Sim-O

WTF?

Not sure what to make of this…

The world of philanthropy got a huge financial boost today as more than 30 American billionaires pledged to give away at least half of their fortunes to charitable causes, signing up to a campaign launched by Warren Buffett and Bill Gates.

As the article states, Buffett alone is worth $47 billion.

What, though, has prompted this? Have they finally realised that their children will have a secure future without having to worry about a thing with a fraction of that? Did these guys get out a calculator and realise that they could never spend it all?

Of course, not to put a dampener on the gesture, the pledge isn’t binding, but well, it’s a start. Maybe the next step is to make people realise they don’t need to amass these large fortunes in the first place.

I tell you what though, if Warren Buffett can persuade these guys to give away half their fortunes, maybe David Cameron should have word with him to get some of our rich people to help out with his Big Society plans.

What sort of tag line is that…?

Living Our Values & Ethics

I’m guessing it’s supposed to be all corporate responsibility but it’s a bit rubbish. After all, who doesn’t live according to their values and ethics?

It doesn’t even give you a clue as to what those ethics and values are, although it’s probably a big list that doesn’t fit on a shipping bag.

It’ll be about recycling and paying a fair price to their suppliers. You know, the things that are all the rage at the moment, that they didn’t give a shit about a few years ago and, like most companies, wouldn’t care again if they thought the public didn’t.

If you’re not ‘living your ethics and values’ you’re either lying or living a lie.

The Guardian…

A government efficiency drive aimed at slashing spending in town halls and boosting productivity in the health service is likely to deliver billions of pounds of new business for private companies, the Guardian has learned.

Outsourcing firms are preparing for a bonanza of local authority contracts to provide everything from bin men to back office bureaucrats and have reported a doubling in the number of deals on offer this year. Private health companies are also expecting to earn billions of pounds from the planned overhaul of the NHS in which GPs would take over responsibility for spending £70bn.

Executives at Capita, the UK’s largest outsourcing firm, said the number of opportunities for local authority contracts has already doubled this year and they see the healthcare market as “vast and potentially lucrative”.

Richard Marchant, head of local government strategic partnerships at Capita, an FTSE-100 company which already works for councils in Harrow, Swindon, Southampton and Sheffield, said: “A major problem for the public sector is, we feel, a significant opportunity for us. Opportunities are at their highest level in two to three years. This year we have probably seen a 100% increase in opportunities [compared with 2009] and I suspect we will see another 50% increase in the following year.”

The private companies are rubbing their hands together, then. The money to pay for these services still has to come from somewhere, and at the end of the day it’s us. Me and you. The taxpayer. We either pay it as a tax or direct to the supplying company. Or more likely, in taxes that then get paid to a private company that’ll provide an inferior service that’ll seem cheaper to begin with but will sooner or later cost a fuck load more than expected. PFI anyone? (New Labour may have enjoyed all the off the balance sheet perks of the scam, but they were a Tory idea.)

First off, and I’ve probably said it before, why can’t a local government provide services as cheaply as a private contractor seemingly can? I understand economies of scale and all that jazz, which local governments and councils should able to achieve if they get their shit together work together as some sort of buying union. But just as local governments don’t generally have the buying power of these big companies that take on the contract, they also don’t have the shareholders to look after either.

A lot of these companies that provide public services after privatisation or are contracted out are foreign, too*. This means not only are profits being given out that could instead have meant the service could be provided cheaper or more of it even, but the profits are going abroad and helping to keep another nations economy in the black.

What is needed is for councils to get together and sort their shit out rather than at the first sign of trouble start flogging stuff off and handing out the contracts.

*I am prepared to be shot down in flames at this statement, but even if ‘a lot of’ is a little er, generous, the point remains.

The Guardian…

The CBI today demanded that the public sector bear the brunt of Britain’s deficit reduction as it urged the government to spare the better-off from radical changes to capital gains tax

Oh, boo-fucking-hoo. What a surprise, the ‘better off’ don’t want to help pay off the massive debt that has been run up because of the crafty well paid shits that bet everyones houses on schemes that no one understood.

The CBIs’ director-general, Richard Lambert, …

set out a three-point plan for making savings in the public sector: controlling workforce costs through curbs on pay and hiring; eliminating waste and duplication through sharing back-office functions, outsourcing and more efficient procurement; re-engineering public service delivery, including treating more patients at home.

Fair enough. It is always good to try and find better, cheaper ways of doing things, but he also wants the top rate of income tax to come back down to 40% and to leave capital gains tax alone. This, he says, is because “mobile talent” will bugger off and it won’t increase the tax take much.

Capital gains take is stupidly low, for an income for doing fuck all, and if all these cunts rich enough to get an accountant to funnel their income through various channels and offshore companies, that are nothing more than an vessel to reduce their tax bill, actually paid their taxes, then there wouldn’t be a need for a 50% tax band.

So once again, a rich cunt, on behalf of other rich cunts doesn’t want to pay for the sheer stupidity and greed of other rich cunts that has screwed everybody. Makes you heart fucking bleed, doesn’t it?

What’s with this ad?

(Image ripped from Google)

The Guardian…

The government has officially confirmed plans for a new carbon levy on consumer bills which it hopes will make building new nuclear plants viable, as the Guardian revealed in October last year.

Nuclear companies like EDF Energy have warned they will not make the billions of pounds of investment necessary in the UK without government financial guarantees.

So it’s a fucking hostage situation is it? We’ve all got to pay for these fuckers to make buck?

How long has nuclear power been around? The first nuclear power station went live in 1954. That’s 56 years. 56 years to get it right. 56 years to work out a viable business model to get a power plant built ad working and make a profit out the process.

But no. These guys want us to pay for it’s construction.

I could understand if it was a small company with a new technology, or even just a small company. It’s not though. In 2007 EDF Energy made €8.4 billion (£7.5 billion) and EDF Trading made €670 million (£598 million).

…companies are reluctant to build low-carbon generation plants, particularly nuclear reactors, because they do not know what return they will make on the huge up-front investment required.

Who the fuck does know what returns they will make on an investment? If it was that easy I’d be build a nuclear plant.

It’s not just the cost of building the bloody thing in the first place. Although it is a big part of it, building these plants never stick to budget, we still have to deal with the waste that is produced. Bury it, store it, dump it in the sea, it’s stuck with us for sometimes millions of years. The energy companies ain’t gonna look after it for ever.

When any bit of kit of the size of a nuclear power plant, of whatever type and function, goes pop it makes a big ol’ mess. But when a nuclear plant goes bang it fucks thing big style. And they do go bang (my emphasis)…

A study published in Energy Policy in May 2008 shows that, in the period to 2007, sixty-three major nuclear accidents have occurred at nuclear power plants. Twenty-nine of these have occurred since the Chernobyl disaster

And who pays for the clean up? The fucking governments because insurance companies won’t touch them.

So, what do we have? Companies that make billions of pounds want us to pay for their equipment, deal with their waste and pay for it when it all goes tits up.

Fuck you. Shoot the hostage. I don’t want to pay that ransom.

(For more reasons, arguably more important reasons, why nuclear power is a bad idea ave a look at Greenpeaces’ Nuclear Reaction)

The politicians have made a feeble attempt to save face in Copenhagen and hammered out a deal which by all accounts is not legally binding and falls far short of what is actually needed. Despite all the talk earlier on in the conference about this being the last chance for humanity to do something meaningful, the rich nations are simply not capable of taking responsibility for the climate situation that has overwhelmingly been caused by them. This quote from the Greenpeace UK executive director John Sauven just about hits the nail on the head:

“It seems there are too few politicians in this world capable of looking beyond the horizon of their own narrow self-interest, let alone caring much for the millions of people who are facing down the threat of climate change,” he said.

“It is now evident that beating global warming will require a radically different model of politics than the one on display here in Copenhagen.”

I can’t express my disappointment and contempt for out inept leaders as succinctly as Mr Sauven, so for the time being I won’t – more to follow later.

Well, it’s only day two of the Copenhagen Climate Conference, and already it all seems to be going wrong, a leaked draft treaty that concentrates power in the hands of the rich nations! Could you make this up?

It seems that the world leaders are failing us in a big way, but this is hardly unsurprising. In the last blog, I highlighted the fact that there are too many vested interests that stand to lose large amounts of money, and this is borne out by the attempt to push through a deal that will mean the developing world has to bear the brunt of emission reductions. Of course, this is the only logical thing to do for western big business, as it is obvious that their profits simply cannot exist alongside business practices that treat the climate with respect. Capitalism and the natural environment are simply not compatible.

The question is, where do we go from here? Just yesterday, we heard the conference chairperson, in the opening speach, telling us that this is the last best chance to make an agreement on cutting emissions, yet a day later the only agreement on the table will merely protect the profits of a tiny minority. That the fate of mankind is left in the hands of those who apparently represent us is a farce… We don’t just need disobedience, as Naomi Klein has called for, we need something that will revolutionise the way that we run the world economy…

Two students, one a great friend of mine,  from the Institute of Social Studies in the Netherlands are cycling from the Hague to Copenhagen, raising awareness of the threat of climate change along the way. To make it more difficult, they are doing it on dutch granny bikes! They are relying on locals putting them up on the way, and are doing it on a shoe-string budget.

Follow them and send the messages of support!!

Their aim is to get to Copenhagen to for the demonstrations at the farce that is to be the latest Climate Change summit.

The UK send off demonstration is Saturday December 5th in London, meeting in Grovesnor Square at 12pm, to encircle Parliament later in the afternoon. We need to urge our governments to do more, but unfortunately it seems as though they are unable to fight the interests of the oil companies and big business.

This is unlikely to happen within the current economic system. The threat of reduced profits means that rich nations are unable to reach an agreement with the developing world on reducing emissions. Markets need to be protected, companies need to remain ‘competitive’, profits rates upheld, and the system needs to grow. And grow, and grow.

However, even the planet has limits – it cannot support limitless growth, but the system is unable to function without it, so we keep heading down the path of environmental destruction full speed ahead. We know how to stop it, but are we strong enough to put on the brakes?