OPINION: Why the G8 is bad for all of us

The G8 are meeting at Camp David this weekend. The world's leading industrialised nations supposedly sorting out the economic woes of the world and finding a path to recovery following all the turmoil of recent years.

But they won't.

The G8 is a club. It is a club of capitalists and all they will achieve over the next few days are a few bland and, ultimately, meaningless statements, some nano disagreements to make it look like they explored a range of ideas, and then a plan which will anoint to nothing more than papering over the cracks and then continuing with the same failing policies.

There will be no vision for a better future, because the imbeciles who attend benefit personally from more of the same no matter what hardship it imposes on the rest if society.

The G8 needs to accept that capitalism and consumerism have failed. They fail every few years. They fail more and more often and each time is worse. Each fail is more detrimental to the majority of people but the G8 leaders don't care. They adopt policies that protect themselves from the fallout of their own failures and, in doing so, they divide all societies more and more.

And they not only divide their own societies, they also divide the world further. Sure, each G8 nation makes token contributions to the third world but they won't ever do anything to balance the inequalities of nations. Why would they? It might mean their personal power and wealth would be dissipated.

The G8 fear democracy. In the UK we, supposedly, have 3 major political parties, but, in reality, they are different wings of the same capitalist/consumerist party. They have no interest in making things better for society. All they care about is appeasing the proles so that they don't rise up and overthrow the abhorrent system that keeps them in the lap of luxury.

The Eurozone crisis is a perfect example of the inequality of nations and the evil of the big ones. It shouldn't be seen as Greece's problem, or Spain's, or Italy's. The solution is simply but, to the greedy parahias of the G8 elite, it would make the champagne and caviar in their stomachs to go rancid.

We need to accept that capitalism has no future. It makes a few wealthy whilst shackling the majority of people, and nations, to a yolk of virtual slavery.

All debt needs to be cancelled. After all, money is purely notional. Let's just zero it all.

BUT we can't then just go back to the nonsense of capitalism. A different, fairer international system beefs to be used. It must enshrine equality of all people and it must make sure that no one is living a life of luxury while others starve.

Yes, we need, at the very least, genuine socialism but, better still would be a global communism. Not soviet style communism (that wasn't real communism) but everyone working together for the better, to genuinely improve everyone's lot

Sadly, I accept that the public are too blind and too stupid to act. They will continue to elect clones of the same politicians who will run their nation and the world for their personal benefit.

It is time for a revolution. It is time to throw capitalism on a bonfire of greed. It has no place in a modern world. Capitalism fails. Let it die.

OPINION: Budget 2012

Yesterday, George Osbourne presented his third budget to the House of Commons and today, and for most of the next week or so, the petty bickering, attempts at point scoring, and politicking goes on.

As far as I can see, yesterday's budget tinkered. There were a few good things, a few bad things and just about everything except the so-called "Granny Tax" had been leaked in advance.

Yesterday's budget can best be summed up as "meh".

There was no great innovation on the proposals. There was no vision for the future. There was no sense of a new political ideology or fiscal system.

George Osbourne may as well have stood up and said "Everything increased by inflation. That's it!"

Where are the great pitical visionaries? Why is there no desire to do more than tinker? Where I'd the politics of principle and ideology?

Yesterday's budget, once the dust has settled, will be viewed as a non-event that did nothing for the UK, its citizens, or the wider world.

The UK has become a one-party state, but a one-party state with different faces so that the proles think that change has happened.

Opposition oppose for the sake of opposing but offer no alternative and no vision for a better future. And yet, while they're busy opposing, they refuse to say they'd do anything different or reverse decisions.

We have hit a stalemate in which bland consimerist capitalism is the only choice available and it makes no difference who delivers the budget.

COMMENT: The Portas Review - what nonsense

Mary Portas has, today, published her plans to save the "traditional high street" after many months of consultation.

Her suggestions include less regulation for high street traders and a National Market Day. If we follow these, apparently, we will have a thriving high street.

I think the term that comes to mind is "poppycock"!

We don't have a thriving high street because shoppers, in their droves, have turned their back on them. They, generally, offer a smaler range of goods at more expensive prices than out of town centres and, when car park charges are included, there seems little to recommend the high street.

My objections to her proposals are numerous, because her report is fundamentally flawed.

We live, rightly or wrongly, in a capitalist system. It is not for the government to be manipulating the marketplace to favour one type of shopping outlet over another. Businesses fail because they fail to find customers and fail to move with the times. It is right that bad businesses fail - and no good business fails, ever.

Portas' suggestion of a "National Market Day" is silly style over substance nonsense of which Barack Obama, the ultimate style over substance politician, would be proud. Yes, events can help drive business, but they have to be events with a purpose and, probably, a local focus.

In our already overly consumerist society,do we really want another day to celebrate shopping and consumerism? I'm sure Hallmark are already planning on printing "Happy Market Day" cards that they will sell... In their out of town mall outlets!

Some towns do manage to have thriving and successful town centres and high streets. If some can succeed then it is only incompetence that makes others fail, and location is a factor. Many thriving high streets are in places where lots if peope visit, there is a tourist pull.

And isn't it right that everything, including the way in which we shop, evolve? Some may not like shopping malls but they are what the majority of people choose to use. Why should they be penalised because some monstrous woman, and some idiots on the Tory right, have a rise-tinted view of what shopping used to be like.

Things change. Live with it.

Yes, I agree that out of town shopping centres have an unfair advantage when it comes to parking, and that parking charges in some towns is quite expensive, but aren't we meant to be discouraging car use, for the sake of the environment? I'd favour all shops, malls and out of town retail parks having to charge for their car parking - and probably at a higher rate than at present. Certainly, it's wrong that the likes of the Trafford Centre and Meadowhell can offer free parking all day - but it is equally wrong that car parking charges in small towns are reduced. Look at the big picture.

Now I agree with Portas about reducing red tape - but not reducing it for the sake of it, only when it is not necessary - again, ths should apply to all businesses, not just high street shops. And ket's not forget, some red tape is essential.

Ultimately, shoppers will go where they will get the most convenient value for money. The high street has had it's day and, apparent from in tourist towns, I suggest it has died - and so be it.

As my wife will attest, I'm not a fan of big shopping malls, but I won't shed a single tear for the death of the high street, andI think it is wrong that any public money is used to keep this dodo on a life support system just to appease those who haven't moved with the times.

The high street is dead. So what?

OPINION: Capitalism is dead.... Long live... Ummm...

Why, when capitalism fails every few years in bigger and more dramatic ways, do governments not look for a better system?

Capitalism has been failing, regularly, for years. Today, it seems, there is hardly a nation in the world not in some sort of serious debt. Banks have failed their investors, the public and governments across the world. Inequality gets more and more entrenched.

Surely, it's time for a different approach? Surely, it's time for governments to take action beyond bigger and bigger band aids?

When the dyke has a hole, the hole can be stopped for a while but there is a weakness there. Eventually, another hole opens or the first hole bursts again. At some point, the dyke is unable to hold the water back, the dyke collapses and everything is washed away.

It's not a case of replacing capitalism and free-markets with a different version of capitalism, adding safety nets or extra regulation to "protect" society, eventually a completely different approach, a different system needs to be put in place.

I've long argued that all current international/national debts should be written off. It's all just numbers, huge numbers, that are meaningless. They're notional debts, not real ones. Capitalism thrives on debt, borrowing and, consequently, inequality and poverty.

In the UK, we've never genuinely had a non-capitalist government. Even Harold Wilson and James Callaghan's left-wing governments, some 30-40 years ago, were capitalist with a social conscience. At elections we don't have a realistic choice of different systems, just variations on the type of capitalism we want. This is wrong.

Labour has failed the working class in the same way that the Conservatives have failed the wealthy. Labour's abandonment of socialist principles mean that it is, as has been for some time now, Tory-lite. The Lib Dems, well, they let everyone down by going into partnership with the Tories!

It is time that either Labour returned to its core socialist principles and offered a genuinely socialist, if not communist, system as an alternative to the capitalist, consumerist system that has dominated politics since the Industrial Revolution, or that people finally turn from the big two (maybe three) parties and promote one of the lesser, untried parties that can offer an alternative approach. I'd suggest, though not Peet, the Green Party are most likely to be able to offer a genuinely alternate system.

I don't mean a Stalinist communism (in reality, that was closer to Fasism than communism), I mean a new, 21stcentury approach in which government take back control of the budgets, in which a more equality-based approach is key to the way in which governments organise the economy and, of course, an environmentally-friendly angle is included.

There is nothing wrong with success, making-money or even profit but it is how the success is managed, and what the profits are used for that need to be addressed.

Sadly, it won't happen. The British are a fundamentally selfish and greedy society; they continue to vote for the status quo because, ultimately, they all think they might be the fat cats themselves (why else do so many play the National Lottery against the odds?!) and, in the end, they don't care about society, they care about themselves and their families. The British are their own worst enemies.

But, of course, this needs to be done globally, not just in the UK. This requires international co-operation that goes beyond anything the jack-booted Little Englanders who read The Sun or Daily Mail would ever allow. This needs brains not bigotry and xenophobia

How many times does capitalism have to fail before it gets replaced? Too many.

Next time there is an election I do hope more people vote for change, because, clearly, the current system has failed, but I won't hold my breath.