Would we have had the financial crisis if women ran banks?

By Dark Politricks

I have just watched last nights episode of Tom Hartmans "The Big Picture" on Russia Today (watch live online here)

Tom is obviously a Democrat and a liberal but in his last segment something he said I found quite interesting.

Basically the leading founding father Thomas Jefferson  knew the dangers of corporations and unlimited greed and said so in a great speech - abbreviated here:

"I hope we shall crush… in its birth the aristocracy of our moneyed corporations, which dare already to challenge our government to a trial of strength and bid defiance to the laws of our country."

Thomas Jefferson obviously was aware of the dangers of unlimited corporation power, money and influence and it would be good if some of the Tea Party members who are so fond of the founding fathers actually read more of what they actually said about standing armies, corporations, a Federal bank and undue political influence by lobbyists.

Tom Hartman then followed that up with other Presidential quotes throughout the ages all of which said that there was little need for people to earn so much money that it coultn't be spent in their lifetime.

Not only does it prevent a true meritocracy from occurring - as huge amounts of wealth are passed down the family line like an aristocracy - the thing the founding fathers fought against in the American Revolution. But it leaves people with so much money that could be used for the good of the nation as a whole except many of these super rich people would rather pay no tax at all than do some good for their country. It also showed that high tax rates have no correspondence with job creation, productivity or industrial or technical innovation.

As you can see Tom's main point was that the top rate of tax has dropped from a whopping 94% in the mid 1940's, to 70% during the 1970's and then its current position of 35% and this has no correspondence with the high times of American society.

It does however correspond with huge wealth inequality between the rich and poor. With the richest few percent getting richer and the middle classes basically staying the same. Tickle down economics doesn't seem to work too well it seems.

During the 1950s and early 1960s, the top bracket income tax rate was over 90% and the economy, middle-class, and stock market boomed.

The 1950's were a golden time in American society where there were plenty of jobs, houses, affordable education and guess what - the richest few percent (those job creators) didn't up sticks and leave America to another country with lower tax rates. They stayed and paid their taxes.

He also talked about a study that showed that once a person is earning enough money to cover all their basic needs e.g housing, food, travel, clothing etc then earning more money does NOT make them happier.

This reminds me of learning about Maslows hierarchy of needs at college.

Once you have all your basics covered, maybe married or in a relationship and doing a job you like or maybe other activities that fulfill your life then your pyramid of needs are satisfied.

The question then becomes what happens to all those people who have so much money that there is nothing left on earth to do with it.

I am talking about people who earn billions of dollars, fly around in private jets, own multiple huge boats and have garages full of the latest Ferrari's and Porches.

They may play golf all day or do other hobbies but I reckon there is another need that is missing from the pyramid that only comes when all the others are fulfilled and the person has  enough money to achieve or attempt to achieve it plus a certain character trait that is the opposite of altruism - a hunger for power.

Some people are born alpha dogs, others aren't.

Some people in the old days where physical power was all that mattered would have been battered to the floor and trod over like a carpet (people like Bill Gates or the Koch Brothers for instance).

Today things are different and money (lots of it) equals power or the ability to achieve it through various means. This might mean running a huge global corporation or the attempted ownership of countries and even blocks of them (i.e. the EU).

This is what many people believe the Citizens United Ruling has allowed to occur with the super rich trying to "buy" the Presidency through their use of Super Pacs, and huge financial donations.

Whereas Obama is having to rely on lots of small donations and seems to have lost out on those big money givers he had last time around Mitt Romney only needs to attend a couple of functions with the Koch Brothers and he walks away with a few hundred million dollar bills in his pocket.

These ultra rich are not "wealth generators" or "altruistic job creators" for if they were they would say to themselves:

"Well I have more money than I can ever spend in my lifetime. Or leave to my children who will just end up spolit entitled brats who probably won't do a day's work in their lives. With all this money I will do something good for my country and leave a lasting legacy like the Victorian Philantrophists and I don't mind taking a hit on my immense fortune by opening factories and other businesses in the USA and pay the taxes and benefits that come with creating jobs in my country."

"Yes it might cost more than off-shoring all my labour and manufacturing to China or India but as I have more money than I could possibly spend it makes no difference to me if I have to pay slightly more in wages or health benefits if it means that it brings jobs back to desolate American towns like Detroit or New Orleans."

No instead of thinking like this they chose to play king maker and attempt to buy the Presidency with Super Pacs and huge donations to their desired candidate (or the one they are stuck with e.g Mitt Romney)

People with huge amounts of wealth could do immense amounts of good to the people of the earth and I am sure lots of them exist but when the ultimate pyramid slice at the top of Maslows Hierarchy becomes "ultimate power" you end up with Koch Brothers buying Presidencies, Bilderberg, Bohemian Grove and huge experimental projects that are doomed to failure like the Euro.

You also end up with Banksters who have so much money that the only joy they get out of life is making billion dollar gambles with pension funds on the stock market, derivative overloads and the fixing of Libor interest rates. All of which have unintended consequences that affect whole countries and even the world as we are currently experiencing.

You are either this kind of person or you may have an altruistic personality, probably non alpha males, who chose to spend their money on charitable organisations. Building schools and hospitals in under privileged areas and all the sort of things that leave a lasting legacy once they are gone from this earth apart from a mention in a Wikipedia article as one of the banksters who was complicit in the great financial meltdown of 2008.

This leads me to another interesting point in which an ex female banker appeared on the "This Week" programme last Thursday in which she said that due to the "alpha male" culture of bankers in the City of London there was more risk taking and therefore potential for disaster.

If women ran banks and trading floors she reckoned the financial crisis probably would never have happened in the first place.

An interesting thought...

George Osborne shows his Tory colours by lowering taxes for the rich

By Dark Politricks

So Boy George Osborne delivered his 2012 budget mid week and as he obviously reads my blog every day LOL he decided to implement nothing that I advised him to do in my own Dark Politricks 2012 Budget Guide.

No despite his obvious distaste for diverse discourse and alternative news I doubt Boy George has ever even heard of my site unless it has crossed his desk on some kind of watch list compiled by MI5 or some other Internet Snoop brigade.

He decided to cut the top rate of tax from 50% to 45%. Deciding that the rich are obviously having a hard time at the moment and need all the help they can get.

It must be hard in your brand new Range Rover delivering little Timmy and Charlotte to their private schools, after school Cello lessons. Suffering with their private health care and living on money most of us can only dream of with the thought of gold plated pensions to retire on whilst inflation rises constantly and the public services everyone else relies on gets worse and worse by the day.

I wouldn't begrudge anyone who can afford private health care but as someone who has spent more than my fair share of time in hospitals and doctors waiting rooms lately I can attest to the utter uselessness of our national health system.

It seems that even when you have Cancer only a letter of complaint will bring about the necessary phone call to tell you what's going on with your health treatment. I dread to think of how I would be treated if I couldn't write English and had the same problems.

But Georgey Boy didn't scrap the higher 50p tax band Labour had brought in, in their dying days as a last ditch attempt to placate their core supporters. Those same supporters who they had spent the last 13 years pissing off with their "greed is good" mantra that allowed the first run on a British Bank in living memory to occur with Northern Rock.

No instead he cut it in half as if that would be enough to keep the Lib Dem's happy as well as the rich donors who, as the Sunday Times today exposed today, are promised access to David Cameron's very own dinner table in return for dosh and campaign contributions.

I suppose every party must be funded somehow. Labour sold gongs and honours, the Tories chose to sell dinner seats with their grandees. The Lib Dem's probably only hold annual raffles at Gay Pride marches which I suppose is the reason they fail so miserably at each election.

This wasn't a budget for growth, and it has been remembered for the "granny tax" which although has pushed Labour's poll ratings through the roof has probably been blown out of proportion. This is not down to any logic but more to George's attempt to hide it as a "simplification" of the tax system.

Everything else in his budget had been leaked anyway so this was the one thing the papers leaped upon once it became clear he felt the elderly hadn't paid their fair share in these times of austerity.

We are all in this together, we are all in this together - keep saying it enough and you might just believe it to be true.

If it is true then it sure doesn't seem like it when the Tories are sending out the message that the richest few percent need to pay less not more tax.

Now this might piss off class warfare warriors and those who see any progressive tax code as a way of attacking ambition but if I was on £150,000 a year I wouldn't really mind paying a few grand extra a year.

I mean if I did earn that much I can guarantee that I would already have a good lawyer and accountant  busily hunting through our overly complex tax code looking for loopholes and ways to avoid paying tax. It is the way of the world apparently to avoid tax as long as you do it legally.

If we did want to bring in the bucks and attract business to our shores we would be simplifying the tax code but not just for the OAP's but for those who have the means to use those over-complications to their advantage i.e the rich. Let Vodafone & co pay their fair dues if they want to sell their Chinese made phones & other goods on our shores.

A simple tax code equals less room for people to escape paying. Simples.

If lower taxes for everybody helps bring in more dosh then I'm all for it so sort it out George. But we should be putting money in those peoples pockets who actually spend it in shops each weekend rather than give it back to those who have already conned the system and own offshore bank accounts. A nice rebate for every tax payer would get our high streets humming in no time.

We need to stop moving allowances up and down a few percentage points here and there and think big for once.

Use all those fine brains on the Economist and Financial Times to our advantage for once instead of allowing people to pay for the privilege to persuade our government what's best for them equals best for everybody.

Lobbying is not what is needed to get us out this mess. A proper budget for everybody is.

My Dark Politricks Budget Proposals for 2012

By Dark Politricks

Tomorrow is the 2012 Budget in the UK, which comes at a time of low growth, austerity, high jobless rates, almost zero interest rates and high inflation.

There is lots of talk about what the Chancellor might be doing today including whether or not he will cut the top rate of tax 50% for the richest people in the country. Apparently these people are deterred from coming to the UK and creating jobs due to the perception that "Britain is not open for business" and we are "anti entrepreneurial". Whether there are any facts to back this I don't know but it would be interesting to see evidence either way.

I don't really care if they reduce this tax level or not as long as an independent organisation can show that doing so will bring in more tax revenue and create jobs than by having it.

There might be some truth when people like John Redwood, the right wing Tory MP says in he wants to see rich people pay more tax and the way to do this is by reducing tax rates so that less money is spent by those rich enough to afford expensive lawyers on getting round the existing and very complicated tax laws.

Most company owners don't pay the high tax rate anyway because they just pay themselves in other ways or though dividends and capital gains which has a rate much less tax rate than the current 50% top rate of income tax.

Therefore if I had to choose a budget for tomorrow I would do the following:

1. Scrap the existing tax code which is far too complicated with too many loopholes for those rich and clever enough to exploit and make a simple code in which:

• No one pays tax until they earn over a certain threshold like £10 or £20k. The coalition want to raise the threshold to £10k and they are on the right track by removing people out of paying tax at the lower end of the scale. These are the people who are reliant on all the bus routes, libraries and other public services that are being cut at the moment
• If a flat tax can be proven to bring in more tax revenue than a progressive rate then I am all for what works. I have no ideological problem with a flat rate if it can bring in more revenue. We need more money from the richest in our country and if a flat tax prevents them from using offshore accounts and loopholes then I am happy to try it.
• Close every tax loophole available. A simple and fair tax code with no loopholes to be exploited will ensure the richest cannot escape tax though their lawyers and clever avoidence schemes.

2. Make sure any company that wants to do business in this country pays tax in this country. No post boxes in the Cayman Islands as the Company HQ. A company who wants our huge market should have to set up a UK subsidiary and all revenue make in this country should be taxed at our rates and stay in our country.

3. Incentivise companies who take on any of the following people with tax breaks and other schemes.

• Long term unemployed.
• People with disabilities.
• People who have just come out of prison or are on the way to spending a life in and out of prison e.g gang members.
• Young people who have not had a job since leaving college or school for a year.
• Older people who have not worked for a while, have no private pension and are too young for the state pension.

4. Totally nationalise the banks we own the majority stake in and run them for the good of the nation. Profits are retuned to the treasury or given out as loans to more "riskier" small business who require funding. However the key aim should be to ensure that any company wanting to expand and create jobs but cannot currently get funding can get the money they need.

5. Parts of the country heavily reliant on Public Sector jobs that are being cut should have large amounts of government investment including incentives for private companies. Companies willing to relocate or base their factories and offices in Wales, Scotland the the North should get tax breaks at the very least.

6. Any company who hires a currently unemployed British citizen should be given a 1-2 year national insurance holiday. Get British people back working and make it worth UK companies while hiring them over cheap foreign labour.

7. Keep some pre-election promises by re-balancing the fuel tax escalator so that as the price of petrol rises the amount of tax going to the treasury decreases, keeping the overall price stable for the customer. As petrol speedily heads towards£1.50 a litre with most of it going to the Treasury the amount of fuel tax as an overall percentage should be reduced as the cost of oil rises.

8. Give every tax paying worker in the country a tax rebate of £1000-£2000 in the form of a voucher that can be redeemed in any shop in the country. The previous VAT cut wasn't even noticed by shoppers, especially at Christmas time when every shop reduces their stock by over 20% anyway. Cash can be saved or used for other means but a voucher with a use by date would ensure the tax payers who have basically bailed this country out of the bankster incurred mess are repaid as well as stimulating the economy by ensuring the money is spent in shops that badly need the business.

9. Scrap Trident - a nuclear missile system we cannot even use without US say so and their GPS guidance system, so in all likelihood will never be used anyway. Instead spend the multiple billions a replacement would cost on shoring up our overstretched armed forces. If we are going to continue to ask them to fight war after war we should ensure they have the best equipment, proper housing, proper help when they return limbless and mentally distressed as well as giving a sign to other countries like Iran and Israel that responsible nations that already have nukes are prepared to give them up.

10. Invest heavily in public transport without making it so expensive to drive a car that taking a bus or train looks cheap in comparison.

There can be no proper private competition on a railway - no two trains can run the same line at the same time. Public transport should be run for the good of the nation and any taxes spare from the multiple taxes on motorists (road tax, petrol tax, vat etc) should be used to make public transport cheap and a viable option not a second choice people are forced to use for whatever reason. If other countries can do this we surely can.

Those are just 10 points I've just thought of whilst watching TV. I'm sure with another five minutes I could come up with at least another 10 more.

Will Boy George Osborne look after his core constituents and screw the poor or are we really "all in this together" like we continually get told. Only time will tell.

Lets wait and see what happens tomorrow.