Big Business vs Ed Miliband – alittleecon
Let’s all sympathise for Alex Little, who was caught between a rock and a hard place when writing his article.
Alex is not attracted to Labour at the moment. As a proponent of Modern Monetary Theory – and I’m sure he’ll correct me if I’m wrong – the economic policies of Ed Balls focus too much on deficit reduction and too little on creating a vibrant national economy for his liking.
However, Alex found he couldn’t stay silent when business ‘leaders’ started lining up to attack Ed Miliband and Labour’s pro-business policies.
“If you look at the public statements made by Labour’s detractors, you won’t find much by way of reasoned argument,” writes Mr Little. “The first to break cover was Boots boss Stefano Pessina. Putting aside the fact he is not a UK citizen, resident or taxpayer, in the interview which generated the headlines, he says absolutely nothing of interest:
“The problem is, would they act that way or not? One thing is to threaten and to shout, but it is completely different to be in charge and to manage the country day to day,” he said.
Mr Pessina, a 73-year-old Italian who is estimated to have amassed a £7.5 billion fortune, declined to elaborate on which specific policies he disliked.
“The Sunday Telegraph wrote this up as being “a major blow for Labour’s election campaign”. OK.”
Clearly Mr Little was unimpressed. What about the FT’s interview with Carphone Warehouse co-founder Sir Charles Dunstone? He said:
As a business person I’m frightened of an environment where there isn’t sufficient emphasis put on growing the economy to grow tax receipts to spend more money,
Mr Little’s response: “Frightened? His argument is basically trickle-down theory i.e. if businesses make lots of money there’ll be more tax money to spend on public services. Bulls***!”
So big business has failed to score twice. Will it be three strikes and out?
Perhaps business leaders are frightened that Mr Miliband will follow through on his promise to stop them doing whatever they want.
“The last example, and probably the best came from Yo Sushi! founder and one time Dragon Simon Woodroffe, who came out with a whole bowl of wrongness on Newsnight:
“The world is right as it is. And we need to get on as a country, UK PLC, and make lots of money, be very successful …
You know, it scares me. I was a Labour Party supporter during the Blair-Brown thing and I was a supporter because I am a believer that politics needs to make money, that UK PLC needs to be a profitable business, and I thought they were a good management team.”
“The world is right as it is? Stick that on the election posters! He uses the ghastly phrase UK PLC, making out a government should try and run things just like a business. Politics needs to make money? I don’t even know where to start with that one.”
The verdict is clear: Don’t listen to business leaders – they talk a load of s….ushi.
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For too long we’ve been supposed to worship the ground these self-important, greedy sociopaths have walked on, like they’re all middle ranking deities of some sort. We have been allowed the right to refer to them as wealth and/or job creators when they are, in reality, parasites that collect money for no good reason and much detrimental effect on the economy. While they sit and look at their bank balances grow (somewhere offshore, no doubt), that money isn’t circulating and driving the economy, it’s not in the pockets of the poorest who have to spend their money to get by. There is more room in the economy for spending but those who would spend have no access to the money to do so because these greedy, entitled, own-press-believing arses have got it all.
We literally cannot afford Woodroffe and his moronic ilk any longer.
It’s a good point. When reading (and in my case, writing) articles, perhaps we should all alter references to business leaders or bosses, so they read “parasites” instead – see how that goes down.
I’d be up for that and I’d include shareholders, too. I noticed on Facebook yesterday someone has posted a link to a Guardian article about business and Labour. The wee sentence in the link described businessmen as wealth creators. This is from the Guardian that likes to pretend it’s left wing…
The ‘lash-out’ mentality of business leaders/parasites takes the form of accusing anyone who doesn’t do absolutely *everything* business orders them to do, and/or disagrees with even one thing that business says, of being ‘anti-business’. It’s actually unbelievably childish.
They are like spoiled children because they’ve had their own way too long, sometimes this has lapsed into worship. The ego of these people is astonishing and getting more so.
The thing is, these pompous dicks are almost always personality disorders. They have ego issues, can’ see their own inadequacies, have no empathy, overestimate their own abilities, are utterly selfish, will do anything t satisfy their ambition.
In other words, the people who hold too much power are precisely the kind of people who shouldn’t be allowed anywhere near it.