Double Dip Recession

[Voidka]

So if the Tories dont have a Plan B, what are they going to do now? (Not including blaming the last government even though they have been in power themselves for 2 years!)

I don't think Philip Green is squeezing the bourgeois. As far as I know he offers employment and good value products to people.

I think nowadays there is far more opportunity for people to be successful than in Cromwell's day. In fact in his day, I don't think you could be an MP unless you were a landowner, and the same if you wanted to be a voter. So, I presume that Cromwell must have been wealthy.

But there is nothing wrong with people making it rich from a humble background. That is social mobility, which I am in favour of and which the communist and the aristocrat often wish to prevent through their hostility to the bourgeoius. It is they who kick the ladder from under the feet of the bourgeois and call him a 'barrow boy' made good, for daring to look towards the stars.

" As far as I know he offers employment and good value products to people" he offer shit cheap products made off the back off cheap labour.

Honestly how many pillows does the average housewife need to keep plumping, how many cheap duvet sets do you need? is it desirable to keep spending money that is hard earned and fought for on the frivilous crap this man sells. As for top shop, it's poorly made rubbish made by impoverished workers who can't afford shoes for their own children. The man is a leach, a parasite like so many of his class.

'is it desirable to keep spending money that is hard earned and fought for on the frivilous crap this man sells'

But no one forces anyone to buy from his shops. They could just as well buy from a Sociailst Worker's enterprise if the Socialist Worker risked money to set up such a business. If people don't buy from one company and choose products from another, then the shares in the first company will decline. There is no such thing as guaranteed success for the capitalist.

It's a choice and most businesses fail and most people are pretty useless at building them up. I don't buy those products but it's a free world. People can buy them if they like (and do not forget his wife is the one who owns 99.9% of the businesss which is rather good as we want many more women billionaires. I think she is the 4th richest woman on the planet according to the interview with her in yesterday's papers)

Philip Green rips off every taxpayer in the country by making sure profits from his company go to his wife in Monaco. The rest of us have to make up the shortfall. I don't care how good or bad the products he sells are, I do care that all of us are paying for his lifestyle.

There are always less wages than capital in circulation precisely because the surplus must be made. We are now a consumer economy because capitalism moves the problem around. That is why areas such as south east Asia are booming in manufacturing. There is a growing band of co-operatives springing up in the states, they are in direct competition and there is every reason to believe that this will spread and a canny person would choose to do business with them. In doing so we start to undermine the capitalists mode of enriching himself at the expense of his workers.

We are obviously on different sides of a political divide here.
Most tax is morally theft. Governments spend money very badly so the more tax payers can ensure lawfully the less tax they pay the better morally they are. Why do you all think the state is so great at spending our money?
Also he generates huge amounts of VAT. He pays employer NI on all those wages. Thinks of all the businesses which supply to his too and what they generate.

He is a hero and his wife. You should all be kissing their feet.

'He is a hero and his wife. You should all be kissing their feet.'

I wouldn't go quite that far. But I get your point.

"we want many more women billionaires." is that to sit alongside the many billion cheap female wage slaves that create her wealth.

In any system, there have to be checks and balances and transparency and regulation. It is up to the government to make the rules and ensure that they are respected. There will always be business people who want cheaper labour etc., but it is the government's duty to ensure that there are no excesses and to look after the interests of the population.

Of course, in the real world, the powerful lobbies may be influencing the government. But that is why we need full transparency and a free press which looks into what is going on.

'the many billion cheap female wage slaves that create her wealth'

But without enterprise and factories and jobs in poor countries, how will people earn enough to feed themselves. Just as we want investment, so do other countries, and I imagine that the wages paid are higher than the workers could earn elsewhere, otherwise they wouldn't work there.

Some women are pretty useless and only fit to serve in a shop. Some do very well. I would hate to live in a socialist republic where we all earned the same whatever out talents and abilities and work ethic. Thankfully we do not and no country has ever managed it and never will. If the poor are fed they should not be jealous of the rich - instead they should think if she has that so can I. Mind you I am not sure I would want wealth built up by my husband rather than by myself as that's offensive to feminist principles - give sex and get paid which is why Ms Green gave her first interview for years this weekend as she has some range of stuff she is selling herself in London.

"he generates huge amounts of VAT. He pays employer NI on all those wages"

He does it, you think? Not the business, the workers, the customers, the shareholders, the national infrastructure which enables goods to be delivered on the roads paid for by the taxpayer, the UK economy which is sufficiently active for people to be able to run successful businesses?

You'd be fucked if there was no-one prepared to work as a shop assistant, Xenia. Unless you think you'd do well out of a system of barter.

Bollocks to being grateful to Green for paying tax on his workers' wages - that's just his legal duty. So does every other employer. Doesn't make him a hero. He avoids billions of pounds worth of taxes every year, dumping the cost on every other person in this country. Man's a shyster.

600 years of capitalist mode of production and still the peasantry flock from the villages to take up their place chained to the money man's machine, all the time Governments must grow proportionately to meet unmet social need and regulate, that's why we have all manner of trade agreements, central banks, the EU, the IMF, the Fed, etc,,,,,, a huge gravy train in regulation and red tape. IT keeps those unelected stooges at Brussels in champers and it allows these elites that you speak of to keep bailing out government at a huge financial cost to its tax paying citizens. But ho hum, some people got rich.

"Some women are pretty useless and only fit to serve in a shop" repugnant.

There will always be people prepared to be shop assistants and I hope everyone who works for us all is respected. However they cannot all set up a big group which does well and the difference in rewards is reflected in what they are paid.

Yes, some people got rich.It's how we are made. It's why we are here not the Neandtherland. It's why our weaker ancestors were slayed and those of us who are strong and clever and attractive prevail even today. Welcome to the human race. It's huge fun.

"myself as that's offensive to feminist principles" no your not a feminist luv, you discriminate on the grounds of class and you describe some women as being below you.

Gee, not only are you discriminating on class and gender you then let the cat out and we can all glimpse that you are no better than a Darwinian, a Nazi.

Not quite following most of that. I would want Ms Green to build up her own fortune, not acquire it from a husband. That is the feminist point. Secondly I would want more women on the board and setting up companies, not working at th tills. However I accept plenty of women and men do not have the IQ or skills to get to those positions of power.

I think very few people could suggest that the human race did not develop through survival of the fittest unless you are a fundamentality Christian who thinks the world was created 600 years ago. I suspect it is a bit unfair to suggest I might have Nazi sympathies simply because I am not a socialist and believe people believe it or not are different and nor are they born a clean slate - some are born lazy, some ugly, some usless, some with a low IQ etc etc.

And your IQ is presumably as high as you EQ?

nor are they born a clean slate - some are born lazy, some ugly, some usless, some with a low IQ etc no people are not born a clean slate, they can not be disentangled from their ancestors wealth and privilege or lack of. Characteristics such as laziness are not inherited neither is ignorance, it's learnt and it's not a finite unchanging condition.

I agree to an extent. I think we are 50% our genes and about 50% our upbringing. No amount of money will give the Greens class as the English know it.

I do believe that there is nothing wrong with a free market and that some of us male or female might well do well financially (not that that makes you happy or not which is why I have never really understand the poor being jealous of the rich - cash doesn't make you happy at all so why be jealous of the wealth of others?). Does it matter if one person as a billion if others have enough to eat? I just don't see those discrepancies as a problem. I think - wow well done you. Pat on the back. Not Green god of jealousy coming out. Envy is or was a sin.

I think well done you if someone can be successful without having to avoid tax by having their wife leave the country and put all your money in her name. It is not jealousy to find that way of ensuring your wealth to be going beyond canny and veering towards disgustingly greedy and self-centred. I don't think the money Philip Green saves by avoiding tax aggressively is all more wisely spent than it would have been had he actually paid a bit more tax in this country, or had he spent more time considering who is genuinely benefitting from his personal method of wealth accumulation and who is being harmed by it.

"I just don't see those discrepancies as a problem. I think - wow well done you. Pat on the back" it is those pats on the back, those big thank you gestures and money bribes that have caused the problem with democracy itself. It isn't envy to ask why the tax avoiding billionaire owner of a huge corporation should be allowed to help write the austerity plan, whilst he and his class refuse to invest in real jobs and growth. The cause of the problem is now seen as the answer.