Most tax avoidance shouldn't be legal. That's the point

The impression being given here is that the poor are scroungers, wasters and scoundrels; while those wonderful 'wealth creators' (all bow down and pay homage to our Masters) are only doing what's right and proper by, thanks to their ability to afford clever accountants, seeking to find loopholes and minimise what they contribute to society as much as possible. Well, bollocks to it.

We've had over 30 years of 'trickle down economics' now - and it doesn't work. It's absolute bulls**t. Social mobility in the UK has been static throughout that time: the drawbridge has been pulled up, and to mix metaphors, the middle and working class have been thrown overboard. And the biggest single reason trickle down economics doesn't work is that super-wealth and virtue rarely go together: by which I mean, the super-wealthy either inherit it or, in order to become so successful, have to be ruthless, selfish and greedy. Characteristics which they then deploy regarding what they pay in tax.

Did you see that stuff about non-doms yesterday? The UK is practically unique in that sense. "But they're investing! They're investing in our country!" No. They're EXPLOITING our country, wildly driving up property prices and driving down wages - and successive governments have actually encouraged it! Never mind the grotesque difference between the UK's lack of prosecutions of the worst culprits in the HSBC saga (the identities of whom have been known for 5 years now) and the action of other Western governments.

Those governments preside over countries which still have some sense of the common good. Britain lost ours long ago. We're all Thatcher's children now - and the results are seen day after day, week after week, year after year. It's no coincidence at all that the Premier League was created in Greed Is Good Britain; nor that our Prime Minister actually referred to this country as a f**king 'brand' when seeking to woo pissed off, disenfranchised Scots.

That burgeoning British economy we so often hear about is based on ugly, soulless values of naked greed; and the City of London, which did more than maybe anywhere else on the planet to precipitate a financial crisis which many countries are still suffering the effects of, is one of the money laundering capitals of the universe. What does Cameron want? To make sure the EU doesn't touch the plutocrats, greedheads and absolute shysters of that City in any way.

In the meantime, disposable incomes of most fall; hardly anyone outside the 1% sees any benefits of this 'recovery'; we're heading for a second crash anyway (which should come as no surprise to anyone given crony capitalism has actually got WORSE since 2008); and the poor, the disabled and the most vulnerable don't just lose out disproportionately, but are actually attacked and blamed for being poor and disabled by a narrative which is disgustingly uncivilised and driven by a right-wing media largely owned by those non-doms and tax avoiders I mentioned above.

It's grotesque. Something has to give. And however weak, watery and lily-livered they are, I'm delighted to see Labour finally asking questions and taking some sort of stand about this.

Posted By: thebigfeller on February 13th 2015 at 08:21:05

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