May 22 2012

Which One Percent do we mean?

We think we know who they mean when folks in Occupy movements across the world refer to ” One Percent”, don’t we?

Perhaps we conjure up images of Gordon Gecko out of the movie Wall Street or a health insurance CEO not paying out to terminally ill people living in poverty. But how accurate are our assumptions, those of us firmly in the “99%”?

In the UK, anyone earning an annual salary of £120,000 or above is, according to research by unbiased.co.uk, technically in the One Percent. Surprising, huh?

“Nonetheless, £120,000 is too much for anyone to earn!” you might scoff. Well, to someone on welfare, a job paying £18,000 may seem desirable; An employee or independent trader earning £18k could regard her neighbour on £50k as very well-off; And so on.

Where do we really draw the line when defining an obscene income? Sure, there are plenty of global-village-idiots proclaiming we should all work for a basic living wage, and who are so against private enterprise that one can only assume they hope for a communist dystopia in which we all work for our governments. (Indeed, a Green Party enthusiast in Scotland tellingly remarked of an article I had published elsewhere recently, “I hope no one got paid for writing that!”.) But where is our perspective?

By all means, let’s fight injustice, wanton profiteering and cynical exploitation. But let’s also keep a clear idea about what we’re saying, and who the real targets are in our campaigning for a better society.

(Thanks to ABillyRock for uploading this clip to YouTube)

May 21 2012

Uncut Protest Party Promo!

Promotional video for Uncut Sheffield street party outside Nick Clegg’s Sheffield constituency office to take place 26th May.

Economicsurvivor.net (who helped with interviews in the clip) will be there to record the merry protest … !

May 21 2012

EU Beast Grid proposals

In June, the European Commission may commence legislation requiring citizens across all member states to hold electronic ID cards.

This development, reported today by EU policy debate news site EurActiv, raises immediate issues for those countries not currently using national ID cards. It also heralds a massive increase in the hold that technology has over our lives – e.g., authentication of essential and non-essential transactions being subjected to highly centralised digital approval.

EU member governments are reportedly supportive of the scheme, and the plan is to sell it to the electorate using “convenience” as bait.

According to EurActiv:

The European Commission is set to launch a substantial review of rules governing personal documents with the aim of making electronic identities take off across the EU. But the proposal faces likely opposition from civil rights groups and member states where identity cards do not exist. [.....]

A directive was adopted in 1999 establishing a common framework for electronic signatures. The rationale for the legal text is that if EU citizens feel comfortable in signing documents online, they will increasingly move to the immaterial world of the e-commerce to do business and shopping, regardless of national borders.

Read the whole article at http://www.euractiv.com.

May 18 2012

Fuelling debt

Two separate items of news today illustrate how desperate daily life has become for many in austerity-driven Britain.

1. Payday never arrives
Survey results just released by consumer organisation Which found that sixty per cent of people who took out payday loans used the money to pay their household bills or buy other basic essentials. A third experienced greater financial problems as a result of signing these credit agreements, and 45% were hit with unexpected penalties and high default charges.

Payday loans attract hefty interest rates and are largely targeted by the likes of pawnbroker shops at people who know their banks will not give them an overdraft or loan in the event of a cash emergency. Many borrowers don’t understand fully the terms and conditions of their payday agreements, finding themselves trapped into making high payments each month that do not pay off any of the original debt.

2. Burning money
Household energy bills have rocketed more than five times faster than household income since 2004, according to new research from uSwitch.com.

Hardest hit are the low-waged and those on fixed incomes, such as pensioners and welfare claimants. For example, the basic state pension for a couple is now £11,175 a year, and the UK’s average household energy bill stands at £1,252 a year - accounting for just over a tenth of their income (11%).

USwitch found that:

May 17 2012

Real message of the Olympics™ is … ?

The Olympic™ torch, arriving in Britain today, represents “friendship, unity and peace”, right?

(Picture by Ben, aged 9)

May 16 2012

Going to the party?

UK Uncut is organising parties across the land on 26 May. Here’s an excellent video explaining why.

(Thanks to  for the great film!)

Amy, from Uncut Sheffield, told economic survivor why she is going to the party:

Why I’m going to the street party.

The Olympics were last held in London in 1948 – then we had a future to look forward to despite national debt being three times higher than it is now. We had free universal healthcare and a new welfare state. Women were entering the workplace en masse and human rights were on the agenda.

Today we are seeing the destruction of these things – the things that make this country brilliant. I find that very frightening. The government is encouraging us to have street parties but for many people in this country now life is really tough. People don’t feel that they have anything to look forward to, they are worrying about what will happen when they get sick and old, how to pay the bills and they feel let down by a government who they feel are not listening to them.

All the time we see around £120 billion pounds of tax dodging by huge companies being ignored. A few billionaires continue to profit at the expense of the rest of us who are told ‘we are all in this together’.

Uk Uncut have done an amazing job over the past two years. Suddenly people are talking about tax dodging. We need to keep up this pressure and build on our successes. There is a lot to celebrate about this country … but I am worried that we are in the process of having those things taken away from us.

I’ll be there on the 26th May along with many others throughout the country to try to spread the message that there are alternatives to austerity, it is unnecessary. I’d really like us to have a future to look forward to again and it’d be lovely if you could join us! :)

See http://www.ukuncut.org.uk/actions for an action listed near you!

May 15 2012

Mobile Internet Lost Filtering

It’s not just naughty pics and steamy video clips that get blocked when opting out of receiving pornographic sites on smart phones.

“Wot you lookin’ at?”

Open Rights Group and LSE Media Policy Project published a new report yesterday, ‘Mobile Internet censorship: what’s happening and what we can do about it‘ revealing widespread over-blocking. Political commentaries, personal blogs, restaurants’ sites and community websites have been blocked incorrectly on mobile networks’ child protection filters.

The report calls on mobile operators to give parents an ‘active choice’ to turn filters on, and to be far more transparent about how their systems work. The document also puts concerns that applying similar blocks to fixed-line broadband, something advocated by Claire Perry MP, will have the same damaging consequences.

Peter Bradwell of Open Rights Group and author of the report, said: “The lessons for ‘porn filter’ proposals are clear. Default-on blocks can have significant harmful and unintended consequences for everybody’s access to information. To help protect children online, the Government should reject ‘default on’ network filtering and work to give parents simpler choices and better, device-based tools.”