Credit Crunch Suicide: poem about the bankers' crash by Anna Chen

Ten years of austerity since the credit crunch crisis and we're even worse off while the rich doubled their wealth since 2008

It is ten years since the bankers' crash went full blown and what have we done? Austerity, Macjobs, disabled payments cuts, a spiteful bedroom tax costing more to administer than is collected, tax cuts for the better off, women losing seven years of state pension after a lifetime of inequality, students leaving university with crippling debt the size of a mortgage, social cleansing in London through unaffordable "affordable" property prices and demolition of their communities, life expectancy slammed into reverse in the North, hate crimes on the up, the lowest interest rates for 5,000 years, quantitive easing (QE) diluting the value of our money. And the culmination of all that injustice and greed: the Grenfell Tower fire.

The Tories and their media mouthpieces tried to persuade us that Labour caused the crisis even though UK economic growth stood at two or three per cent at the time of the 2010 general election; oh for that rate today. In 2010 the Tories were elected on a raft of lies and a narrative as dissembling as the £350 billion NHS Brexit pledge emblazoned across the Leave battle-bus. Mind you, Labour allowed the Tory narrative to set like concrete, allowing incoming Chancellor George Osborne to use the crash to impose austerity, which is basically the transfer of wealth from the poorest to the richest.

Once in power, Prime Minister David Cameron came on like a Tony Blair mini-me and had a war with Libya in 2011, further destabilising the world. Cameron promised a bonfire of regulations to "kill off the health and safety culture for good". He also gave us the EU referendum, not because there was any widespread demand for it, but in order to quell right-wing rebellion in his own Tory ranks. Some 52% of the vote — 37% of the total electorate, a quarter of the UK population — voted to "Take back control" and promptly handed us over to global warming oil guzzlers and chlorinated chicken merchants. And his actions may very well end up bankrupting the country should the Brexit trajectory be carried through.

Here's a poem I wrote about the crash in 2008. The shock for me is that we are re-entering the same territory with a mountain of debt and market manipulation.

Credit Crunch Suicide

I could have been a banker
Sitting on a ledge
High up on a skyscraper
Coz someone clipped my hedge

I could have been in business
In the city making bids
Take a shotgun to the wife and dogs
And then I’d do the kids

But I’m just a daily worker
About to lose my home
Savings all depleted
Can’t even get a loan

The bankers got their billions
The doggy got a bone
The millions got the wankers
Whose hearts are made of stone

I can cry into me drink
I can curse the gods above
I'd like to give that banker
A bleedin' great big shove

Watch him splat upon the pavement
A human pizza pie
Coz that's where I'll be living
Until the day I die.

by Anna Chen 29 Oct 2008

George Osborne says we can't afford the welfare state. Here are some reasons why.

George Osborne says we can't afford the welfare state. Of course we can't afford it. £70bn pa in tax avoidance, tax cuts ... Someone has to pay for all that and the 147% pa profit made by the train companies. Fire sales of public assets. All those extra billionaires with tastes to match: £20K cocktails (£35,000 at Movida), £330K rounds of drinks, £49mn apartments planned at Battersea Power Station making residents of No 1 Hyde Park look like paupers, £32mn Ferraris, £6mn bras (see pic above), diamond encrusted everything. Not to mention the odd war (check out those politicians' arms portfolios).

According to The Sunday Times Rich List in 2010, after a short dip in the collective wealth of the top one thousand weathiest Brits in 2008, it went up by a third in one year, 30 per cent in 2009 in the wake of the economic crisis. That's over £77bn up to £333.5bn, the biggest annual increase in the 22-year history of The Sunday Times rich list. Worldwide, the 358 people with assets of more than $1bn were worth more than the combined annual income of 45 per cent of the world's population.

There were 447 billonaires in January 2013. The world's richest hundred people could end world hunger now.

Randeep Ramesh wrote in the Guardian in 2011:

"In Britain, a dramatic rise in inequality has been fuelled by the creation of a super-rich class. The (national wealth) share of the top 1% of income earners increased from 7(.01)% in 1970 to 14(.3)% in 2005. ... Just prior to the global recession, the OECD says the top 0.1% of highest earners – accounted for a remarkable 5% of total pre-tax income, a level of wealth-hoarding not seen since the second world war."

Michael Meacher wrote in his open letter to the press in 2012:

" ... the richest 1,000 people make up only 0.003% of the population and yet they have made £155bn extra in the past three years, in the depths of the recession. If they paid off the entire deficit they'd still have £30bn with which to console themselves. Their combined wealth is the highest in history: 1,000 individuals own £413bn, more than a third of Britain's GDP. Their increase in wealth has been £315bn over the past 15 years. Capital gains tax on this at the current 28% rate would yield £88bn, that's 70% of the entire deficit. And yet it's the poorest and weakest who are paying: 77% of the budget deficit is being recouped by public spending and benefit cuts. Only 23% comes from tax increases, and half of that is from VAT which we all pay and hits the poorest hardest. None of the tax increases are specifically aimed at the super-rich."

Not to mention that the Coalition government has borrowed more in three years than Labour did in 13: £430.072 billion compared to £429.975bn.

C'mon, Tamara Ecclestone has to pay for her half a million quid shelf of Birkin bags somehow.

Listen to The Super Rich with Aditya Chakrabortty, Kate Belgrave and Charles Shaar Murray on Madam Miaow's Culture Lounge, Resonance 104.4FM.

John Kampfner on the history of the super rich.

From Vice magazine: The Seven Reasons Why Super Rich British Tax Dodgers Don't End Up in Jail.

A 2014 report by the Equality Trust revealed that the poorest 10 percent of British households pay eight percent more of their income in all taxes than the richest; 43 percent compared to 35 percent. And that's before tax avoidance schemes have been taken into account. What the rich fail to put in, the rest of the country must cover in taxes like income tax and VAT.

George Osborne allows rich Chinese to shop here

So George Osborne finally concedes defeat over the extra visa required for visitors to Britain on top of the EU visa covering 26 countries.No longer will rich Chinese have to jump through immigration hoops, but poorer Chinese migrant workers will in a two-tier travel trap that signals another nail hammered into prospects of a fair and equitable world.

I wrote about the way the stupid British visas exclude the world's biggest shoppers in a recent South China Morning Post column:

A few years ago, I was invited by a friend to join him and a few chums for tea at an elegant hotel in poshest Knightsbridge. Over a pot of Earl Grey, he outlined his cunning plan: to take a stack of Louis Vuitton bags back to Hong Kong where women were offering their firstborns in exchange for the poo-coloured accessories with the vulgar logo. Rarity value would, he assured us, make him a fortune.

He pointed out the LV shop across the street, pressed £2K wads in our mitts. and sent us off in pairs to go fetch. The excitement of handing over a huge amount of cash for such fripperies made me forget to ask for a cut (he judged me well) but I enjoyed picking out the ugliest duffel bag I've ever seen, plus a keycase with the change.

When he asked us to repeat the same in the Bond Street LV store, we were abruptly ejected. Apparently, the manager knew we'd already brought one each in Sloane Street. What planet was I on where shops turned away business? However, such is the topsy-turvey world of the rich, and the mystery of The Brand, that mere tax-paying mortals will never fully understand it.

Today, London may be rammed with Chinese tourists buying their own expensive tat, but Britain attracts fewer mainland Chinese than other European countries. They want to spend their cash in France, Italy and Germany.

The reason is the cost and inconvenience of UK visas required on top of the one allowing access to the 26 other EU countries.

We may consider 20% VAT on goods to be punishingly high, but it's low compared to Chinese tariffs on luxury goods. And tourists also enjoy greater protection against counterfeit rip-offs, our police state being the most draconian when it comes to shopping. Those street vendors in Barcelona selling knock-off Louis Vuitton bags would have their collars felt if they tried that in London's West End.

An estimated £1.2 bn is lost every year in sales because only one in ten Chinese visitors to Europe apply for UK visas. We sniff at that sum and then moan about the deficit.

Chinese are now the biggest shopaholics in the world, and yet we've put up a Closed for Business sign just as we find ourselves immersed in the most horrendous recession ever. Is Brand Great Britain now being managed by Louis Vuitton?

Funny how hitting Tories in their pockets helps them overcome their squeamishness over funny foreigners.

How much does China own in Britain?

George Osborne booed at the Paralympics: Caligula wishes we all had one neck

George Osborne completed his transformation into Caligula today when he was booed by the 80,000 spectators at the London Paralympics as he was about to award the gold medals in the men's 400 metres T38 category.

I bet the evil little squit wishes we all had one neck.

Pastygate: George Osborne get your hands off our pasties!

A 20 per cent tax on hot food for poor people from the millionaire cabinet that just awarded their friends a five per cent cut in their taxes.

Here's a poem from the other year which features a pasty.

Ode To A Detox On Returning From St Ives

I'd hoped to grow old like Lauren Bacall,
Elegant, willowy, tall,
Tight arse, tons of class,
An enigma on a pedestal

Once slender and considered quite tasty
In a thin thong and pasties,
The pasties are now Cornish pasties
And I can't thing the thame thong without crying.
My legendary six-pack is now a six-pack of cider,
My inner Size Zero grows a whole lot wider
finds the hacksaw hidden in the hogroast
and hacks her way free,
pausing only for a swift one with pork scratchings on the side.
Deep fried.
If only I ate apples instead of being shaped like one.
I am a woman of many appetites but fruit salad ain't fun.
My overactive mandibles leave love handles the size of trees,
I love my food but my food hates me.
Treacherous, it deposits clues
In my jelly belly
it's a jelly belly, it's a jelly belly, it's a jelly belly, it's a jelly belly
I tried sleeping with the fishes,
Even they didn't fancy me.
They flashed their fins and went upscale
And threw me out of the sea

A whale washed up,
A chubby cherub after the Fall,
I roll across the land, a shapeless fog,
Devouring all in an epic trawl.
I wish the fog was a pea-souper
Cause I could scoff that an' all
Scarf the lot like a hog.
Nom, nom, nom.
No! This lardy bard must recall
Lauren Bacall was no butterball.

Fat threatens to settle in folds,
In rolls of old cholesterol.
The make-up thickens
Like clotting cream,
Like two inches of plasticene,
Like fossil strata from the palioscene.
My bags are now luggage
My breasts are baggage
In body angst overdrive
My reflection is savage.
I will rivet closed my gaping maws
My beak snaps shut,
My greedy paws gathering greenery,
My jaws chewing up the scenery,
Filling the hole inside me
Coz I recognise the metaphors.
Grimly I scan the vision before me
And understand why no-one adores me.
I do not enthrall like Lauren Bacall
Tons of flaws, open pores,
I'm growing old like Diana Dors

Anna Chen September 2010

You lucky bastard: pension envy in Life of Brian

Lies, more lies and colossal whoppers brainwashing people who have little to envy those who have little more. Fed up with TV & radio vox pop of private sector workers slating people in the public sector for an average pension of £5,000 per year? The video above will cheer you up.

How about everyone's pensions being decent? What about all those company directors with £4 million pension pots? How about the top ten per cent of earners who haven't been touched by Osborne's attacks on workers?

Government wages war on poor: good luck to the strikers

Photograph: Peter Macdiarmid/Getty Images

The best of luck to today's public sector workers and their strike. Yesterday's Autumn Statement by George Osborne — an acceleration of misery for most of us — was a declaration of class war on the poorest in society who do all the useful work.

Polly Toynbee lays out the facts in an impassioned piece in the Guardian:

Not one penny more was taken from the top 10% of earners. Every hit fell upon those with less not more. Fat plums ripe for the plucking stayed on the tree as the poorest bore 16% of the brunt of new cuts and the richest only 3%, according to the Resolution Foundation. Over £7bn could be harvested with 40% tax relief on higher pensions, while most earners only get 20% tax relief; £2bn should be nipped from taxing bankers' bonuses, but the bank levy announced was nothing extra. There was no mansion tax on high-value properties, though owners don't even pay their fair share of council tax, and property is greatly undertaxed compared with other countries.

Worse still, two-thirds of properties worth over £1m now change hands while avoiding all their 5% stamp duty, by using offshore company accounts. But not a word passed Osborne's lips on tax avoidance and evasion. Another 12,000 tax collectors are losing their jobs while some £25bn is evaded and £70bn avoided. In a time of national emergency, Osborne had no breath of rebuke about the responsibility of the rich not to dodge taxes, no threat to curb the culture of avoidance. Despite the High Pay Commission report on out-of-control boardroom pay – which even the Institute of Directors has called "unsustainable" – the chancellor said nothing. How adamantly he ruled out the Tobin tax on financial transactions, called for by those dangerous lefties Nicolas Sarkozy and Angela Merkel.

Instead came the great attack on public sector employees on the eve of the biggest strike in memory. This was a declaration of open class war – and war on the pay of women, 73% of the public workforce. After a three-year freeze, public pay rises are pegged at 1% for two years, whatever the inflation rate. That means this government will take at least 16% from their incomes overall. But the plan to abolish Tupe – the rule that ensures public workers are not paid less if their service is privatised – is outrageously unjust, and will lead to mighty resistance to all privatisation from senior as well as junior staff.

Then there are the four myths around today's strike which have been pwned in Left Foot Forward. F'rinstance, that pensions aren't sustainable at the current level:

The assumptions are based on current policies, not government proposals. Confirming earlier findings in the Hutton Report (pdf), they clearly predict the cost of public pensions will fall from 2% of GDP to 1.8% in 2030 and 1.4% in 2060 - without any of the current Hutton proposals.

The reason that public sector pensions are higher? Because so few in the private sector have a pension at all!

As for being the work of "militants", "78 per cent of Unison voted in favour of the strike, 83 per cent of the GMB, 75 per cent of Unite – all mandates which any politician would kill for".

You may remember, of course, that Johnson was elected Mayor of London in 2008. He gained 42.48 per cent of the first preferences in London, on a turnout of 45.33 per cent. So London has a mayor triggered by less than a fifth of the voting population – just 19 per cent.

Faisal Islam of Channel 4 News has ten questions for George Osborne, starting with, "You are announcing unspecified massive spending cuts for the next parliament to meet your target. Isn’t this exactly what you criticised Labour for?"

The BBC says that 60% of the public are supporting the strike so the shameful position of Labour's Ed Miliband and Rachel Reeves are not exactly cutting with the electorate.

Neither are the braying banker sympathisers. As one Tweet put it, if you can write an anti-strike rant, thank a teacher.

Politics Home: A Statement that may seal the Chancellor’s fate. "Look at the decision to cut tax credits which will raise rather than reduce child poverty levels – but refusing to repeat the bank bonus tax as Labour suggested. How out of touch can this Chancellor get?"

Paul Mason on Osborne's £30 billion of extra cuts. "There is now no chance of a sustained recovery, either in the real economy or the public finances, by the time we get to the pre-election period."

All this, and yet Rachel Reeves, a Labour frontbencher marked for higher things (with 666 tattooed under her hair, more like), says: "We do not support the strike because a strike is a sign of failure."

Anthony Hilton, former City Ed for the Evening Standard, on the myth of public-pension Sir Humphreys.