Britannia Waives the Rules

[JPM45]

I have apologies to make on behalf my city. In the 1800's Salford (not Manchester) kick-started the Industrial Revolution and also opened the world's first railway; big ideas giving birth to big machines, big factories, big business and a big future for the impoverished cities it was created to support....housing, employment, infrastructure and education reform followed and thus, the malevolent socio-economic dragon was slain. Fast forward to the 1980's and capitalism has taken a deviant and destructive turn...in Western Europe, North America and Japan, cronyism has replaced socialism, profit margins have replaced pragmatism and the death knell for the working and lower-middle class strikes one. Industry and big business looked around and settled it's beady eye on the East, and to the countries whom it's raking claws had not yet touched. In India, China, Taiwan and Bangladesh, there were no statutory rights for workers, there were no emission laws, there wasn't any responsibility of medical care or, even better, there wasn't a minimum wage. Fast forward to now, although employment in UK and US pretends to be high and inflation pretends to be low, it is the part-time jobs that have increased, it is the people who are needing to take two and three jobs that are filling the posts, people have left the labour force in their thousands...and food and gas isn't included in the US inflation rate, so what is touted as less than 2 percent is really 14 percent. China's economy has grown year on year, but is wholly reliant on export, it's market is Western Europe and North America...and guess what? When you took away the jobs from these places, you took away the consumer! Here's my point....high-rise apartments are being built next to Central Park in New York, that are much bigger than the buildings around them, as the rich demand a view to go with the prestige of the location..one apartment went just recently for an obscene 95 million dollars. From 3 o'clock in the afternoon, Central Park is now cast in shadow, owing to the size of the build; ruining not just the happiness and lifestyle of the millions of people who enjoy this park, but endangering the flora and fauna that live there too. It seems to me that, as the sun sails sadly round to shine on no one, it's job has gone too....sold at the highest price, to the sickly strain of humankind, who at the same time, have quenched the light in the bright eye of my indomitable forefathers. Oh look..a juggling squirrel!

[Nasu]

What was that about the apology?... N

Only kidding, your right of course. The really sad part is that wherever you care to narrow your gaze upon our beautiful earth you will see similar discrepancies and inaqualities... Time for a shake up me thinks...x... N

[JPM45]

By the end of the post, tears were rolling down my face....I felt proud at what my city gave the world, splitting the atom, first computer, first public library, first vegetarian society, amongst others, but most of all, the women's rights movement...I firmly believe the empowerment of women to be the answer to all the world's problems.....and yes, a shake up is on the cards. We can call it the Scandinavian solution..we jail the bankers, we have a minimum wage that races ahead of inflation and we draw cartoons of whoever we like. Right now I'd love to see the same courtesy extended to the Greeks that was afforded to post-war Germany, who had their debt halved and the remainder spaced out over forty years....but there again Germany was raised from the dead as a buffer to the "scary" soviets...the same reason the debt of the Ukraine is being quashed. The Greek people are in a modern day debtors prison, through no fault of their own, and those prisons were shut down as they hindered the chance of the defaulter to work, and maybe pay back the debt. It's so sad that one of the great cradles of civilisation is being dragged through the streets like this. The way they have been treated is atrocious and I hope we are never allowed to forget.

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I originally wrote..jail the bakers....hehe..there would be paindemonium....I'll get my coat