Is there anyone left on here that defends this Government?

[I1L2T3 10]

It seems to me that you haven't got this very well worked out in your mind beyond a lot of jealousy and bitterness.

 

With all due respect Tony this isn't the first time you have resorted to this when you aren't doing too well. It doesn't look too clever.

[Tony 10]

Well not really I1L2T3. Profit is a good thing that should be maximised. Tax is a bad thing that should be minimised. Exceptions and exclusions accepted.

 

To dispute that simple norm is either a bit twisted, ill-informed, or just plain daft.

[I1L2T3 10]

Well not really I1L2T3. Profit is a good thing that should be maximised. Tax is a bad thing that should be minimised. Exceptions and exclusions accepted.

 

To dispute that simple norm is either a bit twisted, ill-informed, or just plain daft.

 

It's perfectly valid to dispute that basic position. If you knew anything about economics you would know why.

 

I would agree that excessive taxation is wrong but some taxation is necessary. Profit maximisation (while importatant) is rarely the the only goal of businesses - they may pursue other strategies that provide similar benefits (grow market share etc...).

 

Please read up on some basic economics. Sincere advice.

[ricgem2002 11]

i hope the tories on here who are paying through the nose for their energy/pensions pots arnt complaining about the increases .remember were all in this together

[Peas Maker 10]

Tony you are repeating yourself which is making myself repeat myself.

 

Jealousy and bitterness, no. Inequality and robbery, yes.

 

The rich are getting richer, by robbing the poorer. Thats my issue. It should be yours, but your too busy playing devils advocate and not reading any facts.

 

Hello ,

 

I must say I find it odd how some one can claim your jelous when your pointing out the obvious injustices in the world....

 

Tony is right "profit is good ". Too good intact , enough to put before peoples lives never mind your lively hood .

[*_ash_* 88]

Tony you are repeating yourself which is making myself repeat myself.

 

Jealousy and bitterness, no. Inequality and robbery, yes.

The rich are getting richer, by robbing the poorer. Thats my issue. It should be yours, but your too busy playing devils advocate and not reading any facts.

 

I've just had a look at all the smilies that the S-F has, and concluded that the one smiley that is missing, but could be greatly used is a 'yawn' smiley.

Edited October 28, 2011 by *_ash_*

[*_ash_* 88]

That is such a priceless comment. Yet again you have assumed im not paying 40%. I have no problem with the tax rates. I have a huge problem with large businesses & banks not paying it and avoiding it.

 

I think what is more priceless is this...

 

AS PROTESTS against financial power sweep the world this week, science may have confirmed the protesters' worst fears. An analysis of the relationships between 43,000 transnational corporations has identified a relatively small group of companies, mainly banks, with disproportionate power over the global economy.

 

The study's assumptions have attracted some criticism, but complex systems analysts contacted by New Scientist say it is a unique effort to untangle control in the global economy. Pushing the analysis further, they say, could help to identify ways of making global capitalism more stable.

 

The idea that a few bankers control a large chunk of the global economy might not seem like news to New York's Occupy Wall Street movement and protesters elsewhere (see photo). But the study, by a trio of complex systems theorists at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich, is the first to go beyond ideology to empirically identify such a network of power. It combines the mathematics long used to model natural systems with comprehensive corporate data to map ownership among the world's transnational corporations (TNCs).

 

"Reality is so complex, we must move away from dogma, whether it's conspiracy theories or free-market," says James Glattfelder. "Our analysis is reality-based."

 

Previous studies have found that a few TNCs own large chunks of the world's economy, but they included only a limited number of companies and omitted indirect ownerships, so could not say how this affected the global economy - whether it made it more or less stable, for instance.

 

The Zurich team can. From Orbis 2007, a database listing 37 million companies and investors worldwide, they pulled out all 43,060 TNCs and the share ownerships linking them. Then they constructed a model of which companies controlled others through shareholding networks, coupled with each company's operating revenues, to map the structure of economic power.

 

The work, to be published in PLoS One, revealed a core of 1318 companies with interlocking ownerships (see image). Each of the 1318 had ties to two or more other companies, and on average they were connected to 20. What's more, although they represented 20 per cent of global operating revenues, the 1318 appeared to collectively own through their shares the majority of the world's large blue chip and manufacturing firms - the "real" economy - representing a further 60 per cent of global revenues.

 

When the team further untangled the web of ownership, it found much of it tracked back to a "super-entity" of 147 even more tightly knit companies - all of their ownership was held by other members of the super-entity - that controlled 40 per cent of the total wealth in the network. "In effect, less than 1 per cent of the companies were able to control 40 per cent of the entire network," says Glattfelder. Most were financial institutions. The top 20 included Barclays Bank, JPMorgan Chase & Co, and The Goldman Sachs Group.

 

John Driffill of the University of London, a macroeconomics expert, says the value of the analysis is not just to see if a small number of people controls the global economy, but rather its insights into economic stability.

 

Concentration of power is not good or bad in itself, says the Zurich team, but the core's tight interconnections could be. As the world learned in 2008, such networks are unstable. "If one [company] suffers distress," says Glattfelder, "this propagates."

 

"It's disconcerting to see how connected things really are," agrees George Sugihara of the Scripps Institution of Oceanography in La Jolla, California, a complex systems expert who has advised Deutsche Bank.

 

Yaneer Bar-Yam, head of the New England Complex Systems Institute (NECSI), warns that the analysis assumes ownership equates to control, which is not always true. Most company shares are held by fund managers who may or may not control what the companies they part-own actually do. The impact of this on the system's behaviour, he says, requires more analysis.

 

Crucially, by identifying the architecture of global economic power, the analysis could help make it more stable. By finding the vulnerable aspects of the system, economists can suggest measures to prevent future collapses spreading through the entire economy. Glattfelder says we may need global anti-trust rules, which now exist only at national level, to limit over-connection among TNCs. Sugihara says the analysis suggests one possible solution: firms should be taxed for excess interconnectivity to discourage this risk.

 

One thing won't chime with some of the protesters' claims: the super-entity is unlikely to be the intentional result of a conspiracy to rule the world. "Such structures are common in nature," says Sugihara.

 

Newcomers to any network connect preferentially to highly connected members. TNCs buy shares in each other for business reasons, not for world domination. If connectedness clusters, so does wealth, says Dan Braha of NECSI: in similar models, money flows towards the most highly connected members. The Zurich study, says Sugihara, "is strong evidence that simple rules governing TNCs give rise spontaneously to highly connected groups". Or as Braha puts it: "The Occupy Wall Street claim that 1 per cent of people have most of the wealth reflects a logical phase of the self-organising economy."

 

So, the super-entity may not result from conspiracy. The real question, says the Zurich team, is whether it can exert concerted political power. Driffill feels 147 is too many to sustain collusion. Braha suspects they will compete in the market but act together on common interests. Resisting changes to the network structure may be one such common interest.

 

When this article was first posted, the comment in the final sentence of the paragraph beginning "Crucially, by identifying the architecture of global economic power…" was misattributed.

 

I thought it was funny reading this post with a starting line 'AS PROTESTS against financial power sweep the world this week, science may have confirmed the protestors' worst fears', but hey hoe.

 

-

 

Go and read this out for a campaign and see how many votes you get.

[Rupert_Baehr 10]

So ... what are you going to do about it?

 

What do you recommend that others (including me) do about it?

 

'Bitching' about a problem might make you feel better - but it doesn't actually provide a solution.

 

Do you have a solution?

[*_ash_* 88]

So ... what are you going to do about it?

 

What do you recommend that others (including me) do about it?

 

'Bitching' about a problem might make you feel better - but it doesn't actually provide a solution.

 

Do you have a solution?

 

Do you mean me?

[WeX 10]

i hope the tories on here who are paying through the nose for their energy/pensions pots arnt complaining about the increases .remember were all in this together

 

energy price rises are not the fault of the government. pensions where raided by labour.

 

you seem to need more omega 3 fish oils in your diet if you cant remember back a few years.

 

oh and just a little reminder, its a coalition government, not tory.

[Conrod 10]

:hihi: i hope you got a gold plated pension on a par with the rich when you come to retire . how many more will become feckless and have to rely on benefits after this gov has finished selling what left of industry we have left .

I'm semi-retired and already receiving one gold-plated pension, as it happens

[ricgem2002 11]

energy price rises are not the fault of the government. pensions where raided by labour.

 

you seem to need more omega 3 fish oils in your diet if you cant remember back a few years.

 

oh and just a little reminder, its a coalition government, not tory.

profits rises are not the fault of the gov either but taxing them fairly is:hihi: