Okay, enough ranting from me. I thought I'd offer you a competition instead, with a MILLION POUND PRIZE !!!! I often hear the defenders of bankster capitalism claim that banks 'create wealth' or that private banks are vital to our economy. We can't tax or regulate them too much, for example, or we'll scare them away to Switzerland and Hong Kong, which would apparently be a disaster for us, because .. err .. well because banks 'create wealth' don't they?
I'd like to know more about this magical wealth creation process that occurs in banks, because I'm a bit hazy on the details at the moment and I'm sure some genius neo-liberal economist (perhaps one who works for a bank?) will be able to answer my question, given that I'm offering a good old capitalist incentive: what an economist might call a 'price signal'. That's right folks, I'm prepared to pay a MILLION BRITISH POUNDS to the first person to offer a satisfactory answer to the following simple question:
How do private banks create wealth?
That's it. Just post your answer in the comments, leaving a contact number or email and the first good answer will get £1,000,000. That's a MILLION POUNDS.
Small print: Of course, you will not object if I pay this in the form of a credit card specially issued by the newly created Bank of Insane Gibberish, with £1,000,000 credit on it (based on the £10 note I hold in my piggy bank as cash reserves).
Even the mainstream media is now aware that there is something approaching an uprising going on in New York and other US cities right now. At least, if it were happening in an Arab country, our media would certainly be calling it an uprising, albeit a fairly peaceful one, if we overlook the copious violence coming from the police, as is usually the case, regardless of where in the world you are. I'm not going to offer any detailed analysis of this phenomenon. Instead, I leave you with a poem, the first version of which was written on the inauguration of President Obama in 2008. The basic message is in tune with those protesters occupying Wall Street today; that power must belong again to the people and that no leader can ever be trusted to deliver the people's will:
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| Occupy Wall Street |
Anarchy in the USA
I woke up to a dream of hope:
the silent hordes who’d been asleep,
possessed for one ecstatic moment
of love before that love is spent.
For now, instead of begging bowls,
they raise their cups and think of schools,
clean water, liberty and rice,
in place of war and pestilence.
Who is the man who’d be a god,
and slake our thirst for more than blood?
But we have gorged ourselves on gods
and soaked our claws in sunny words,
and now we’re sick, too sick to swallow
the honeycomb promises of kings who borrow
magic from the myriad-headed hydra
(serpent slayer of the ancient Maya).
While Fear and Faith stand by the throne,
the world still wears a golden chain –
now will some god-king give the command
to throw all idols to the ground?
No. Hail the one, who would be chief –
he is you, and me, and a turning leaf.
