getting real sick of the word ‘austerity’

‘austere’ implies moral rectitude, self-discipline, spiritual focus

no - you’re inflicting poverty, suffering and death on people

it’s not for their own good or the betterment of their character, it’s for your own greed

and another thing, it’s not a ‘haircut’ if you steal people’s money from their bank accounts

the money doesn’t grow back in a couple of months free of charge, it’s gone

when the hairdresser cuts your hair they don’t then keep the hair in a little bag and use it to gamble on the financial markets

and then there’s ‘tightening our belts’. which ties in to the whole bullshit weight loss = health = better person discourse (which ties in with the moral discipline spiel of ‘austerity’)

if anyone has to tighten their belts as a result of government cuts, it’s probably because you’re doing your damnedest to make sure they starve to death

‘bail out’ implies the banks were like sinking ships, damaged and sinking under powers beyond their control, and that they’re all about to die

when the fact is it’s their system, they intended it this way, and they’re making out like bandits

I don’t even know wtf ‘quantitative easing’ is supposed to mean

but ‘easing’ it is most certainly not

and it’s not a ‘recession’

a recess is a small indentation ie in a wall

which you’ll notice could also be described as a ‘depression’ in the wall

what part of ‘millions of people are suffering and dying’ makes you think of uneven wall surfaces

• Gross Domestic Product of USA: $15 trillion
• Total publicly held national debt of USA (according to US Treasury Dept.): $16.3 trillion
• Amount of money secretly loaned by US Federal Reserve to various international banks & corporations since Dec 1st 2007: $16 trillion (source: US Govt. Accountability Office - Congressional Report, July 2011. PDF available from gao.gov here)

Man in advertising claims he was “working from a photograph of a real live model”…

Actually just traced poster for Hitler Youth.

(I like my plagiarism with unintentional social commentary).

A Zimbabwe Z$100 trillion note, first issued in 2009, then equivalent to about £20 or US$30. This followed massive Zimbabwean hyperinflation in 2008 at a rate of 516,000,000,000,000,000,000 (516 quintillion) per cent (source). Prices in the country doubled on average every 1.3 days. This is the second highest rate of inflation in history, behind only post-WW2 Hungary, where prices doubled every 15.6 hours (Weimar Germany in 1923 is fourth with a doubling every 3.7 days).

Zimbabwe has now been forced to use foreign currency, primarily US dollars, which are magicked into existence as interest-bearing debt by a private US corporation calling itself The ‘Federal’ Reserve. The very usage of these notes implies a continual transfer of wealth from the population as a whole to the corporation which loans out the money in the first place (and to the small number of very rich people who comprise its ownership).

Now the IMF and the World Bank - which is a primarily US-owned bank based in Washington and whose presidents have thus far without fail been Americans nominated by the US President - are offering loans (w/ interest, natch) and potentially debt relief, subject to Zimbabwe accepting certain political conditions. And what do we call it when you try and persuade someone to do something you want them to do by offering them money? (Hint: it’s not ‘aid’).

MEANWHILE! Western investors have been buying up the Z$100 notes - these potent symbols of the pain and poverty suffered by the Zimbabwean people in recent years - and are now selling them as hilarious novelty items. On Ebay.

I am disappoint.

Who wants to bet G4S win the contract?

If you don’t know who G4S are, ask yourself why because they’re the largest employer in the world bar Walmart. But what do they do?

• Airport security. Three G4S security guards at Heathrow were responsible for the death of Angolan refugee Jimmy Mubenga in Oct 2010 when they kept him heavily restrained, despite his repeated complaints of not being able to breathe.
• Immigrant detention camps. In Australia, G4S were ‘faulted for lethal neglect and abuse of solitary confinement’ (NYTimes). Again in Australia, up to 50 asylum seekers went on hunger strike and sewed their own lips together in protest over conditions. G4S also ran these lovely detention boats in the Netherlands that were deemed ‘inhumane’ by the European Parliament.
• Guarding the entire length of the southwest US/Mexico border and deporting undocumented immigrants. Anyone starting to feel like G4S don’t like immigrants for some reason?
• Private UK police (already). G4S is already contracted to employ half of Lincolnshire police, and are building a police station there.
• Private prisons in the UK and US. Because why stop with immigrants?
• Juvenile detention centres. Because why stop with adults?
• Profiteering off the UK ‘Welfare to Work’ scheme. Which is essentially an ingenious device for taking tax-payer money away from those who need it, and giving it to G4S (who have the nerve to fob much of their workload off onto charities and other non-profit organisations). At the same time the scheme allows companies like Tesco to profit from slave labour as people are made to work full-time for their unemployment benefits.
• Military security in Afghanistan. Popular pastimes for the G4S employees guarding the US embassy in Kabul included: lighting fires, getting naked, pissing on each other and conducting humiliating hazings/initiations. NSFW photos here!
• Much more. Too much to list but it includes security for banks, ATM/cashpoint ‘management’, stewarding Live8 and Download and reading your gas meter. Also landmine clearance, which strangely enough is the only one of these things I’d happily trust them with.