Food banks, payday loans and the housing bubble: Britain's Wealth Delusion

George Osborne and David Cameron are feeling quite pleased with their economic policy these days, now that Britain's economy is showing signs of clear growth. The Conservatives are now able to claim, using figures to back them up, that the economy is improving.

Yes, things are improving, at least on the surface. Unemployment is down. GDP is up. Housing prices are up. But at the same time, credit consumption is escalating, and living standards are at their lowest for decades. Also, the lack of investment by banks into businesses is becoming the norm. If this is a recovery for the country, why doesn't it feel like it?

Britain is being run like a developing country

The basic answer to this question is that because the government has learned nothing from the financial crisis. As Adtiya Chakrabortty makes clear in this excellent article, Britain's economic model is no different from any in the developing world. The Conservatives are giving living proof to the concept that it is possible to have increasing GDP in a country at the same time as a decreasing standard of living.

This is the frightening reality for many people in Britain. And here's why: GDP is a simple calculation of averages. If the wealth of the top quarter of earners (for example) has sky-rocketed, while the wealth of those in the bottom half has declined in real terms, you still get an increase in GDP. This is basic maths, but it also paints a distorted view, as any average sum can. So relying on GDP in this situation is not helpful to finding out the reality on the ground; in fact, it can be positively deceptive.

The Conservatives either are too dim to understand this basic point, too blinded by their own ideology to see through their delusions, or too indifferent to care.

I've mentioned before that Britain really is ran more like a corporation than a nation-state, and therefore the government is encouraged to see GDP as a simple number; shown to Britain's investors (shareholders) to boost UK PLC's "share price" in the world. The fact that UK PLC's "employees" (its electorate) are having their wages and living standards cut in real terms in order to achieve this is immaterial. The government only really sees the GDP figures. 

UK PLC also explains why the government is so keen on "fracking", an expansion in nuclear power, and expanding Heathrow. These things will all improve the country's "rating" in the world. Who cares if it's foreign companies that benefit most from it, at the expense of the actual electorate?

Yes, employment is up, but so what? What kind of jobs are they? Mostly low paid, part-time or temporary, and the idea of getting a stable job these days in The UK is laughable, unless you are in the top ranks of society. Many of the jobs created are in the service sector, where zero-hour contracts are becoming the norm.
In this way, the jobs market in The UK is also more and more resembling that in a developing country, where employment is too heavily dependent on unreliable and highly fickle service industries. The government encouraged young people to get degrees; so now we simply have low-paid service sector jobs filled with graduates. What's the use of that? These service industry jobs are the first to go when there is a downturn.

The wealth delusion

The "recovery" is in large part due to consumer spending. The country has yet to recover from the worst financial crisis since The Depression; much of the spending that's happening on the high street is simply either by eating in to more affluent people's savings, or getting by from month to month on payday loans, and adding even more to the dependence on credit. This is not a sane economic model: it is mass delusion.

This is a dangerously complacent attitude, because it simply suggests that many British people are too weak to face the reality: that many people in Britain are poor. If more and more people are using credit to survive, and are using food banks to survive, this means the country's economic model is broken. But nobody is willing to admit it. The truth hurts, and so people would rather live in an "Alice In Wongaland" view of reality. This is also a time where we are seeing a rise in diseases commonly associated with malnutrition in the developing world (rickets, for example).

The government meanwhile takes the view that food banks are a sign of the "Big Society" - or at least, Cameron does; Iain Duncan Smith seems to take a different view: that he'd prefer to pretend that the problem doesn't exist, and that he's certainly got nothing to do with it.
Calling food banks a sign of the "Big Society" is a sickening joke to those who really use them; the government is helping to create a problem (or at best, is doing nothing to reduce it), then praising people who come the rescue. "Food poverty" is the biggest sign yet that Britain, far from entering a real "recovery", is entering a new era of poverty unprecedented in modern times.

The government puts a great deal of stock in house prices, and George Osborne's "Help To Buy" scheme. Apart from the obvious inflationary dangers that this poses to the market (which are already apparent), Osborne himself admitted that the idea was to make people feel richer - so that they would vote the Tories back in again. So Osborne is openly acting in a cynical and irresponsible way towards the economy.

Not only do people now have much less disposable income to get a mortgage than ten years ago (Britain is fast becoming a nation of tenants), but interest rates are at historically-low rates. The only way is up. And when the rates do begin to climb in the coming years, the housing market will create a whole new generation of "negative equity" victims. 

Using housing prices as a marker of wealth, as the Tories do, is as useless as it is cynical. It is inflation in the value of property, nothing more. When the value in "your house" increases, it doesn't mean "you" are richer. If you you bought a house thirty years ago for £30,000, and it's now worth £200,000, you are not £170,000 richer. Why? Because all property in the market has increased by the same value. Unless you are selling a house outright (eg. after a restoration project), downsizing, or moving to a different country with a cheaper housing market, you are not gaining anything.

The obsession with property prices in another sign of Britain's wealth delusion.

Germany doesn't have a wealth delusion, because it's clear where its wealth comes from: manufacturing, and other sectors of the economy.

Britain's economic model is reliant on banking and the kindness of foreigners.

Psychopathy, Ian Watkins and sex crimes: the nature of evil

The sentencing of Ian Watkins, former singer of the band "LostProphets", for a catalogue of sex crimes against children, is another case that adds to the spate of reported crimes, and historical crimes, that have featured in the media since the death of Jimmy Savile. In the last week, a British TV weather presenter, Fred Talbot, has been arrested for historical crimes, as has a former headmaster at a prestigious boys' school.

A recent article by Giles Fraser talks about the nature of this type of "evil", and the possible motivations that occur in the mind of people like Watkins, Savile, and others like them. However uncomfortable it is to think about it, it is important to understand why these people exist: this is why there are people trained in the police and specifically in the area of criminal psychology.

While it should be unnecessary to say so, understanding why such crimes happen does not condone them; no more that understanding why Hitler hated the Jews condones The Holocaust.

To many, child sex crimes rank amongst the worst forms of evil, because the such violations of human rights are against those so vulnerable and innocent. As Giles Fraser's article made clear, these kinds of crimes are nothing about sex; they are about power, and an ultimate, amoral expression of it.

In this way, paedophiles like Savile and Watkins are not so "abnormal" that their evil cannot be understood; it is more that they have become so removed from morality and humanity that their mindset cannot be comprehended by someone with conscience.

The motivations of a psychopath

Psychopathy is a personality disorder defined by a complete lack of conscience towards their actions, and empathy for others.
Psychopaths can unflinchingly carry out the most appalling crimes: some (such as brutal dictators, or, at another level, cut-throat CEOs) can intellectually justify their actions to themselves as part of a wider goal; a dictator to preserve power and "order" to the country; a CEO can justify massive fraud for the sake of boosting a company's share price. These are the calm, amoral psychopaths.
Then there are those who do so not for the sake of a real "goal", or as a means to an end, but simply for the "pleasure" of the act itself: those that simply take pleasure in others' suffering. These are the sadists. And it is this type that are may be considered the worst; for they do their actions not to improve their situation, but simply for the hell of it.
While an amoral psychopath may cause harm for "rational" reasons (to better his own situation), a sadist will easily cause harm for no rational reason whatsoever. Sadists are capable of taking enormous (and irrational) risks for the sake of a momentary act of power against another. It is this that makes them more dangerous, and more difficult to deal with.

People like Watkins and Savile (and sex offenders in general) fall into the latter catagory, because the actions they carried served no "method" other than to cause harm to an innocent person. In this way, paedophiles may be classified as simply a more "extreme" form of sexual psychopath and sadist. Their behaviour and "motivation" fits into many of the attributes connected to psychopathy. They are not "unique" in their evil; they simply plunge to sickening depths of it.

(For more about "Sexual Psychopathy", see here)

The general consensus is that people like Savile and Watkins are products of their cumulative environment. While "psychopathy" as a general rule requires some type of biological dysfunction in the brain, it is also documented that many people who went to commit child sex crimes were themselves "victims" (of one kind or another) at an early age. In order for people like Savile and Watkins to carry out their crimes, there must have been something that had seriously gone wrong at some point. Like all psychological "monsters", they are invariably made, not born.

By understanding how these people are created, it is how crimes like it are prevented in the future.

Causes and solutions

Psychopathy and sociopathy (the latter is generally considered the environmentally-caused disorder, the former primarily biological) have existed in humanity probably since the earliest times in human history. The key to preventing (or limiting) its negative effects on society is to spot the warning signs early on; better still, make a child's environment as stable and balanced as possible.

Sadly, the changes in modern lifestyle, in the family and the effects of technology, have made that job much more difficult. As I've mentioned in a previous article, narcissism (one of the factors that can lead to psychopathy under certain circumstances) is being fed through a vicious circle of the breakdown of the family unit, leading to the young people replacing a fickle family unit with a egocentric "me" unit. Technology may also be playing a part in this, in a way that was never previously possible.

Apart from these negative signs, the positive is that psychopathy is in the public eye in a way never seen before. The more people know about it, the more people will be aware of its causes, and therefore know what they can do to reduce the chance of it becoming manifested.

We can only hope.

The UK's Spouse Visa Regulations: the Conservatives at their worst

The government's rules on granting visas to non-EU spouses of British citizens seem to sum up pretty well all the negative aspects of the Conservative government.

An article in "The Guardian" returns to this sore issue, reminding us of what low depths that the Tories are capable of sinking of when dealing with their own people. The rules are so stringent, they make The UK's rules comparable with the immigration rules of some of the worst authoritarian regimes. Worse, they effectively make British people who wish to marry anyone from outside the EU (which obviously includes The USA, Canada, Australia and New Zealand) exiles from their own country, simply for implementing a basic human right, unless they are wealthy.

Why were these new laws introduced in the first place? The official reason is to reduce "benefit fraud" and foreigners "living off the state", as part of Cameron's impossible-to-achieve "pledge" to reduce annual immigration to the "tens of thousands" (more on Cameron's broken promises here). But the rules now applied are more stringent (and nonsensical) than those in The USA or even Australia. The general consensus is that the rules that prohibit Briton's earning less than approx. £18,000 from bringing their spouses to The UK are really designed to reduce the disproportionate number of Brits of Pakistani and Indian descent from bringing over their cousins in arranged marriages from the subcontinent. That, and to discourage the perceived problem of Brits marrying "brides-to-order" (for want of a less un-PC phrase) from places like the Far East and the former Soviet Union.

Whatever the motivation for these changes, this rule is really about appeasing the Conservatives' party base, as well as the instincts of "The Daily Mail", when it comes to immigration. The facts of the matter are irrelevant; it's the perception of "a problem" that counts.

A system designed to destroy the family

Apart from the financial limits to the rules, there are other rules, also far stricter than other comparable countries, that compound the injustice.

There is also the rule about children, so that the salary base escalates with every child in the Briton's family.

There is also the rule that means that the salary measured must be earned by the "sponsor" (the Brit), rather than the spouse; there is no flexibility if, for example, the foreign spouse earns a higher salary to offset if the Brits' salary is lower than the threshold.
Furthermore, there can be no "co-sponsor" (like in The USA and elsewhere), such as wealthier parents, that can act as a form of financial "insurance" for the couple.

The British "sponsor" must also have paid employment in The UK when the couple live there (i.e. for some time before the foreign spouse arrives).

The British "sponsor" can only get around these rules if they have savings in their account equivalent to more than double (or nearly triple) the average annual salary in The UK.

Lastly, if the "sponsor's" situation changes during the two years the couple are in The UK (such as losing a job), this would effectively condemn any chance of their spouse staying in The UK after their initial two-year "probationary period".

Then there are the many rules designed to catch out the foreign spouses, but there isn't time to go into them all here. It's enough to say that from the initial application of a spouse visa, the Briton and their non-EU spouse are assumed guilty of deception until they can prove they are an honest (and well-financed) married couple.

Such an ordeal would test the strongest of relationships; it is not surprising that some would break down under the stresses of such a system. Children are deprived of their parents for months on end under such a system. Under the guise of defending Britain against "sham marriages", they implement rules that break the one of the most fundamental human rights in the world: the right to choose who you want to live your life with, and the right to live in your own country with the person you wish.

A Kafkaesque nightmare 

These rules display the Conservatives are their most heartless as well as their most nonsensical.

Some might say "a person can't expect the state the fund your relationship choices". Well, The USA and The EU don't have a problem with that idea, within reasonable limits. As mentioned earlier, The USA see that it is reasonable to maintain the coherence of the family unit, and allow a "co-sponsor" of a married American an a foreign spouse living the The USA.
The EU's attitudes are even more humane: according to EU law (which The UK government flouts to implement these nonsensical rules) any EU citizen cannot be denied the right to live in the EU without his spouse, regardless of where they are from. This is again to preserve the sanctity of the family; even more important if they are children involved.

It's because of these EU rules that there is a way around the UK government's rules. As any Briton is also an EU citizen, they can simply move to any other EU country (such and the Republic Of Ireland) and live there with their non-EU spouse. These are the Kafkaesque lengths that the Conservatives are pushing their own people to in order to be happily married.
This is just one of a catalogue of Conservative disasters committed while in government. And while Brits who marry anyone from outside the EU are subjected to these inhumane restrictions (creating a whole subset of British "marriage exiles"), any other EU family is free to move into The UK without any legal restriction.

Such a situation invites comparisons (if perhaps over-indulgently) to political and economic refugees. Certainly, no other Western developed country has such an inhumane and cynical attitude towards foreign marriage. While those in the developing world have been banished from their own countries for their political beliefs, thousands of Brits are being forced to live outside their home country for their relationship choices.

The UK government is effectively saying: "You Can Only Marry Who We Say You Can". If you don't, then prepare to suffer the consequences.

The government introduces these rules to avoid "marriages of convenience": and yet the government encourages Britons to marry only people who they consider "convenient" for themselves. When the government talks about "marriages of convenience", it simply means it objects to marriages inconvenient to its interests.

If there was one way for the government to encourage British people become more cynical in their relations towards each other, foreigners and the institution of marriage, this certainly would be one way to achieve it.

And this, from the supposed party of "family values".

UK PLC: How Britain is ran like a corporation

Back in October the latest "success story" that the UK government declared was that a new generation of nuclear power station would be built at Hinkley point in Somerset, ran by the French energy giant EDF with Chinese support.
Around that time I mentioned that this event was simply another in a long line of government actions that are meant to improve Britain's fortunes, but achieve the opposite.

There is a tendency in Britain for foreign companies to run essential services and national assets, more than in any other comparable Western developed country.

The term "UK PLC" became widely-used during the Blair years, when the government was looking for a way to turn "Cool Britannia" into a brand that they could advertise the UK to foreign investment. Britain was marketed as "a good place to do business". Laws were loosened so that foreign companies could have a greater and greater role in The UK.
The spate of privatisation of government assets from the eighties onwards has led to segments of the energy industry and other utilities being owned by foreign companies (in the case of EDF, a government-owned foreign company).
When the transport network was sold off, buses and trains were sold off to whichever company offered the lowest price, regardless of if this meant effectively selling national assets to foreign governments. This was the case with companies such as "Arriva" (owned by Deutsche Bahn); the Dutch national rail carrier also owns rail stock in East Anglia and Merseyside.

I made these points in my earlier article on the subject, so don't want to repeat myself. The main observation to note here is that the actions of the British government, and even more the actions of the current Conservative-led government, are the same as those seen in the boardrooms of multinational companies.

Working in the "national interest"

The key here is how government ministers define "national interest". To the electorate, the "national interest" is would be what is in the electorate's best interest. To the government, the "national interest" is what will create the most money for the government. They are not the same things.

To understand how "UK PLC" works in reality it's easier to have a thought experiment and to imagine the British government as "a corporation that happens to operate within a national border", or a wannabe multinational company.
Like all multinationals, it has shareholders and employees. Who are they?

Its shareholders are the ones that really matter, because this is they who UK PLC's revenue is aimed at. The shareholders are the private businesses that have invested money into the UK, for it is they who really generate the income for the British government (as far as they see it). Therefore, the more future investment the government can generate, the more UK PLC's "shareholders" (private companies) will be willing to invest further in The UK. The happier the "shareholders" (i.e. investors) are, the better the fortunes of the British government. The "shareholders" want to make sure that their investment is a sound one; otherwise, they will sell their shares and go elsewhere.
In this description, it may not sound a lot different from a Ponzi scheme.

UK PLC's "employees" are its electorate. Multinationals are not renowned for treating their employees well; almost all of them seek the cheapest workforce possible. UK PLC, like other multinational companies, doesn't care where its employees come from. Limited by the resource of land, UK PLC's workforce is still constrained within the territory it contains, so therefore over-population would bring disadvantages to UK PLC over time. But apart from the long-term threat of over-population, it is to UK PLC's advantage to have a workforce that is composed of immigrants from poorer countries, in order to help limit wage demands and keep down overheads.
Of course, there will be some employees that are also shareholders, as in any multinational. But this is incidental. The main point here is that, like employees working for any multinational, those at UK PLC are expendable, and can be easily replaced. Fundamentally, they have no rights of their own, and UK PLC owes them no loyalty.

Why UK PLC loves Europe

Seen through this lens, a lot of what happens in the UK today makes much more sense. The rise of UKIP in recent times has been a result of the (correct) perception that the mass influx of East Europeans to The UK has brought about a labour crisis for some parts of the "native" population.
The government has blamed the freedom of movement around the EU for this, which is accurate, but fails to mention that it is also part of the government's intention. Much of UK PLC's "shareholders" (British and foreign investors) are strongly pro-EU because it helps them to lower wages by using workers from elsewhere in the EU (from Southern Europe as well as Eastern Europe).
At the same time, however, British people are far less likely to have linguistic ability compared to foreigners. Lulled into a false sense of security by the government, the electorate were led to believe that their economic stability would last forever because English is "the world's language". Now the UK government blames their own electorate for not taking advantage of the EU's freedom of labour mobility by not bothering to learn foreign languages.

It is not surprising that some people are left feeling "betrayed" by their own government.

The future of Britain looks more and more like that of a multinational company looking for new ways to find foreign investment and "partnerships". David Cameron's recent work with China demonstrates that is really what he sees The UK as. Rather than invest in "native" resources, it is cheaper and easier to ask foreign companies to do the work. This explains why an ever larger part of Britain's assets and services are being offered to foreign companies: because they are cheaper.
Rather than invest in Britain's assets and make them more efficient (which would be a longer-term project, but obviously better for the native workforce), it is easier and faster to simply hand them over to foreigners; like how multinationals "out-source" their services because it's cheaper.

In this way, the government has little real sense of loyalty to its own electorate: they are just "employees", and can be easily replaced with others who are more suitable to their needs.

It is the multinational cartels that are calling many of the shots because it is they who are the real "shareholders" in UK PLC, and other governments like it. UK PLC is far from alone in this regard; much of 21st century government across the world runs on the same principle.

Ayn Rand, Objectivism, Capitalism and Psychopathy

I wrote an article a long time ago comparing Ayn Rand's moral and economic philosophy, Objectivism, with the psychological disorder, psychopathy. The main tenets of her philosophy were explained in her own words in an interview she had after the publication of her magnum opus, "Atlas Shrugged".

It's worth remembering that Ayn Rand was a Russian Jew, born in St Petersburg the first decade of the Twentieth Century, albeit to a non-practising family. She was in her early teens when she experienced her father's business being appropriated by the Bolsheviks, which clearly had a very strong influence on her ideas about government and society. After completing university in the Soviet Union, she took an opportunity to go to the USA, and never came back.

The lunatics take over the asylum

Rand's ideas are integral to anyone who understands what free market Capitalism is, as well as understanding what the justifications are by those who pursue its ideas with such vigour. Anyone involved in finance and economics, either at the corporate or academic level, needs to have an understanding of - and more importantly, be an adherent to - its principles and ideology. If you are not a laissez-faire Capitalist in today's world, you cannot succeed in finance or economics, let alone business.

This is all the more shocking considering how the financial crisis dealt the biggest possible blow to the idea of unregulated free markets. The crisis happened because there was no effective government regulation, and that the banking sector had become dominated by giants that were "too big to fail"; this was what Rand had said should have been impossible under a laissez-faire system. The government had done precisely what the banks had told them to - what all the most distinguished economists had told them to do - and the system had collapsed in on itself as a result of their "wisdom".
If the orthodoxy of any other system - science, for example - had received such a blow to its legitimacy, it would have caused a radical reworking of their approach. In economics, however, no such worries seem to exist. The economists and financial "experts" continue as if nothing had happened, giving governments the same advice as before. The UK is suffering from the same kind of madness in government.

Rand's ideas were not new when they were first published, but prior to that, only a small number of economists and other oddballs took the idea of laissez-faire Capitalism as something that had a serious place in the world. They had been expressed before the Second World War through the "Austrian School" of economics, and after the Second World War, in the "Chicago School". It was Rand who turned an economic theory into a moral code for living.

A "Randian" perspective on living

Rand's interviewer from the clip I mentioned earlier takes a (not surprisingly) sceptical view of her ideas when she expresses them; for one thing, they go against almost every moral code known to man. She summarises her philosophy into a few main points.

Rand calls her philosophy "Objectivism" because it is a philosophy that takes its moral code not from using religious or social values (which are therefore subjective), but from the perspective solely of the individual (who is therefore "objective"). A person's moral code, according to Rand, can only be decided by what is in his or her best interests - or other words, what is convenient.
Following from this, it is against a person's interests to help someone else selflessly, because the man helping gets nothing in return for his efforts; it might also be mentioned that it makes the man receiving dependent on someone else. Looking at it from this perspective, Rand considers altruism to be evil, the opposite to what social norms tell us.

As Rand says, this attitude is based on man as a rational being: doing things based on his rational mind, and avoiding actions which are illogical (i.e. not convenient to his interests).

At around this point in the above interview that the interviewer asks Rand about "love". What about "love"? Should a man not help another out of "love"? Rand's answer is that "love" in the interviewer's (and mankind's) understanding of the word is self-defeating: one can only "love" another person for their achievements; loving a person simply for being a human being, so Rand thinks, is ludicrous, because how can you "love" someone who you don't know?

What Rand's philosophy postulates is a social network of interactions based on mutual convenience, and that it is rational that all human interactions be based on this primary principle.

(Any "Star Trek" fans might be familiar with this perspective: the character Spock, at one point in the original series, introduced his Vulcan wife to the crew. It was in this episode that the viewer was educated about the "logic" behind the marriage of two people who are without emotion)

A cynic might also recognize the same thinking in "marriages of convenience" today. But in Rand's thinking, all marriages and human interactions must be rationally so. Otherwise, why demean yourself to something that is inconvenient?

The philosophy of a psychopath

Rand's philosophy focuses on the meaning of freedom. In it, a person is free to do as he or she likes, as long as it does not impinge on the freedom of others. This is how law and order is maintained in such a society, and that the only function a government has is to maintain basic law and order and the justice system.
Government should not therefore raise any taxes that are not agreed by the consent of all people taxed. As a person's wit and wealth is his primary means of survival (only means of survival), it is not the government's role to dictate how a person spends his wealth.
As people are therefore rational, it follows that in a laissez-faire society, the free market will provide all goods and services possible, and that no-one would be unemployed or in a job they didn't like if they didn't choose it. Besides, it would be irrational to help those less fortunate than yourself for no reason and for not benefit to yourself.
Lastly, Rand's philosophy refutes the idea of democracy, seeing it as nothing more than majoritarianism. In a free society, one larger group cannot dictate to another. By this logic, "interest groups" as such couldn't possibly exist, let alone "parties". As Rand sees it, this is going back to the first principles of the "Founding Fathers".

An "Objectivist" world sounds a lot like an anarchist one (which Rand personally despised); the caveat that Rand always made against this accusation is the role of law and order and government's monopoly on the use of force. But having had Rand's philosophy largely put into practice for the last thirty years, we know the real results: a heavenly bliss for those at the top of society, and a version of hell for those at the bottom.

I've written many times before about the attributes of psychopaths. When you look at the behaviour that Rand's perspective encourages (even celebrates) - selfishness, lack of empathy towards others, being motivated by convenience - it mirrors some of the key attributes of psychopathy. The only thing that separates Rand's philosophy from being a "manual for psychopaths" is the respect for others' freedom and the need for basic law and order.
But that separation can easily be blurred. When do a company's actions cross the line towards impinging on others' "freedom"? Or an individual's? Such a society could easily make "people of ill intent" simply become more Machiavellian and cunning in order to impinge on others' freedoms indirectly, in a way not immediately obvious. From companies that get around regulations, to people who find loopholes to avoid paying tax, these things happen everywhere, everyday. 

Rand's theory of "Objectivism" is clearly atheistic by nature; her views on Capitalism and turning society's moral code on its head certainly would bring out accusations from the clergy that she was nothing more than a female "Antichrist", or a servant of Lucifer himself. I've made such (tongue-in cheek) comments myself before.

Rand lived until 1982, so that she saw the first beginnings of her philosophy put into practice by Reagan and Thatcher.
It is the rest of us who have had to deal with the results of her philosophy, as it continues to rule us like a vampire that will not die, even after being intellectually "killed" by the financial crisis. The principles of her philosophy, if anything, seem to become more refined with age; given a second wind with the calls for "austerity", as the "Tea Party" in The USA take Rand's ideas to levels even Reagan didn't dare to tread, and in The UK, the Chancellor George Osborne and PM David Cameron try to out-do Thatcher at her own game.

Like Rand before them turning society's moral code on its head, today's adherents to her philosophy use counter-intuitive arguments for their policies: the "trickle-down" theory; Osborne in The UK blaming the "welfare state" for the financial crisis; the Tea Party in The USA blaming "entitlements" and "socialized medicine".

Like Rand before them, her disciples today use the sweet words of freedom to implement ideas that cause poverty and inequality.

Like the Lucifer of The Bible, Rand and her followers manipulate humanity and seduce us with talk of our own magnificence as individuals, and how evil "government" is (our modern-day "God" of The Bible). Much of this biblical symbolism is described, in a very allegorical sense, by Rand herself in the pages of her most famous work, "Atlas Shrugged".

But some people like government; like how some people like God. They both require faith to survive.

Why Cartels run most of the world

I wrote previously about how "government service agencies" like Serco run many aspects of government service provision in The UK and elsewhere. But it is only when you take a step back and look at different aspects of how the world works, that you realise that much of the world is effectively ran by various types of cartels.

Cartels are most famous in crime, such as the drugs cartels that exist in Columbia, and more recently in Mexico.

But they exist in almost every major aspect of the private sector; drugs is simply a more infamous example.

An article here provides a chart that explains how ten (multinational) companies produce almost everything that we buy.

Pharmaceuticals are produced by a small number (i.e cartel) of "Big Pharma" companies, the results of which have been examined in a book of the same name.

"Big Oil" has become amalgamated into an ever decreasing number of mega-corporations: ExxonMobil (as the result of a merger in the late nineties), BP, Chevron, Conoco Phillips and Shell are the main ones in the West. The mergers that happened in the nineties and earlier were partially a result of the entrenchment of nationalised oil companies that previously were in the clutches of Western multinationals. Since that time, Western oil companies have entrenched themselves by expanding into previously uncharted territory; exploring shale gas and oil sands due to advances in technology.
Before the oil crisis of the early seventies, the so called "Seven Sisters" produced the vast majority of the world's oil. The advances of "Big Oil" into new forms of oil and gas exploration are also a result of the rise of the "New Seven Sisters", which are effectively nationalised industries of various developing and non-Western nations. In other words, while in the West oil is concentrated into the hands of a handful of private corporations, in the "East", it is consolidated into the hands of government through government-ran oil companies.
And over all this is OPEC, which itself is a cartel (or oligarchy) of nations that has huge influence over the price of oil.

Technology is another area dominated by a small number of companies. Computer software is dominated by Microsoft and Apple. Other domestic technology (TVs, stereos) is dominated by Far Eastern companies; "White Goods", to a lesser extent also.

Multinationals are everywhere. A telling story is when the former head of ExxonMobil in the nineties quickly put down another colleague for calling them an "American" company. ExxonMobil wasn't an "American" company as far as the CEO was concerned; it was a global one , and as such, owed no loyalty to any one nation.

The nature of the market

But the creation of an oligarchy/cartel is even more frighteningly evident in finance. In the Victorian era, there were hundreds of banks across every major developed nation in the world. The USA and The UK are the best examples of this. But since that time, and from every major economic downturn or depression, banks have either gone under or been bought out.
Each time this has happened, the power to control finance has fell into a smaller and smaller number of private banks; so that by the time of financial crisis of 2008, there are only a bare handful of banks that control much of the world's finance, Goldman Sachs being perhaps the biggest. BearStearns' sale to JP MorganChase in March 2008 was the precursor to the panic following the bankruptcy of Lehman Brothers in September. Following from this, other banks merged to consolidate assets, and the creation of the concept of them being "too big to fail", necessitating the infamous bailout out of the public purse.

The acceptance of the "too big to fail" cartel (TBTF) effectively legitimized the concept of "Corporate Socialism": one rule for the rich, another for the poor. It meant that national governments effectively accepted control of the world economy was no longer in their hands, but in that of the cartel of international investment banks.

In the five years since that event, the cartels of finance, of oil, and of foodstuffs have presided over a collapse of living standards in the West, especially in the economies of Southern Europe, and parts of The USA and The UK. Costs of living have increased year after year, while governments freeze wages and spending in order to repair the damage done by the banks from the financial crisis.

Cartels are the enemy of freedom; they are as dangerous now as they were when the ancient Greeks talked of an "oligarchy" in the time of Plato and Socrates. But cartels are a natural result of neo-liberal economics. While Ayn Rand and the Chicago School of economics argued that free market Capitalism would naturally result in more choice for the consumer and therefore lower prices, the result has been the opposite in the long-run.
In the dog-eat-dog world of free market liberalism, when applied on a global scale (creating "Globalisation") the result is that this creates larger and larger companies that literally eat up their rivals (through mergers), while killing off the competition. Because small companies cannot possibly hope to compete fairly in such an environment, the result is a lack of choice for the consumer, or price-fixing. The Libor rate scandal in the financial industry, the role of OPEC in the oil industry, and the various tariffs and subsidies set up against the interests of the developing world, are a testament to that.

Only a handful of huge companies can most efficiently operate as pan-national entities in order to find the cheapest methods of production for the greatest profit. This therefore has the effect of depressing wages overall, while increasing the share value of the companies themselves, and massively boosting the incomes of the fractional percentile at the top. This may sound quite a lot like Marxist theory, but it is the reality today.

In this way, cartels are a natural result of free market Capitalism. When applied on a global scale, you simply get a global cartel, independent of government control: independent of accountability, and in control of the global supply chain. 

How to blackmail the government

The history of the last hundred years or so has seen a gradual breaking down of the power of the nation-state, and a transfer of power to ever-larger multinational cartels of private companies. In effect, this is a transfer of accountability from governments ultimately accountable to their electorate, to private companies only accountable to their shareholders.
Because modern-day multinationals are trans-national entities, laws from individual governments hold less and less authority. In the end, the multinational can always up sticks and transfer operations to nation with a more amenable government; this is how globalisation works.

In this way, "government" in the 21st century has become less and less relevant to everyday life, as private multinationals (often working as part of an informal cartel or oligarchy) dictate much of what happens. Governments have become beholden to the interests of "big business" because they hold fewer and fewer means to hold these private oligarchies to account. In the end, a powerful private corporation can always threaten a dissatisfied government with economic blackmail: "what are you going to do if we leave the country?", the multinational can say. "Where will you get your revenue and jobs from?".

This is what happens around the world, and has happened as recently as the financial crisis when then banks were asking for help from government. In the end, such as in The UK, there was always the threat to take their business elsewhere. After the financial sector had encouraged the political class to think that manufacturing and traditional industries were secondary compared to finance in the modern world, they made The UK government their "bitch": with the financial sector the main thing propping up The UK, there is little else left to keep the country running - it runs mainly on deluded self-confidence, and reliance on the wisdom (and mercy) of the financial oligarchy.

This is how the world works in the 21st century: governments worldwide effectively blackmailed by a group of differing cartels, whose only loyalty is to themselves and the increase in their share price.

"The Wisdom Of Psychopaths", and why psychopaths don't understand "love"

I wrote an article earlier on this year about the possible evolutionary aspects to psychopathy; the main point being that psychopathy may well have its roots in the hunter-gather instinct in humanity, and that, as a fractional percentile of the overall population, psychopaths, for all their flaws, serve an important function.

Psychopaths may be sexual predators and cynical manipulators, but the author of a recent book ("The Wisdom Of Psychopaths"), Kevin Dutton, makes some excellent points towards a more nuanced understanding of the "disorder".

Dutton's analysis of psychopathy comes from the angle that many of the attributes seen in psychopaths are actually positive for society overall: leadership skills, fearlessness, quick thinking, and heightened perception, for example.
These attributes in isolation allow "socially-adaptive psychopaths" to become the heroes of society: positions of authority and respect like soldiers, policemen, doctors, firemen, and so on. These are people who are drawn to danger like mosquitoes to a flame, and are able to thrive on it, whereas other people would be unable to function, paralysed by fear. They are naturally endowed with the kind of personality attributes that makes them uniquely suitable to roles that require a cool, hard-headed and fast response to a situation. These are the people who are able to make the tough calls necessary that can saves lives.

A "mixing deck" approach

The main thing to consider is that "psychopathy", as Dutton explains, can be seen as a "mixing deck" of a variety of personality attributes. Like when looking at the "Hare Psychopath Checklist", a psychopath doesn't need to have all the attributes fully to qualify; he simply needs to have some combination of these attributes. So a "socially-adaptive psychopath" has the fearlessness and leadership aspects of psychopathy, but not the more anti-social (and obviously destructive) aspects of the disorder. As Dutton points out, it is the more anti-social and less intelligent psychopaths that are the ones you find in prison. So psychopaths can be either heroes or villains (or both!).

And again, "psychopathy" is more a matter of degree. While Hare's psychopathy test says that 30 out of 40 on the list is the "magic number", but it's easier to see the whole thing as a sliding scale of degree. While the average person scores very low on the checklist, the higher up the score, the lower the percentile of the population. So there may still be, say, five or ten percent of the population that could be considered "semi-psychopaths", who might "achieve" a score of more than twenty. Not high enough to alarming, but still considerably higher that average and possibly indicative of anti-social (and criminal) behaviour.

The "love" of the predator

Gong back to the evolutionary explanation, psychopaths therefore have the attributes that make them ideal as hunters.

In many ways, their psychology is that of a hunter. As Dutton mentions, psychopaths have a heightened sense of perception (as successfully shown in psychological experiments). This allows them to spot weakness in "prey": if a person has a low self-esteem, or if a person feels nervous, psychopaths have a heightened perception for the visual signals (body language) that suggest this. A "socially-adapted" psychopath may find a use for this skill as a policeman to spot guilt in suspects, for example; an anti-social psychopath will use this skill to prey on and exploit the vulnerable in society as a con man, for example.

In the modern age, Capitalism has allowed psychopaths an ideal "playground" to flex their muscles and make use of their "skills". Modern globalisation has given psychopaths more freedom than ever before, with the added advantage that their psychology closely matches that of the "pure Capitalist". This explains why psychopaths are disproportionately represented in the board room, and why top companies see them more as an asset than a liability. In this way, modern-day Capitalism is simply an updated version of "the hunt".

The lack of emotions prevalent in psychopaths also brings me on to another aspect of evolution. If psychopaths are incapable of "love", why is "love" so important to humanity?
"Love" is generally equated with empathy and caring for others (which pure psychopaths are biologically incapable of feeling). From a biological point of view, personal relationships may also be nature's way of ensuring the continuation of the species.

"Love" is one thing that separates humans from animals. Animals have sex for procreation, but typically in animals, mothers force their offspring to fend for themselves after a short period. For animals, sex is a purely physical, impulsive act, resulting in short-term empathy between the male and female, and passed on to their offspring for a short time. This can be seen from watching any wildlife documentary about lions, for example.

Humans' brains are designed differently, and are more complex. Consequently, social relationships and sex is more nuanced. We've all experienced "infatuation", and this is generally a typical part of the relationship process. It has been said that emotional "love" fades away in a relationship over time, to be replaced by something more like overall empathy for the partner. There may also be an evolutionary explanation for this, too.

While psychopaths are society's hunters and predators, a more scientific explanation for "infatuation" is that the hormones released at this early stage of the relationship are designed to encourage sex (i.e. procreation). A more scientific use for this in nature is that it ensures that a child is born before emotional "love" (mutual infatuation) fades; the child then acts as a further emotional bond between partners when the partners' mutual infatuation is replaced by a more general respect and empathy for each other and their child (or children).
This also ensures that the child grows up in a healthy parental environment, which is necessary given the long period of human upbringing.

In this way, nature ensures that the species continues.

Psychopaths may also have a sexual role in nature (evolution), too, given that nature needs hunters, leaders, predators and survival skills.
Psychopaths are also nature's survivors, for all their flaws.

Is David Cameron a psychopath? No, just a product of the times.

An article by Andrew Rawnsley looks at David Cameron's well-established lack of political convictions, which mirrors some of the points I've mentioned in my earlier articles about Cameron's personality.

In some ways, Cameron's lack of serious conviction is typical of the "professional politician", and is nothing new, let alone limited to Cameron himself, or the Conservatives as a party. It is well-known that Cameron got his inspiration from Blair.

Looking further back, "one nation" Conservatives agreed with Labour on the "post-war consensus", most recently Edward Heath. It was Thatcher who brought her own sense of ideological revolution to break apart the unwritten "consensus" that had existed since the end of the Second World War. 

Across the pond, Richard Nixon best embodied the principle of ideological nihilism that can send a man into power, and kept him in re-elected power with an overwhelming majority. "Nixon" Republicanism was a product of Nixon's own personality: to do what was necessary (regardless of the law) to stay in power, and shamelessly steal ideas from across the political spectrum. In other words, he was a ruthless populist and Machiavellian schemer.

Cameron's was once asked why he wanted to be Prime Minister, and his telling reply was "because I think I'd be good at it". As Rawnsley points out in his article, Cameron has always wriggled out of defining "Cameronism"; because there is no such thing. The evidence suggests that all Cameron has a serious conviction about is his own self-confidence, and his own self-advancement.

Pimp my ride

The trip to Sri Lanka for the Commonwealth summit is typical of Cameron's often spontaneous judgments, deciding on actions impulsively or for superficial reasons. With his government's popularity flagging, and Milliband's personal ratings recently improving, it's entirely plausible that Cameron saw Sri Lanka and the plight of the Tamils as a useful distraction from political trouble at home. Foreign trips abroad therefore act as PR stunts for the former "PR man" PM; using the misfortune of some poor foreigners to create a foreign policy "stance" on some issue abroad. While Cameron is hardly the first statesman to do this, Cameron seems to take this tactic to new levels of regularity, hopping around the world like a headless chicken.

The loss of the vote on Syria was the nadir of Cameron's attempt at statesman-like politicking. In brief, his behaviour over that week of the vote brought out all his negatives: his cynical approach to politics, attempting to give the superficial look of "democracy"; his arrogance, in assuming that the vote was in the bag without bothering to do the legwork first; his reckless spontaneity, in promising Britain's support to Obama in advance of any consultation with parliament; and his generally appalling lack of judgement.

The same lack of judgement and recklessness was shown in his previous foray with Europe two years ago, where he earned short-term popular support at home, while wrecking Britain's standing and long-term future in the EU. Again, cynical politicking for cheap populism at home, recklessly putting the country's future in uncertainty. And his plan to "kill the Ukip fox" was so badly-judged, it only served to backfire spectacularly.

This pattern is repeated again and again at home. Cameron uses foreign PR stunts to give a crutch to his otherwise appalling track record as a national statesman.

Ironically, the only real foreign "success" he has had is in acting as a pimp to Britain's assets: offering foreign companies a free ride in Britain in energy markets at the expense of the taxpayer, and so on. The only ideas he has for Britain's role in the world is as a "whore" for everyone else. The only thing Cameron seems to think Britain's future can offer is its own indignity.

How not to run a government

Cameron's manner of running government is a further lesson in his many personality flaws. After failing to win a majority, his prompt decision to form a Coalition with the LibDems might have appeared like a master-stroke to some, but was more a product of his own opportunistic and cynical personality.
With Cameron clearly having no firm views (or real ideas) of his own, and more than any other recent British premier, pursuing the role simply for its own end, being master of a Coalition was the perfect solution. It meant he could stand between the more ideologically right-wing Tories and the more left-wing LibDems as a moderate, stately figurehead.

There are the continual allegations of Cameron's "lies" by those who feel betrayed by his broken promises. His government has presided over U-turn after U-turn, with some newspapers even keeping count. Cameron's position as the moderate leader of a coalition gives him the ready excuse for this, but the fact that his government have backtracked on an almost unprecedented number of policy commitments show less that Cameron is populist, but rather he doesn't take commitments seriously.
This is what has so angered those the the traditional right of the party, and accounts to an extent for the rise of UKIP: no-one believes he is a "true" Tory, and that even the talk of "austerity" (more on that later) can be thought of as simply one of convenience.

Austerity is a conveniently-substantial piece of right-wing Conservative policy (and ideology) that gives Cameron's government a purpose, and makes him look "conservative" to his own supporters.

It is plausible therefore that Cameron allows austerity to happen simply because it will put his name in the history books for changing the face of Britain: it doesn't matter what he's changed, only that he's changed something, and that his name will be forever attached to it. "Austerity" may well simply be Cameron's effort at achieving political immortality, and an utterly amoral act of narcissism.

In other words, Cameron the "hug a hoodie" moderate, who at one time promised to hold to Labour's spending plans and urged people to "Vote Blue, Go Green", by the summer of 2010 had become a right-wing ideological revolutionary. What had changed? In reality, the only thing had changed was that Cameron's superficial interest in social justice (or most of his ideas) had been revealed as nothing more than that - superficial. This is what happens when your leader is a former PR man.

In the end, though, this meant that as a Prime Minister, he presides rather than rules. This has had the contradictory effect of having government policies that, at times, appear logical absurdities.
While Cameron allows the LibDems the occasional symbolic announcement of government "policy", more commonly Cameron has allowed the more "revolutionary" Tory ministers in the Departments of Education, Health, and Social Policy, to use Britain as a virtual living laboratory for ideological experimentation.

Most recently, he declared that Britain should strive for "permanent austerity" - or, if you like "perma-sterity", another buzz-word that could catch on. Cameron's interest in "ideas" seems as superficial as everything else about him. He delegated running ministries to the ministers. Why? Either because he didn't care about what actually happened in them, or that he thought it would make him look "stand-offish" and not wanting to get in the way of the intricacies of government. But this is the crux: a Prime Minister has to know, and ultimately be responsible for, what goes on in his government. If he doesn't know, or doesn't care, then is abrogating his duties as the premier of the country. Either that, or he is allowing clearly incompetent people like Iain Duncan Smith to run essential parts of government policy simply as a distraction from his own failings as a leader.

If he truly cared about the appalling effects his government's social and economic policies are having on the British people, he would do something about it. But fundamentally he either lacks the intelligence, attention span or the empathy to truly understand the effect of his ministers' actions, coming up with mealy-mouthed soundbites to excuse for the social destruction of the lower two-thirds of society.
But this again fits in with Cameron's personality: he takes few things very seriously.

A gang of misfits

This includes such lapses in judgement as the longstanding connection Cameron had with Andy Coulson and Rebekah Brooks, possibly one of the most obviously (and casually) corrupt relationships seen in Downing Street for years. While Labour is also historically implicated in the imbroglio with the Murdoch Press, Cameron's relationship is even seedier and shows ever worse judgement.

His judgement also extends into rewarding loyalty at the expense of competence (or even intelligence), supporting a ministerial circle of flawed and dangerous personalities.
Jeremy Hunt, whose calamitous appearance at the Leveson Inquiry, focusing on his relations with Murdoch Press, led to a later promotion to Health Secretary. Nationally, doctors groaned at the appointment.
Iain Duncan Smith, widely considered to be lacking in competence and sufficient intelligence for the role, is tasked with completely reworking Social Policy, outsourcing to companies like Serco, and effectively destroying the humane fabric of the postwar "welfare state".
George Osborne, the Chancellor, is the most hated politician in the country, and few economists take his ideas seriously. An even more cynical political manipulator than Cameron, his newest idea "Help To Buy", is considered a ticking time-bomb of artificial credit that was created simply to give the superficial impression of wealth to gullible voters in time for the next election. After rubbishing Labour for creating one bust, Osborne is happy to create another one, during far worse economic times. Osborne's policies are designed to only improve the lot of London and the South-east of England, with the rest of the country becoming an economically-depressed "neo-colony".
Michael Gove, perhaps the most dangerous personality to have ever held sway in the Education Ministry, is intent on a reworking of how Education is ran in England (the other parts of the UK already having devolved power in this area); Gove's plan is almost Bolshevik in its ruthless application.
Chris Grayling and Theresa May, Justice Minister and Home Secretary respectively, are in the process of privatising large parts of the Justice System, to the benefit of the likes of Serco and others.

And when not taking things seriously, Cameron is, on the contrary, taking some things far too seriously: losing his temper in parliament in a manner unlike any PM in living memory (even Gordon Brown), impetuously making snide remarks to make cheap political points, demeaning the role of Prime Minister at the dispatch box in a way that compares very poorly to his apparent idol, Margaret Thatcher. His sudden flashes of emotion are symptomatic, like his other attributes, of a more worrying personality disorder, though not surprising in the selfish pursuit of power.

All in all, the "positives" to Cameron's personality are as superficial as everything else. Yes, he is charming, easy to get along with, and knows how to exude reassuring self-confidence and the appearance of competence. But this image is as much as facade as everything else.

Like Boris Johnson, another person in the Conservative Party who is of questionable empathy and depth, Cameron is the product of the social environment that made him. It is an elite that is incapable of understanding the majority of the population, and only try to relate to them when it is convenient to do so. Once every five years.

The rich are in a "class war" with the poor for the sake of "austerity". They declare that the state must be smaller. To the rich the "state" should be smaller because the rich don't need or use it. 
Only the poor do; and they don't matter.

Sexual psychopathy: "Don Jon", pornography and the death of "love"

An article about the new film, "Don Jon", looks at the effect that pornography can have on men's attitudes towards sex and women.

I've written before about the main attributes of psychopathy. It is also known as "sociopathy" (which is more commonly used when emphasizing environmental factors, whereas "psychopathy is more about biological factors). Lack of empathy, superficiality in relationships and sex, using their partner as a tool to sexually control, and a fascination with more perverted forms of pornography, are some of the main characteristics of the "sexual psychopath".

The "sexualisation" of modern culture has been written about time and time again, from the increasing sexually-graphic music videos (from Rihanna to Britney Spears) in the public domain, and the growth of the availability and increasing perversity of pornography over the last two decades (due to the internet) have been consistently held to blame.

As the article in "The Telegraph" points out, your brain reacts to stimuli, so over time, if your brain gets used to being stimulated by "extreme" stimuli, these "extremes" will become less stimulating, leaving the brain requiring greater "extremes" to reproduce the same effect. Men who look at porn too much to get their kicks, will therefore become inevitably in need of more bizarre and "extreme" forms of porn.

Sex as masturbation

Pornography also creates a "disconnect" between the ultra-stimulating "porn world" and the more "mundane" real world. Put into practice (and supported by anecdotal evidence), this means that men who watch excessive amounts of porn begin to have unrealistic ideas about what their future dates and partners should do in bed.
Looking at it from another perspective, it means that this type of men may also begin to look at potential partners as sex objects, treating real women in the same way as the women they see treated in porn flicks. As in one scene in "Don Jon", the protagonist makes his sex partner feels as though he was using her body to masturbate instead of his hand: this is the narcissistic psychopath's definition of "sex". It is typical with anyone who has had sex with a "sexual psychopath": it's less "making love", as the psychopath "jerking off into someone's body". The other person is made to feel like a tool to bring about the psychopath's enjoyment.

It goes without saying that a "sexual psychopath", lacking empathy, is therefore lacking in "love". They will say the words, but not understand the meaning. The "sexualisation" of modern life is also blamed indirectly for this, too. Because of the widespread availability of porn, and its easy accessibility to teenagers, it means that teenage boys also are influenced by this impersonal and superficial representation of sex at a formative age.
Apart from the usual hormones that rush around a teenagers body, "sexualisation" creates an environment cynical towards sex as something to be discovered through a longer-term relationship. It encourages teenage boys to make explicit and highly inappropriate comments to girls, which will only increase the cynicism on both sides. It helps to feed a vicious circle of misogyny on the male side, and a more virulent strain of feminism from the women.

This last point is instructive, as the same "vicious circle" of male misogyny and female ambivalence is evident in many conservative societies around the world. But how can strongly conservative and strongly permissive societies both have "problems" with pornography?

The answer may be that, from an environmental point of view, "sexual psychopathy" (or "sexual sociopathy"), is more prevalent in socially-extreme environments. The only difference is the cause: the effect is the same. Misogyny can been seen as a scourge in both the "godless" West as the "God-fearing" East.

In the West (e.g. The USA), sexual psychopathy manifests itself as guiltless promiscuity and the phenomenon of countless fatherless children, and is usually put down to an unstable childhood and a gradual emotional disconnect between the man and the woman.
In the East (e.g. Pakistan), sexual psychopathy manifests itself as rape and domestic violence within the home, and can be explained through a social environment where men and women are socially prohibited from normal sexual relations, and are compelled to marry someone they have no emotional connection with.

So far, no-one has come up with a solution to the problem.

You can read more about the relationship between psychopathy and human relationships here.

Trains to nuclear power: British privatisation, asset-stripping and selling the family silver

The plan to build a nuclear power station courtesy of EDF, and the selling-off of the Royal Mail, are the latest in a long line of steps to erode the sovereignty of Britain's national infrastructure and assets.

A recent article in The Guardian reminds us that the deal to build a new nuclear power station next to an existing one in Somerset is thanks mostly to money from Chinese state-owned companies going to EDF, a company mostly owned by the French state (the name is an acronym for "Electricite De France"). In other words, the British government is happy to have part of the nation's future nuclear energy effectively ran as a joint venture of the French and Chinese government. Not only that, but as part of the deal, the the British government has agreed in advance to a price that is many times higher than that at the moment.
Not only are they handing British energy to joint French-Chinese custodians, they are also kicking their own people in the teeth in the process.

This is nothing new the the UK. The "privatisation" of the energy industry simply created a cartel, or oligarchy, of private sector behemoths. Due to the massive barriers to entry, this makes it necessary that only huge corporations can apply to such tenders. Worse, the oligarchy created from this "privatisation" was guaranteed government subsidies coming from taxpayers' money, completely missing the point that these companies were supposed to be in a "free market", and free of government. Thus it is the worst of both worlds, as is often the case with UK "privatisation". This model bears many characteristics similar to the corrupt arrangements found in Fascist economics.
It gets worse. Apart from one of the so-called "Big Six" (energy cartel) being part-owned by the French state (EDF), there is also "E.ON", which is a Germany-based company, with interests also in Russia, Sweden and the USA. The sad reality of who owns the "Big Six" is explained here. Of the six, only two are actually British (even if they do include the majority of the market share). Apart from the two already mentioned, "npower" is technically British, but owned by German parent company, RWE. "Scottish power", is owned by its Spanish parent company, Iberdrola. Only "Centrica" and SSE ("Scottish and Southern Electric") are British companies in the full sense.
With the recent price rises, many times above inflation, the irony is that the government sees no reason to interfere in the blatant price-fixing of this energy cartel masquerading as a "free market", while taxpayers fork out for government subsidies to the selfsame "free market". This is pattern repeated time and time again in "privatisation".

There is also the example of water supply. Again, the logic of the private sector was applied to an industry where the state-ran regional authorities were transformed into private companies. The difference between the energy sector and the water industry is that, for obvious practical reasons, you cannot make water a free market good because a customer cannot "choose" which water supply to use. The same point is true of the rail network (see below), which is still ran by companies that have, for the most part, carved up the network into spheres of quasi-monopolistic control. In the case of water supply in the UK, it has been turned into a cash-cow for foreign investors, with the British customer being often treated little better than a serf.

Apart from the energy sector, there is the "privatised" rail network. This operates on much the same operating model as that of the energy sector. As with energy, the train operating companies also include "Arriva" (one of the biggest private transport companies in the UK), which is owned by "Deutsche Bahn", the German national rail carrier. Likewise, "Greater Anglia", that is the main train carrier in the East Of England region, is owned by "Abelio", the Dutch national rail carrier; they also have a joint stake in "Merseyrail" and "Northern Rail", with one of the biggest service-provider behemoths, Serco. In other words, part of Britain's rail stock is now effectively owned by the German and Dutch government.
"Privatisation" of the railways in the UK has therefore really meant selling-off part of the rail stock to foreign governments. The laughable irony here is that Britain's nationalised rail network was parceled up piece-by-piece, with parts of it going to foreign nationalised rail companies. You really couldn't make this up!

This is not "privatisation": it's called asset-stripping, or selling national assets to foreign countries. And again, the rail companies are free to charge whatever price increases they like, far above inflation (without government interference), while still receiving taxpayer-paid government subsidies as well. EDF has been offered the same deal for the new nuclear plant.
A great arrangement if you can get it!

No wonder the British government is trying to convince China and other countries to "invest" in the UK. The British government is often taking British taxpayers' money to give it foreign companies (or foreign government-owned companies) as "subsidies", while also allowing them to suck their British customers for as much as they can (because it's a "free market").

Whose interests do the British government work for? In the examples above, it certainly isn't in the British national interest, let alone the taxpayer.

Fool the British people once, shame on you! Fool them twice...well...

People get the government they deserve.

The US shutdown and default crisis: Why The Tea Party's tactics would make Ayn Rand turn in her grave

We've been here before. There's an now-annual sense of deja vu in Washington whenever a budget vote in Congress comes up. Taking advantage of the tripartite political system, The Tea Party's hold on the Republicans in Congress means that they threaten to hold the government finance "hostage" to their demands whenever they have the opportunity. Democracy has nothing to do with it: it's called extortion.

I wrote previously about The Tea Party last year, when they had the chance to use "guerrilla tactics" to make their point on a national stage.
Until now, threatening financial paralysis has generally been a successful strategy for them; on almost every opportunity, The Tea Party have been able to wrangle some kind of compromise out of Obama and the Democrats who control the Senate.

But this time was different. The Tea Party's demands were over the repeal of a piece of legislation close to Obama's heart - The Affordable Care Act - and Obama decided that enough was enough.
As the legislation had been already passed, was law, and the Republicans had lost the presidential election, Obama clearly thinks that right is on his side. Not only that, but the other reason that Obama has stuck to his guns and allowed The Tea Party to carry out their initial threat (to refuse to pass the annual budget at force a partial closure of government) was that it would set a dangerous precedent. it would mean that any faction that had effective control over one arm of the legislature could hold the rest of government hostage to their demands.
Obama may as well have said: "I don't negotiate with terrorists". Morally, this is how low The Tea Party has sunk.

The "hostage crisis" and the "nuclear option"

So Washington effectively has a "hostage crisis" on its hands - the government being "held hostage" by The Tea Party, a group of ideological extremists. The shutdown that afflicted President Clinton's government for three weeks in winter of '95-'96 was the last time this happened.
But this occasion is much more serious. For one, the Clinton shutdown happened through a fit of pique by Newt Gingrich, the Republican Speaker of the House. This time, the motivation is about the repeal of an existing piece of legislation. Worse, the "hostage crisis" is more immediately time-dependent. While holding government finances "hostage" is the first stage of the crisis (and can in theory go on indefinitely until one side caves in), the impending vote of extending the national debt is a matter of national and global urgency. The Tea Party refusing to pass this bill is the "nuclear option".

So now we're in a game of chicken, heading towards an unprecedented financial train-wreck.

In an odd way, this reminds me of the closest moment that the world came to a real nuclear apocalypse, during The Cuban Missile Crisis. The "Thirteen Days" of that crisis show a parallel with Nikita Khruschev's tactics of attempting a fait accompli on the USA by placing nuclear missiles in Cuba, forcing the USA to recognise Cuba's independence. This backfired, resulting in a stand-off of wills between the two premiers. However, both leaders were rational enough to never seriously consider the "nuclear option" for real. Khruschev backed off and was satisfied with concessions from Kennedy that left Cuba's status protected by the Soviet Union.
The US fiscal crisis of 2013 seems fronted by two sides intent on testing each other's will, to the brink, and even beyond it. In other words, while the two belligerents in The Cuban Missile Crisis were still fundamentally rational (though the USA was paranoid, and the Soviet premier's tactics erratic), in this US fiscal crisis the two belligerents seem conversely deluded and/or irrational.

An accidental apocalypse?

A piece by The New York Times explains how a default may well happen almost by accident, in much the same way how the leaders involved in The Cuban Missile Crisis feared nuclear war could be provoked in spite of their intentions. As the article explains:

  "The more Wall Street is convinced that Washington will act rationally and raise the debt ceiling, most likely at the 11th hour, the less pressure there will be on lawmakers to reach an agreement. That will make it more likely a deal isn’t reached"

While the rhetoric from the Speaker of the House, John Boehner, seemed to soften before the weekend, it had done an about-turn by Sunday. Now firmly in the clutches of The Tea Party, Boehner has switched the blame back on Obama's unwillingness to compromise (i.e. cave in) over The Tea Party demands. 

In the crisis over the impending default, it appears that both sides are hardening their stances as they get closer to the deadline, rather than the reverse. Obama refuses to budge because he believes has conceded enough to The Tea Party in previous stand-offs; while the The Tea Party refuse to budge because they think that Obama will concede, because he has done before.

Apart from the game of chicken going on, The Tea Party have three main motivations for their refusal to budge:
1) the lack of panic seen on the financial markets (as also mentioned in The New York Times article), which they see as a sign that...
2) they think the US government is bluffing, as it has other options that could delay the default, and in any case...
3) they think that nothing major will happen even if the US did default on its financial obligations.

The hardening of Boehner and The Republicans' stance seems to be now based mainly on point number three: they believe that nothing major will happen if the US defaults on it's financial obligations. 
This looks like an odd turn of strategy. Now their approach appears based on dismissing the "crisis" (that they started) on the other side's scaremongering. In other words, they have created a crisis situation, then just as suddenly declare that there is no crisis; the "crisis" in all in the heads of the Democrats. 
Trying to get your head around the irrationality of the strategies going on is enough to make your head spin. After Boehner declared before the weekend that he wouldn't let a default happen because the consequences would be too terrible to contemplate, his side now seem to have convinced him that nothing will happen if the default deadline is passed. 
This tells you how completely irrational The Tea Party are. Their rationale makes no sense at all.

The financial stability in the markets can't last forever if nothing changes; panic is likely to hit the markets by the end of Friday if (as expected) no-one budges. This may then make one side think twice; but just as likely, it may not. The Republicans have three reasons for not changing their mind, as I mentioned.
While, theoretically, the White House may have options it could use if the US defaults, it is adamant that it is Congress' responsibility to deal with the debt obligations, not the White House's. 

The US defaulting on paying off existing financial obligations (debts) is unprecedented, and for this reason no-one is sure what would happen. And this uncertainty is what is fueling The Tea Party's ambivalence. The appalling irresponsibility of this behaviour barely needs mentioning: like pressing the "nuclear button" just to see if the missiles really would reach their targets. 
This is the behaviour of psychopaths. The President is staring into the face of a group of people who are devoid of fear of the consequences, and lack empathy towards the wider effect of their actions on their own people.

It is for this reason that a default looks more likely now than it did several days ago.

Ayn Rand's disciples following "Atlas Shrugged" too closely

This reminds me of the plot of "Atlas Shrugged", albeit with a hideous twist of fate. In Rand's seminal novel, it was the unions that brought the country to a standstill, encouraging enterprising captains of industry to detach themselves from the economic dysfunction and strike up a new "capitalist utopia", free of interference.
In 2013, The Tea Party seem close to emulating what the unions did in Rand's novel; paralysing government and holding the entire country to hostage.
It seems The Tea Party want to make government as dysfunctional as possible in order to bring about the collapse of government; to make their distrust in government a self-fulfilling prophecy. They are the "Trojan Horses" of the democratic system they claim to hold dear. Fascists in the inter-war period did much the same thing.

Rand may not have been a huge fan of "democracy" as such: she saw it as the tyranny of the majority. But Rand herself would surely never have condoned the tactics that one extremist faction, The Tea Party, seem intent on carrying out till the bitter end.

No wonder some moderate Republicans also call The Tea Party "The Taliban"; they neither care about their own fate or that of the countrymen they claim to love. 

Five years on from the horrible autumn of 2008 that brought about the first financial crisis, some members of The Tea Party seem keen to finish the job.

Islamofascism and terrorism: Islamic Extremism, Al-Qaeda and the meaning of power

The recent article in The Economist about the spread of Al-Qaeda explains clearly how this terrorist organisation has moved from a marginal irritant on the West at the end of the 20th century, to the West's most psychologically-potent enemy in the early 21st century.
Reading this also reminded me of Christopher Hitchens' analysis of Islamofascism; points which mirror some of my own thoughts on the psychological and ideological links between radical "political" Islam, and the Fascism that plagued Europe up to the Second World War.

Put into perspective, the threat of Islamic terrorism that inspired the (ongoing) "War On Terror" is not an existential one on the West. The biggest existential threat to the world is climate change; after that, the largest geo-political changes (threats) the West has to learn to adapt to are the rise of China (and the East in general), the relative decline of Western powers to the aforementioned rising powers, and the jostling for position over resources across spheres of influence (such as Africa) and zones of contention (such as Central Asia). I've mentioned why "The East" already has some advantages in the jostling for power over "The West" before.
Add into that the fact that, due to Globalisation, multinational companies have as much influence on geo-politics as many countries, and you have a world that more closely represents the "Risk" board game's playing surface, albeit fought mostly with economic weapons rather than real ones. It also sounds a bit like the world divided like the global power system described in Orwell's "Nineteen Eighty-four".

No, Islamofascism, and the terror threat of the Al-Qaeda "franchise" does not represent an existential threat to the West.
That being said, Islamofascism does represent a different, more subtle, longer-term threat to the West. And in some ways, Islamofascism has already encroached into many aspects of Western society almost unnoticed, in much the same way that earlier Fascism used its enemy's own system (liberal democracy) against itself and for Fascism's own advantage.

The meaning of power

Islam, directly translated, means "submission" (as far as I am aware). Fascism as an ideology was about the submission of the collective will to the political centre; this brings to mind the famous Nazi propaganda movie "The Triumph Of The Will".
Islam may therefore be seen as the submission of the collective will to the religious centre - "Allah", whose "will" is interpreted through mullahs and through the writings of the Prophet and other adherents. Of course, all religions base their ideas on surrendering individual will to a religious idea (this is the definition of "faith"). What marks Islamofascism as unique in the modern, globalised world, is its absolute application of power and will over a rational, pluralistic West, and the ease that it is able to infiltrate into Western society, as well as ideologically defeat more moderates followers of its faith.

I talked about earlier Fascism, implying that it almost seemed to serve as a template for today's Islamofascists to infiltrate Western society and bring down the system from within. While the latter point seems far-fetched, the basic premise (that Islamofascism has infiltrated Western society) stands true; and there has been plenty of evidence to support it.

One of the best examples of this is in British society.
Britain's position as a bastion of liberal democracy and cultural pluralism is one thing that makes it an exemplar to many would-be free, modern societies elsewhere. It is precisely in such a society that Islamofascists have been able to preach their violent, undemocratic and pernicious ideas under the protection of "free speech"; at the same time, they have also been allowed to conduct behaviour that could land any British non-Muslim in prison, while claim the right to religious expression; and most subversive of all, have denounced and threatened anyone who criticises their faith, ideas or behaviour with violence.
In other words, Islamofascism has reached a position of becoming almost a state within a state in the UK, having their own self-contained communities, schools, businesses and so on; more than that, the state has effectively surrendered moral and legal authority to such Islamofascists.

This is what is meant by power. When a section of society has reached a position of becoming legally untouchable due to the weakness of the state in applying its own laws, it is a demonstration of power by that section of society over the state power.

Putting the fear of God into people

Because of this, other sections of society begin to practise "self-censorship" when in public, such as being careful not to carry out behaviour that may earn the wrath of Islamofascists. This is another example of the application of psychological power. In other words, putting almost the literal fear of God into non-believers.
Using this method, over a long-enough time scale, the Islamofascists can win by default; terrifying non-believers into behaving how they want, while using the state's lack of will and appeasement to create a de facto Islamic State within the UK. This method can then be applied across the West, as long as "liberal democracy" is used, like the Fascists before, as a vehicle to destroy liberal democracy.

Terrorist groups like Al-Qaeda and its affiliates are simply the sharp end of the scale, using actual terror tactics (the random killing of whoever they feel is worthy of death). Terrorism is a well-practised method of creating fear. For Al-Qaeda, it is a simple application of will; a statement of intent and a challenge to the West. These people do not fear death; Islamofascists, like earlier Fascists, embrace it in all its glory.

And this is the other psychological weapon they have over liberal democracies. The West may have large armies, but they lack the moral will to use and lose them. Al-Qaeda's numbers may be small, but their will is strong.

Lastly, these extremists have shown that as they can put the fear of God into non-believers, they can even more easily silence any protests from more moderate Muslims as well. For the extremists, anyone who is not a "real" Muslim, is no better than the infidels. Against this moral certainty, moderates quickly lose the conviction of their beliefs. Indeed, like a "liberal", a "moderate" by definition would struggle to match the conviction of their beliefs with that of an extremist ideologue.

This explains why extremists are gaining ground in places like Pakistan, and are able to take advantage of the instability caused from the Arab Spring. As "The Economist" article shows, Islamic extremists are benefitting from the Middle East and North Africa being led by a clutch of weak governments, mirroring (in a different form) the situation in many of the "liberal democracies" in the West.

Creating Islamic states by default

While the likes of Al-Qaeda state their eventual aim is the establishment of a "caliphate" that spans the Middle East, in practical terms the erosion of central state power in governments across the Islamic world (from Pakistan in the East, to Libya in the West) almost as easily fulfills that same aim. Entire sections of some Middle Eastern countries are effectively in the hands of Al-Qaeda and its affiliates; with state security so weak in places like Pakistan, Iraq ,Libya, Somalia, and Yemen (and non-existent in northern and eastern Syria).
Syria provides the clearest example of what happens when central government disappears, and the vacuum is filled with Islamic extremists: arbitrary justice, be-headings and so on.

Some parts of towns and cities in Britain more closely resemble Peshawar than Pontefract. While multiculturalism is to be applauded, this is not what exists in many parts of Britain. Instead, we have created pockets of monoculturalism - in others words, self-enclosed ghettos where the values (and even law) of Britain do not fully apply. It is this type of exclusive social environment that breeds extremism.

Moderate Muslims must be brave in facing down the extremists; and Western governments must be firm and consistent in the application of their laws and values.

If the West is to preserve its laws and its values, it needs to defend them at home to begin with.