Adjustment

Just going to home in on a gap in understanding for a few brief minutes.

Countless are the tweets declaring austerity as a war on the poor. However...

Walk with me in my twilight, unpopular thinking mode for a while.

It seems to me that what's happening is more of a readjustment. We understand now that money itself isn't behaving that well. It seems that those in wealthy positions of power tend to extort the system, often beyond the point of criminality to retain and gain wealth. It seems avenues of legal or potentially problematic but virtually untraceable tax avoidance are openly available for the £150k+ earning of the world, and often used.

That accounts for some of the individual abuses of the monetary system. Now lets layer on top corporate abuse. The scope is stunning. From insider & high frequency trading, to thousands of offshore tax havens. from the lowly picking up unpaid workers struggling to get off welfare, via the rent inflating landlords coining it in from the welfare state and blaming the soul that had to claim housing benefit, all the way up to government scale manipulation of currency markets, bond prices and lets not forget the power of political lobbying in cash for gain.

The vast array of abuses of money are laid out. So what's with this "War on the poor" thing? Well ... If only.

I see it more as the results of the system attempting to balance what a £ or $ is worth against the world but still within the terms of reference that nobody really cheats that much. It's a bogus assumption, but it's not a war on the poor in strict terms. It's a huge unsustainable cloud of debt and expectation for cash returns that hangs over all of us. At the moment it's adjustment time, and the huge hole in world finances is being adjusted by demolishing any and all support that was provided to the poor and ill. That all vanished. The heads full of money (breadheads?) will see it as simply unsustainable without question of why. The bottom line counts. Cut the deficits by cutting welfare. It's simple. But.

Yes ok, I can see that simplistic interpretation and why the money of the world protects it's interests that way, but it's simplistic and lives in a world of denial.

The system isn't working because it's being abused at any level you care to look at. Money in effect is being syphoned out towards large corporations and the rich list tax avoidance schemes faster than Mr & Ms Jones on the Clapham Omnibus can keep up. If you keep punishing Mr & Ms Jones for it ... disaster happens.

Ok. So I was wrong about expecting a market crash in 2010-11. I still think it would have happened i it wasn't for massive central bank / ECB intervention, but that's beside the point. We're here now. And here's what I'll cast out for now in my own limited sphere of knowledge.

The UK is going to be hit in April with cuts it didn't even know were coming. A huge number of people probably won't even realise where all the spare money has gone until June or July. Austerity cuts have been scheduled on a scale and depth beyond which even fairly switched on readers and observers will expect. I'm a cynical bugger, and even I'm caught out by finding new implications for the cuts about to start biting. Even smug little me is going to get a bigger bill or two come April, despite my best efforts.

So here's how I see it ...

The UK is in for a horrific 2013. The extent of which probably won't begin to bite home till late summer. By the time autumn swings around and official statistics have caught up, Britain will be already staring the kind of recession people have muttered about in the face. It won't just be a theoretical "As bad as the great depression" problem. It'll be here. Now. In pretty much everyone's face.

The British though are a docile race. It's fair to say the probability of civil disobedience on a massive scale will be much higher, but then again, the chances of the British getting of their arse's and doing anything about it are also reasonably slim. At this point though, we'll be diving back past "Poll Tax" riot potential in to new, uncharted realms.

The bad news is. Some of you will die as a result. I might be one of them. Cuts in healthcare will reduce life expectancy. The homeless can expect significantly shorter lifespans. Some of us will even commit suicide in the face of impossible odds. I'm afraid that all comes with the territory ... but .. while you die ..

Relax.

Smile.

It's not a war on the poor. It's simply a religious faith in money and it's protection taking precedence over life and humanity. The banks will be fine. Most the hedge funds will somehow survive. The core will survive. And .. that's all that matters ... right?