Every little hurts, as someone once said.

A few years ago I predicted that slavery would become legal in the UK. My thinking was that the government (any government, any party) would legislate to allow people in debt and unable to extricate themselves to undertake unpaid work for their creditor(s) until the debt was paid off.
I was right about the return of slavery, but wrong about the reason for its return.

We have just learned that there are about one million workers in this country on zero-hours contracts. This means that those workers are bound to a company but guaranteed no earnings. It means that their main income is provided by the taxpayer in the form of benefits. It means that their employer has no responsibility toward them, but has total control of their allotted work time whether they work or not.
The government has being pretending that there are 250,000 zero-hour slaves nationally, which would be enough of a disgrace for anyone with a social conscience. The fact that they were lying about the numbers tells us that even those soulless rats know that this is an abominable state of affairs.
The zero-hours slavery puts the "welfare to work" form of slavery in the shade, but let's not forget those hundreds of thousands of slaves also working for dole money.
In addition to the Sklavarbeiter there's something like 2.5 million on the dole and yet to be enslaved. Is anybody working in this country, whose economy, according to our criminally insane Chancellor of the Exchequer, is recovering nicely, thank you, from the great bank rip-off? Well, there are who are keeping a lot of slaves from starvation while the slavers pay little or no taxes on the vast profits they are removing from this sceptred isle.
In the immortal words of the loathsome Hughie Green, "Wake up, Britain!"

I still haven't written off the slavery as debt repayment idea. It could come. Another money-saving scheme I'm predicting is euthanasia for the no longer productive aged. Thanasia really, as there's nothing 'eu-' about killing people off.

"Safe in our hands".

Some figures from this morning's news -

Amazon UK, sales income £4.3 billion
Amazon UK, tax paid £2.4 million (0.1%*)
Amazon UK , government grants received £2.5 million

Does anyone know what Amazon does to get handouts from the British people?
I suppose we should be grateful that they don't employ neo-nazis to terrorise their British employees as they do with their German workforce.

* I think it's less than that as %age of income, but that was the BBC's figure.

Our unelected government wants to cut taxes for business. That's so they can't be accused of cheating us out of figures this big.

Two men walk into a tailor's and are measured for suits to be paid for on the instalment plan. After being told the cost one man begins to dicker with the tailor and manages to obtain a 20% discount. When they leave the other man asks, "Why did you bargain the price down? You know you're not going to pay for the suit."
"Well", replied his mate,"He seemed such a nice fellow I didn't want him to lose so much money."

"Governments don't rule the world. Goldman Sachs rules the world." (Alessio Rastani)

I see that the next governor of the Bank of England is a Goldman Sachs alumnus. He has informed the nation of his priorities, "It's very important for the global economy that the UK does well, that it succeeds in this rebalancing of their economy, that the reform of the British financial system is completed." What reform is that, I wonder?
So, what's good for "the global economy" will have to be good enough for the British people. Sir Mark (the knighthood follows the British citizenship) was also involved in Goldman Sachs' fixing of the Russian economy.

"Senior Goldman executives expressed regret that Russia's economic program collapsed and that the deals that bear Goldman's imprimatur did not always work as intended. But they defended the firm's role there as 'very constructive' and attributed the country's troubles to problems that had little to do with investment banking."
...
"When the Government defaulted, Goldman said its losses were 'absolutely minimal'."
(New York Times, 18 October 1998)

Sir Mark should get on well with the President of the European Central Bank, Cavaliere Mario Draghi (ex-Goldman Sachs); and the unelected Italian Prime Minister, Cavaliere Mario Monti (ex-guess who). Pity the unelected Prime Minister of Greece, Loukas Papademos (ex-guess who) resigned so quickly. Apparently Goldmann Sachs has big money riding on Greece quitting the Eurozone.

From Martin Deane's facebook wall -

Guy who wrote report for government saying bosses should be able to sack workers more easily: His name is Adrian Beecroft. Guess what BBC etc neglect to mention?
He's the chairman of Dawn Capital, the owners of payday loan firm Wonga—which charges interest at 4,214 percent.
A survey this week found that more than six out of ten people who get payday loans need the cash to pay for essentials like food and nappies. Sky-high fees then trap them into a “downward spiral of debt”, it added.

So an individual who gets rich by gouging the most vulnerable members of our society - and donates some of his ill-gotten gains to the Conservative Party - demands that the Conservative government increase the pool of potential victims of his usury.

"Lower than vermin" (Aneurin Bevin)

"The gombeen like a spider sits,
Surfeited; and, for all his wits,
As meagre as the tally-board
On which his usuries are scored."
(Joseph Campell)

VEOLIA WATCH

One of the largest actors on these markets is Veolia Environment, an international giant in the fields of water supply, waste disposal (where it was formerly known as Onyx), energy supply (Dalkia) and public transport (formerly Connex). The company is the largest private employer in France, and has specialized in taking over public services in all the areas mentioned and in all parts of the world. It has more than 320,000 employees in more than 70 countries, and a worldwide turnover of €45 billion (2007).
Along with another French company, Suez (formerly Suez Lyonnaise des Eaux), Veolia controls no less than 70 per cent of all the privatized water supply in the world (Hall, 2002, p. 6)! Both belong to a small cluster of multinational companies that seek to take over public companies over a broad spectrum. There is, however, not always the cut-throat competition between these two competing giants that one might expect. They cooperate on tenders within a number of areas by establishing joint ventures. How they cooperate on the same board in one town, yet keep tenders a secret from each other when competitors in the next town, is a problem we are not going to investigate further here.
In waste disposal, the world market is dominated by only four companies – including subsidiaries of the two French companies mentioned. A few years ago, the figure was eight, but the four others have been taken over by the remaining giants. In both energy supply and public transport, the same concentration is taking place. From scarcely owning a single bus outside France in the early 1990s, Veolia Transport has advanced to being the world’s largest private company in the public transport sector (Hall 2002, p. 7).
Just recently (in March 2011), Veolia Transport merged with another French-based major international actor in the field of public transport, Transdev. After the merger, this transport company has become a real giant, with 124,000 employees in about 30 countries and an annual turnover of just over €8 billion. The markets are systematically monopolized, something that naturally helps to weaken the competition the neoliberals are so eager to emphasize. The result is of course increased market control by these companies. Despite all rhetoric in the opposite direction, maximum competition is not precisely what the companies are yearning for. They want maximum profits – and monopoly profit does not differ from any other profit except that it is often larger.

Asbjørn Wahl, "The Rise and Fall of the Welfare State" (Pluto Press)

This is the company that pollutes Palestinian land and its meagre water supply on behalf of ethnic cleansers.

"The Church of England entered the row over phone hacking yesterday with a threat to sell its £4m shares in News Corporation if it failed to hold "senior managers" to account over the scandal."

"Shares in the UK TV company were down 12% last week amid mounting concern in the City that the purchase could be blocked because the company may now fail to fulfil the requirement of being a "fit and proper" owner."

No connection of course. Apparently the church has an 'ethical investment advisory group'. What was their advice on the Dirty Digger's output? "Mild porn, racism, sexism, false witness - but Rupert's a Christian."

"The return of The Savoy after years of closure is seen as a symbolic turning point. Not surprisingly, many of the biggest parties are being held at the grande dame of The Strand.
"One party for 500 in December will have a Twenties theme with a fountain spurting gallons of pure gin while scantily clad waitresses serve gin jellies and molecular cocktails."

Yes Dave-David, we're all in this together.

ORGANIZED RAGE: Bankers party whilst millions worry about how they...: "Below is part of an article from the London Evening Standard, I have reposted it as it highlights just how much we are 'all in this economic..."

"Channel 4 has revealed that along with two other Cabinet ministers, George Osborne is avoiding paying tax. He pays accountants to find loopholes which help him dodge £1.6 million."
All in it together, eh? No wonder he's always smirking. (Pay up, George!)

More on Mick Hall's blog, where Cameron and Clegg's nice little earners are aired.

Meanwhile, back at the trough -
"UK boardroom pay leaps 55% in a year"

"Seventeen of the 35 chairmen or chief executives who signed yesterday's letter were among the businessmen who endorsed a similar round-robin before the May election backing Tory plans to reverse Labour's proposal to raise national insurance contributions by 1 per cent. Mr Osborne later cancelled it for employers but retained it for employees."

"Prominent Tory donors among business leaders who backed Osborne's cuts"

It's called 'quid pro quo', or as an old conman of my acquaintance used to say, "You've got to speculate to accumulate".

STS Bulletin no.30
"I'm not sure I see a need to apologise."

means

"I am deeply sorry that people are facing an unexpected tax bill.
Everyone in HMRC is working hard to make this as painless as possible. I apologise if my remarks came across as insensitive. I am working flat out with my colleagues to ensure everyone's tax is correct and the new computer system will help us do this.
"It was this new system that revealed the extent and size of reconciliations required and will help us be more accurate in future but we do not underestimate the distress caused to taxpayers and once again I apologise."

It can also be translated as "Christ! I could lose my job over this. Better do a bit of grovelling."

The millions of people about to be harried and harassed by the penitent Mr. Dave Hartnett's underlings should appeal over their heads to the top man. It turns out he can be persuaded to write off tax arrears given the right circumstances, according to the current edition of 'Private Eye'.
Her Majesty's Revenue enforcers have been in hot pursuit of a little company named Vodafone for a paltry £6 billion. They had the case all tied up, all loopholes blocked, when the company appealed to Mr. Hartnett's better nature.
Quick as a flash Mr. Hartnett cancelled the debt. The revenue's legal team were appalled. They had Vodafone by the goolies and were about to squeeze hard. "No dice," said our Dave, "Concentrate on the little people. I might need a job at Vodafone if those MPs manage to get me sacked for incompetence."

While we're waiting for the wealth to trickle down here's a little peek into the future under our "tough but fair" Tories. fleming is advised to avoid it at all costs.

Crozier, the champion of slash and burn management, is to take over as chief executive of ITV, having vandalised our postal service to his personal satisfaction. Golden handshake, golden hello. So it's job losses for ITV staff, even cheaper and nastier programming, and a massive pay rise for the chief executive - the chicken's entrails inform me. Then it's look around for a new victim, golden handshake, and stroll away from the débris.

Oh-oh!

In April, when the first alarm came from Mexico, I was very surprised by the figures the World Health Organization (WHO) was advancing to justify the proclamation of a pandemic. I had suspicions immediately: the figures were quite weak and the level of alarm very elevated. There weren’t even a thousand sick people before there was already talk of the pandemic of the century. And the extreme alert decreed was based on the fact that the virus was new. But the characteristic of flu-type illnesses is to develop very fast with viruses that take on new forms each time by moving in on new hosts - animals, people etc. There’s nothing new in that. A new "flu" virus of that kind appears every year.
...
And it was alleged that the virus was dangerous because populations had not been able to develop immune defenses against it. Which was false for this virus, since we had been able to observe that people over 60 already had antibodies, which is to say that they had already been in contact with analogous viruses. That’s why there were practically no people over 60 who developed the illness. Yet, they were the people it was recommended to have be rapidly vaccinated.
...
Among the things that aroused my suspicions then, there was on the one hand, that desire to sound the alarm - and on the other, very curious facts. Such as, for example, the WHO’s recommendation to perform two injections for the vaccinations. That had never been the case before. There was no scientific justification for it. There was also this recommendation to use only specific patented vaccines. Yet, no reason existed for not adding - as is done every year - specific anti-viral particles of this new H1N1 virus, thus "completing" seasonal flu vaccines.

... it’s an altogether normal flu. It occasions only a tenth of the deaths caused by classic seasonal flu. All that mattered and all that led to the extraordinary campaign of panic we have witnessed is that it constituted a golden opportunity for lab reps who knew they’d make a mint should a pandemic be proclaimed.
...
A group of people at the WHO is very tightly associated with the pharmaceutical industry.

... Klaus Stöhr, who was head of the epidemiological department at the WHO during the era of the avian flu, and who, therefore, prepared the plans designed to confront a pandemic that I mentioned earlier, became, in the meantime, a senior executive at Novartis. And similar connections exist between Glaxo, Baxter etc. and influential members of the WHO. These big firms had "their people" in the system and managed things afterwards so that the "right" political decisions were made, that is, the decisions that allowed them to pump the maximum amount of money out of the taxpayers.

(Wolfgang Wodarg, epidemiologist and President of the Council of Europe's Health Commission)

Not Very Serious About Fraud
The Serious Fraud Office will not prosecute the Phoenix Four looters. Now there's a turn up. What does 'Private Eye' call the SFO - Serious Farce Office?

"... your bosses tell you that you've got an hour to get your coat and go and "we're sorry but haven't you heard about the crisis, we're going bust too, and you can forget about redundancy pay and even the pension you've accrued". The odds are that you'd feel a cross between furious, depressed and scared.
"Also, imagine you find out that last year your boss from the same company that is going bust managed to rustle up some spare change for himself for a total of $1,341,667 as well as a staggering $8,393,607 with shares and bonuses - and that your chief executive too found enough dough to take home: $1.48 million in cash and bonuses."