Politicians don’t know the price of milk – but they do know how to set up a shell company

[bemildred]

Perhaps we have all become too cynical. Why should we be suspicious of people who hide money deep within multiple shell companies on a tax-haven island with the transparency of a lead-lined coffin? It’s like being suspicious of your husband just because he’s hidden a second mobile phone in a box of Maltesers in his gym bag, wrapped in an old dust sheet, in the car, in the space where the spare wheel should be.

This scandal suggests some complex element in the British psyche that knows this kind of thing is happening but can’t bear to be confronted with the knowledge. We know Cameron is filthy rich – he’s wearing a two-grand suit – but his sin is that he has forced us to think about it. Cameron has struggled to deal with the revelations partly because he has no idea what normal is. I mean, none of us are certain, really, but let’s not forget that Dave once did a photo op where he tried to eat a hotdog with a knife and fork. The phrase “something like £30,000” is one the man in the street can only tolerate being used so casually if it’s describing the weekly wage of some journeyman left-back sex-case that his club is after.

---

Work assessments for people with Parkinson’s and cerebral palsy isn’t a different take on morality, it’s immorality, and it doesn’t particularly matter what the rationalisation is. I sometimes wonder if austerity might be less of an ideology and more of a pathology.

One of the reasons the Panama scandal is so damaging is that Conservatism has positioned itself as moralist: there’s a lot of talk about what’s right and fair. In practice, this rightness and fairness is only seen as being something deserved by “hardworking families”, who “speak English”. So there’s an implicit rejection of the foundation of morality: universality. When you look at it like that, Conservatives raging against human rights is actually completely consistent. They don’t believe that everybody deserves what’s right and fair, just those who conform to their idea of normal. And let’s not forget they have their ideas of normal forged in the public school system, a bloody crucible of hierarchical sodomy.

http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/apr/12/frankie-boyle-tax-havens-panama-papers

[malthaussen]

1. Okay, but how about the U.S.?

Are the prep schools also bloody crucibles of hierarchical sodomy? It would explain a lot, actually. Except there is still a problem of female members of the ruling class who weren't educated at those bloody crucibles, because they are for boys only.

In the U.S., too, there is a difference, I think. The shtick here is that anyone can be a millionaire, which somehow gets translated into everyone deserving to be a millionaire. I remember when I was 17, a woman in a loan office saying "Just wait until my lottery comes in, then you can borrow money off me!" Her lottery, her entitlement. How many people are really waiting for the proverbial ship to come in, and are in fact so desperate that the only way they can see a future is with that ship coming in? Life is, after all, an exercise in denial right from the start. So in the U.S., "everyone" thinks they'll be rich "one day," or even over-estimates their richness now, and thus the last thing they want to do is make laws that will hurt the rich. And do they over-estimate their wealth out of pride, embarrassment, or simply because they really are out-of-touch with how others not in their own socio-economic group live? Our people are so insulated these days from one another, that most of us have only Hollywood to inform us how the rest of society lives. And they tend to concentrate on "Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous," and ignore the single mom living out of her car and working seven days a week.

-- Mal

[bemildred]

3. Well, Frankie is British, I think.

The British ruling elites are among the more amusing, too.

But yeah, we have our own issues, some of which are pretty strange.

[bemildred]

2. Story of minister and dominatrix sparks UK debate over media

Security, Stability, Oportunity

LONDON — British opposition politicians are calling for a government minister to give up authority over press regulation after he acknowledged that he had a relationship with a dominatrix — and that several newspapers knew about it but kept quiet.

Culture Secretary John Whittingdale says he had a relationship in 2013-14 with a woman he later learned was a sex worker. No laws were broken, and Whittingdale said Wednesday that the episode had no influence on his ministerial decisions.

None of Britain’s scandal-hungry newspapers ran the story of Whittingdale’s sex life, although several investigated it.

Critics of the government say newspapers may have used knowledge of the embarrassing relationship to exert influence over Whittingdale, who has resisted calls for tighter regulation of the press in the wake of the tabloid phone-hacking scandal.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/europe/story-of-minister-and-dominatrix-sparks-uk-debate-over-media/2016/04/13/129d9000-0172-11e6-8bb1-f124a43f84dc_story.html

[KoKo]

4. . ...!

Great Imagery in this article. I needed a shower and will have nightmares after reading it. But, in spite of that...it was a very "Good Read." It fits so well with our times.