Problem with Conservatives

[John Simkin]

It would seem the main issue for conservatives is government spending. They want it kept as low as possible. However, in a modern state, the government needs to spend a great deal on education, health-care, welfare, defence, etc. The real issue is where the government gets this money from. Conservatives want the rich to pay low levels of taxation. This means of course that the less well-off have to pay higher levels of tax. Those on the left are in favour are in favour of a graduated tax system. The problem is that the rich are unwilling to fund political parties that argue for that policy. Therefore, virtually every political party in power is funded by multi-millionaires who insist that the top-rate of tax remains low. In this way the political system has been completely corrupted.

[Guest David Guyatt]

Carrol Quigley in his books (both "Tragedy & Hope" and "The Anglo American Establishment" has made it clear that the British poilitical system was dominated by either the Cecil family or by the Rhodes-Milner Group right up to WWII, when both factions more or less joined together to become a single dominating force. Both factions were by birth and inclination conservatives. They were usually wealthy too and formed part of the British landed gentry Establishment.

The Cecil family continued their tradition of being powerful politicians. The Seventh Marquis of Salisbury, better known to many of us as Lord Cranborne, was a Conservative Junior Minister of Defence and Leader of the House of Lords under John Major. He also worked closely with Tony Blair where he negotiated to retain a small rump of hereditary peers unbder Blair's proposed reform of the House of Lords and reached agreement with Blair on this without consulting his party' s leader, William Hague. A fact that clearly demonstrates the power he still wielded in reality. Hague understandably sacked him, but the agreement he negotaited with Bliar still stood.

In this and other ways the British political system was corrupt from its inception. It was never designed to be truly representative. And it still isn't.

I suppose one could realistically argue that you can't fix something that ain't broke. To be truly democratic the political system would need to be entirely reinvented.

And that will happen at about the same time that drug barons, gun runners, organised crime syndicates and corrupt international bankers donate their trillions to charity and take up the cloth seeking forgiveness for their past sins.

Not imminently.

[Guest Gary Loughran]

If I may ask of anyone who reads this thread and are interested enough to respond.

Is this a conspiracy, in the sense we understand it? Is the unabated corruption of Politics and money, whilst undoubtedly intrinsically linked, really part of a vast conspiracy with some controlling cabal of 10-12 leading international bankers/other businessmen at the helm?

or

Is this essentially just business and this is how business gets done on a grand global scale?

There are probably myriad answers and I'm happy for other theses. Personally I'm stuck between the 2 above. I'm not certain that it's truly a conspiracy, yet to perform big business on the global scale there must be some conspiratorial direction.

Also as an aside, is there ever any blood letting (figuratively) or are the same lineages still in control since time immemorial.

I'm sorry if this is off the chosen topic, but I'm trying to understand where the source lives, I think I understand in general terms the conduits.

Thanks again

Gary

[Christopher Hall]

It would seem the main issue for conservatives is government spending. They want it kept as low as possible. However, in a modern state, the government needs to spend a great deal on education, health-care, welfare, defence, etc. The real issue is where the government gets this money from. Conservatives want the rich to pay low levels of taxation. This means of course that the less well-off have to pay higher levels of tax. Those on the left are in favour are in favour of a graduated tax system. The problem is that the rich are unwilling to fund political parties that argue for that policy. Therefore, virtually every political party in power is funded by multi-millionaires who insist that the top-rate of tax remains low. In this way the political system has been completely corrupted.

John-

Have you ever seen the percentages of personal income taxes paid by the members of the various income brackets in the US?

I will try to find and post it later.

Chris

[Maggie Hansen]

If I may ask of anyone who reads this thread and are interested enough to respond.

Is this a conspiracy, in the sense we understand it? Is the unabated corruption of Politics and money, whilst undoubtedly intrinsically linked, really part of a vast conspiracy with some controlling cabal of 10-12 leading international bankers/other businessmen at the helm?

or

Is this essentially just business and this is how business gets done on a grand global scale?

There are probably myriad answers and I'm happy for other theses. Personally I'm stuck between the 2 above. I'm not certain that it's truly a conspiracy, yet to perform big business on the global scale there must be some conspiratorial direction.

Also as an aside, is there ever any blood letting (figuratively) or are the same lineages still in control since time immemorial.

I'm sorry if this is off the chosen topic, but I'm trying to understand where the source lives, I think I understand in general terms the conduits.

Thanks again

Gary

Hi Gary,

Is it an either/or situation or perhaps both? With our present system of capitalism the main institution is the corporation. Corporations having been granted legal personhood are strange persons indeed. Have you seen Mark Achabr's film "The Corporation"? http://www.thecorporation.com/ and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Corporation It describes well how the corporation, if a real person, would be a psychopath.

In order to maximise profits, as it is required to do by law, it externalizes any costs it can get away with. Therefore we, as a society, pay for industry's environmental waste, exploitative wages, poor occupational safety, loss of company and personal taxes and other negative social consequences while the corporations and their owners get to keep all the profits only for themselves.

While some of the people who go into corporations and into politics may themselves be decent moral people the system as it is is immoral or amoral, based on an unhealthy and unsustainable premise and it requires people to behave in ways which they may otherwise not. As in any society the main institutions (political, military, education, media etc) reflect the needs of the dominant class and are there to protect their interests. Corporate capitalism is an efficient mechanism to ensure that more and more is owned by less and less. So, yes it is business as usual and yes, in many places and situations it is a conspiracy. There are, however, also competing interests within the ruling class (ww1, ww2, $s versus euros in the present day) so they do not work together all the time.

As for your aside you may like to check out 'Who Owns Britain' by Kevin Cahill http://www.amazon.co.uk/Owns-Britain-Irela...customerReviews

also http://www.who-owns-britain.com/

It would seem in the case of England and Scotland that the same lineages are still well in control.

* The UK has 60 million acres of land in total.

* 70% of the land is owned by 1% of the population.

* Just 6,000 or so landowners -- mostly aristocrats, but also large institutions and the Crown -- own about 40 million acres, two thirds of the UK.

* Britain's top 20 landowning families have bought or inherited an area big enough to swallow up the entire counties of Kent, Essex and Bedfordshire, with more to spare.

* Big landowners measure their holdings by the square mile; the average Briton living in a privately owned property has to exist on 340 square yards.

* Each home pays £550/ann. on average in council tax while each landowning home receives £12,169/ann. in subsidies. The poor subsidising the super rich. In Ireland where land redistribution occurred, there is no council tax.

* A building plot, the land, now constitutes between half to two- thirds of the cost of a new house.

* 60 million people live in 24 million "dwellings".

* These 24 million dwellings sit on approx 4.4 million acres (7.7% of the land).

* Of the 24 million dwellings, 11% owned by private landlords and 65% privately owned.

* 19 million privately owned homes, inc gardens, sit on 5.8% of the land.

* Average dwelling has 2.4 people in it.

* 77% of the population of 60 million (projected to be more in new census) live on only 5.8% of the land, about 3.5 million acres (total 60 million).

* Agriculture only accounts for 3% of the economy.

* Average density of people on one residential acre is 12 to 13.

* 10.9 million homes carries a mortgage of some kind.

* Average value of an acre of development land is £404,000. High in south east of £704,154, low in north east of £226,624. London is in a category of its own.

* Reservations of land have been place by builders to a value of 37 billion to build the 3-4 million homes required. The land reserved is almost wholly owned by aristocrats; with none of it on the land registry. This land is coming out of subsidised rural estates, land held by off-shore trusts and companies and effectively untaxed.

[John Simkin]

Hi Gary,

Is it an either/or situation or perhaps both? With our present system of capitalism the main institution is the corporation. Corporations having been granted legal personhood are strange persons indeed. Have you seen Mark Achabr's film "The Corporation"? http://www.thecorporation.com/ and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Corporation It describes well how the corporation, if a real person, would be a psychopath.

In order to maximise profits, as it is required to do by law, it externalizes any costs it can get away with. Therefore we, as a society, pay for industry's environmental waste, exploitative wages, poor occupational safety, loss of company and personal taxes and other negative social consequences while the corporations and their owners get to keep all the profits only for themselves.

While some of the people who go into corporations and into politics may themselves be decent moral people the system as it is is immoral or amoral, based on an unhealthy and unsustainable premise and it requires people to behave in ways which they may otherwise not. As in any society the main institutions (political, military, education, media etc) reflect the needs of the dominant class and are there to protect their interests. Corporate capitalism is an efficient mechanism to ensure that more and more is owned by less and less. So, yes it is business as usual and yes, in many places and situations it is a conspiracy. There are, however, also competing interests within the ruling class (ww1, ww2, $s versus euros in the present day) so they do not work together all the time.

As for your aside you may like to check out 'Who Owns Britain' by Kevin Cahill http://www.amazon.co.uk/Owns-Britain-Irela...customerReviews

also http://www.who-owns-britain.com/

It would seem in the case of England and Scotland that the same lineages are still well in control.

Have you read his follow-up work, Who Owns the World: The Hidden Facts Behind Landownership:

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Who-Owns-World-Hid...4021&sr=1-3

[Guest David Guyatt]

If I may ask of anyone who reads this thread and are interested enough to respond.

Is this a conspiracy, in the sense we understand it? Is the unabated corruption of Politics and money, whilst undoubtedly intrinsically linked, really part of a vast conspiracy with some controlling cabal of 10-12 leading international bankers/other businessmen at the helm?

or

Is this essentially just business and this is how business gets done on a grand global scale?

There are probably myriad answers and I'm happy for other theses. Personally I'm stuck between the 2 above. I'm not certain that it's truly a conspiracy, yet to perform big business on the global scale there must be some conspiratorial direction.

Also as an aside, is there ever any blood letting (figuratively) or are the same lineages still in control since time immemorial.

I'm sorry if this is off the chosen topic, but I'm trying to understand where the source lives, I think I understand in general terms the conduits.

Thanks again

Gary

My personal take:

The conspiratorial direction, or as I prefer to call it the unseen “guiding hand” gets an aired in groups like the Bilderberg meetings where an international consensus (international generally meaning G7 nations more or less) is arrived at in advance. The Steering Committees are where the power is concentrated.

Foreign policy is arrived at in Chatham House and its sister organisation in Harold Pratt House (CFR). Reports issued by these three groups are usually mind-numbingly boring and very carefully written and spectacularly boring.

All adhere to the Adam Smith/financial capitalism model that is aimed at absorbing the wealth of the world in as few hands as possible.

You might note that the G7 nations (France, Germany, Italy, UK, USA, Canada and, if we include G8, Russia) - are those nations that have virtually been the exclusive warmongers of the last several hundred years. Which is telling, I think.

One might also argue that Brussels has a similar role in that it has become the repository of, and muscleman for enforcing, European laws that often by-pass true democratic representation but which are non-the-less binding ( I favour neither Europe or the US as a political model btw, these two being the only options open to us --- amazing how out choices are so limited isn’t it?).

I also very much agree with what Maggie Hansen has said.

It is notable that it was the ruling and wealthy families (the "club") that composed the Rhodes-Milner Group (that came to also include the powerful Cecil family).

[Maggie Hansen]

Have you read his follow-up work, Who Owns the World: The Hidden Facts Behind Landownership:

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Who-Owns-World-Hid...4021&sr=1-3

No John I haven't. It will be on my holiday reading list though.

[Maggie Hansen]

It is very confusing the term 'Conservative' these days. The Parties that are identified as conservative these days I see as extremist in ideology and practice. When I think of a conservative I think of some one who doesn't like change for changes sake. Someone who is happy, more or less, with the status quo. Then there are the Labor and Socialist parties around the place that are anything but. Together they are like a good cop and bad cop routine.

[Evan Burton]

Gary,

I don't consider it a conspiracy per se, but rather the simple greed that a number of people suffer from. Being comfortable is not enough - we want MORE. Being a financial retard, I accept I do not understand - but I still wonder why when a company makes a million dollars a year and all is well for the stockholders, there seem to be complaints why that million didn't grow into two million or three. Why do you have to make more? Isn't making a tidy profit enough?

I'm sure David can enlighten me, but David - keep it simple. I really am so stupid in these areas.

[John Dolva]

Gary,

I don't consider it a conspiracy per se, but rather the simple greed that a number of people suffer from. Being comfortable is not enough - we want MORE. Being a financial retard, I accept I do not understand - but I still wonder why when a company makes a million dollars a year and all is well for the stockholders, there seem to be complaints why that million didn't grow into two million or three. Why do you have to make more? Isn't making a tidy profit enough?

I'm sure David can enlighten me, but David - keep it simple. I really am so stupid in these areas.

Evan, you're not stupid at all. When one has enough one is fulfilled.

Mother Theresa when leaving the USA was asked by an eager reporter what she thought of the USofA, the greatest concentration of wealth.. She said she'd never been to a country where there are so many hungry people ie. not enough. This is from somone from the slums of Culcutta.

Other wealthy nations like some scandinavian ones have many samples of people retiring at a level of 'enough' at a million or so and taking up a fav hobby like skate boarding or just playing mixed with degrees of philanthropy, ie not escaping to tax havens but accepting a high tax burden so all can benefit.. Bill Gates has a team he pays off ONCE to write a GUI/DOS combo then sells it many many millions of times. 1 billion $ was not enough. 60 billion was not enough. Your "Being a financial retard" is highly commendable (IMO).

[Guest Gary Loughran]

Bill Gates has a team he pays off ONCE to write a GUI/DOS combo then sells it many many millions of times. 1 billion $ was not enough. 60 billion was not enough. Your "Being a financial retard" is highly commendable (IMO).

I've come to the opinion that Bill Gates is somewhat a fly in the ointment. Unusually, in terms of the super rich, he is relatively self made , excepting the smaller companies he buys out when he seemingly can't be bothered developing more bloatware.

I too am ignorant of the real ways of big business finance but I'm getting there (educated?). John S and David Guyatt amongst others provide exceptional insight, particularly the personal experiences David shares. That is one of the reasons I like the forum, the experiences of the members work well to flesh out and make their general knowledge much more unique and accessible. Of course in the JFK forum too, there are many researchers who provide similarly stimulating material. Maybe it's just me being Irish, but a good story well told is so much better than, say, for example, a wikipedia entry.

Edited December 13, 2007 by Gary Loughran

[Guest David Guyatt]

Gary,

I don't consider it a conspiracy per se, but rather the simple greed that a number of people suffer from. Being comfortable is not enough - we want MORE. Being a financial retard, I accept I do not understand - but I still wonder why when a company makes a million dollars a year and all is well for the stockholders, there seem to be complaints why that million didn't grow into two million or three. Why do you have to make more? Isn't making a tidy profit enough?

I'm sure David can enlighten me, but David - keep it simple. I really am so stupid in these areas.

I'm quite sure you're smarter than you let on, Evan. I think a brief timeline might be of use.

Back in the Sixties and early mid Seventies, when I was a young-blood in Stockbroking, making a good profit was then regarded as very satisfactory. A portion of the profits were tucked away to guard against a bad year. A sensible precaution. And a good year saw bonuses of upto 100% annual salary (and higher, in fact) paid across the board...from the mail room boy to the managers etc. When the firm benefited everyone benefited. Back then accountants did the books and had no other say in running the business (unlike today).

Then along came the Thatcher government, soon followed by "Big Bang" and the imposition of the American system of capitalism - which is styled to allow "international investors" to drain the wealth out of a country. Stockbrokers were bought out by banks and partnerships dissolved to be replaced by corporate mentality and strcutures. Thereafter stopckbroking became known as "investment banking" -- an American terminology.

Accountants became, almost overnight, extremely powerful (we now have CFO's - Chief Financial Officers - unheard of in the UK until post Big Bang) and they no longer allowed firms to stuff away a reserve profit from good years to cover poor years. Every penny earned in one year had to be included in this years profit figures and be dispersed as dividends and executive remuneration. And executive life spans were solely based on this year's earnings only. Previous years plaudits were of no use anymore. Loyalty evaporated.

This clearly is the ideology of short term-ism taken to the extreme.

But as you also point out it is all about insatiable greed.

I have often wondered to what degree of legitimate (sic) big business these days is saturated with illegitimate money that has been artfully laundered and corporate philosophy hijacked as a result. One example I recently looked at was Walt Disney, which is Gambino crime family money. Amongst many other things Disney now own 25% of the UK's ITV network.

I'm sure if I tried I could point out a number of banks that also connect to crime syndicates, or who are de facto ownbed by same.

I sense that this deplorable state of affairs now extends deep inside government. Earlier this year Gordon Brown was negotiating with the offshore internet gaming industry to bring them onshore to the UK where they would be licensed by his government in exchange for paying a percentage of their earnings in taxation. These are the same offshore internet gaming firms that were thrown out of the US because of their links to organised crime. Brown's philosophy was a reversal of the mafia protection racket, where the government would offer the protection for a fee, not the other way around.

Have you ever come across a mafia type that was altruistic or generous and who didn't operate on insatiable greed?

David

[Scott Deitche]

Bill Gates has a team he pays off ONCE to write a GUI/DOS combo then sells it many many millions of times. 1 billion $ was not enough. 60 billion was not enough. Your "Being a financial retard" is highly commendable (IMO).

I've come to the opinion that Bill Gates is somewhat a fly in the ointment. Unusually, in terms of the super rich, he is relatively self made , excepting the smaller companies he buys out when he seemingly can't be bothered developing more bloatware.

Actually Bill Gates is not unique. A casual perusal of the Forbes list of richest people shows a remarkable number of self-made millionaires (and billionaires). I know personally two, who came from nothing backgrounds, and are now quite successful.

The interesting thing I think you find is that those who make it themselves tend to be, well, nicer people. At least in my experience.

[Scott Deitche]

I think the idea of conservative and liberal labels is ridiculous.

I have beliefs that range from very conservative (fiscally) to very liberal (socially), and though I KNOW I am a minority in that I may be the only registered Republican (or at least the only one who admits it) on this forum, I never vote party line. I have voted for many independents and the occasional Democrat, especially in local and County elections- maybe the last vestige of real ability to influence the system at a voter level.

Point is, I think anyone with intelligence looks at issues from varying perspectives and tends not to follow one label or another completely.

Then again, people can be such sheep...