Thursday, November 29, 2018

What needs to happen next

The following was sent out by a US friend.

I add a comment in the comments' section.

So:

A woman dies at age 65 before collecting one benefit check.  She and her employer paid into the system for almost 50 years and she collected NOTHING. Keep in mind all the working people that die every year who were paying into the system and got nothing.

And these governmental morons mismanaged the money and stole from the system, so that it's now going broke.
BEAUTIFUL!  And they have the audacity to call today's seniors "vultures" in an attempt to cover their ineptitude.   DISGRACEFUL!

The real reason for renaming our Social Security payments is so the government can claim that all those social security recipients are receiving entitlements thus putting them in the same category   as welfare, and food stamp recipients.
THIS IS WORTH THE FEW MINUTES IT TAKES TO READ AND DIGEST!
F.Y.I.  By changing the name of SS contributions, it gives them a means to refute this program in the future.   It's free money for the government to spend under this guise.
The Social Security check is now (or soon will be) referred to as a   *Federal Benefit Payment* ?
I'll be part of the one percent to forward this. I am forwarding it because it touches a nerve in me,   and I hope it will in you.

Please keep passing it on until everyone in our country has read it.
The government is now referring to our Social Security checks as a "Federal Benefit Payment."
This is   NOT a benefit. It is OUR money , paid out of our earned income!  Not only did we all contribute to Social Security but our employers did too ! It totaled 15% of our income before taxes.(This should be enough for you to forward this message, If not read on.)

If you averaged $30K per year over your working life, that's close to $180,000 invested in Social Security.
If you calculate the future value of your monthly investment in social security ($375/month, including both you and your employers contributions) at a meager 1% interest rate compounded monthly, after 40 years of working you'd have more than $1.3+ million dollars saved.

This is your personal investment. Upon retirement, if you took out only 3% per year, you'd receive $39,318 per year,   or $3,277 per month.

That's almost three times more than today's average Social Security benefit of $1,230 per month, according to the Social Security Administration. (Google it – it's a fact).   And your retirement fund would last more than 33 years (until you're 98 if you retire at age 65)! I can only imagine how much better most average-income people could live in retirement if our government had just invested our money in low-risk interest-earning accounts.
Instead, the folks in Washington pulled off a bigger *Ponzi scheme* than Bernie Madoff ever did (or Lyndon Johnson).
They took our money and used it elsewhere. They "forgot"(oh yes, they knew) that it was OUR money they were taking.  They didn't have a referendum to ask us if we wanted to lend the money to them   ... and they didn't pay interest on the debt they assumed.   And recently they've told us that the money won't support us for very much longer.   (Isn't it funny that they NEVER say this about welfare payments?)
But is it our fault they misused our investments?  And now, to add insult to injury, they're calling it a *benefit*, as if we never worked to earn every penny of it.   This is stealing!
Just because they borrowed the money, doesn't mean that our investments were for charity!
Let's take a stand. We have earned our right to Social Security and Medicare. Demand that our legislators bring some sense into our government.
Find a way to keep Social Security and Medicare going for the sake of the 92% of our population who need it.

Then call it what it is:
Our Earned Retirement Income .
90% of people won't forward this.
PLEASE!  Will you?

So:


This is an exceptionally important item that the framers of the next manifestos from The Labour Party and Co-operative Party need to internalise.

At a meeting of our London group associated with The Equality Trust and, therefore promoting the Spirit Level book's findings that greater income equality is good for everyone, we were shown a graph showing the ages at death of people in the UK, according to income class.

At that time, the State Pensionable age, for men, was 65 and, for women, 60.

Astonishingly, though perhaps not so, a man needed to be in the 'most wealthy' last four or so tenths to have a real chance of drawing any State Pension. Death came first.

Now, for whatever celebrations we may have for the trio of structural policies that the 1945 Labour government enacted (Ie Nationalisation, Keynesianism economics and the Welfare State: all copied to greater and lesser degrees in the US, Canada, Australia, etc), they were not socialist policies nor did they, in their proportional effect benefit the Worked Class people, families and communities.

They mostly, as was their intent as Liberal Party policies, benefitted the 10%: the Praetorian Guard of the 2% of families, the capitalists.

The euphemistically termed 'Middle Class' (only middle in the sense of being in between the capitalists and their worked slaves).

And note the US Capitalist co-option of the term 'Middle Class' to mean the (white, mostly) Worked Class richer than the underclass of 'gypsies', 'hillbillies', 'negroes' and (especially in Canada, South Africa, Australia and New Zealand, 'blacks', 'Indians', 'Abos' and Maoris).

So, to now.

Now we need to make the transition from capitalism to a truly socialised global Co-operative Commonweal composed of national Co-operative Commonwealths.

Hence our living plan for Co-operative Socialism.

Please give and share this good news.

Thank-you!

John Courtneidge

Wednesday, November 14, 2018

They Just Don't Get It . . . Yet!

Wednesday 14th November 2018

As from 'my' FB Page:

The living plan for Co-operative Socialism replaces 'Ownership' of economic resources (ie Theft of economic resources) with non-transferable, time-limited, Co-operative Careship.

The following article illustrates the troubles caused by all forms of inheritance (without recognising that it does so).

This posting flows from three sources, in chronological order:

1) Several years' ago, one of the male McMullen brewing family, in conversation with me in Hertford (on the border between Wessex and the East Anglkan Danelaw) that, in the former, Wessex, primogeniture (inheritance by the oldest son) was the rule, while in the latter, Danelaw, inheritance was to the youngest son (ultrageniture, I think).

The extra-family/warfare implications (and, also, the intra-family conflicts) of this are obvious.

2) A 'picked-up' reading of John Le Patourel's book, 'The Norman Empire' points to an article by JC Holt (which I can't afford to buy) wherein these tensions in post-1066 'society' and ruling 'elites' (Mafiosi) result in bloodshed.

That led to the following survey of inheritance (the dictated passing on of stolen goods):

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Historical_inheritance_systems#Cultural_patterns_of_child-preference

3) Finally, at Monday evdning's Red Pepper-hosted event, our solution ( Co-operstive Careship, limited as described above) to 'Ownership' (of stolen economic resources) was not known to the panelists.

Oh dear.

Thursday, January 4, 2018

In Brief

 I use the acronym TRIP-Up as an aide memoire for the five mechanisms that capitalism uses to kill us:


T = Theft

R = Rent

I = Interest

P = Profit

Up = Unequal-pay for paid work


Using the 2:10:88 alternative to the Occupy imposition/assertion, 'We are the 99%!':


The 2% (The Theives that have stolen the world's (God-given) economic resources) demand Rent, Interest and Profits from 'us', the 88%.


Hence the slogans: 'Capitalism js a RIP-off', 'Capitalism RIP' and 'Let's get RID of Capitalism' (where the D in RID stands for Dividends: Profits 'paid' to Shareholders).


Finally, the 2% allow their Praetorian Guard to Tax (another entry discussion point into the letter T) 'us', the 88%, so that they (the 10%, and their families) are 'paid'/take higher Unequal-pay, Perks (Perquisities: non-money extras: like Company Cars, free health care, etc) and Pensions.


Two ps's, perhaps:


1) 'We', the 88%, are forced to do the D-jobs:


 = Dirty, Dangerous, Degrading, Dispiriting, Drudgery, etc.


While the 10%, (The 2%'s Praetorian Guard = their 'Protectors'), do the P-jobs:


 = Propagandists, Popes, Prelates, Publishers, Pimps, Professors, Policemen, Prison Guards, etc:


All of whom wield John Kenneth Galbraith's three Power Mechanisms*:


 Condign Power, Compensatory Power, Conditioned Power.


Ie, the Stick, the Carrot and 'Your' telly. Or, Bullying, Bribery and Brainwashing.


* from his book 'The Anatomy of Power'.


2) The 'God-given Economic Resources' that, when stolen, provide the four RIPUp incomes are:


Rent: The Theft of Land provides Rent


     (eg the Theft of England in 1066 of of north America in the 17th, 18th and 19th Centuries)


Interest: The Theft of The Law provides Interest


    (eg Henry VIII's 'legalisation', for the first time in England, of usury in 1545)


Profit: The Theft of Knowledge provides Profit


    ( Ie the history of for-profit trade, commerce and industry)


Unequal-pay for work: The Theft of Position provides Unequal-pay for work


    (ie the bosses(the 10%) 'deserve' more than the oiks ('us', the 88%)).


Hope this helps!


And thanks, Gianne, for prompting this reprise!


Best,


John

Wednesday, January 3, 2018

Economic Antisemitism

Further to yesterday's post 'Root Out Usury':

Final addition:

During the night, I remembered that, somehow in these searches, I was led to an important Wikipedia page on 'Economic Antisemitism':

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economic_antisemitism

One of the infuriating things about using computers is that it is easy to hop around the internet and not remember how you got were you are.

In 'the old days' of physical libraries and things like Chemical Abtracts in print form, I seemed to be better organised in terms of *wring down in a book*! where I was going and what I'd found.

Now . . .

Anyway, that page on Economic Antisemitism looks to be worth a re-read . . .

Tuesday, January 2, 2018

Root Out Usury!

All very timely. Part of my Christmas re-reading was Hugh Trevor-Roper's *excellent* book, 'The Rise of Christian Europe.

That book speaks briefly abour 'the general crisis'.

A Google search for:

financial crisis early seventeenth century

lead to:

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_General_Crisis

I did this because my thinking was that some economic distress in the early seventeen century must have led to the 'Civil War' and such distress would have been caused by Henry VIII's legalisation, for the first time in England, of usury.

So, a prior, similar, Google search:

financial crisis early seventeenth century usury

led to a recent book that's beyond my budget but whose Google search entry from the above search looks to be more than interesting! The serach page entry for this book is:

Law and Finance After the Financial Crisis: The Untold Stories of ...
https://books.google.co.uk/books?isbn=1317385586
Abdul Karim Aldohni - 2016 - ‎Business & Economics
... the relationality that was seen as being an inherent part of debt also played a significant role in the justification behind the usury laws, and in early seventeenth-century debates about lowering the maximum rate of ...

Somehow, that led to another Google search:

massacre of jews york

And that led to a BBC Religious programming page:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/religion/religions/judaism/history/pogromyork_1.shtml

And that BBC page led to:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/religion/religions/judaism/history/350.shtml

Which included the paragraphs:

Readmission of Jews to Britain

2006 marked the 350th anniversary of one of the most remarkable turning points in English history: the readmission of Jewish people to England in 1656, after they had been banned from the country some 366 years earlier. Their surprising ally in this was Oliver Cromwell.
Background to the expulsion

Jews have been living in England since Roman and Anglo-Saxon times, but they did not become an organised community until William the Conqueror arrived in 1066. He encouraged Jewish merchants and artisans to move from northern France to England.

Over the next few centuries Jews faced increasing persecution until, in 1290, they were banished altogether.

And:

This made England the first European country to expel Jews, and they remained banned for 366 years. Some Jews stayed in England by hiding their identity and religion but the majority settled in France and Germany.

It wasn't until the 17th century that Jews were allowed back to Britain.
Readmission

It was Oliver Cromwell who orchestrated the Jews' return after he came to power. He was influenced in this by Rabbi Menasseh ben Israel of Amsterdam, the Jewish ambassador to the Gentiles. On 31 October 1655, Cromwell submitted a seven-point petition to the Council of State calling for Jews to return to Britain.

Cromwell met with resistance at the Whitehall Conference in December that year but resolved to authorise an unofficial readmission.

At that time, the Spanish and Portuguese Jewish community had been expelled from Spain. Many exiled Jews headed to Amsterdam, helping to turn it into one of the world's busiest ports. Cromwell saw that the return of the Jews would bring great financial benefits to England.

In 1656 Cromwell made a verbal promise, backed by the Council of State, to allow Jews to return to Britain and practise their faith freely.

As a result, Jews from Holland, Spain and Portugal came to Britain. They became more and more integrated into British society.

For a time, England was one of the most religiously tolerant countries in Europe. But it wasn't until 1858 that English Jews received formal emancipation.

All remarkable to me: particularly, from above:

 'William the Conqueror arrived in 1066. He encouraged Jewish merchants and artisans to move from northern France to England.'

Now, another element in my Christmas re-reading is Henri Pirenne's at-least as excellent book, 'Economic and Social History of Medieval Europe' (Routledge, First published in England in 1936, my copy is of the Ninth! Impression, 1972).

I won't summarise its contents (I use www.bookfinder.com to find inexpensive copies of books) but Chapter IV is superlative: notably Section III 'Money' and Section IV 'Credit and the Traffic in Money".

Briefly, while some Jews were involved in usury (against their scriptural teaching), a ton more 'Christians' (including from time to time 'Christian' 'Churches') were up to their arm pits, too, in ignoring both Old Testament *and* New Testament *prohibitions* on money-lending at interest (usury=any interest), however deviously 'disguised'.

Now, I retain my view that every hierarchy in these times co-inspires the others to hide the complete and utter sinfulness/wickedness/worse of usury ie of capitalism (my definition of capitalism js that it is the use of money to get and accumulate money: just as, previosly and contemporaneously, feudalism was the use of land to get more land, and tribalism the use of slaves to get more slaves.

An unexplored aspect of this is whether Zionism was set up to create Israel as the greatest Tax Haven kn Earth.

After all, every National Debt, for example is, eventually, owned by some family or other.

And the interest payments on those debts must be paid into the 'owners' Bank accounts somewhere . . . The City of London, Jersey, Isle of Man, Turks and Caicos, Tel Aviv?, Jerusalem?

Shades of Chapters 5 and 6 in the Book of Neihimah (for which see JI Paker's book, 'A Passion for Faithfulness'.

Of course, none of this is finger pointing.

Especially since the sustainable, peaceful alternative is well described:

In the plan for Co-operative Socialism.

A plan which Jesus describes as 'The Kingdom kf Heaven'!

I hope this helps!

Quaker John

John Courtneidge

2nd January 2018

Ps and, yes, both Barclays and Lloyds were Christian Quaker Banks and aal bar one cfedit unions and Co-operative Banks are based on interest-charging (usury).

It's simply that it took until now for a not-for-profit, usury-free banking, economic, social and ecological system to be described: the plan for interest-free money and for Co-operative Socialism (see the papers'section at www.interestfreemoney.org for the fullest, at present, background and, under construction www.co-operativesocialism.org with, as an archive www.sustainabilitynotcapitalism.blogspot.com
I'm calling for Sadiq Khan's resignation.

He sees inequality as gendered, and I've no doubt, racially-based.

So, Sadiq's new 'equality' campaign is spending valuable time and money on gender equality:

https://www.standard.co.uk/news/uk/london-landmarks-light-up-on-new-years-eve-in-support-of-sadiq-khans-genderequality-campaign-a3729441.html

What a fraud!

Sadiq knows that equality is all about economic in/equality.

He knows (because I waved The Spirit Level book at him every time he came down here to Bromley pleading for our work, votes and support: and he always nodded back) that it's income equality that matters (see The Equality Trust site for the evidence: www.equalitytrust.org.uk).

So, it's not that rich black women should get (take) as much as rich white women, or that ruch Muslim women should get (take) as much as rich Jewish women, kr rich Atheist women or rich 'Christian' women.

Nor that poor black women should be forced to 'accept' as little as poor brown men, or poor white womeen, kr poor white men, and so on, it is - from that cited, peer-reviewed  evidence - that true political and moral leadership comes from saying, in his case as London's Mayor,

   'I will work as my number one priority, to make London the most income-equal City in the world. And I will acheive that within one Mayoral term, four years. After all, Londoners saved Europe from fascism, in co-operation with others, in less than five years.

So I, Sadiq Khan am calling on all Londoners, and the UK Parliamentary MPs, to make London into the worlds most income-equal, sustainable, fair-wealth City on the planet.

As a model of peace-with-sustainable-prosperity for all to share.'

If Sadiq said that, and stuck to it, then I'd withdraw my call for his resignation.

If not, Sadiq: go!


Monday, January 1, 2018

What Co-operative Socialism Isn't!

What Co-operative Socialism Isn't!

On another page, a comrade and friend asked:

Thanks, John. I think not many of us in Momentum will disagree with any of that. Some of us, though, might wonder what the difference is between Co-operative Socialism, and Socialism? I'm certainly confused.

I replied:

Thx Dave!

Well, the largely-understood definition of socialism is, in the US, what-ever went on in Russia, Eastern Europe, etc, North Korea, now.

Here, socialism is seen (or explained) as centralised State control and direction.

Neither of those Authoritarian, top-down schsmes is was true socialism is.

True socialism is horizontalist and noncoercive.

Which is what I/we hope that the plan for Co-operative Socialism aims to acheive.

I/we therefore hope that Momentum will join Labour Action for Peace, Bromley Co-op Party and Occupy London in adopting and promoting the plan for Co-operative Socialism . . .

Starting with a local Momentum group . . . !


what Co-operative Socialism Is: as Short as Possible!

What Co-operative Socialism is.




My friend, Jyoti Pradhan asks me to explain what Co-operative Socialism is.

Here's my attempt:

Well, it's quite straightforward: inequality of incomes is bad for everyone (see www.equalitytrust.org).

So Co-operative Socialism replaces these inequality-creating mechanisms!
--------
Capitalism increases inequality (the board game of 'Monopoly' was designed to show this).

But Monopoly uses only two of the five mechanisms that capitalism uses.

Those two in Monopoly are Theft of economic resources and Rent (the theives call Theft ' Ownership': in this case, Theft of Land and of 'frozen land', buildings).
---------
The other three mechanisms that capitalism uses are:

 Interest (from the Theft of the Law, by making usury/interest-charging legal);
 Profit (from the Theft of knowledge/data/information), and;
 Unequal-pay for work (from the Theft of Position: paid-work 'jobs' that pay higher-than-average incomes and pensions and which protect the uber-theives who have stolen Land, the Law and Knowledge/data/information.
-------
The acronym TRIP-Up helps to remember this (Theft, Rent, Interest, Profit, Unequal-pay).
-------
Co-operative Socialism simply replaces these five mechanisms:

  1) Co-operative Careship: rather than Theft ('Ownership') of economic resources

  2) Fully-repairing 'leases'/time-limited, non-transferable contracts for Co-operative Careship: rather than rent

  3) Interest-free, not-for-profit money/banking/finance systems, rather than debt+usury banking as at present

  4) Appropriate Co-operatives as wealth-creating units, rather than for-profit capitalist firms and charities

  5) Socially-determined income spread: based on a guaranteed 'Living Income for Everyone' (LIFE) as a base income for all and, if paid work is done,  payment only up to a socialky-determined maximum multiplier of the LIFE payment

 6) And necessary 'responsible neighbour' international wconomic arrangements.
---------
All this is in the plan and Reader on Co-operative Socialism in the papers' section at www.interestfreemoney.org

As to how this might come about: education, politics, kegislation, annual audit and celebration!

All by Tuesday!

Hope this helps!