no more. Destroy nothing, humble nothing, look for fault in nothing. Leave unsullied and untouched all that is beautiful. Hold that which lives in all reverence. For life is given by the sovereign of our universe; given to be savored, to be luxuriated in, to be respected."
@f0stgameplayer - Agreed. A bit flowery for my taste but nevertheless we are on the same astral plane.
@firethetowelfolder - This plane passes through Mars.
The Martian Chronicles ; Ray Bradbury.
@firethetowelfolder - None required but thanks. By the way, if you can live up to your name and rid us of the towelfolder, I'll cheerfully play ' who said? ' for days.
What is bogus about a 100 odd billion a year deficit and collective debts of approximately 90% of GDP?
When George and Polly write about the economy, the results are laughable.
@probitase -
What is bogus about a 100 odd billion a year deficit and collective debts of approximately 90% of GDP?
Nothing. The deficit is just the result of net private saving in the economy in a year. The collective debt is the sum total of private savings in financial assets.
Sigh.
@probitase - What do you expect from socialist fantasists?
the majority of us just don't have that weird competitiveness that drives the rich to go on and on outdoing each other in material possessions and an obscene drive to have the more and more money, which is sadly for them,never enough. No wonder they are so miserable! They know the price of everything and the value of nothing.
Saudi Prince Alwaleed is like a heroin addict.
He is hooked
He is completely fucked.
The
problem is that our bosses in Britain, American and other Anglo growth
obsessed government have the addiction in their blood now.
Do you need to be a Marist to figure that uncontrolled capitalism will end the species soon.
@brianboru1014 - I'd rather spend my time in the company of heroin addicts than with the delusional prince
Public spending needs to be cut because the National Debt is £1.4 trillion.
@karezza777 - Political corruption needs to be challenged because it's costing this country billions every year.
@karezza777 -
Public spending needs to increase because the desire for National savings is greater than £1.4 trillion
No charge
@karezza777 06 May 2013 9:20pm. Get cifFix for Firefox.
Taxes on the rich need to be raised because the National Debt is £1.4 trillion.
@debunkthejunk - Are you in favour of tax cuts if it brings in more revenue?
Find a job that you enjoy - then you'll never have to work again.
That's kinda my philosophy.
But saying that I've been really poor, homeless and unemployed in London. But it was great fun because I was young.
Everything is relevant. Money is good, but without health or happiness. ... not so good.
Being poor can be bloody awful if you are old and have no prospect of future comfort.
@wotever - Developing a life-changing disability is pretty pants too, especially when there seems to be such a drive to cut help to those in need of support.
How i wish i could get out there and earn my keep again. I was only a bus driver when i was affected by disability, but at least i could hold my head up high as one of the "blessed" tax payers.
There is little to be said for being dependent on the grudging support of others.
it is this competitiveness and drive to succeed that made them rich, but also, that negates the argumentt that if we lower tax the wealthy wont try to avoid it.
avoiding tax has little to do with money, and everything to do with beating the system. It is simply another competition to be had.
Not everyone is like this, and there are those who become wealthy and channel their ego into philanthropic work and foundations ( Gates and Clinton are good examples) and for these men, perhaps, paying tax is seen as part of thier need to support society.
But many just see the loopholes as anothe rbusiness deal to get the better of. Whether tax is 50% or 5% would not make much difference, when the aim is to beat the system and get it down to zero.
That is why, for all its success, it remains so unloved
Compared with what exactly ? It's all relative. If other systems were loved more then they'd flourish just as much as capitalism has.
@jobsagoodin - Really?
You seem to have missed the point that it is loved intensely by those who get the greatest benefits from it, slightly less by those who do well, neither loved nor hated by those who 'get by', and hated by the great majority of mankind who are being chewed up by the machine.
But the only people in a position to make a success of the 'other systems' that might be tried are those who wouldn't love them as much as what they already have.
Nothing will change unless we - heaven forfend - have one of those France 1789 cathartic episodes.
The problem with the super rich is that they stand outside the windows of ordinary people eyeing up the crumbs on the table and trying to work out how to get their hands on them.
In the not too distant past the rich served a purpose in society as a useful nexus in the flow of money within states. Now with the easy flow of capital and no geographical constraint, they use wealth and power to strip mine societies before moving on to the next soft target.
Their wealth increases and power focuses irresistibly while opportunity wilts for the majority.
@MobiusLoop -
Which rich are you talking about ? Most of the richest people in the world today are self-made. They started out with little more than you or I have and sometimes far less. They only became rich by providing millions of people with goods or services they want and creating thousands of jobs in the process. Prince Alwaleed is hardly typical.
@jobsagoodin - that's a complete and obvious lie.
What motivates you to make such untrue claims?
@jobsagoodin -
Forbes Magazine:
The Forbes list is an annual ode to the American dream. The roster of richest Americans is filled with stories of entrepreneurs who started with little (or at least not a lot) and built a business and personal fortune through hard work, good ideas and perfect timing.
But a new report claims that the story of self-made wealth on the Forbes list is just that -- a story. The report, from the left-leaning United for a Fair Economy, says that 40 percent of the Forbes 400 richest Americans inherited a "sizeable asset from a spouse or family member."Forbes says that 30 percent of the Forbes 400 members inherited their wealth and the remaining 70 percent are entirely "self-made."
"The truth is that Americans have never had an equal opportunity to become wealthy. Rather than concocting fables about our 'opportunity society,' the editors of Forbes should be examining the birthright privileges enjoyed by many of those on the list," the report stated.
@timecop - I don't think Forbes said 'entirely'.
In this context someone like Bill Gates is referred to as self-made. Someone whose mummy and daddy (a figure of national reputation as a lawyer and board member on several banks, just like his father and his father before him) sent to him a series of private schools and then on to one of the most expensive universities in the world.
So he was a scion of a wealthy and illustrious family who had led a life of nothing but pampered privilege. Poor chap, however did he pull himself by the bootlaces...
"Entirely self-made"?
@jobsagoodin - Does it matter if they were self made?
The point about wealth is that due to the way the economy works it will naturally create a power law distrubution where many are poor and a few are rich. You need resources to create/buy more resources. Over time those very few rich people end up with a huge share of the wealth. For instance, in the UK, the figure is the top 1% hold 21% of total UK wealth.
The question becomes, do we think that this is a good idea or not?
@Excession77 -
By that measure, even Obama starter near the top. His grandmother was a bank vice president and they lived in Makiki, where he went to school at Punahou -- a few blocks away. Punahou is the St Albans of the islands, where millionaires and a few billionaires send their kids to Ivy prep. He never had a menial job, and they flew to mainland vacations. His stepfather lived on a compound in Jakarta with family servants.
Everybody starts somewhere. It's
where you take what you have to create something different that counts.
Not everybody was born in a log cabin. Not everybody born in a log cabin
becomes President.
The Forbes article is on-line, and comparable articles appear annually.
@jobsagoodin - The point that I am making is more to do with collective power and influence than individual behavior. We have for years now been fed on a doctrine of trickle down economics, free markets and unrestrained movement of global capital.
This is an agenda that increasingly serves a smaller and richer body of people who use their wealth and power further promote that agenda by the purchase (particularly in USA) of political influence.
Policies introduced favour that body over all others, with an upward flow of capital, squeezing working and middle class and reducing the Opportunities available to a new generation of potential 'self made' individuals who might work within and contribute to the economy of their local community.
Instead we have Starbucks, Costa, Amazon etc... who are in the curious process of sucking resources from the communities on whom they depend for business while relentlessly seeking new ways to avoid putting anything back.
Political funding particularly in USA is used to
There are no ends any more, just means.
Have you been reading Emma Goldman?
How rich is rich enough? When you have enough.never to have to ask someone else for a handout again so that you are financially your own master. The day I get there is the day I do my own thing without requiring others to pay for it.
@steeply - you missed the point - it is to have these things independently.
I am not rich if I rely on someone else to give me a handout or to give me something to do get paid.
Your point about unlimited unregulated capitalist growth is irrelevent to the point. But:
There has never been unlimited growth. Ever heard the stats dept say "last years economic growth was infinite".
There has never been unregulated growth. Growth in the capitalist system relied on the regulation of private and common property rights.
Capitalist growth - ie the use of capital to create businesses and fund activities has had more success than failures. Where the failures occur are where the commons are insufficiently protected and where people are unable or unwilling to build a capital base (ie save and put that to work).
Health is the greatest gift,
contentment is the greatest wealth,
a trusted friend is the best relative,
Liberated mind is the greatest bliss.
Actually, lots of right-wing politics comes down to a variation of the parrot on an airplane joke:
A
parrot stands in the aisle of and jumps up and down. The other animals
(all the other passengers are various animals) ask him - "why are you
jumping up and down?". "Because I'm better than you" says the parrot.
All
the animals start jumping up and down in the aisle, the airplane breaks
apart and they all end up in free fall. "We are all going to die" they
scream. "If you can't fly, why jump up and down?" says the parrot and
flies away.
Making life harder for everyone does at some point reveal who can fly and who can't.. but..
as i've always said, "jealousy is a word created to make the poor feel guilty"
Sure, but I'll rise higher than you.Can we not rise above this?
The principal aim of any wealthy nation should now be to say: "Enough already".
But how do think we became wealthy in the first place ? And when exactly should we have stopped seeking to improve our living standards ? 50 years ago ? 100 years ago ? 200 ? The idea we should do so now is simply ridiculous.
@jobsagoodin - it's not ridiculous when the wealth is being drained from the poorest in our society, so it hardly improving the living standards of the vast majority, quite the opposite.
@darkillusion -
Living standards of the world's poorest have risen faster over the last 30 years than at any time in human history.
Who created that index ? Ken Dodd ?
As a matter of interest what number were we in 1997 and what about 2010 ?
@steeply -
“People are just as happy as they make up their minds to be.”
― Abraham Lincoln
Cheer up.
@jobsagoodin - The happy planet index started in 2006
See; http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Happy_Planet_Index
So what? All this anger is making you miserable George. You need to find a hobby. How much richer would you be if Prince Al Waheed wasn't around? How much closer would we be to a cure or cancer? Zip. Nada. It's just fluff.
@Galaxina - My comment completely demolished the article? Sorry if you didn't pick up on it.
@Mazzer07 - The rich love people like you. People who are happy to accept the status quo and believe that "it just is what it is" #headinthesand
Give me 4 kg of Yellow Belly Jelly Snakes and I don't care who makes the laws...
I actually agree 100% with Mr Monbiot for once.
I have met some fairly wealthy people and they can be the most petty minded hate filled and ignorant individuals imaginable.
@GreyWitch1978 - Couldn't agree more, in my experience those who devote their life to amassing wealth are the most boring people imaginable. And that's not envy.
@darkillusion - I used to work at a company and the managing director (Who wasn't too bad a person)'s wife (who was the worst person I have ever met) once sounded off for about five minutes about how all of the staff wished that they had her lifestyle.
It should be noted that I have never met a more bitter, untrusting and warped person in my life so I asked for a show of hands to see if anyone wanted to have her lifestyle.
Well I was leaving soon anyway.
@darkillusion -
Couldn't agree more, in my experience those who devote their life to amassing wealth are the most boring people imaginable
Agree. Wouldn't be surprised if the wealthy are envious of those that have no more than enough.
@viciouscycle -
Wouldn't be surprised if the wealthy are envious of those that have no more than enough.
I would.
They have the choice, after all, and choose to stay wealthy.
@bitthick -
The choice? Its not a choice. Would you give away all your assets leaving you with a reasonable amount to survive but no more?
@GreyWitch1978 - funny some of the working class people i know are the same.
Ignorance is optional, some working class people take pride in it though, hence the sucess of jeremy kyle.
@viciouscycle -
The choice? Its not a choice. Would you give away all your assets leaving you with a reasonable amount to survive but no more?
It's not a question that applies to me: I'm not wealthy and also not "envious of those that have no more than enough."
But if I were wealthy I'm pretty sure I would not be "envious of those that have no more than enough".
@bitthick - I'm wodering if you misread my reply: you said you wouldn;'t be surprised if the wealthy envied those with no more than enough.
I said I would -- that is, I would be surprised if the wealthy envied...etc
@GreyWitch1978 - I'll bet we'd get on well together! :-) I can see myself doing exactly the same thing.
@bitthick -
Hi,
No I didn't misread your reply. And I wasn't referring to you personally when I said 'would you give away all your wealth'.
Ever heard of a trustafarian? Classic case of poverty envy.
@viciouscycle -
Ever heard of a trustafarian?
Working at our job was his punishment.
The fourth possible observation is that the hard work inequality might stimulate neither closes the gap nor enhances social mobility.
Oh, dear me, the world's ill divided
Them that work the hardest are the least provided
We must bide contented, dark days or fine
There's no much pleasure livin' off o' ten and nine
What really grinds my gears is if an affluent person cares about social justice they are a "Champagne Socialist" (God, I despise that term) and if you are not affluent and care about your fellow human you are dismissed as envious.
As I said earlier I have met a lot of wealthy people and very few of them are actually happy.
I wouldn't take their lives for all the money in the world.
@GreyWitch1978 -
People who are dubbed "Champagne socialists" tend to be those who pretend they care about social justice. And handily for them there are plenty of people idiotic enough to believe them.
@jobsagoodin - you're putting a good shift in tonight, what time does your stint finish?
@GreyWitch1978 - So have I, actually lot of happy men and women, for the most part nice peeps.
@GreyWitch1978 -
if an affluent person cares about social justice they are a "Champagne Socialist" (God, I despise that term)
I'm not too keen on hypocrisy. Wouldn't go as far as despising it, otherwise I'd probably stop reading the Guardian altogether.
@jobsagoodin - How do you know they're pretending? Maybe some of them are, but from your tone I'd guess you just want them to be pretending. To get anything done, if you don't have sheer weight of numbers all set on the same course putting the fear of God into the powerful, then you need individuals with power and influence, which usually means wealth, to get the show on the road. And there's been plenty of those in the past. We used to call them philanthropists or social revolutionaries.
@jobsagoodin - that would be OK were it true.
However: Champagne socialist is the stupid stick used to beat any person from a modest background who somehow improves their lot yet has sound social values of mutual support, etc., etc.
Many Labour ministers fit the bill.
It
doesn't matter, however, because the term only has traction on the
right. Most other people ignore it, though many are irritated.
Me included.
I am currently reading a book titled "The Spirit Level" by Richard Wilkinson and Kate Pickett, which says the same sort of thing. And also "The Inequality Crisis" lecture by Stewart Lansley on YouTube.
Humanity should find satisfaction in looking after the Earth and all living creatures on it. It is a blue jewel in the dark universe, and we are able to use our skills and knowledge to take care of it. I can not understand how the super rich can find any satisfaction in making profit out of abusing people and environment. If some product generates enormous profit for a few individuals which they stash away off shore, then why not make the product cheaper? Profit margins should be capped.
06 May 2013 8:35pm
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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gpr9KV5SsXw
Have a nice day