The “snatch and grab” attempt of the UK’s fortunes by Liz Truss et all, highlights a much bigger problem.
It felt as if Liz knew she didn’t have much time before the alarm went off, so she tried to stuff her backpack with as much loot as she could before being turfed out.
By just being in power for 44 days, she has gained herself an extra £115k per annum to add to her £85k as an Member of Parliament.
A cool two hundred thousand pounds per annum provided she can hold her seat at the next elections!
We discover that Liz and her erstwhile 38 day Chancellor Kwasi Kwarteng were the progeny of some rather foul right-wing Think-tanks who cluster, like a cancer at 55 Tufton Street, less than 10 minutes walk from Parliament.
One of these Think-tanks was called the Global Warming Policy Foundation, which claims to be a charity who presents “fair views” on the Climate crisis, but is however funded by a series of shareholders who have substantial stakes in Petro-chemical companies.
They are essentially claiming to care, whilst intervening in any policies decisions that might actually stop their funders profiting.
It was therefore no shock to see Liz Truss sweep to the Commons with a bill to start Fracking again in the UK. You can bet that should Fracking have become widespread, she and her cronies would have benefitted.
This microcosm of greed, that was Liz Truss’ thankfully short premiership felt like a Buccaneer had been let lose. Her beliefs that the Market would follow her, showed just how massively misinformed she actually was.
The problem is greater than just Liz Truss however.
The USA
We see that US Senators and their families are allowed to buy shares in companies that they directly create the legislature for. I find it astonishing that about fifteen senators bought heavily into Arms Manufactures three weeks before war was declared in Ukraine, and the US sent huge loads of weapons to the front.
How can that be right? How can they be privy to the war briefings, and then line their nests to profit from others grief. Worse than that, these facts are openly understood, not hidden!
Our American friends took longer to free themselves from Slavery than we did in the United Kingdom. The vestiges of this cruel policy still plague modern life in the USA.
I was astonished to find that only four years before I was born, in 1958, one young black man called Clennon King was jailed and then sent to a Mental Asylum for trying to enrol in Mississippi State University. The authorities claimed that he must be insane to even think there might be a place for him at this august institution!
The UK
At the same time in the United Kingdom it was a familiar site to see flats or rooms being let out to tenants with the sign “No Blacks, No Jews, No Irish and No Dogs” displayed in the front window.
These days we find it abhorrent. My children are totally colour-blind.
(I used to have conversations with them when they were at junior school in London that went like this.. “Dad, can I have Lennon over?” “Which one is Lennon?” – then the conversation would dissolve into “you know, the one I play football with, the one from my party, the one who…” Never mentioning that he might be of Chinese or African descent. It was never an identifier for them..)
Black Lives Matter
We see that the maltreatment of Black people in America generated the #BLACKLIVESMATTER movement when people finally got to the end of their tethers..
The subject of racism as with all these things is a question of education.
Our societies have always been very good at keeping women “in their place”
We find that from the ancient law-maker Hammurabi in Sumerian times, that he felt that there were three classes of people; essentially rich, merchants and poor.
We see this structure everywhere, from the castes of the Hindu system, through the Roman Empire, through thousands of years of European history, until the First and Second World Wars.
This was the first time that Women were ever thought of as anything other than an under-class.
Nothing Changes
It’s all too obvious even now in the Middle East, women are still not free to live as equals.
Along the way, we have found some pathways to accept “The Other” – in many lands same sex marriages are allowed, and it’s easier and more acceptable to flex one’s gender.
Tiny steps in the right direction. Breaking the illusory glass-ceiling for women is the next big challenge.
There’s ONE place that nobody will look, when it comes to the question of inequality, however.
Our Politicians, almost to a man, come from an elite class of folk who were born into money.
in the UK, the paid-for pipeline from Eton & Harrow, to Oxford & Cambridge and straight into Politics is well known.
It’s NOT cheap, but it’s a great investment for a family to make, to see their fortunes accrue even more quickly.
David Cameron (Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 2010 to 2016) was assessed to be worth about £10m before becoming Prime Minister and now about £38m. Not a bad investment of his parents!
Famously, Aristotle declared that there were people who were “evidently” Free Men, and others who patently “exhibited” Slavish qualities.
Rich men have always believed that they have a God-given right to rule over the poor.
The lottery of birth seems to cast many into the role of downtrodden, and the few to the role of oppressor.
The Rich get richer
Elon Musk, Bill Gates and Warren Buffet have between them $400Bn.
That’s about the same net worth as Mexico, and slightly more than Russia, in these three gentlemen’s control. Let’s say we liquidated these three gentlemen. Their assets of course – I’m just wanting to point that out!
What could be achieved by releasing $400Bn into helping level up the poor?
Universal Basic Income
It’s time now to look at the minimum wage story – or Universal Basic Income
It’s been mooted in the United Kingdom, that we dissolve the fantastically expensive Social Security system. (This is the thousands of people who give out money to the poor, and check to see that the poor aren’t working side jobs whilst receiving these benefits.)
If we were to offer every person in the United Kingdom £1000 per month, no questions asked. This country would become a radically different and exceptionally creative place. It could become the work-hub of Europe.
The savings of paying people to administer Money, could fund the UBI.
We often refer to the Finish Government’s experiment on Universal Basic Income.
They recently ran a randomised, country-wide experiment for two years.
McKinsey & Company have the following to say about the Experiment.
“The final results from Finland’s experiment are now in, and the findings are intriguing: the basic income in Finland (a modest €560) led to a small increase in employment, significantly boosted multiple measures of the recipients’ well-being, and reinforced positive individual and societal feedback loops.”
Housing
What happens when every person in society is helped to have their own house, and their own income.
Do people actually want to be robbers? Do people actually want to live on the street?
Once again we look to Finland, where they have built 3500 new homes, and eradicated homelessness in Helsinki.
This brings work to communities, building hoses, and lowers crime levels.
Less crime means a happier population, more work means more money in the community.
In the UK, we are in the pincer-like grip from the stupidity of the Conservative Government.
We desperately need workers, but have followed a xenophobic policy to keep people out!
Truly, cutting off our noses to spite our faces, as we say!
(I suspect that we’ll see even more refugees allowed to enter from Ukraine in the coming months!
“Poor things, come in and show us your qualifications…” – Ah, a Nuclear scientist, computer programmer.. worked in banking.. stamp that visa! And don’t we look like good people to boot!)
Finally..
To round up my thoughts.
Racial Equality, Sexual Equality, Gender Equality, it’s just about Equality.
You can be anything you want to be in my Qigong world, but how about we stop trying to amass fortunes, like crazed pirates, and start trying to find a way to balance our society.
The lack of equality in the UK, between rich and poor is growing ever bigger.
Day by day of our Conservate government, they tell us they are trying to help, whilst getting richer and richer through questionable deals and policies. Its time to take a Consciousness perspective, where we are all human beings, no single one better that the other.
It’s time for LOVE to be the guiding principle.
Even LOVE has been a “paternalistic” control mechanism, used by religions to keep us in line!
This time it has to be LOVE, for LOVE’s sake, with NO hidden agenda.
Love, Love, Love