Obviously I was simplifying things with Mr Millionaire and stuff. Though, quite rightly it is hardly ever the entrepreneurs who make a lot of these decisions, it’s the “money men” who make them. The ones who say “we need to keep our post tax profits at 10% so therefore we need to slash operational costs”, and as you rightly point out this keeps the share price high and the investors happy. And who are the investors? Again Mark, you hit the nail on the head – the leaches who trade in stocks and shares... And so it is the system that’s broken, we have unfettered capitalism and this is a bad thing (as is unfettered socialism). Currently, we have political power that answers mainly to the whims of the powerful lobby groups, where the interests of the country come second to the profits of some people and corporations. I guess that says pretty much everything really. Although I know that people with immense power have controlled governments since we invented governance, things don’t need to be this way! And it saddens me to think that governments, of all political persuasions care little about the people whose votes they supposedly rely on. There is a great piece on YouTube with Joe Scarsborough on MSNBC talking about politics in modern day America (Google it, I can’t view YouTube right now) where he tells TV viewers how it works over there. He says (and I paraphrase): And I bet it works pretty much the same here in the UK. It is the only way I can explain how billions of public money goes to private companies to fund public services. I mean, we have private prisons that get paid per prisoner – they don’t suffer if that criminal goes back into the system (society does), but they get paid again when they have to re-house that individual. And why is cannabis still against the law? Is it bad for you? Probably.. Might it be bad for society in general? Probably, though I doubt as much as alcohol or junk food. So why is it illegal? Because people would then grow it for themselves and big business wouldn’t benefit from the profits. Now, for me.. I don’t have a dog in that fight. I don’t smoke weed (don’t smoke full stop) and I hate the smell of it. But I don’t like the smell of dried squid either, but who am I to tell someone not to cook dried squid because it offends my delicate sense of smell? To me, this goes to the heart of it. The Labour Party, Conservatives and Liberal Democrats all get on as if they were in the same party. And to some extent, they do. They belong to the party of big business! And when I say big business, in reality I mean those money men, the movers and shakers in the banking world, the stockbrokers and what not. It’s like walking into the supermarket and finding three brands of drinks, al colas. One slightly sweeter than the next, but all basically the same. And sadly, this is how it is in our political system. However... In order for this system to be kept in place and kept as it is, it requires our apathy! Russell Brand made a big thing recently by saying he refuses to vote. Well, I don’t blame him. But we do have a very good way of clawing back our system of government from those that wish to only serve themselves – get involved! Join a political party, even if you don’t intend on voting for them!! Join them, so you get a voice in their leadership, in their local election candidates. I once joked to a Muslim friend of mine that he should join the BNP, but I was being partly serious.. When the high court rules that they couldn’t discriminate who joined their membership I was surprised that thousands of black, Asian and other groups didn’t join them just to destroy them from within. But this same tactic can and will work for the rest of us who are sick and tired of politicians sliding through parliament as if it were a birthright. And about voting in a communist country, well a bourgeois democracy isn’t really an ideal democracy is it? Not too far from our own House of Lords, but still no bastion of free speech and freedom of expression.
