Wage Depression Over the Decades

Many people of my age (mid-Fifties) can still remember a time when a single parent could earn enough to run a family and have the mother stay at home.

Then in the seventies thanks to inflation, if you wanted nice things the second partner had to go out and get a part-time job. The imability of wages to support a family had started.

In the eighties, if you wanted to run a car, have a VCR, etc the second partner needed to go out and get a job. The rise of non-parental childcare in the form of child minders boomed.

In the Nineties, the two parents started to struggle to support a family. When Labour came into power in the late Nineties, they decided that the family needed help and in 2003 introduced tax credits for working families.

All the while, in the background you had non-working families fully supported by the state in the form of very generous benefits.

Over the decades wage stagnation has caused wages to depress so much that now even two people working full time cannot support a family and the government has to chip in with in-work benefits like tax credits. But that's taking money from people without kids and give it to families just because employers won't or can't pay proper wages if they wish to stay competitive. i.e. we all suffer wage deflation, even if we don't have a family.

At the same time, benefits eventually became so generous, there was no incentive to work. The differential is still pretty big. Stay unemployed and you get everything paid for: rent, council tax, National Insurance, prescriptions.... The moment you step into work, the full reality of competing in a global market hits home.Thanks to globalism you are competeing with someone in Vietnam whos housing costs amount to a tin shack with no electricity, water or sewage system. They don't have to pay for any of the utilities that western workers have to pay for.

I've yet to formulate a plan as to how to equalise the playing field. Of course as that Vietnamese worker's life style improves, pressures will increase on his wages so that eventually he will be demanding similar wages to a wesstern worker.

In the meantime the disparity is being exploited by the global corporations. It's this disparity that is causing the rise of populism in the West. The global corporates and western governments have failed to effectively manage the issue and have largely ignored the poor working class in the west. There's a lot of people at the bottom of the pyramid and they are getting increasingly angry and connected by technology.

The poor working class see mass immigration as another attempt to further depress wages, not the advantage or benefit that the elites would have us believe immigrants are.

40 years of wage depression and the various attacks on the ability to raise a family in the West from all side has created an atmosphere in the West amongst the poor that enough is enough. We're already seeing workers on zero hours contracts, workers living in tents, trailers and shacks. The workers of the West can see a future where their families live in Shacks like the Vietnamese guy and the rich get even richer.

There is an overwhelming feeling amongst the poor working class that a red line has been crossed. Especially after the financial crisis where billions of pounds of taxpayer's money was used to bail out the banks rather than allow them to fail, in the process inflating the wallets of the richest 1% of the country. There's also a growing realisation that "climate change" taxes are not being used for the purpose of mitigating the effects, but instead again lining the pockets of the mega-rich.

The past decade has seen the biggest and fastest transfer of wealth from the poor to the rich in history. Quite rightly the poor are unimpressed, and angry.

Brexit Matters not just for Leavers, but Remainers as Well.

Ok, first off, lets state the FACT that 52% of people voted to leave the EU. It's also a FACT that 48% voted to stay. It was close, but still it's a fact the leave side won.

Now, without getting into the semantics of what happens post-Brexit, the deal, etc. There is an overall importance to what is currently happening to the Brexit process that the Remain side should be paying attention to.

The Leave side won, so it's already been decided that we should leave the EU. All the manipulation about leavers not knowing what they voted for or supporting the 48% that voted to stay or now the new people's vote (which will include the option to remain) are just semantics and a way of keeping us in the EU in some form or other.

In other words ignoring the will of the people, or refusing to accept the democratic decision of the people on a vote that has already been cast and the outcome decided.

It's also pertinant to note that had the vote gone the other way and the remainer had won, there would be no talk about they didn't know whet they were voting for, or the 48% of leavers need to be respected. No the leavers would have had to suck it up and keep quiet and the process of ever greater integration would continue, like back in 1975.

Now this becomes important to remainers because if the government can ignore the democratic decision of the people on this most important of votes with the biggest turnout for decades, if not in history, what other votes could they ignore?

I mean, why not ignore the outcome of general elections? Oh, the majority voted Labour? Tough, the elite want a Tory government so some way will be found of keeping the Tories in.

The majority voted for a Liberal controlled council? No, sorry the elite want Labour to run that council....

All I'm saying to the remainers is: be careful what you wish for. And think very carefully about the course of your actions.

Tommy Robinson Court Case Today.

Today is the day that Stephen Yaxley-Lennon, AKA Tommy Robinson appears at the Old Bailey on a retrial of his civil contempt case, after the ajournment of the last appearance.

The case is interesting from a number of angles.

The first is that he could have been tried (effectively illegally) in 15 minutes or less. Without preparing a case, withiout effectively uttering a word (I know, unusual for Tommy) he was sent down for 13 months. On a civil (not criminal) offense of contempt of court.

The issues around the case are manyfold, including his incarceration in prison and the handling of him there compared to someone else tried and handled properly of a civil offense.

Anyway, back to the point. His case is being handled in the largest criminal court of the land, the Old Bailey. I assume to be able to handle the crowds of supporters and protesters that will turn up to voice an opinion.

Looking at the live streams there looks to be a significant number of supporters ouitside the Old Bailey.

The Justice System would seem to have a dillemma on their hands. If the initial contempt court case and subsequent prison sentence for Tommy was illegal or suspect and was rightly quashed (and Robinson released), then if today's Judge finds him innocent then it calls into question the whole process of the original case. It also opens up the prospect of Tommy sueing the Government for false imprisonment and damages.

So, today's court case connot find hime completely innocent. There has to be some half-way house so the Government can save face and shut down any lawsuit for damages.

I suspect the Judge today will find him guilty of contempt and issue a sentence very close to his time already served so that he can stay free, but still guilty. That the original case was procedurally flawed, but correct in it's finding.

By lunchtime hopefully the Judge will have made a finding and a judgement.

God help the government if the Judge finds him completely innocent.

Also the media reports will be very interesting..... if they do ever report on it.

UPDATE:

Tommy's case is being referred to the Attourney General. Which it should have been instead of the kangaroo court in Leeds. After all, this requires a polictical solution now, as it's gone way past the point of providing an entirely legal solution.  As I said, I'm sure the end decision will try and placate everyone.

Anyway, Tommy remains on bail until the AG makes a finding.

Lidl Parking Policy

Here in the South Lidl have had a policy in place for a while where customers that use their car park get free parking if they buy something. They then scan the receipt on a machine and enter the registration number.

Anyone not buying something and getting a receipt cannot validate their parking and I expect get a fine.

Which is great if you turn up at Lidls for something and they have it on the shelf. But what if they don't have what you want in stock? You're forced to buy something and queue up for ages just to scan a 20p box of Paracetamols or something.

Bloody ludicrous.

Grooming Gangs: Lots More to Come.

Finally the names of the members of the Hudderfield Grooming gang (the one Tommy Robinson was sent to jail for reporting on), has been released due to the release of the reporting restrictions.

Ther have now been cases in Rochdale, Rotherham, Huddersfield, Oxford, Dewsbury, Newcastle, Bristol.... which on their own should be shocking and there should be an outcry in the media.

Back in 2013 the BBC reported there were 54 cases and 54 gangs being investigated. I have heard that the number of cases yet to be prosecuted is approximately 32. Whether that is the truth, I have no way of proving, which is the root of the problem. There is no way of knowing the truth of the matter.

The majority if not all of these subject to reporting restrictions, hence why there is no mention of the number of upcoming cases and an ability to show the scale of the problem.

This is where the media is failing: the reporting restrictions need to be lifted to show the scale of the problem so it can be honestly debated. The restrictions are currently lifted weeks after the cases have been tried and the defendants prosecuted, hence old news and only given passing notice in the media.

Had it been 54 tower blocks combusting, or 54 boats sinking in the Med, the media would be all over it and begging the government to lift the restrictions. But it seems the minorities are the media focus, the majority have second-class status, especially if they are working class.

UPDATE:

In this report in the Indenpendent, it state operation Stovewood (the National Criome Agency inverstigation into has 34 ongoing investigations involving 114 suspects. It is unclear in the report if this is Just in Riotherham or Nationwide. The report makes reference to locations in Rotherham, so it's possible that Stovewood just invetigates child explitation in Roltherham.

If so the number of defendants and cases beggars belief.

At the end of the article it references a number of other ongouing investigations and a gang in London the Independent itself exposed.

The conclusion is that this grooming culture is prevalent across teh country and there must be gangs in virtually every town an city in the country. The current restrictions on reporting must be lifted so the public can get a sense of the scale of the prolem, so they can make informed choices about the security of their own children. Who by the substance of these reports are at very serious risk.

On a related subject, this report on the BBC suggests that women and girls are subject to continuous harrassment when out in public. It would be nice for the report to go further and provide details on where and by whom these women are being harrassed, so women can make an informed choice about their safety. I wonder if there is a lack of detail on the perpetrators or the hotspots because that points to a certain ethnicity....

The War on Drugs...if There is Such a Thing.

I've never been involved in recereational drugs. Never taken them, never wanted to.

Howeveer, it strikes me that the supposed war on drugs is not being won by our lackadaisical Police force and lenient law courts.

It can't be when drugs are so freely available, which of course most people realise, but the Governmentfails to understand.

So it shouldn't shock me when outside the local Co-Op store last night I could hear a pretty fed up teenage girl shouting to a bunch of kids that could not be more than 11 that she could only afford a gram and that if they wanted it they would have to be quick as her source goes to bed at 9pm.

But still... to be shouting it so that anyone within 100 yards could hear her tends to suggest a blase attitude and a sense that it's okay.

IT'S NOT OK.

The war on drugs needs to heat up.