Der cont.

American Indians have a name for the white man, Washeetchue. It means, “the one who takes the best part of the meat.” I imagine it is pronounced with some venom considering their history at the hands of white Americans. They might though be pronouncing it with relish now the Washeetchue look unable to pay off their fourteen trillion dollar overdraft, and maybe they and we, as they are derived from largely European stock, should consider that Indian phrase more closely. Our philosophy is to take. Our economy is built on taking. Whether a plumber, a shopkeeper or a banker we take money commensurate with our capacity to take money, though we use the euphemism ‘make.’ Thus ranks of takers compete to pass on money to those with a greater ability. The obvious product of this mechanism is the rich get richer and the poor get poorer. Statistic: ‘Since 1977 the share of national income going to those on the bottom half of the earnings ladder has fallen by a quarter, while the slice going to the top 1% has increased by half.’ I turned to a spreadsheet I’d put together of UK earnings against numbers of people at each wage level, i.e. from 1.44 million on £6,000 up to 6,000 on £2 million. I calculated a quarter of the bottom 50% earnings and got £62 billion. I then calculated half of the earnings of the top 1% and guess what I got, £65 billion. OK there’s a mismatch in time scales but it shows where our money’s going. The best part of earnings is going upwards. Thus however good you are at taking there’s always someone better at it taking from you. Our philosophy of taking the best part of the meat is showing itself worthy of the Indian’s derision, and from the state of our current finances, unsustainable. Yet finance and politicians seem unable to grasp and incapable to act against this common underlying philosophy that we ALL hold and that requires constant growth to satisfy our individual aspirations.