"How to steal a trillion."

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Mike Sales
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"How to steal a trillion."

Post by Mike Sales »

BBC Radio 4 13:45 Monday to Friday next week.
Author and journalist Oliver Bullough traces Britain's vital role in the growth of 'offshore' money laundering.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m0017t8k

Relevant to the food poverty thread, or at least to one of the topics in it.
It's the same the whole world over
It's the poor what gets the blame
It's the rich what gets the pleasure
Isn't it a blooming shame?
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Cugel
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Re: "How to steal a trillion."

Post by Cugel »

Mike Sales wrote: 25 May 2022, 5:08pm BBC Radio 4 13:45 Monday to Friday next week.
Author and journalist Oliver Bullough traces Britain's vital role in the growth of 'offshore' money laundering.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m0017t8k

Relevant to the food poverty thread, or at least to one of the topics in it.
Why do those greedy creeps want so much? What do they do with it all other than send phallic gas guzzlers into space, buy virtual bullhorns such as that Twatter or fondle their bank account in a perverted fashion? I know the answer, mind. We humans are all insane. And getting worse by the hour.

Cugel, in a private asylum of me own, fondling bicycles and woodworking tools whilst I can.
“Practical men who believe themselves to be quite exempt from any intellectual influence are usually the slaves of some defunct economist”.
John Maynard Keynes
Tangled Metal
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Re: "How to steal a trillion."

Post by Tangled Metal »

On a much smaller scale, how many bicycles do you own? I'm only on 4. The fact I use the word only is a clear sign I have a degree of greed and in some ways think I need more. I'm not the only one here I bet.

The question I have is whether size of greed or just greed is the real issue? If the former is more important then your opprobrium is correct. If the latter then you're possibly a little hypocritical. Just a thought.
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Cugel
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Re: "How to steal a trillion."

Post by Cugel »

Tangled Metal wrote: 26 May 2022, 12:06am On a much smaller scale, how many bicycles do you own? I'm only on 4. The fact I use the word only is a clear sign I have a degree of greed and in some ways think I need more. I'm not the only one here I bet.

The question I have is whether size of greed or just greed is the real issue? If the former is more important then your opprobrium is correct. If the latter then you're possibly a little hypocritical. Just a thought.
I have a degree in hypocrisy, although they've failed to send me the large boaster-certificate to display in a nice frame. (It would go next to my qualification in cognitive dissonance).

There are 7 bicycles in the bike shed, at least two of which are going to go, one way or another. I daren't count up the number of woodworking tools in the workshop, mind! All those tools get used to make things, though; and, just lately, to show others how to make things. Two of the bikes (and perhaps another, now that I've just bought a sooperdooper e-bike, although I don't use it's motor - yet) will be sold or given away.

I have two modes for passing on the no longer used items of my consumer churn. One is to use e-bay or similar; the other is to give things away. I've given away many of the older bike parts that don't have significant e-bay value. Also some that do. I gave a whole bike in as-new condition to a neighbour just before we moved to Wales. I like him and he could never afford a new bike. I knew he'd use it, perhaps daily, as his main transport. I also give away any furniture I make that isn't for me, which is now probably over a hundred pieces. I make it for pleasure, not profit.

The giving away thing is my antidote against my undoubted human greedy inclination. The rule is - if you don't use it yourself now, sell or give it away. If you don't currently need the money, give away rather than sell.

There is, of course, a benefit other than feeling smugly free of an excess of greed. People who get for free tend to reciprocate in kind. For example, all the timber I have in my woodstore was freely given, not bought. And so there's another little non-capitalist bit of of behaviour in a world where a large bullhorn is always telling us that the only value is cash value. There are the values, for example, of mutuality and community. And a hundred more.

***********
As to your thought about whether the scale of greed in humans is an important differentiator or not .... well, what do you think? Are my seven-to-become-four bikes as damaging as all that sequestering of capital in offshores away from the tax man? Or is that just making an error of crude categorisations with an undifferentiated semantical?

I did used to give a portion of my monetary income to charities - until I discovered that all of them were paying their income to "staff" and PR firms with as little as 3% going to the supposed recipients. Now I make an effort to identify myself a potential recipient in need before giving them something other than cash - such as excess bicycles, furniture I made for pleasure, rent-free accommodation and various other stuff I've greedily accrued. I get paid in feeling smugly virtuous and the opportunity to virtue-signal quite madly! :-)

Cugel
“Practical men who believe themselves to be quite exempt from any intellectual influence are usually the slaves of some defunct economist”.
John Maynard Keynes
Stradageek
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Re: "How to steal a trillion."

Post by Stradageek »

Cugel wrote: 26 May 2022, 7:58am The giving away thing is my antidote against my undoubted human greedy inclination. The rule is - if you don't use it yourself now, sell or give it away. If you don't currently need the money, give away rather than sell.
Cugel
We must meet for a beer sometime Cudgel - though I'd have to unearth my moribund wood working skills first, otherwise all we'd have to talk about would be bicycles and the state of the world :)
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simonineaston
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Re: "How to steal a trillion."

Post by simonineaston »

I did used to give a portion of my monetary income to charities
They're all businesses these days. Funny thing is most private schools - inc. Eaton... are registered as charities, too.
Now my time's pretty much my own, I do shifts at local food share projects. I haven't done any calculations with respect to my labour's value, but at least I can feel content that I've contributed to saving lots of food ending up in rubbish heaps.
S
(on the look out for Armageddon, on board a Brompton nano & ever-changing Moultons)
briansnail
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Re: "How to steal a trillion."

Post by briansnail »

he giving away thing is my antidote against my undoubted human greedy inclination. The rule is - if you don't use it yourself now, sell or give it away. If you don't currently need the money, give away rather than sell.

You forget whatever will the kids wife/husband say if you give everything away ?. Also its relative in many parts of the world to have one bike a roof over ones head and 3 meals a day plus mobile and TV is unbelievable wealth.
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Cugel
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Re: "How to steal a trillion."

Post by Cugel »

briansnail wrote: 26 May 2022, 8:19pm he giving away thing is my antidote against my undoubted human greedy inclination. The rule is - if you don't use it yourself now, sell or give it away. If you don't currently need the money, give away rather than sell.

You forget whatever will the kids wife/husband say if you give everything away ?. Also its relative in many parts of the world to have one bike a roof over ones head and 3 meals a day plus mobile and TV is unbelievable wealth.
Give everything away!? Do you think me mad?!! Anyone coming near my lurverly bikes & woodworking tools without permission will have the collie and the ladywife set on 'em. (The ladywife's bite is the worstest).

The kids are now growed up, although there is still a tug at my goods & chattels from grandchildren. But the ladywife is in charge of the mutual funds and is not so foolish at the let me near them after I've been on that interweb gawping at bicycle and woodworking tool virtual emporiums.

But I must be poor, as I have no phone (mobile, smart or any other kind) and no television (unless you count an occasional PC peep at The Repair Shop via iPlayer). As I am always on holiday here, there's no spend either on them jaunts in cars, boats, planes or other such nonsense. I like the shed, the garden, the forest and the ten zillion miles of West Wales back roads as seen from a bicycle, me.

Also, someone gives me money for the lecky exuded from my solar panels. I spent it on more insulation for the hoose. :-)

Cugel, quite mean with the groats and shekels, really.
“Practical men who believe themselves to be quite exempt from any intellectual influence are usually the slaves of some defunct economist”.
John Maynard Keynes
Tangled Metal
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Re: "How to steal a trillion."

Post by Tangled Metal »

Scale of greed perhaps shouldn't be more important than its presence but it is. Certainly in this world where despite it all we still all do the frost report class sketch thing with wealth.

I'm better than him because I don't have a massive fortune squirreled away from the tax man but I'm better than him because I give to charities and only have x number of bikes. While the guy in a desperate situation looks up to you and the billionaire and asks which child goes hungry tonight.

No doubt you could come up with a better written new money based class sketch than I but you get the idea. While we're all just putting our money into goods and savings for old age or rainy day there's people putting their money into feeding their kids when they can. Greed is for those with the money to be greedy which is also us.

Does giving away a comfortable amount of your money and time to charities assuage guilt that it's not you that's poor and struggling to survive? For my part that does a lot for me, the feel good factor, but I know it's only enough donations to not harm my financial wellbeing.

Sorry I'm so tired and it's making me negative, perhaps harsh in my judgements. At least rest assured in judging myself unfavourably too. I know I don't escape the greed trap the oligarchs got into, I'm just on a different level than they fortunately.
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Cugel
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Re: "How to steal a trillion."

Post by Cugel »

Tangled Metal wrote: 27 May 2022, 7:19am Scale of greed perhaps shouldn't be more important than its presence but it is. Certainly in this world where despite it all we still all do the frost report class sketch thing with wealth.

I'm better than him because I don't have a massive fortune squirreled away from the tax man but I'm better than him because I give to charities and only have x number of bikes. While the guy in a desperate situation looks up to you and the billionaire and asks which child goes hungry tonight.

No doubt you could come up with a better written new money based class sketch than I but you get the idea. While we're all just putting our money into goods and savings for old age or rainy day there's people putting their money into feeding their kids when they can. Greed is for those with the money to be greedy which is also us.

Does giving away a comfortable amount of your money and time to charities assuage guilt that it's not you that's poor and struggling to survive? For my part that does a lot for me, the feel good factor, but I know it's only enough donations to not harm my financial wellbeing.

Sorry I'm so tired and it's making me negative, perhaps harsh in my judgements. At least rest assured in judging myself unfavourably too. I know I don't escape the greed trap the oligarchs got into, I'm just on a different level than they fortunately.
We humans are curate's eggs - good in parts (and rotten in other parts). However, the trick is to make attempts to stop the rot - to avoid falling into the various nasty modes that will turn our egg into a total rotter. The Christians understand this (sin, redemption etc.) but have a very strange method for attempting to control it all!

"Greed" is certainly one of those rotten bits we all have. But we can surround it with bits of good egg that stop it expanding to rot the rest of us. Keeping our greedy aspect small and unable to infect the rest of our egg will make us far less rotten (and dangerous to the other eggs in the barrel - 'scuse my mixed metaphor). I think you're wrong to assume that it's not the scale of greed, but the fact of having such feelings at al, that is the greater danger. Big and constant greed does far more damage than small and infrequent greed.

Nor is it somehow a fault to remain solvent whilst others can't - unless your solvency is at a direct cost to the can't-get-solvent folk. Stop buying stocks & shares in favour of saving in a mutual; stop renting that buy-to-let you invested in! (Not "you personally", just a "you/us-in-general").

If a government allows rabid exploitation of others the fault lies with those others and the government. The power we have if we're solvent is to vote for not-a-monster and to be charitable in various ways. And to avoid getting roped into behaving exploitatively & with greed, via those many "something for nothing" mechanisms that extract money from the efforts of others.

And yes, there are much fairer ways of arranging things like benefits and pensions than via speculation in "The Market".

Of course, we could instigate a revolution whilst crying for liberty and fraternity etc., the result of which is almost certain to be "meet the new boss, same as (or often worse) than the old boss".

Cugel, probably a fried egg by now.
“Practical men who believe themselves to be quite exempt from any intellectual influence are usually the slaves of some defunct economist”.
John Maynard Keynes
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al_yrpal
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Re: "How to steal a trillion."

Post by al_yrpal »

Philanthropy....

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.vox.co ... ilanthropy

And, the Bet365 lady does her charitable bit too.

Rishi is giving his £400 to charity and urging the rich to do the same.

Al
Reuse, recycle, thus do your bit to save the planet.... Get stuff at auctions, Dump, Charity Shops, Facebook Marketplace, Ebay, Car Boots. Choose an Old House, and a Banger ..... And cycle as often as you can......
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simonineaston
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Re: "How to steal a trillion."

Post by simonineaston »

the Bet365 lady does her charitable bit too.
I have a theory that she gives "so much" to divert attention from the fact that their donations to gambling addiction support is minimal. And of course there are tax benefits. These people don't get where they are today, (remember CJ?) without being extremely canny.
S
(on the look out for Armageddon, on board a Brompton nano & ever-changing Moultons)
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simonineaston
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Re: "How to steal a trillion."

Post by simonineaston »

It occured to me yesterday, as I laboured up the hill out of town, that neoliberalism has simply recognized that the absence of colonialism and all the splendid opportunities it gave for helping ourselves (or at least those powers that engaged in it) to all sorts of commodities, can simply be replaced by the key players helping themselves to the commodity most readily available at home, ie the population. Now, more than ever, modern ecomonies are intent on monetising every single service that deals with large quantities of the pop. Now, we are the cash cow.
Everything we do, in life, is being turned into a source of income for the canny hard right - the new colonialists. All these services are intended to keep us quietly bumbling along, working hard enough to earn an income, which is promptly skimmed to pay for these services and keep the new colonialists rich. Genius.
Anyone who wants an entertaining tour through ideas that are helpful when considering such arrangements - or indeed which may allow you, dear reader, to draw your own conclusions, should check out Adam Curtis many films, inc the 6 part documentary, Can't Get You Out Of My Head available (I understand) on the BBC's iplayer.
If nothing else, you'll be in for a visual treat and some great soundtrack (I have a theory that AC is a frustrated DJ...).
S
(on the look out for Armageddon, on board a Brompton nano & ever-changing Moultons)
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simonineaston
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Re: "How to steal a trillion."

Post by simonineaston »

I should add that if like I do, you enjoy the music AC chooses to use as soundtrack for his documentaries, they available as playlists over on Spotify.
screenshot of Spotify
screenshot of Spotify
S
(on the look out for Armageddon, on board a Brompton nano & ever-changing Moultons)
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Cugel
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Re: "How to steal a trillion."

Post by Cugel »

simonineaston wrote: 27 May 2022, 10:14am It occured to me yesterday, as I laboured up the hill out of town, that neoliberalism has simply recognized that the absence of colonialism and all the splendid opportunities it gave for helping ourselves (or at least those powers that engaged in it) to all sorts of commodities, can simply be replaced by the key players helping themselves to the commodity most readily available at home, ie the population. Now, more than ever, modern ecomonies are intent on monetising every single service that deals with large quantities of the pop. Now, we are the cash cow.
Everything we do, in life, is being turned into a source of income for the canny hard right - the new colonialists. All these services are intended to keep us quietly bumbling along, working hard enough to earn an income, which is promptly skimmed to pay for these services and keep the new colonialists rich. Genius.
Anyone who wants an entertaining tour through ideas that are helpful when considering such arrangements - or indeed which may allow you, dear reader, to draw your own conclusions, should check out Adam Curtis many films, inc the 6 part documentary, Can't Get You Out Of My Head available (I understand) on the BBC's iplayer.
If nothing else, you'll be in for a visual treat and some great soundtrack (I have a theory that AC is a frustrated DJ...).
The many Adam Curtis filums are indeed a stimulation to the brainbox, jarring it out of many habitual thought-paths and into an exciting jungle of exotic notions. Of course, one does need a parsing-machete to get through it all. There are also dead-ends and deep bogs of Jeremiah-algae that can induce feelings of a paralysing dread!

Myself I long for a current Michel Foucault figure who can perform some historical archaeology and genealogy to reveal the only partially rotted bones of the past rather than the glamour-draped "heroes of history" who were anything but. Perhaps you know of one or two of the Foucault-sort besides Adam Curtis?

Ole Foucault wrote many an alternative history of institutions and large scale cultural artefacts, which eschewed the self-justifying explanations of those who performed the historical events involved (and the explanations of their later historian-fans) in favour of a close examination of the actual beliefs, intents and actions they seemed to have followed. Of course, even Foucault imposed his own glamour (or, rather, ghastliness) on his historical pictures and explanations. Also, he is hard to read.

**********
Those is political ascendency - aristocrats of every ilk and tittle - have always exploited the hoi-polloi over which they hold ascendency. The methods change with the times and circumstances, as does the constitution and character of the aristocratic classes as they rise and wither. As with everything else, the progress of technologies (especially those of information and communication) amplify and expand their opportunities for exploitation. They'll find a way to enclose, annex and sell the oxygen any time now!

Humans! We are nasty little rascals, eh?

Cugel, just a tiny rascal, relatively speaking.
“Practical men who believe themselves to be quite exempt from any intellectual influence are usually the slaves of some defunct economist”.
John Maynard Keynes
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