Posts
Insightful words were this week articulated by the head of Britain's trade union movement, Brendan Barber, as he pointed out the fundamental flaws in Politicians' actions over the last ten years ... as well as the fallacy in promoting the 'green shoots of recovery' ...
"Politicians bought the line that 'Finance' should be 'King' and deregulation the answer to every problem ... activities so well described by Adair Turner as 'socially useless' were seen as 'economically essential' ...
... set finance free we were told, have a bonfire of regulations, let the super rich get even richer ... it will somehow trickle down to the rest of us ... 'manufacturing is old fashioned', 'let the city rule', 'greed is good' ... these were the 'watch words' ... and those whose still preach that greed want us to forget the crash and tell us the economy is now in recovery ...
... but the economy has fallen off a cliff and the green shoots mean little ... when 1000's of people a day are joining the dole queue ... and rising share prices count for little when a million and more young people can't find work ...
and bumper bonuses ... an obscene joke, when it was our money that rescued to banks, and its our public services that are now being told they will have to face the consequences ...
... it's only when unemployment starts coming down, only when we create decent jobs that pay decent wages, and only when vital public services are safe from cuts, that we will be able to talk about a real recovery ..."
Wise words, well spoken, from a leader who can clearly see the wood from the trees ... but what's arguably most shocking & surprising of all is that he's describing the behaviour & actions of a supposed Labour Government (led by 'leaders' supposedly also brought up in the church!) who were once thought of as the voice of communities and hard-working people ... how things have changed ... and how things will have to change for us to get back on course ...
... but unfortunately none of the current politicians & bankers will do this for us ... it will require brand new leadership, new people who truly represent the voice of the people, to take responsibility and turn around our failing economy, and society ... we face a huge battle, a battle of values, one that needs to challenge Poweromics and the basic premise that 'greed is good' ... we need to quickly introduce Leanomics (and leanomics indicators such as the 'BUTS' test - where U refers to unemployment/untapped talent as mentioned above), else we will resign our economy/society to history ...
'For evil to flourish, all it needs is for good men to do nothing' [Edmund Burke]
