State License to Rob the Public

[BobG]

I wonder if Mick would care to enlighten us about the rationale that underpins the facts and the situation illustrated in the article I've taken the liberty of pasting below? It's a tad long - but a chap of your genius Mick should be able to digest it in under 10 minutes. I've made it easy. Rather than attach a link, which would mean having to actually click to do a spot of 'research', I've put it all here for you. The future of the world is at stake Mick. I'm sure you can spare us all 10 minutes.

Me? I think the deceit, the sleight of hand and the downright corruption that this article demonstrates should see the perpetrators banged up, somewhere incredibly nasty, for the next 5,000 years. I'd break their legs too.


A State Licence to Rob the Public

Posted: 23 Jan 2015 05:16 AM PST

The government has torpedoed its promised community energy revolution to the benefit of big business.

By George Monbiot, published on the Guardian's website, 23rd January 2015

 
You would think the government had invented community. When David Cameron became Prime Minister, he announced that “my great passion is building the Big Society … We need to create communities with oomph – neighbourhoods who are in charge of their own destiny, who feel if they club together and get involved they can shape the world around them.”

Since then, ministers have scarcely been able to finish a sentence without using the word community. But their commitment turns out to be as hollow as the other famous claim Cameron made in his Big Society speech: “we're all in this together.”

There are, it seems, just two levels of organisation that the government regards as valid: individual households and big corporations. Anything in between is either a threat or an irrelevance. For all the grand announcements about community rights and community action, there is still no such thing as society. Let me show you what I mean.

In 2013, the secretary of state for energy and climate change, Ed Davey, announced what he called “a community energy revolution“. Under the unlikely slogan 'ower to the People', last year the government explained what this meant:

“Local communities will be able to take control of their energy bills and help transform the energy system … In the future, the generation of electricity by communities themselves could put pressure on energy suppliers to drive down prices, creating warmer homes, cutting carbon emissions and diversifying the UK's energy mix.”

The Big Six companies who currently dominate the supply of energy in this country, ripping off their customers while ensuring that we remain locked into the fossil fuel economy, would, the government promised, be replaced with “the Big Sixty Thousand”.

An example of how this could work is the installation of a community energy supply in Balcombe in Sussex, the site of some of Britain’s most determined anti-fracking protests. The co-operative that local people have formed there as an alternative to the smash-and-grab fossil fuel extraction pursued by the drilling companies has attached £30,000 of solar panels to the roof of a cowshed. They will switch on the array within the next few days. The co-op, REPOWERBalcombe, hopes eventually to produce as much energy as the village uses, and to invest some of the profits in local energy efficiency and the alleviation of fuel poverty.

I have reservations about the efficacy of solar power at these latitudes, but if it’s going to be done, it is far better done by communities, at scale, with widely-distributed benefits, rather than just by individual householders, which means extra costs and resources per unit, and financial benefits flowing only to people rich enough to carry the costs of installation.

There is a real possibility, as Ed Davey's department suggested, that community energy of all kinds (not just solar) could present a serious threat to the existing system: the stitch-up that followed privatisation, which allows six companies to milk us under a dispensation no fairer than the granting of royal monopolies in the 17th century.

This is more or less what has happened in Germany, whose Big Four are now in serious trouble as a result of the government’s encouragement of community schemes. I believe that Germany’s priorities are wrong: that getting rid of fossil fuels is a much more into important task than getting rid of nuclear power, which is orders of magnitude less dangerous. But despite proceeding with a ball and chain around its leg (the irrational pledge to abolish the nations' primary source of low carbon energy, which impedes the transition away from oil, gas and coal) the government there has at least succeeded in challenging the big energy companies' licence to print money.

One result is that at the end of November the German company E.ON (which is also one of our Big Six), whose prior commitment to cooking the planet prompted protesters to devise the immortal slogan 'E.ON: F.OFF', announced that it would spin off its fossil fuel business and “focus on renewables, distribution networks, and customer solutions”. There are, however, grounds for suspicion about the motivation of such companies.

This was the future promised to the United Kingdom by Ed Davey's department. In this oligarchs’ island paradise, whose government often seems to be little more than a channel for corporate power, it sounded too good to be true. And it was. His coalition partners have now sabotaged Davey's community energy revolution. The Big Six can relax: their inordinate profits remain safe on these shores.

First, the Financial Conduct Authority changed the rules under which energy co-operatives could be established. As a result of the Co-operative and Community Benefit Societies Act passed into law last year, the model that has proved so successful in Germany has been deemed ineligible here. The FCA has been rejecting attempts to establish new energy co-ops on the grounds that they sell the electricity they produce onto the grid, rather than to their members.

Then the Treasurer, George Osborne, quietly slipped a change to the tax rules into last year's autumn statement. Uniquely among small new businesses, community energy schemes will, from April, no longer be eligible for two major incentives to investors: Enterprise Investment Scheme and Seed Enterprise Investment Scheme tax relief.

A different relief scheme will be available to community groups, but only if they are set up as “community benefit societies”, which are “charitable or philanthropic in character”. The profits of these societies cannot be distributed to their members or shareholders. In other words there's a tax incentive to invest in a business that cannot make you any money, but no incentive to invest in a business that can turn a profit. A perfect formula for ensuring that nothing changes.

As almost all energy co-ops rely on the usual business model people invest and expect a return on their money and as margins are fairly tight, this means, in effect, the death of community energy in Britain. In all other circumstances the government celebrates the profit motive as being the primary, or even the sole, means by which social benefits are delivered. But when the profit motive threatens the position of the Big Six, the high priests of Mammon suddenly become an order of Franciscan monks.

This is not the government of enterprise; it is the government of monopolies. Its mission is to protect its major donors and lobbyists against effective competition. Through privatisation, successive governments in the United Kingdom have created a tollbooth economy, whose gatekeepers enrich themselves at public expense. The profits of the Big Six (and utility companies operating in other sectors) arise from the same treasure house as the wealth of the Russian and Mexican oligarchs: a state licence to rob the public.

I mentioned that there are two units of organisation regarded as valid by this government: corporations and households. While community energy has been torpedoed, the absurd incentives for rich families remain protected.

As the Guardian revealed earlier this month, the Renewable Heat Incentive was rolled out by the government without any basic tests, safeguards or quality standards. The rich have been encouraged through amazingly generous incentives to install biomass boilers so inefficient that they don't meet the official definition of renewable energy, under a scheme which encourages as much waste as possible. The bigger the boiler and the more fuel you burn, the more money you are given. So rich people now run their oversized boilers at full steam, and leave the windows open to cool the house. The returns are astonishing: 20, 30, sometimes 40%.

I'm told that there are farmers who have used this incentive to install biomass-fired grain dryers, which would normally operate for just a few weeks a year. But because the scheme pays them to burn wood pellets, they keep the empty dryers running year-round.

This scheme is expected to cost us around £10 billion, while doing little to reduce our greenhouse gas emissions. As hundreds of thousands languish in fuel poverty, forests are being felled so that rich people can burn wood with the windows open to profit from a government-approved scam. Does that sound like good policy to you?

All this has the incidental effect of ensuring that there is no serious threat to fossil fuel production and consumption: in other words no threat to the interests of the corporations with which the Conservative party has a symbiotic relationship. You can see the effects of this relationship in the Infrastructure Bill now passing through Parliament, which, outrageously, places a legal duty on future governments to maximise the economic production of oil in the UK, and in the government's refusal of planning permission for most wind farms. Never mind the living world; never mind the future of humanity. What counts is the financial interests of the fossil fuel producers.

I asked the Financial Conduct Authority why the rules have been changed. It told me it has to work within the new act. It repeatedly stressed that energy co-operatives could set themselves up as community benefit societies if they choose, apparently unaware that this would destroy the incentive under which around 90% of them have formed, and which has propelled the transformation of the German energy market. “There is no need for community energy projects to be constrained or undermined” by this model, it told me, which suggests that it has no knowledge of the impact of its policy.

I asked the Treasury whether it has conducted an impact analysis of how its changes to the tax rules will affect energy cooperatives, and whether its ministers or officials have been lobbied by existing energy companies, urging them to introduce this change to the rules. I will update this article if it answers my questions.

I bet Ed Davey is fulminating. I think he was sincere in seeking a community energy revolution, but the Treasury and other departments have made this impossible. It’s a classic example of the triumph of what Thomas Piketty calls patrimonial capital: a rentier economy of robber barons crushing the breath out of new entrants and alternative models. Overseen, of course, by a government that claims to be the champion of free enterprise.

[BillyStubbsTears]

Bob
Very interesting read.

The final paragraph hits the nail on the head. Our economic system has, through design or benign neglect, become warped over the past generation and a half into this obscene patrimonial capitalism. Wealth and power have become consolidated and solidified to levels not seen since the 1920s.

I'm a big believer in the power of the capitalist model in principle to offer, through the profit motive, technological change to answer societal problems.

But that's the problem. It only works in principle. In practice, left unrestricted and unregulated, power and wealth agglomerate into fewer and fewer hands, and these hands make damn sure that challengers are killed off at birth.

By far the most stable era of growth in the Western world was the 35 years after WWII. In that time, capitalism was tightly regulated, taxes were high, wealth was re-distributed. And economies exploded with growth and innovation.

The ideological Right hated this. Their world view is that Govt should keep out and let the market decide. We've moved far towards their preferred model over the past 35 years. And the results have been horrific. Wild booms and busts in the global economy. Obscene disparities of wealth and power. And, finally, what looks like an endgame of long-term depressed growth, with the very poorest being held up to blame and being hammered the hardest.

It'll change. Eventually. Whether it changes in a peaceful way is another question altogether.

[BobG]

I live in hope, Billy, that my lad is young enough for the pendulum to swing, peacefully, to something a bit less xenophobic, a bit less ideological and a bit more humane before he permanently enters the job market. I'm not holding my breath though. We already have an institutionalised underclass so I'm also wondering when the state issued semuta (or green!) is going to arrive.

I am staggered, regularly, how people can be so ideologically motivated that they cannot see, never mind accept, the simplest of facts. As an old mate tells me, if something isn't working, doing more of the same won't fix the problem. Well, you've highlighted that very nicely. Capitalism worked, beautifully, in the west for 35 years. And since the 1980's it's been a disaster - for the whole of humanity. How can any bugger say what we have today is 'success'? I shudder to think what their definition of failure must be.

BobG

[IC1967]

I started reading it but as soon as I realised it was an article by George Monbiot I stopped. The bloke is a total crank. As I scrolled to the bottom, I noticed the name of another totally discredited crank Thomas Piketty.

How anyone can take these 2 idiots seriously is beyond me.


IC1967

[BillyStubbsTears]

In Piketty's case, he has earned the right to be taken seriously by carefully an assiduously collecting detailed data and using this to develop thorough and robust conclusions.

Unfortunately, none of those concepts exist in the Mickipedia, where debating comprises the art of a)making your mind up, b) scouring Google to find anything that remotely supports your conclusion, c) ignoring anything to the contrary and d) claiming absolute victory. So our resident cretin will not understand any of what I've just written.

[IC1967]

If you want an excellent example of state licence to rob the public may I refer you to the solar panels scheme introduced by red Ed. I bought mine for £13,000 and will receive an income of £1680 per annum which is indexed linked to RPI for 25 years. I will have recovered my investment in 6 years. I will then get in real terms £32,500 profit. All this profit will come from ordinary users of electricity through a green tariff on their electricity bills.

You lefties need to look closer to home before you start slagging off the Tories.

[IC1967]

In Piketty's case, he has earned the right to be taken seriously by carefully an assiduously collecting detailed data and using this to develop thorough and robust conclusions.

Unfortunately, none of those concepts exist in the Mickipedia, where debating comprises the art of a)making your mind up, b) scouring Google to find anything that remotely supports your conclusion, c) ignoring anything to the contrary and d) claiming absolute victory. So our resident cretin will not understand any of what I've just written.

Hahaha! The bloke is a complete joke. I think he also likes to beat his wife.

[IC1967]

I live in hope, Billy, that my lad is young enough for the pendulum to swing, peacefully, to something a bit less xenophobic, a bit less ideological and a bit more humane before he permanently enters the job market. I'm not holding my breath though. We already have an institutionalised underclass so I'm also wondering when the state issued semuta (or green!) is going to arrive.

I am staggered, regularly, how people can be so ideologically motivated that they cannot see, never mind accept, the simplest of facts. As an old mate tells me, if something isn't working, doing more of the same won't fix the problem. Well, you've highlighted that very nicely. Capitalism worked, beautifully, in the west for 35 years. And since the 1980's it's been a disaster - for the whole of humanity. How can any bugger say what we have today is 'success'? I shudder to think what their definition of failure must be.

BobG

That statement is so far off the mark it beggars belief (the bit highlighted in bold). When I've got a bit more time I'll prove just how ludicrous it is.

IC1967

[BillyStubbsTears]

Mick

Of all the many, many things that I utterly despise about you, by far the most depressing one is this style you have of simply dismissing someone who reaches conclusions that are different from yours.

I appreciate that it is uncomfortable when someone deeply intelligent reaches a conclusion that questions your world view, but the way to address that is to carefully look at what they say, look into their methodology, look into their track record. And if you can find no significant flaws there, you should then turn your view back on yourself and ask yourself whether your beliefs are justifiable.

It's that approach that underpins civilisation. When we allow idiots to dismiss evidence and diligent analysis because they don't like it, we undermine the basis of civilisation.

There's a lot of that sort of thinking about these days, from creationism, to climate change, to economics to politics. It genuinely worries me that so many people refuse to look at carefully marshalled arguments because they don't like the conclusions.

There are load of other reasons why I think you are a contemptible, odious cretin, but that's the biggest one.

[IC1967]

Mick

Of all the many, many things that I utterly despise about you, by far the most depressing one is this style you have of simply dismissing someone who reaches conclusions that are different from yours.

I appreciate that it is uncomfortable when someone deeply intelligent reaches a conclusion that questions your world view, but the way to address that is to carefully look at what they say, look into their methodology, look into their track record. And if you can find no significant flaws there, you should then turn your view back on yourself and ask yourself whether your beliefs are justifiable.

It's that approach that underpins civilisation. When we allow idiots to dismiss evidence and diligent analysis because they don't like it, we undermine the basis of civilisation.

There's a lot of that sort of thinking about these days, from creationism, to climate change, to economics to politics. It genuinely worries me that so many people refuse to look at carefully marshalled arguments because they don't like the conclusions.

There are load of other reasons why I think you are a contemptible, odious cretin, but that's the biggest one.

Hahahah! You do make me laugh. What a load of cobblers. The description of me is way off the mark. However if you stopped for a second to think, you would find that you have actually accurately described yourself!

You're the one that doesn't give anything right wing a seconds thought! I on the other hand always seriously consider any other point of view to mine before deciding I was right all along.

I've battered you in every debate I've ever had with you and proved you wrong on so many occasions and you have never once given me an abject apology!

You need to have a good long hard look at yourself before you start accusing others of not changing their minds on issues when overwhelming evidence has been provided.

[BillyStubbsTears]

f**k me I'm tired.

Go on Mick. Tell us why Picketty is a crank.

[BobG]

If, Mick, you would ever put together an argument based on verfiable fact and documents, you would be staggered by how much support you would get. But to admit, publicly, that you stopped reading a deeply important document simply because you don't like the author is utterly shameful. And then to abuse the bloke because you can't deal with what he reports (and you could verify for yourself very, very simply and quickly whether or not that is true ) means, sadly, that you are nekulturny.

You could be SO much better Mick. You're not an idiot. But no one has ever shown you how to behave, how to construct an argument, and, more to your point, how to deconstruct the arguments of others. Like I said the other night, get off to school, uni, anywhere! Join a debating society. Honest, you have it in you to to become something useful and incisive. But until you do, no one of any intelligence is ever going to take you seriously. Too much shouting. Too much opinion. Too little logical , rational and factual construction.

BobG

[jonrover]

looks like Mick  is once again talking out of his arse re. Piketty..

http://www.newstatesman.com/politics/2015/01/leader-1-cent-and-masses
 

[BobG]

Lol! That's pouring petrol on Mick's flames that is! Ha ha ha. But he won't have the wit to see that, even if the thesis is debateable, the question is now, after 35 years, back on the agenda. Of course, Mick'll simply ignore the facts quoted there.

BobG

[jonrover]

I know Bob, but I couldn't resist. I used to get angry with the crap Mick posted on here. Now I just feel terribly sorry for him.

[BobG]

I can never make my mind up tbh. It could be simply a prolonged wind up. It could be real. It could be an intelligent guy seeing how far he can go. It could be an uneducated guy trying to impress everyone else. It could be an idiot - but I don't believe that one me. Nor do I think it's the wind up. It's gone on way too long for that surely?

So I reckon we're left with someone with a bit of brain but not much education. I think we are seeing the Dunning-Kruger effect - in Spades. To save you looking it up, the basic points are:

For a given skill, incompetant people will:

1. tend to overestimate their own level of skill
2. Fail to recognise genuine skill in others
3. Fail to recognise the extremity of their own inadequacy
4. Recognise and acknowledge their own previous lack of skill if they can be trained to substantially improve.

Guess why I've encouraged Mick from time to time to go do a bit of studying! He could make something of himself if he could only bring himself to accept that he is neither a genius nor skilled in either analysis or argument. If he can accept those two points, he could be bloody good given time, teaching and practice.

Until that happy day, of course, he is simply a loud mouth with unsubstantiated and unsubstantiable opinions and zero credibility. I sometimes wonder why we bother anwering him at all? I've come to the conclusion that I do it because he has got a spark buried in there somewhere. If I can fan it a bit, he, and we, might all end up the better for it.

BobG

[IC1967]

I live in hope, Billy, that my lad is young enough for the pendulum to swing, peacefully, to something a bit less xenophobic, a bit less ideological and a bit more humane before he permanently enters the job market. I'm not holding my breath though. We already have an institutionalised underclass so I'm also wondering when the state issued semuta (or green!) is going to arrive.

I am staggered, regularly, how people can be so ideologically motivated that they cannot see, never mind accept, the simplest of facts. As an old mate tells me, if something isn't working, doing more of the same won't fix the problem. Well, you've highlighted that very nicely. Capitalism worked, beautifully, in the west for 35 years. And since the 1980's it's been a disaster - for the whole of humanity. How can any bugger say what we have today is 'success'? I shudder to think what their definition of failure must be.

BobG

That statement is so far off the mark it beggars belief (the bit highlighted in bold). When I've got a bit more time I'll prove just how ludicrous it is.

IC1967

Right it's time to put the record straight. Capitalism has not been a disaster since the 1980's. It's been a great success.

Global poverty has actually reduced enormously with the rise of global capitalism. The number of people in the world living on less than $2 a day (in real terms allowing for inflation) has dropped from 70% in 1981 to 43% today.

In virtually every respect, global poverty is falling fast and poor people are living longer, better lives.

Extreme poverty – defined as living on less than $1.25 a day at 2005 prices – is falling faster than ever, and in every part of the world. Thirty-six per cent of the world’s population were indigent on this measure in 1990; by 2011 it was 15 per cent. The UN’s “millennium development goal” of halving poverty between 1990 and 2015 has been achieved years ahead of schedule. On every metric, the people at the bottom of the income scale are doing better: longevity, literacy, infant mortality, calorie intake, height.

Why? Because the socialist countries where poverty was most widespread have, in large measure, joined the global trading system. China has been transformed since it allowed private ownership in 1978. Africa now contains most of the world’s fastest-growing economies. India, while never socialist, had been held back by the Fabianism of its ruling élites. Now it, too, is experiencing stunning economic expansion.

What has made poor people richer? The same phenomenon that has made rich people richer: capitalism. Sure, the free market can widen wealth disparities; but it does so in the context of rising living standards for most people in most places at most times. No other economic system can make such a boast.

http://www.capx.co/if-you-are-reading-this-youre-in-the-top-1-probably/

[Glyn_Wigley]

You're overlooking another possibility Bob:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Megalomania

[Glyn_Wigley]

I live in hope, Billy, that my lad is young enough for the pendulum to swing, peacefully, to something a bit less xenophobic, a bit less ideological and a bit more humane before he permanently enters the job market. I'm not holding my breath though. We already have an institutionalised underclass so I'm also wondering when the state issued semuta (or green!) is going to arrive.

I am staggered, regularly, how people can be so ideologically motivated that they cannot see, never mind accept, the simplest of facts. As an old mate tells me, if something isn't working, doing more of the same won't fix the problem. Well, you've highlighted that very nicely. Capitalism worked, beautifully, in the west for 35 years. And since the 1980's it's been a disaster - for the whole of humanity. How can any bugger say what we have today is 'success'? I shudder to think what their definition of failure must be.

BobG

That statement is so far off the mark it beggars belief (the bit highlighted in bold). When I've got a bit more time I'll prove just how ludicrous it is.

IC1967

Right it's time to put the record straight. Capitalism has not been a disaster since the 1980's. It's been a great success.

Global poverty has actually reduced enormously with the rise of global capitalism. The number of people in the world living on less than $2 a day (in real terms allowing for inflation) has dropped from 70% in 1981 to 43% today.

In virtually every respect, global poverty is falling fast and poor people are living longer, better lives.

That's not what the World Bank says, who's coming up with your figures?

http://www.worldbank.org/en/topic/poverty/overview

You'll also find that the reduction, such as it is, is solely down to the economic boom in one country - China. Everywhere else the percentage of population living under $2 per day is fairly constant over the period you've quoted.

[IC1967]

looks like Mick  is once again talking out of his arse re. Piketty..

http://www.newstatesman.com/politics/2015/01/leader-1-cent-and-masses

I'm afraid it is Oxfam and Piketty that are talking out of their arses. Oxfam's figures are extremely misleading because they look at net wealth therefore can't be taken seriously.

I prefer to see what the Adam Institute reckon is going on. They are scathing in their criticism of Oxfam's figures. Read the following article and get an abject apology sorted pronto and I'll say no more about the matter.

 Oxfam, capitalism, and poverty

After Thomas Piketty’s Capital in the 21st Century told us about rising inequality, it’s perhaps unsurprising that a new report from Oxfam tells us the global 1% will soon own half of all the world’s wealth. But things are not quite as they seem.

Oxfam’s figures look at net wealth, implying that Societe Generale rogue investment banker Jerome Kerviel is the world’s poorest person, and Michael Jackson was afflicted by the direst poverty before he died.

Ivy League graduates about to start a job as an investment banker at Goldman Sachs are judged far poorer than rural Indian farmers with the tiniest amount of capital.

Seven point five per cent of the poorest tenth of the world live in the USA, the figures say, almost as many as live in India.

And the claim that 85 own as much as 3.5bn is even more misleading, since the bottom 2bn don’t have nothing, but negative wealth—something like $500bn of it.

What’s more the global 1% probably contains more Times readers than CEOs or oil sheikhs—you need own a house worth around £530,000 to enter it.

All these facts skew Oxfam’s figures to make them astonishingly misleading.

Better figures tell a completely different and far more optimistic story.

Global poverty has actually fallen enormously with the rise of global capitalism. The fraction of the world’s population living on less than $2 a day (measured in constant dollars) has crashed from 69.6 per cent in 1981 to 43 per cent today.

Even if you take out India and China, where the most spectacular improvements have been made, and look only at Sub-Saharan Africa, the worst-off region, there have been improvements. From 1981-2006 8.6 percentage points fewer were living on under $1 a day and 4.9 percentage points fewer were living on under $2 a day.

In virtually every respect global poverty is falling and poor people are living longer, better lives. That is less sexy than Oxfam’s claims, but at least it is true.




http://www.adamsmith.org/blog/economics/oxfam-capitalism-and-poverty/

[Glyn_Wigley]

I'll take the World Bank's report over one man's blog on the Adam Smith website any day.

[BillyStubbsTears]

Go on Mick.

I'll buy that one. Capitalism HAS produced a situation where we have pulled hundreds of millions of people out of poverty. I agree 100%.

But there are as many shades of "Capitalism" as there are different colours of hair. A state-controlled system in China has worked quite phenomenally well. They have given their people precious few political freedoms (in fact, they have been brutally oppressive) but in giving them the ability to make money within a highly-controlled system, China's leaders have overseen the biggest reduction in mass poverty in human history. Something like half a billion people have moved from subsistence farming to (relatively) prosperous urban lifestyles over the past 25 years. That's like the whole population of Europe moving to cities in the time since Dave Mackay was our manager (I appreciate that you never watch the Rovers, but go and Google Mackay).

When we urbanised in the West, we had a century of urban squalor and deprivation. Go read Dickens.

In other, relatively unfettered Capitalist countries, they have obscene urban squalor. Go and do as I have done - take a drive for the 25km from Rio airport to the Copacabana. The first 20km go through horrific shanty towns, where people barely exist. The final 5km go past penthouse flats.

I was in China 3 months ago. I knew how rapidly they had urbanised. I was expecting to see a shanty-town hell like Rio. But in Beijing and Tianjin, taking 1.5 hour taxi rides from the outskirts to the centre in both of them, I didn't see a single slum dwelling. Nothing remotely on a par with the rat-infested pit houses that I was brought up in, in Denaby in the 1970s.

See, that Capitalism is a controlled one. Controlled by the State. A State which has a responsibility to provide for its citizens. They are (on average) still a lot poorer than us. But they are a f**k site more equal.

Now. Consider the Anglo-Saxon model of Capitalism. Over the past 35 years in the USA, median wages (after allowing for inflation) have NOT RISEN AT ALL. Meanwhile, the wealth of the top 1% has doubled. Pretty much the entire growth in the economic output of the USA over the past 35 years has gone into the pockets of the top few percent.

Stand in front of the mirror and tell yourself that that is a fair form of Capitalism.

And do you know who it is who has exposed this? Through two decades of diligent hard work? Collating data, checking it, assessing it?

Have a guess. It's the person who you desribe as a crank, because he says things that you really, really don't want to hear.

Bob G is right. You DO have intelligence. But to use your intelligence in the way that you do, to ignore evidence and bluster and scream is a failing. It's what gets hammered out of you in the forge of the high-level education, which you never had.

You could address that if you wanted. But I don't have the belief that Bob G has. I KNOW that you don't want to. You make up your mind and you are impervious to anything else.

It's a real shame.

[IC1967]

Another successful bout of exposing the paucity of thinking of lefties. It really is time you abandoned your socialist ideology and came into the brave new world of capitalism. How many times do I need to prove you lefties wrong before you see the light?

Any right minded person would have concluded by now that I know what I'm talking about. How many debates have I had with lefties? Too many to count. How many have I lost? That's dead easy. None.

Now given that track record it beggars belief that there are any lefties left on this forum.

I'm reminded of the old saying, 'you can take a horse to water, but you can't make it drink'.

The good news for those of you that are still lefties is that I'm not going to give up on you. I'll keep on exposing leftie drivel, until one day you will see that I've been right all along. It's a good job I've got staying power is all I can say.

[BillyStubbsTears]

Glyn

Your comment on how China has made all the difference sums up in one sentence what I was trying to say in 100.

The Adam Smith blog is a masterpiece in obfuscation. It decides its conclusion then sets out data to support it. It ignores the (proven) figures for the Anglo-Saxon capitalist world, where the unfettered Capitalist model that the ASI supports has been obscenely regressive in rewarding the top few percent whilst giving the rest stagnation. It ignores the (proven) fact that the most stellar example of Capitalist success over the past generation has been in China, where they have massive state control over the market.

It rolls everything up into a "Capitalism is good" babby quote for idiots to digest, deliberately ignoring the fact that there are many, many different strands of Capitalism, some successful, some middling, some disastrous.

And why? Because the ASI is bankrolled by the top few % in the West who have a vested interest in making sure that the rest of us remain their wage slaves and don't start questioning why WE are not getting richer as quickly as THEY are.

And they do it in a way that makes half-educated gobshites feel really clever for finding and quoting them.

Quite a job they've done there.

[Glyn_Wigley]

Another successful bout of exposing the paucity of thinking of lefties. It really is time you abandoned your socialist ideology and came into the brave new world of capitalism. How many times do i need to prove you lefties wrong before you see the light?

Any right minded person would have conclude by now that I know what I'm talking about. How many debates have I had with lefties? Too many to count. How many have I lost? That's dead easy. None.

Now given that track record it beggars belief that there are any lefties left on this forum.

I'm reminded of the old saying, 'you can take a horse to water, but you can't make it drink'.

The good news for those of you that are still lefties is that I'm not going to give up on you. I'll keep on exposing leftie drivel, until one day you will see that I've been right all along. It's a good job I've got staying power is all I can say.

How can it be you debating when you use someone else's words?

It's also very interesting that those words are spouted by someone for whom I can find no record of their academic background (in economics or any other field whatsoever) to give their words any credence. Not even in their profile on the ASI website. As you keep telling us you're an expert in these matters, I'm sure you can enlighten me as to his qualifications.

[IC1967]

Another successful bout of exposing the paucity of thinking of lefties. It really is time you abandoned your socialist ideology and came into the brave new world of capitalism. How many times do i need to prove you lefties wrong before you see the light?

Any right minded person would have conclude by now that I know what I'm talking about. How many debates have I had with lefties? Too many to count. How many have I lost? That's dead easy. None.

Now given that track record it beggars belief that there are any lefties left on this forum.

I'm reminded of the old saying, 'you can take a horse to water, but you can't make it drink'.

The good news for those of you that are still lefties is that I'm not going to give up on you. I'll keep on exposing leftie drivel, until one day you will see that I've been right all along. It's a good job I've got staying power is all I can say.

How can it be you debating when you use someone else's words?

It's also very interesting that those words are spouted by someone for whom I can find no record of their academic background (in economics or any other field whatsoever) to give their words any credence. Not even in their profile on the ASI website. As you keep telling us you're an expert in these matters, I'm sure you can enlighten me as to his qualifications.

Look, I've conclusively won the debate (yet again). I'd be grateful if you could just accept this fact instead of scrabbling around for the academic qualifications of a member of the ASI. Academic qualifications have their place in this world but they are not the be all and end all. It really does those of you that think you are superior to everyone else just because you've been to university no favours at all to constantly brag about your achievements. I don't brag about my qualifications. I intend to keep this policy. I'll just say you would all be very surprised if I told you what they were.

I feel this bragging about qualifications puts off other forum members from posting because they feel intimidated by you elitist lefties. That is a real shame and you should be ashamed of yourselves.

I would encourage anyone to post their views regardless of academic achievements. Don't let the leftie elitists put you off. Your opinion is just as valid as theirs. For those of you that are still a bit too intimidated to take them on, rest assured I will continue to fight the good fight and will keep on putting them in their place.

[BobG]

I@m sad to say, Mick, that those words, about horses and drinks, are yours. In the 30minutes ort so since I posted what I hope was a thoughtful and considerate analysis of where you are, you have, once again very sadly, proved the point that you are simply incapable of any reflection whatsoever. It's your Achilles Heel Mick. For someone like me, who disagrees rather strongly with pretty well everything you say and stand for, to offer you compliments and well meaning advice should give you pause for serious thought. The fact that it hasn't shows everyone exactly how closed your mind really is.

If the daylight ever dawns Mick, look me up. You could have a future. I could help you. If your world continues in its darkness though, you are going to end up sad, lonely and despised. And I won't be there to offer a helping hand.

BobG

[BobG]

A sort of PS!

Take a look again at the first three points in my description of Dunning-Kruger in response 15 above. Isn't Mick fantastic?!!!!! I could probably publish if I ever get the motivation to go back through these threads.

He's got to be the archetypal example. The exemplar.

Look! Does Mick:

1. tend to overestimate his own level of skill?
2. Fail to recognise genuine skill in others?
3. Fail to recognise the extremity of his own inadequacy?

Step forwards Mick. You are going to appear in print one day if I can be arsed.

BobG

[wilts rover]

I have a City & Guilds in Bricklaying (among other qualifications) that doesnt stop me from posting among you great minds - nor does it make me an expert in economics. It does make me wonder though how someone claims to have won an argument by posting a wesite article that sets out to disprove the Oxfam claim - by ignoring it and claiming something else.

So Mick, if the richest 1% wont own half the wealth - how much will they own? And the 5% reduction in poverty and rise in living standards for the people of Africa, how much of this is down to international development and charitable aid?

[IC1967]

I@m sad to say, Mick, that those words, about horses and drinks, are yours. In the 30minutes ort so since I posted what I hope was a thoughtful and considerate analysis of where you are, you have, once again very sadly, proved the point that you are simply incapable of any reflection whatsoever. It's your Achilles Heel Mick. For someone like me, who disagrees rather strongly with pretty well everything you say and stand for, to offer you compliments as well as well meaning advice should give you pause for serious thought. The fact that it hasn't shows everyone exactly how closed your mind really is.

If the daylight ever dawns Mick, look me up. You could have a future. I could help you. If your world continues in its darkness though, you are going to end up sad, lonely and despised. And I won't be there to offer a helping hand.

BobG

I think you mean well and for that you are to be applauded. I've considered your kind offer of help but have decided that I don't need it. But thanks anyway.

I will continue to consider the views of others before deciding I was right all along. It is a policy that has stood me in good stead. If I ever lose a debate on this forum then I may change this policy. However I don't expect that day to ever dawn.