There is a superb article by Dr Eamonn Butler on the Adam Smith blog highlighting the current pressure from the Marxist left to ‘force’ the banks to lend, which has set my brain whirring for the day.

50 years ago, when I started working to fill my belly, there was no alternative. Or rather the alternative was unpalatable. It was to return to the children’s home from which I had fled.

Ipso, I had to make a living without any of the accoutrements that the Marxists say are essential to life in this ‘unfair’ society. There was no Job Centre to guide me. There was no Welfare State to support me. No question of a bank loan to set me up – in those days, even had I been 18, it was not possible for a woman to obtain credit without her husband acting as guarantor. No council had a duty to house me in my area of choice.

Consequently, I had to find a horizontal surface to sleep on, which was in the near vicinity of someone who was prepared to hand over money or food in return for – more or less anything they cared to name. Such a precarious lifestyle left me perennially aware that ‘next week’ I might not be so lucky, so I developed the habit of assuming that if I had £10 in my pocket, I could only afford to spend 10 shillings.

Who knew what paucity of opportunity might lie around the corner?

‘Aha’, said a small voice in my brain. ‘But thing are different today. Jobs aren’t so easy to find.’

Aren’t they?

I am minded of Damian Green’s comments back in January, that there may well be 1 million illegal immigrants living in the UK.

Who are living exactly how? Pretty much the same way I lived 50 years ago. Successfully so, otherwise the streets would be lined with dead immigrants. Somehow they are managing to find a horizontal surface to sleep on in the vicinity of someone who is prepared to give them money or food. They too, must be acquiring the habit of hanging onto to a fair proportion of their cash in case next week isn’t so good. I doubt very much that in 1960 there were 1 million such jobs in the cash economy, so perhaps things are actually better today than they were then?

I managed to buy a house eventually. It cost me £13,000. No bank to borrow 95% of that sum from, it was acquired by dint of doing without everything that didn’t come under the heading of essential sustenance. I have little doubt that many of those illegal immigrants are following the same route.

What has changed is the definition of ‘reasonable expectation’. The Marxists rail at the bankers and demand regulation to force them to lend, not because it is essential that they do so, but because society is attuned to the idea that we have a right to have everything we want, when we want.

A roof over your head must be the roof you desire most, chosen from a list of similarly desirable roofs. It must be furnished ‘just so’ – orange boxes appear to have gone out of fashion. You are defined as deprived if you cannot afford to have everything you want.

When the Tories suggested that those ensconced on deprived council estates move to areas where there was work, there was an outcry from the Marxists. Ed Balls accused the Tories of ‘breaking up communities’.

How were those communities formed in the first place? Were there Welsh Pit villages in Biblical times? No, they came about because coal was discovered in them thar hills, capitalists were prepared to pay good money for men to dig out that coal, and most of the housing was built by the Coal board. Men came from all over, followed by their families, to where the work was.

The self-employed have always taken themselves to where the work is, that is how they survive.  No Marxists around then to tell them that they should stay put and wait for the work to come to them. It is just as possible today as it always was, to live without a bank loan, to exist outside of the welfare state.

Bankers lend money because that is how they earn money – forcing them to lend money presupposes that they are currently choosing not to earn money from us – which is a ridiculous proposition to level at a capitalist. We are being encouraged to believe that in refusing to lend us money, they somehow have ‘power’ over us. Power which must be broken.

The real power is wielded by 13 years of Marxist indoctrination which has persuaded us that there is something degrading in living within our means and only awarding ourselves that which we can afford.

peter uk August 9, 2010 at 13:22

there are surely too many side issues and ethical ones about illegal
immigrants and how they survive, illegally more to the point, to use as a
comparison to your own survival. you, like alot of the ‘old school’ survived
in the way you did.and credit to you.

AbleTheSpace
Monkey August 8, 2010 at 08:03

More interesting to hear tax dodging Kinnock junior described as a
‘businessman’ by the toady media. He is infact a British Council Quangocrat,
his father being a senior figure in the same tax payer funded organisation.
The socialist Kinnocks are sucking the taxpayer dry, and push the EU agenda
(Kinnock voted against the EU in earlier years) against the interests of
national self determination at every step.

http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/standard/article-23706974-clan-kinnock-and-their-euro-jackpot.do

A veneer of personal charm and socialist purpose disguising a moral vacuum
of pure unprincipled self interest.

Spiral Architect
August 5, 2010 at 22:29

Excellent piece Ms. Raccoon – kudos for triumphing out of your personal
adversity.

In plain terms………….fuck the left, they enslave the poor and the blue collar
class by constantly reminding them that there are many who are more prosperous
than they, without mentioning that they have;

> the vote

> labour rights

> sex equality, sexuality equality, racial equality etc. etc.

> free schooling until 18

> subsidised schooling until 21

> free health care

> welfare that lets nobody slip through

> enough money to enjoy Sky dishes, mobile phones, internet and foreign
holidays

> everything they need to create their own opportunities to become
prosperous

Britain has laid it all on a plate – and still, politicians like Balls,
Harman, Brown, leftist twats ad infinitum……..insist on indulging in power
grabs and utilising the very basest propaganda to promote their faux
ideals.

Talking of ideals………..wonderful to see tonight Stephen Kinnock
uber-privileged scion of socialist heroes Lord and Lady Kinnock under
investigation for………..tax evasion. Now that is completely and utterly
peachy!

Explain that away your lordship!

English Viking
August 6, 2010 at 00:20

Hang him. Really.

My life would have (if I let the filth) been made a misery by Tax
Inspectors.

Good for the goose…… etc.

wullie August 5, 2010 at 21:12

For capitalism to work, you must first and foremost steal the very earth
its,self, then after a while you just start flogging bits back to the
descendents of the mugs you nicked it from, things like food, water, the
mineral wealth. capitalism !! its a laugh innit

English Viking
August 6, 2010 at 00:17

True, but better than letting the proles starve, a la Communism.

The middle way
August 5, 2010 at 12:19

For 50 years I have been a bitter adversary of Marxism and
Capitalism.
which has attracted the label of Fascist. As I see it, the
current crop
of social democracies are being rent apart by Capitalistic
greed and
Marxist folly.
Fascism just has to sit back and wait a
while.

Capitalism creates wealth and poverty.
Marxism creates greyness and
poverty

Fascist Hippy
August 5, 2010 at 12:36

That’s about right!

Jim August 5, 2010 at 14:10

Given, as the Bible says, the poor will always be with us, I’ll take the
sytem that allows the greatest freedom, economically, and socially. That’ll
be Capitalism then.

English
Viking August 5, 2010 at 19:32

Like the swastika avatar!

Hysteria August 6, 2010 at 01:34

um – no – don’t think so.

Capitalism allows the creation of individual wealth, and punishes
individual sloth.

Marxism allows the creation of wealth for the “chosen ones”, and steals
from everyone to achieve that end………

Eleanor August 5, 2010 at 11:59

Great article, Anna. You could have been talking about me and my life. The
only difference being that I was very happy in the Children’s Home that I was
sent to. I just wasn’t left there for long enough.

Old habits die hard, and I still only spend part of what I get, but it is
becoming increasingly difficult to save anything these days.

ivan August 5, 2010 at 11:53

Anna,

The days of our youth are long gone – unfortunately. Those were the days of
personal responsibility and accountability, something that appears to be so
lacking in present day society – something that should be restored if the UK
is to advance.

Until they are restored there is no way that people will stop looking to
the ‘state’ to provide all their wants.

Tuscan
Tony August 5, 2010 at 11:33

Excellent article, Ms. Raccoon

Robbo August 5, 2010 at 11:20

Anna, the Tories did not ” suggest that those ensconced on deprived council
estates move to areas where there was work”. The suggestion was that they be
allowed to move to where there was work, by a relaxation of some of the rules
on council housing which currently anchor them to locations where there is not
available work.

It’s astounding how anyone can object to such a sensible thing, no wonder
Ed Balls made a straw man argument.