ibilly99

Lady Delilah you're bang on about Government I used to work closely with ministers and only the rich and powerful get to have face time with them always when they have some 'issue' which needs sorting. Radicals never get off the back benches and those that rise up have to toe the line - true leadership radicals don't last long al la Allende et al - this is a good place to start for the uninformed.

LD +1 brilliant exposition can I join your party/ "I am a most unhappy man. I have unwittingly ruined my country. A great industrial nation is controlled by its system of credit. Our system of credit is concentrated. The growth of the nation, therefore, and all our activities are in the hands of a few men. We have come to be one of the worst ruled, one of the most completely controlled and dominated Governments in the civilized world no longer a Government by free opinion, no longer a Government by conviction and the vote of the majority, but a Government by the opinion and duress of a small group of dominant men." -Woodrow Wilson, after signing the Federal Reserve into existence

Hugenot we may be on the same side but I find it hard to support your last assertion certainly not in the short term what it won't be certainly is the Japanese stoicism shown after the Tsunami which was a credit to their nation.

I certainly don't want chaos and disorder I personally witnessed the looting of the Tescos in Grove Vale and it was a disquieting experience and one that I wanted to get as far away as possible. We've had some great years I'm 50 and have had a good ride beginningg with free university education and a fairly effortless career path that has taken me around the world. I like stability and a society that functions equitably particuarly in this phase of my life - mob rule is horrific and pretty much what we have unleashed in Libya presently. What I fear - and it is based on a fairly rational analysis based on a lot of different inputs and a regard to history is we are beggining a slide into a world where the government will retreat from being the relatively benign keeper of the democratic gate to something more remote and authoritarian as society becomes poorer. We've just had the biggest bust in history and now comes the reckoning and it was a fairly small group of financiers in league with compliant politicians who unleashed this. Most people want a stable and fulfilled life joe public wasn't the orchestrator of this as Hugenot seems to imply. Petty rioters that nicked few quid are now being banged up and rightly so but where's the perp walk for Chuck Prince, Dick Fuldman Fred Goodwin and the like - nowhere that's where. From working with rich people - and I've worked with a lot - mostly alpha males - I have found they are generally greedy and tight in equal measure - always wanting to win whether it be a queue or the race of life - restless souls driven to achieve by an emptiness inside. They are the architects of this mess not the average generous soul. And Jesus sat over against the treasury, and beheld how the people cast money into the treasury: and many that were rich cast in much. And there came a certain poor widow, and she threw in two mites, which make a farthing. And he called unto him his disciples, and saith unto them, Verily I say unto you, That this poor widow hath cast more in, than all they which have cast into the treasury: for all they did cast in of their abundance; but she of her want did cast in all that she had, even all her living.

irony dear boy Hugenot irony - a instant metaphor for a post-modernist audience - you don't work for Goldman Sachs by any chance ?

How about a poll thingy so we can can all Niall our flags to the mast - suggest the following; 1 Everything's fine and will come right in the end 2. Things are bad and could get worse but and we are currently in danger 3. We're all doomed we have hit the iceberg and it's time to get to those lifeboats 4. I'm a banker and always trade on the right side of any disaster

My regular sources for background and insight are ; Fintag Zero Hedge Market Ticker Itulip Hugenot you may like to spend a few hours off piste from the mainstream media and the the red pill ... Welcome to the Matrix

I'm pleased you have such confidence in the powers that be Hugenot - the same powers that be that have smashed Libyan infrastructure to pieces and will lead to untold suffering pace Iraq - and an American empire that was complicit with 3 million deaths in SE Asia all to keep the great western economic engine ticking over so that we can have our stuff. Interest rates at their lowest for 400 hundred years and QE for the first time in our history are obviouly just figments of my idiotic imagination - no need to worry then - enjoy the carnival. First rule is don't panic second rule is if your are going to panic panic first.

As some point empires collapse generally when they get bloated and over extended -hysterical ranting economics Professor Niall Ferguson sums its up nicely ... ?What if history is not cyclical and slow moving but arrhythmic ? at times almost stationary, but also capable of accelerating suddenly? What if collapse does not arrive over a number of centuries but comes suddenly, like a thief in the night?? Great powers and empires?operate somewhere between order and disorder ? on ?the edge of chaos,? in the phrase of? Christopher Langton. Such systems can appear to operate quite stably for some time; they seem to be in equilibrium but are, in fact, constantly adapting. But there comes a moment when complex systems ?go critical.? A very small trigger can set off a ?phase transition? from a benign equilibrium to a crisis? If empires are complex systems that sooner or later succumb to sudden and catastrophic malfunctions, rather than cycling sedately from Arcadia to Apogee to Armageddon, what are the implications for the United States today? ?For now, the world still expects the United States to muddle through? But one day, a seemingly random piece of bad news ? will make the headlines during an otherwise quiet news cycle. Suddenly, it will be not just a few policy wonks who worry about the sustainability of U.S. fiscal policy but also the public at large, not to mention investors abroad. It is this shift that is crucial: a complex adaptive system is in big trouble when its component parts lose faith in its viability.?

The elite always push the people too far until their naked greed is visible for all to see and then at the point of a gun they are forced to give up some more of their wealth back to the people who really created it - and the cycle begins again.

The middle class are being rinsed -

Maxxi you're right never has so much information been available - never has the truth of our world been so knowable - collapse is built into everything in the universe and most importantly our lives. Philosophers and sages point the way out but the venal desire of the greedy who gain power and control set the agenda. If you're not making some preparations for what's to come then it's the equivalent of not having insurance on you car. My father RIP had poignant memories of a collapsed Europe during and after the war which came about as a result of economic collapse. It is 1913 in Europe at the moment but a great storm is coming - this is the cycle of human endeavour - boom and bust which Gordon Brown has handily abolished and then fighting for what's left.

If only you could have bought in the Anthropocene period - you'd be minted now as well as fossilised.

We're just little people que sera sera - the people who make the decisions that shape our lives aren't spending time contributing to local internet forums -

Some much heat but the truth is sadly we are in a place which is growing darker year by year and the future economically will be poorer than the past we have been living on borrowed time for decades and this is the time where the debt has to be netted. We are in Great Depression 2 - the Great Capitulation. This will probably last for the best part of a decade and combined with increasing extreme weather owing to climate change and a growing number of mouths to fill inexorably leads to war. I fear that the natural characteristics of man along with the pyramidal nature of power means the least suited get to control the levers of power. Globalisation and the concept of shareholder value over national interest means the game is moving away from advanced over entitled western democracies to asia and the emerging economies - basically we are just too expensive - when some balance has been achieved i.e we will work for much less and expect much less from society that hasn't been earnt from fundamental economic activity then real growth can resume in the meantime indebted government are printing their way to 'recovery'. The macro picture is depressing which is why bread and circuses are much more fun and why I'm going to the Carnival.

Seems a shame to waste this one I made earlier ... yet again the West opens the Pandora's box and breaks up an oil rich country for it's own venal ends - the petrol you fill your car with has blood in it - happy motoring.

Agree with katie - very similar experiences - evil shall not triumph.

Otta I sincerely hope you're right but I would like an early morning call from plod to re-iterate to them that this behaviour ain't on in any respect.

I fancy looting some foie gras but I would need to prise the boards from Nicholas first. Any body fancy joining me ?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g8IVW3HUObg

Just back from Peckham all the shops closed and family members are standing outside shuttered shops ready to defend them if necessary. An encouraging We Love Peckham post it board on the boarded up Poundland window has become a focal point for the good citizens to congregate around. Occasional tired looking but grinning hoodies who are obviously delighted inside at what they have wrought. Hopefully if they step out of line heads will be majorly cracked tonight. Bring on the rubber bullets.

From the Guardian - a French point of view "Globalisation engenders an excess of individualism and nowhere more so than in Anglo-Saxon countries," wrote Jean-Marc Creau on the site. Joelle Koenig added: "Since the Reagan and Thatcher years, deregulation has grown faster. They reduced taxes for billionaires ... and now they want to work the people of Tottenham and elsewhere to death to pay off the debt." Jean Baptiste Clamence wrote: "There exists in England an underclass that does not exist anywhere else in Europe. White, little educated, without any means of social evolution, they are a perfect example of the results of Anglo-Saxon capitalism and its dehumanising program. The English perversion is to make this population proud of their misery and their ignorance. The situation is hopeless. I've more hope for the youth of our banlieues."

Brilliantly put Nette (lights cigar in segregated pub garden at your insight and erudition.)

Plea to mods can they lock the forum down to info only. The crowd on East Dulwich Grove could turn nasty this is not the time for speculation people need info and stay off the streets.

Just come back they are looting tescos and now the petrol station around a hundred onlookers a lot smiling and drinking beer. No police to be seen - terrible just terrible. Still shaking do not go out tonight the streets are not safe.