Greece is like a terminally ill cancer patient.
On the table in front of it are
two items. On the right, there is a clipboard documenting a long, expensive
treatment list with a slim to non-existent chance of success, and the only
guarantee being a long period of intense, gruelling pain. On the left, there is
a bullet and a gun.
The complication with Greece’s
condition is that, rather than treating the cancer when it was discovered,
Greece’s friends instead opted for hooking themselves up for a continuous blood
transfusion. France, Germany, the UK, the USA, and many others are all hooked
up around Greece, pumping good blood into bad.
There are two massive problems
with this treatment. One, all those countries need their blood back. Two, you
can’t treat a cancer by pumping more blood at it.
Worst still, this cancer gorges
itself on everyone else’s blood, becoming bigger and stronger as each onlooker
takes a heartbeat. The cancer swells, and any blood that escapes it is
contaminated.
While Greece fumbles with the
gun, everyone around it is screaming at them to just accept the treatment. Understandably,
those who have lent Greece their blood are terrified that if Greece pulls the
trigger, they’ll never get their blood back and will die themselves.
However, the bullet isn’t destined
for Greece’s skull. It’s for Greece’s cancer.
By pulling the trigger, Greece
risks everything. The cancer will be wiped out, but so too with it will all the
blood flow. Greece will be left with a gaping hole in it, and will bleed to
death.
The blood is money.
The cancer is leukaemia.
In an ideal world, the economy
provides all we need. Amongst others, agriculture, manufacturing, energy
production, consumerism, and construction all feed into each other to keep the
human race going, and finance provides the liquidity that allows for it all to
function.
Unfortunately, that liquidity,
that blood, has gone bad.
The reasons are numerous, and the
blame for it lies at everyone’s door step.
The corrupt financiers that the
press are so keen to bash are definitely involved. The same investment banks
that caused the financial crisis by intentionally making high-risk, high-reward
bets aimed at ripping people, governments, and businesses off are still at it.
The only difference is that now when they place their bets, they do it with
taxpayer money, and cover their losses with the same pot of gold.
However, although they are the
cause, they are not entirely the fault.
Giving money to greedy, manipulative,
and often psychopathic executives at Goldman Sachs et al and expecting a decent
return on investment is like giving Jews to Hitler and expecting them to come
back not only healthy, but all driving their very own Bugatti Veyron paid for
by the Fuhrer himself.
Thusly, it comes down to policy
makers and regulatory bodies to keep everyone in check. Unfortunately,
government, regulatory bodies, and big banks pretty much operate a revolving
door policy.
The Government take their
policies from lobbyists paid for by the bankers and respond to pressure from
the markets far faster than they do from the electorate. Furthermore, bankers
getting into office is endemic. The European Central Bank, Italy, and Greece
all have Goldman Sachs alumni at the helm. Worse still, Hank Paulson, the man
in charge of the US Treasury during the 2008 crisis and who ultimately made the
call on the world’s economic future, was the former CEO of Goldman Sachs.
This problem has been going on
since the 80s, when Thatcher and Reagan began rolling back regulation on banks,
with further decimation delivered by Clinton and Blair. But where were the
regulatory bodies in all of this?
Nowhere to be found. Hardly a
peep was heard as their power was stripped away. Why was this? Because the same
people who staff regulatory bodies are the same people who staff the big banks.
They are all friends on an employment merry-go-round. It’s the equivalent of
making the Kray Twins the Head of the Metropolitan Police.
There is, of course, another
party to this epic cock up. It’s a massive scam by the banksters, yet they
remain free to con people some more. How
have the banks been able to make dodgy deals, profit massively from devastating
all they touch, and then get away with it?
Easy. In every con, there is the
scammer (the banks), the distraction (regulators and politicians), and the mark
(you). The public have allowed themselves to be suckers in an international
ponzi scheme. Counting on your lack of interest and/or inability to understand
finance, the banks have hit you up on every financial front they can. When the
shit gets bad, you invest your confidence in authority figures without
realising that they are just taking your money and funnelling it straight back
to your muggers.
In this country, £325 billion has
been printed by the Bank of England since 2008, making up a substantial chunk
of the rise from £800bn in total UK debt to a current total of around £1,350bn.
That £325bn was printed with the express purpose of increasing liquidity so
there can be trade and business can return to normal. Essentially, it was
supposed to filter down from the BoE into your pocket so that a boost in the
private sector can be achieved through consumerism.
That money didn’t go anywhere but
into the same institutions who fucked us in the first place who, instead of injecting
it into business and, thusly, into pay packets and wages, hoarded it and used
it to continue playing casino with the global economy.
By doing so, they are stripping
away the ability for the economy to recover.
Current ideologies simple aren’t
going to cut the mustard. Taxing won’t fill the gap. The rich will dodge the
hikes, and the poor would revolt. Everyone in between won’t have the financial
capacity to help recovery in any way other than taxation straight to the state.
Austerity is a defunct idea. We
are no closer now to solving the UK’s financial problems, and, if anything,
they are worse. The UK’s borrowing has gone through the roof since we brought
in austerity, and all it has achieved is public services getting cut.
Attacking the banks may give you
some feeling of redemption, but basing a recovery around an industry that is
flawed and rotten to the core is hardly going to allow you to pave the streets
with gold.
The way you get the economy
moving is to bring business back to life. How do you do that? You create
profitable businesses. What makes a business profitable? Demand. How do you
generate demand? You ensure that the people who desire a certain good or
service have the money to pay for it. How do you make people rich?
Simple. You make it law that
executive pay cannot reach more than 5 times the rate of the lowest paid person
in their company.
Say a company has 50 employees
and one guy at the top. The average pre-tax take home for the 50 employees is
£20k, while the CEO’s take home is a cool million quid. Under this law, the CEO
would take a pay cut to £100k, leaving £900k to be spread between the 50
employees.
This would raise the wages of each
of the workers by £18,000, nearly doubling their take home. This turns into a
rise in consumption, people taking on wages, and overall welfare of the
population. It will make for a happier workforce, and a stronger one as skilled
workers from abroad will be attracted to Britain by the wages, making our
industries more innovative, flexible, and, ultimately, more profitable.
More importantly, the rise in
wages will create a rise in tax revenue. While the rich are supposedly paying
these taxes currently, the truth is, they aren’t. Even the proprietor of the Daily
Mail (and the 3rd richest man in UK publishing), Viscount
Rothermere, is tax-dodging, non-dom scum. That’s right; even that beacon of all
that is Holy and British is working against the British interests.
But by raising the average guy on
the street’s take-home, you also raise the amount made from taxes. Those not
basking in the glory of all their gold generally pay their taxes. This may be
primarily because they don’t have a choice, but it ultimately means a promise
of taxes from the lower-to-middle classes is a lot more iron clad than the
dodgers at the top.
Of course, this idea would be
countered instantly by every CEO/MD in the country by saying it is
anti-business. This is a complete fabrication. The only thing that this idea is
against is the super-rich’s bank account.
Business would boom, as more
people would be able to afford more products. As business booms, tax revenues
increase, and so the public sector will get its cashflow back. The disparity
between rich and poor closes, the economy stabilises, and the incentive and
room for corruption and greed is removed.
CEOs who say that they’d quit the
country – fine. There is an entire generation ready to take your place. And you
can forget about taking your business with you. Try getting past your
shareholders the decision to move the business away from a suddenly
cash-infused British public, and watch your position crumble. They’ll replace
you with the guy who does your job better than you for a tenth of the price and
watch their stocks skyrocket.
There should, of course, be a
method to reimburse good work. Shares as a bonus for successful executives
seems like an obvious solution, as this ties their wealth intrinsically to the
strength of their business. Additionally, if you are doing good work, then you’ll
have cash. Give everyone a pay rise, and you get to sign yourself one five
times that.
There are plenty of other ways people
could still get rich without trampling all over their underlings. Essentially,
we can build business and therefore the economy using ethical, fair, and
honourable methods that are beneficial for all. This then puts more money in
the pocket of the average UK citizen and puts the workforce in a stronger
position, thus making business more dynamic and more profitable.
But how is this theory relevant
to banking and Greece?
Well, obviously, this sort of
idea won’t get near the House of Commons without an intense crisis that demands
innovative thinking. But thanks to the general lack of foresight in the world
of finance, it won’t be long until the shit hits the fan and things go from bad
to Stephen King in no time at all.
Banking is tied up with the
Eurozone crisis. When Greece goes (and it will be when, not if), it will be
catastrophic for the banking sector and for the rich in general. Greece may yet
stumble on if it picks the option of “treatment”, but the problem won’t go
away. If it’s not Greece, then it will be Spain, or Italy, or Ireland. But say
that Greece elects to shoot itself. While it won’t do the poor any favours, all
the money in Greece gets annihilated. The cancerous blood flows out.
This will have a massive knock on
effect. All the cash currently invested in Greece in foreign banks will
disappear, leaving a gargantuan hole in the balance sheets of banks around the
Eurozone and the US. The shock may be absorbed by some, but others will
crumble. As they crumble, the aftershocks will be powerful enough to derail
other countries and the bigger banks until you have a complete collapse.
Last time this happened, it took
ten years of savage austerity and then a world war to balance the books. This
time, we’re riding into the crash on the back of recession and recovery that
never came with crooks at the helm gunning for a new war in the Middle East.
A global financial crash is the
perfect opportunity to re-evaluate how we do business. If we are to avoid
catastrophe such as this in future (which has been a reoccurring pattern since
the Roman times), we need to think different. We have the technology,
infrastructure, and the society to build a better future.
The alternative is extremists in
power, war, and the same old oppressive boots on everyone’s necks once
everything is done and dusted.
I’d say it’s high time we took
control of our own economic futures. The cancer that’s killing Greece and is
present in every other country will soon leave every country an empty husk
rotting in a hospital bed.
If we are to revive them, we need
to do it with new blood entirely.
