western economy failure down to crony capitalism ?

[Gary L]

Originally Posted by Alan Fry

Not all muslims are like that, but the same would also apply to Christianity!

Technically, Christians don't really kill for not being able to convert you.

[Alan Fry]

Originally Posted by Gary L

Technically, Christians don't really kill for not being able to convert you.

I mean they have their own band of extremists!

[Gary L]

I'm an extremist, and I'm not even religious!

[Alan Fry]

Originally Posted by Gary L

I'm an extremist, and I'm not even religious!

That would be political extremism!

I was talking about religious extremism!

[Gary L]

Originally Posted by Alan Fry

That would be political extremism!

I was talking about religious extremism!

That's alright then. you had me worried about what kind of extremist I was.

[Alan Fry]

Originally Posted by Gary L

That's alright then. you had me worried about what kind of extremist I was.

I do not think you are a extremist in the first place!

[Hugh]

Compared to you, he isn't...

[Taf]

Originally Posted by Alan Fry

Not all muslims are like that, but the same would also apply to Christianity!

KORAN commands to kill infidels:

Allah is an enemy to unbelievers. - Sura 2:98

On unbelievers is the curse of Allah. - Sura 2:161

Slay them wherever ye find them and drive them out of the places whence they drove you out, for persecution is worse than slaughter. - 2:191

Fight against them until idolatry is no more and Allah's religion reigns supreme. (different translation: ) Fight them until there is no persecution and the religion is God's entirely. - Sura 2:193 and 8:39

Fighting is obligatory for you, much as you dislike it. - 2:216
(different translation: ) Prescribed for you is fighting, though it is hateful to you.

And there are loads more examples in their holy book

http://www.wvinter.net/~haught/Koran.html

Christians have no such instructions in their holy book.

[Hugh]

Ahem....

that scoundrels among you are leading their fellow citizens astray by saying, ‘Let us go worship other gods’—gods you have not known before. In such cases, you must examine the facts carefully. If you find that the report is true and such a detestable act has been committed among you, you must attack that town and completely destroy all its inhabitants, as well as all the livestock. (Deuteronomy 13:13-15 NLT)

"Then I heard the LORD say to the other men, "Follow him through the city and kill everyone whose forehead is not marked. Show no mercy; have no pity! Kill them all – old and young, girls and women and little children. But do not touch anyone with the mark. Begin your task right here at the Temple." So they began by killing the seventy leaders. "Defile the Temple!" the LORD commanded. "Fill its courtyards with the bodies of those you kill! Go!" So they went throughout the city and did as they were told." (Ezekiel 9:5-7 NLT)

They entered into a covenant to seek the Lord, the God of their fathers, with all their heart and soul; and everyone who would not seek the Lord, the God of Israel, was to be put to death, whether small or great, whether man or woman. (2 Chronicles 15:12-13 NAB)

If your own full brother, or your son or daughter, or your beloved wife, or you intimate friend, entices you secretly to serve other gods, whom you and your fathers have not known, gods of any other nations, near at hand or far away, from one end of the earth to the other: do not yield to him or listen to him, nor look with pity upon him, to spare or shield him, but kill him. (Deuteronomy 13:7-12 NAB)

If there is found in your midst, in any of your towns, which the LORD your God is giving you, a man or a woman who does what is evil in the sight of the LORD your God, by transgressing His covenant, and has gone and served other gods and worshiped them, or the sun or the moon or any of the heavenly host, which I have not commanded, and if it is told you and you have heard of it, then you shall inquire thoroughly. Behold, if it is true and the thing certain that this detestable thing has been done in Israel, then you shall bring out that man or that woman who has done this evil deed to your gates, that is, the man or the woman, and you shall stone them to death. (Deuteronomy 17:2-7)

[Chrysalis]

this has been obvious for a while.

If you the CEO of tesco, you can probably get a face to face meeting with someone from the cabinet on request.

Also that often people running governments also have business interests and they will usually legislate to keep those safe.

Recently we have had tesco asking the government to change a welfare policy, we will see if the government honours that request or not for tesco.

The closest the public can get to a meeting is either during election time when the powerful roam the marginal seats (not safe seats tho), or a tv show like question time which is often pre approved questions only anyway, plus no followup questions allowed allowing a politican to bluff of questions without response.

We also had IDS recently go on about how its unacceptable for tescos name to be dragged through the mud yet he had no issue calling vulnerable people job snobs and such. A complete different attitude to big business from individuals.

I would say the majority of todays problems are caused by capitalism.

[Hugh]

He didn't call vulnerable people job snobs, he called those who looked down on jobs such as shelf stacking job snobs... Link

"In the other, armed with an unjustified sense of superiority and sporting an intellectual sneer, we find a commentating elite which seems determined to belittle and downgrade any opportunity for young people that doesn't fit their pre-conceived notion of a 'worthwhile job'," the former Tory leader wrote in the Daily Mail.
"Sadly, so much of this criticism, I fear, is intellectual snobbery. The implicit message behind these ill-considered attacks is that jobs in retail, such as those with supermarkets or on the High Street, are not real jobs that worthwhile people do.
"How insulting and demeaning of the many thousands of people who already work in such jobs up and down the country!
"I doubt I'm the only person who thinks supermarket shelf-stackers add more value to our society than many of those 'job snobs' who are busy pontificating about the Government's employment policies. They should learn to value work and not sneer at it."

[Chrysalis]

Originally Posted by Taf

Shifting a lot of industrial production to the Far East from The West has been a major mistake AFAIC, especially when they want to then sell all that product to the West where many will be unemployed because there is little industrial work, and therefore unable to afford the products!

The West has shown in recent years that relying on national income from banking for GDP is a very big mistake, and relying on credit in all its forms has been building a bubble that HAD to burst at some point.

More and more money earned in countries ends up transferred elsewhere in the world, quite often to countries with lower costs-of-living, fuelling inflation in those countries, and thus mass population exoduses in search of better incomes, usually to The West where they percieve those "better incomes" can be earned.

agreed, I said it years ago and now its been proven true. It was obviously done with short term profits in mind, reduce the cost of labour and keep shareholders happy, however the obvious longer term consequences would be less people working and as such buying the goods. I think however this is not going to be reversed since so much wealth has shifted over to the east we will now see emerging markets where these companies will aim to sell their goods. IT is now massive in india, everyday I get emails spamming offering web development work from india companies, no idea how they got my email but blocking them the email keeps coming from new domains, numerous large companies now outsource development to india, centrica moved their network team to india (source my sister, works for them), eg. if she needs her email account fixed she has to ring india. The obvious casualty is manufacturing as well to china, however another issue with manufacturing is the amount of automation. When I used to work for walkers crisps, the day I started there was 5-8 people manning each machine, those same machines when I left were manned by 3-4 people and plans were in place to drop it down to 1-2 with further automation, parts of the warehouse also got automated as well. On another production line I had seen manning drop by 75% in a 3 year period. The only jobs I see staying consistent is service jobs, like mechanics, shops, hairdressers, healthcare etc. Even shopping is s a shrinking sector as we seeing high street shops falling like dominoes with the likes of tesco selling everything possible and allowing it to be ordered over the internet.

The first obvious thing to fix would be to bring outsourced work back over, however its not as simple as that as any company doing that wold be uncompetitive, everyone would have to agree to do it together which isnt going to happen. The fix the government seems to have in mind is to supply cheap labour to companies as an incentive to keep them employing people here. ultimately tho something has to give for things to get better and that has to be the top 1-2% accepting a loss of wealth, if they dont then this situation will continue. Look at the top 1-2% wealth during the 60s boom era. It dropped significantly. It then rose again during the 80s up until where are we today.

---------- Post added at 09:55 ---------- Previous post was at 09:51 ----------

Originally Posted by Hugh

He didn't call vulnerable people job snobs, he called those who looked down on jobs such as shelf stacking job snobs... Link

If thats what you want to think to make yourself feel better sure.

Personally I would refuse to work there for nothing. I am a job snob then?

[papa smurf]

Originally Posted by Chrysalis

agreed, I said it years ago and now its been proven true. It was obviously done with short term profits in mind, reduce the cost of labour and keep shareholders happy, however the obvious longer term consequences would be less people working and as such buying the goods. I think however this is not going to be reversed since so much wealth has shifted over to the east we will now see emerging markets where these companies will aim to sell their goods. IT is now massive in india, everyday I get emails spamming offering web development work from india companies, no idea how they got my email but blocking them the email keeps coming from new domains, numerous large companies now outsource development to india, centrica moved their network team to india (source my sister, works for them), eg. if she needs her email account fixed she has to ring india. The obvious casualty is manufacturing as well to china, however another issue with manufacturing is the amount of automation. When I used to work for walkers crisps, the day I started there was 5-8 people manning each machine, those same machines when I left were manned by 3-4 people and plans were in place to drop it down to 1-2 with further automation, parts of the warehouse also got automated as well. On another production line I had seen manning drop by 75% in a 3 year period. The only jobs I see staying consistent is service jobs, like mechanics, shops, hairdressers, healthcare etc. Even shopping is s a shrinking sector as we seeing high street shops falling like dominoes with the likes of tesco selling everything possible and allowing it to be ordered over the internet.

The first obvious thing to fix would be to bring outsourced work back over, however its not as simple as that as any company doing that wold be uncompetitive, everyone would have to agree to do it together which isnt going to happen. The fix the government seems to have in mind is to supply cheap labour to companies as an incentive to keep them employing people here. ultimately tho something has to give for things to get better and that has to be the top 1-2% accepting a loss of wealth, if they dont then this situation will continue. Look at the top 1-2% wealth during the 60s boom era. It dropped significantly. It then rose again during the 80s up until where are we today.

---------- Post added at 09:55 ---------- Previous post was at 09:51 ----------



If thats what you want to think to make yourself feel better sure.

Personally I would refuse to work there for nothing. I am a job snob then?

a chap i worked with years ago taught me this
any fool can work for nothing the trick is to get as much as you can out of them

[Chrysalis]

Well on the topic of this post, how is it helping the economy me doing xx amount of hours a week at tesco for nothing?

their shareholders get a boost. Thats it.

On the original scheme I would have got a job interview and thats it, I likely would have lost time actually looking for paid employment.

Slave labour isnt the fix for excessive capitalism, regulating it is the fix. "excessive profits" needs to become a real thing.

[Taf]

Originally Posted by Hugh

Ahem....

I stand corrected.