Politicians should be as focused on bank malfeasance as they are on welfare overpayments and strawberry sabotage
In handing down his interim report last week at the financial services royal commission, the Honourable Kenneth Hayne was damning in his criticism of the behaviour of Australian bankers. It wasn’t a lack of laws, guidelines or codes of conduct that led to the richest banks stealing from the poorest Australians, the commissioner argued, it was simply greed
The neoliberal idea that “free markets” would deliver more for individual consumers and the economy than “red tape and regulation” was popularised by films like Wall Street, and embraced wholeheartedly by proponents as diverse as Paul Keating and the Institute of Public Affairs. But the Financial Services Royal Commission has provided clear proof of what the sceptics have been arguing for decades: Greed isn’t good for anyone – except the greedy.
The Guardian
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In his semi-autobiographical novel The House of the Dead (1862) Fyodor Dostoevsky wrote, “The degree of civilization in a society can be judged by entering its prisons.”
I would add: “The degree of civilization in a society can be judged by how a society is treated by its banks.”
In Western societies, bankers have the most power and prestige of any profession, since they maintain the scoreboard in the game of life, and they pay the referees (i.e. politicians) to let the bankers get away with manipulating the scoreboard.
“Nearly all workers are forced to contribute 9.5% of their income to superannuation every week, whether they like it or not.”
Superannuation means a pension fund, which in Australia is privately managed.
In the USA the federal government collected USD $1.16 trillion in FICA taxes for Medicare and Social Security during FY 2017. Bankers want to privatize Medicare and Social Security, so the bankers will receive that $1.16 trillion-per-year, and charge fees for receiving it.
[Hillary would have privatized Medicare and Social Security. As for Trump, we don’t yet know.]
In Australia, Social Security has already been privatized. Social Security had been created in 1909. In 2002, banker-thieves paid politicians to give Social Security to the thieves, who collect this loot, and collect added fees for receiving the loot. At the moment, Australian workers must give 9.5% of every paycheck to the banker thieves. In 2020 workers will be forced to give 12% to the thieves. In 2025 this may rise to 15%, although this latter increase has not yet been made official.
This staggering swindle happened because Australian politicians told the Australian masses that the government “had no money” for Social Security, even though the government can create infinite money out of thin air. AND THE STUPID MASSES BELIEVED THIS LIE.
Now the Australian government wants to give Australian Medicare to the banker-thieves, since the government “has no money” for Medicare. AND THE STUPID MASSES BELIEVE THIS LIE.
The excuse is that the Australian government’s “coffers” are shrinking because the commodities boom is over. In reality the Australian government has no “coffers,” since [again] the Australian government creates its spending money out of thin air.
In Latin America Social Security was privatized (i.e. given to the banker-thieves) starting with Chile in 1981. Then Peru (1992) Colombia (1993) Argentina (1994) Uruguay (1996) Mexico (1997) El Salvador (1997) Bolivia (1998), Costa Rica (2000) and the Dominican Republic (2003). That is half the population of Latin America
Privatization is a basic part of neoliberalism. It is how everything and everyone become owned by a handful of oligarchs.
At the current rate of increase, Australian workers will be forced to give 30% of every paycheck to the banker thieves by 2050.
Workers must also pay income tax.
Jeff Gates said supply side economics was a con to enrich just a few people. I wonder how they managed to con so many people, including PCR?
By the way, Chile's social security was privatized by the blood-soaked, U.S.-installed neoliberal dictator Augusto Pinochet in 1981.
Pinochet tortured, murdered, and "disappeared" people for 16 years. He was idolized by Milton Friedman, who died on 16 Nov 2006. Pinochet joined him in hell 24 days later.
Other Latin American countries then privatized their social security as the neoliberal plague spread from nation to nation.
"Jeff Gates said supply side economics was a con to enrich just a few people. I wonder how they managed to con so many people, including PCR?" ~ Kaivey
In PCR’s case he was given a nice job in Washington DC. As long as PCR spread neoliberal lies (aka “supply side economics”) he could be an Assistant Treasury Secretary. PCR became a neoliberal fanatic, and a devoted worshipper of Reagan and Thatcher.
Today, 36 years later, PCR has matured beyond much of his youthful insanity, but at age 79 his nostalgia for his glory days makes him occasionally back-slide to the old lies.
As for why the masses let themselves be conned, I have often written about this in my comments. The short answer is that the masses want to be lied to. They insist on it. The masses want to be slaves (i.e. told what to do) while also being cared for as slaves. They want a mommy and a daddy, even if the mommy and daddy cruelly beat them every day.
Another reason why the masses let themselves be conned is that half of them only care about identity politics, while the other half spend all their time defending themselves from accusations that they are sexist, racist, homophobe, anti-Semitic, etc.
Consider the Senate review process of US Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh. He is an arch-neoliberal, pro-war, and pro-corporation. But the democrats, social justice warriors, and corporate media outlets don’t care about that. All they care about is that some female accused Kavanaugh of making romantic advances to her decades ago. The female can’t remember anything about it (where it happened, when it happened, etc) but she thinks it happened, and that’s as good as a conviction.
Meanwhile the bankers laugh at the show.
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