I know a lot of people were getting a bit jittery about George Osborne's Swiss Tax deal, designed to puncture a hole in the super-rich's tax haven shield in Switzerland. In his own words, "We will be as tough on the richest who evade tax as on those who cheat on benefits. The days when it was easy to stash the profits of tax evasion in Switzerland are over." Wow, well that IS tough, seeing how much abuse they've given (and are going to give) benefit cheats - who, let's be honest, by taking £1 billion out of the budget each year compared with the £15.2 billion lost through tax-dodging, are definitely in the same ball park - I'd say there's a lot of rich people shaking in their £200 boots. Has George finally started listening to UK Uncut and taken a decidedly leftist attack?
Hmm...nope.
The Financial Times has highlighted a few problems:
“First, evaders will still pay less than if they had gone by the law. The withholding tax on investment returns is below the top rate in the UK - by a quantitatively marginal but symbolically significant difference. The one-off levy, too, is unnecessarily forgiving for principal that was not taxed when it was first earned."
So, the rich are still paying less than the rest of us. I suppose this is "better than nothing"...
“Second, this is an anti-evasion measure that seems all too easy to evade. The one-off tax will only be levied on accounts still open after May 2013. That is plenty of time for evaders and their Swiss bankers to discuss where it might make most sense to place the money next. Lichtenstein, which has a less taxing agreement with the UK, is being mentioned, but there is an abundance of other tax havens."
Ah, good. So unless any of the big tax-dodging companies have heard of any other country than Switzerland, this is a water-tight clampdown...also, assuming that they're all lazy bastards who won't get around to doing anything with their balance sheets until 2013...
“Third, though the deal is not presented as an amnesty, it is hard to spot the difference. To let account holders who can keep not declaring their accounts settle their tax liabilities by paying less than regular UK residents smacks of permitting some people to pay their way out of obeying the law.”
Well, this is of course the crux of the matter - this is one law for the rich and one for the, uh, less rich.
Basically, this is just a bone thrown to the rabid dogs (i.e. sane people) who want to see some action taken against the tax-dodgers, but without any real substance to back it up.
It all goes back to the great neo-liberal ethos which has bascially become a superstition - if you do anything overly nasty to the rich, they will bugger off. And that is, in some way, a bad thing and will be, in some way, bad for the country and economy.
But it's more than that - it's an almost childish admiration that the likes of Cameron and Osborne have for the super-rich. Its almsot like a desire to be able to say "Look! My country's got more billionaires than your country! Suck my Prince Albert!" Or something. To be honest, I don't really understand it and I know a lot of people, both on the left and right, don't. The FTSE 100 paid a total of £5 billion in corporation tax in 2010, which is less than the amount of tax taken from Tobacoo duties. Looks like they might want to back-track on all those anti-smoking ads. Afterall, big business is much worse for your health. Anyone remember that notorios statistic about Barclays paying only £113 million in corporation tax in 2009? Yet, of course, if we push these people too much and try and make them, y'know, obey the same law as the rest of us, they'll all leave and it'll be the end of the world. So every other part of the economy - even those groups that generate more tax revenue (and let's not forget not gambling away all our money resulting in us bailing them out and leaving the actual taxpayers £131 billion in debt) - are going to suffer instead. The rest of us are expendable.
Osborne's decision to scrap the 50p top rate of income tax is just typical of this - either he's a complete moron, or he's totally in thrall of the big boys. Or both. Apparently, the 50p rate of tax is only producing marginal returns...according to the Independent, the difference between a 45p tax and 50p tax might be only £750 million a year.
Ah right.
Wait, what?
£750 million?! Danny Alexander described cutting the 50p tax as "living in cloud-cuckoo land" and it's not hard to see why. For example, Osborne is planning to cut £670 million from the budget for the Department for Education. He is also planning to cut £535 million from the Department for Work and Pensions. So while these cuts are desparate and necessary, a sum of money greater than either of the budget deficit in either department is "marginal"? Like I said, either Osborne's a moron, or he's completely in the pocket of the super-rich. There's simply no other way to justify this. Even by neo-liberal standards, this is a totally irrational move, as many have been quick to point out. It's not even an ideological move - it's really just pure corruption. It's one step removed from the kind of Mafia-like oligarchy that's been ruining Russia since the collapse of the USSR.
To be honest, the reaction in the government has been so strongly negative - both from Conservatives and Lib-Dems - that I can't see it actually being pushed through. But the fact that Osborne actually saw this as a good idea is what makes it so scary. If I was in the cabinet, I'd be pushing for a vote of no-confidence. It's not like there aren't enough talented economists in the cabinet as it is - Vince Cable's proposals, such as a land tax (which would close one tax loophole - you can't exactly move a plot of land to the Caimen Islands, can you?) have been much more sensible, at the very least.
But this is missing the point really - Cameron and Osborne have not, and have never, had any intention of penalising the bankers or the super-rich for the financial crises or for engaging in even the slightest amount of Robin Hood taxation. That's just not their ethos - they are a group of fundamenalists who are going to cling to their "we need the rich" idiom and drag everyone else down with them just so they don't have to admit that it's not actually true.
It all goes back to Mervyn King's now-legendary summation of the financial crisis: "Now is the period when the cost is being paid. I'm surprised the real anger hasn't been greater than it has."
When you have a government which is protecting the people who caused the financial crisis in the first place and making the rest of suffer for it, you have to ask - is the government insane and corrupt...or are we insane and corrupt for voting them in?
Showing posts with label tories. Show all posts
Showing posts with label tories. Show all posts
Tuesday, 30 August 2011
Wednesday, 8 June 2011
Sex and Children...Why Can't They Just Get Along?
There's been a lot of hoo-ha in the press about the sexualisation of children - yep, it's that time of year again - with the usual moralists and scaremongers venting their iration over the death of childhood and all that...
This time it's sexually provocative clothing and lad's mags. Apparently, the likes of Loaded and pre-teen lingerie are sexualising our children - as such, and as usual, the government's out to ban lots of stuff!
So...what's wrong with the sexing up of children?
Well, the main arguement always tends to be that it makes them targets for paedophiles. Well, this is a rather contradictory arguement - why would dressing children in clothes designed for supposedly more mature adults make them more likely targets for people who supposedly disdain maturity? That's a bit like gay men dressing effeminately to attract other gay men (oh, wait a second...)
We live in a society that is, for some reason, determined to keep the throes of adulthood at bay for as long as possible. "Childhood innocence" is perhaps the most sacred image in our society for some reason and anything which stands to threaten that may as well be thrown to the dogs. It's not even a particularly conservative element, either - even liberal, progressive groups seem to promote the "protection" of childhood as among the most important tasks in modern society, primarily taking it as part of the rape-prevention scene; in other words, childhood must be protected to protect children from paedophiles.
What "childhood" has become, in fact, is a form of learned stupidity and helplessness. Childhood is marked by naivety and ignorance, traits which are inarguably negative qualities in adults, but which are apparently positive qualities in the young. A child who expresses interest in anything above his supposed age-group is inevitably penalised in our society - sex is most obvious example, of course. As such, there are laws and "accepted norms" which basically label every child up to the age 12 as an interchangable, innocent, sweet, angelic cherub and every child between the ages of 13 and 18 as an ignorant, violent, sex-obsessed thug, who clearly didn't have the right kind of childhood up to the age of 12. On top of all this, personality is suppressed - more than at any other age, children are forced both by parents, peers, the government and companies into set templates that penalise any form of free thinking before the age of 18 - in spite of the fact that, arguably, prior the age of 18 is when you form most of your perception of the world.
This is my issue: the attraction of children to lad's mags and provocative and demeaning clothes can only stem from ignorance, a lack of self-confidance, peer pressure and sexual confusion - just like with adults. Except that an adult can be freed from ignorance, have their confidence and independence boosted and determine their own sexuality and attitudes towards sexuality. The absolute opposite approach is taken with children - sex education, both at home and at school is a joke (I still remember my "sex ed" in school which consisted of showing two people kind of writhing about in a very dark room where only their heads and legs were visible. When I asked why we weren't actually be shown any sex, my teacher just laughed.) You have parents which "protect" (i.e. confuse) their children from sex and then are shocked and suprised that, when encountering any sexualised image, their children react in a less than pleasant manner. And, apparently, the solution to this is to just keep banning as much sex-related stuff as possible until children everywhere are nicely insulated from reality - rather than hitting of the root of the problem, namely:
Why the hell are you so freaking scared of your children knowing about sex?
Now, I am not trying to say that lads mags lingerie and t-shirts saying the likes of "MONGOLOID PORN INFERNO" on them are necessarily a good thing. But the issue here is not related to children - these are all degrading to both women and men, but the question is, why do people buy these? And it sure as hell isn't due to having a healthy attitude towards sex. If children actually knew a damn thing about sex then they might actually understand why it is that they shouldn't want to aspiring to be a WAG or page 3 girl.
More than anything, we should sure as hell not be taking the advice of the Tories - many of whom still come from a generation when husbands and wives shared separate beds - on what is considered "normal" or "healthy" sexuality. Their attitude to sexuality is naturally "conservative" and harks back to a Victorian age when sex was less publicised, but prostitution, rape and child abuse were FAR more prevelant. Oh, and yeah, Daily Mail, you're part of that, too...
Perhaps the reason why parents fear paedophiles so much is that represent the most forceful example of childhood being threatened by the imposition of sexual interaction. In a way, this is a rather horrendous thought - that the paedophile is a scapegoat for the modern sexualisation of children, representing its absolute pinnacle and being used as the excuse for basically every sex-scare in the last 30 years or longer. Would paedophiles be a such a problem if we weren't all so shit-scared of sex?
And of course, the main problem, as far as I'm concerned, is that if you do teach your children to be ignorant, uninformed and "innocent", then they will grow up to be exactly the same way. And then they'll have children and pass it on themselves and the cycle of abuse will continue. Geez, wouldn't the Tories hate that...
But it all usually falls back to, "they're so damn cute when they're stupid"...
This time it's sexually provocative clothing and lad's mags. Apparently, the likes of Loaded and pre-teen lingerie are sexualising our children - as such, and as usual, the government's out to ban lots of stuff!
So...what's wrong with the sexing up of children?
Well, the main arguement always tends to be that it makes them targets for paedophiles. Well, this is a rather contradictory arguement - why would dressing children in clothes designed for supposedly more mature adults make them more likely targets for people who supposedly disdain maturity? That's a bit like gay men dressing effeminately to attract other gay men (oh, wait a second...)
We live in a society that is, for some reason, determined to keep the throes of adulthood at bay for as long as possible. "Childhood innocence" is perhaps the most sacred image in our society for some reason and anything which stands to threaten that may as well be thrown to the dogs. It's not even a particularly conservative element, either - even liberal, progressive groups seem to promote the "protection" of childhood as among the most important tasks in modern society, primarily taking it as part of the rape-prevention scene; in other words, childhood must be protected to protect children from paedophiles.
What "childhood" has become, in fact, is a form of learned stupidity and helplessness. Childhood is marked by naivety and ignorance, traits which are inarguably negative qualities in adults, but which are apparently positive qualities in the young. A child who expresses interest in anything above his supposed age-group is inevitably penalised in our society - sex is most obvious example, of course. As such, there are laws and "accepted norms" which basically label every child up to the age 12 as an interchangable, innocent, sweet, angelic cherub and every child between the ages of 13 and 18 as an ignorant, violent, sex-obsessed thug, who clearly didn't have the right kind of childhood up to the age of 12. On top of all this, personality is suppressed - more than at any other age, children are forced both by parents, peers, the government and companies into set templates that penalise any form of free thinking before the age of 18 - in spite of the fact that, arguably, prior the age of 18 is when you form most of your perception of the world.
This is my issue: the attraction of children to lad's mags and provocative and demeaning clothes can only stem from ignorance, a lack of self-confidance, peer pressure and sexual confusion - just like with adults. Except that an adult can be freed from ignorance, have their confidence and independence boosted and determine their own sexuality and attitudes towards sexuality. The absolute opposite approach is taken with children - sex education, both at home and at school is a joke (I still remember my "sex ed" in school which consisted of showing two people kind of writhing about in a very dark room where only their heads and legs were visible. When I asked why we weren't actually be shown any sex, my teacher just laughed.) You have parents which "protect" (i.e. confuse) their children from sex and then are shocked and suprised that, when encountering any sexualised image, their children react in a less than pleasant manner. And, apparently, the solution to this is to just keep banning as much sex-related stuff as possible until children everywhere are nicely insulated from reality - rather than hitting of the root of the problem, namely:
Why the hell are you so freaking scared of your children knowing about sex?
Now, I am not trying to say that lads mags lingerie and t-shirts saying the likes of "MONGOLOID PORN INFERNO" on them are necessarily a good thing. But the issue here is not related to children - these are all degrading to both women and men, but the question is, why do people buy these? And it sure as hell isn't due to having a healthy attitude towards sex. If children actually knew a damn thing about sex then they might actually understand why it is that they shouldn't want to aspiring to be a WAG or page 3 girl.
More than anything, we should sure as hell not be taking the advice of the Tories - many of whom still come from a generation when husbands and wives shared separate beds - on what is considered "normal" or "healthy" sexuality. Their attitude to sexuality is naturally "conservative" and harks back to a Victorian age when sex was less publicised, but prostitution, rape and child abuse were FAR more prevelant. Oh, and yeah, Daily Mail, you're part of that, too...
Perhaps the reason why parents fear paedophiles so much is that represent the most forceful example of childhood being threatened by the imposition of sexual interaction. In a way, this is a rather horrendous thought - that the paedophile is a scapegoat for the modern sexualisation of children, representing its absolute pinnacle and being used as the excuse for basically every sex-scare in the last 30 years or longer. Would paedophiles be a such a problem if we weren't all so shit-scared of sex?
And of course, the main problem, as far as I'm concerned, is that if you do teach your children to be ignorant, uninformed and "innocent", then they will grow up to be exactly the same way. And then they'll have children and pass it on themselves and the cycle of abuse will continue. Geez, wouldn't the Tories hate that...
But it all usually falls back to, "they're so damn cute when they're stupid"...
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