Category: zerohedge

With an increasing focus in America on the ever growing entitlement society, we thought it might be useful to get some context of how the welfare states stack up across Europe. As Britain prepares to "test" immigrants in an effort to stymie "benefit tourists", The Telegraph's Ed Malnick, details what health care and child, unemployment and housing benefit a 30-year-old single EU migrant with a child but no job can access in each member state.

 

Via The Telegraph,

AUSTRIA

Health care Available immediately, but only if you pay “social insurance”

Child benefit Immediate payment of £89 per month

Unemployment benefit Only available to people who have paid social insurance

Housing benefit No equivalent scheme

 

BELGIUM

Health care Available after a year

Child benefit £115 a month, available immediately

Unemployment benefit Have to have previously worked in Belgium

Housing benefit No national scheme; amounts vary regionally.

 

BULGARIA

Health care Free emergency care immediately; other treatments only available if you pay social insurance

Child benefit Targeted schemes restricted to Bulgarian citizens

Unemployment benefit Minimum of nine months of working in the country required to qualify

Housing benefit Immediate monthly allowance buzt only if you have a local authority home already

 

CYPRUS

Health care Free, available immediately

Child benefit Immediate yearly payment of £444

Unemployment benefit Six months of work in Cyprus required to qualify

Housing benefit Immediately available, limited to £506 a month

 

CZECH REPUBLIC

Health care Available immediately but cash charges apply

Child benefit £23 a month available immediately

Unemployment benefit 12-month minimum qualifying period

Housing benefit Available immediately

 

DENMARK

Health care Free, available immediately

Child benefit Up to £161 a month available after 12 months

Unemployment benefit Minimum of one year’s work required to qualify

Housing benefit No equivalent scheme

 

ESTONIA

Health care Available immediately but cash payments required for some treatments

Child benefit £16 per month available immediately

Unemployment benefit £12.50 per week available immediately

Housing benefit No equivalent scheme

 

FINLAND

Health care Public health service charging flat-rate fees. Available immediately

Child benefit £88 per month available immediately

Unemployment benefit Basic weekly unemployment allowance available after two months

Housing benefit Up to 80 per cent of housing costs available immediately but system varies regionally

 

FRANCE

Health care Only available with a card proving entitlement, issued to residents

Child benefit Immediate payment, but only for parents with more than one child

Unemployment benefit Four-month qualifying period

Housing benefit Immediate; scheme based on house size and local factors

 

GERMANY

Health care Only available with a health insurance card

Child benefit £155 per month available immediately

Unemployment benefit Immediate means-tested allowance for jobseekers who have made "intensive efforts" to find work

Housing benefit Full amount of housing costs available immediately

 

GREECE

Health care 100 days of work required to qualify

Child benefit No equivalent scheme

Unemployment benefit Minimum of six months of work required to qualify

Housing benefit No equivalent scheme

 

HUNGARY

Health care Not immediately available

Child benefit £40.60 per month available immediately

Unemployment benefit Minimum qualifying period of 360 days

Housing benefit No equivalent scheme

 

IRELAND

Health care Free after living in Ireland for three consecutive years, but free immediately to UK citizens

Child benefit £110 per month available immediately

Unemployment benefit £160 per week available immediately

Housing benefit Immediate rent supplement providing short-term support

 

ITALY

Health care Free, available immediately

Child benefit No equivalent scheme

Unemployment benefit Qualifying period of three months

Housing benefit No national scheme; varies according to region

 

LATVIA

Health care Public health service with fees for GP and hospital visits, available immediately

Child benefit Immediate monthly payment of £9.30

Unemployment benefit One-year qualifying period

Housing benefit Varies locally

 

LITHUANIA

Health care Three months qualifying period but “urgent care” free immediately

Child benefit Immediate monthly payment of £24

Unemployment benefit 18-month qualifying period

Housing benefit No equivalent scheme

 

LUXEMBOURG

Health care Not available immediately, as insurance-based

Child benefit £157.10 per month available immediately

Unemployment benefit Minimum of six months of work required to qualify

Housing benefit Immediate rent allowance of up to £104.90

 

MALTA

Health care Free, available immediately

Child benefit Immediate payment; up to £81.55 a month

Unemployment benefit Immediate means-tested benefit of up to £16 per day

Housing benefit No equivalent scheme

 

POLAND

Health care Free, available immediately

Child benefit Immediate payment of up to £54 per month

Unemployment benefit Qualifying period of one year

Housing benefit No equivalent scheme

 

PORTUGAL

Health care Free, available immediately

Child benefit Monthly payment of up to £40

Unemployment benefit Qualifying period of 180 days

Housing benefit No equivalent scheme

 

ROMANIA

Health care six-month qualifying period, except for emergencies

Child benefit monthly payment of up to £20

Unemployment benefit minimum qualifying period of 12 months

Housing benefit no equivalent scheme

 

SLOVAKIA

Health care immediately available; nominal cash payment for treatments

Child benefit immediate monthly payment of £19

Unemployment benefit minimum two-year qualifying period

Housing benefit No equivalent scheme

 

SLOVENIA

Health care Available immediately but required to pay minimum of 10 per cent of some treatment costs

Child benefit Immediate payment of up to £97 per month

Unemployment benefit Minimum contribution of nine months

Housing benefit Only available if you already have social housing

 

SPAIN

Health care Only available with a card proving entitlement

Child benefit Immediate payment of up to £20 per month

Unemployment benefit Immediate payment available based on a variable proportion of average wages

Housing benefit No equivalent scheme

 

SWEDEN

Health care Available immediately; basic fees for care

Child benefit Immediate monthly payment of £101

Unemployment benefit Six-month qualifying period

Housing benefit Immediate monthly allowance of up to £125

 

HOLLAND

Health care only available with a certificate proving entitlement

Child benefit Immediate payment of £943 per year

Unemployment benefit Six-month qualifying period

Housing benefit Means tested, available immediately

 

UNITED KINGDOM

Health care Available immediately and free of charge under the National Health Service

Child benefit Paid immediately if the child is under 16, or 16 to 19 and in education or training, and the claimant has an individual income of less than £50,000. Amount is £20.30 a week for the eldest or only child, £13.40 per additional child

Unemployment benefit Immediate payment of £71.70 a week in Jobseeker’s Allowance (JSA) after proving you are actively seeking work. EU migrants have to pass the “right-to-reside” test to show they are “economically active”. The European Commission wants to abolish this test. There is also contribution-based additional JSA which is only available after working for at least two years.

Housing benefit Available immediately if you are on a low income, whether you are working or unemployed.

How much depends on individual circumstances, but amount cannot normally exceed £250 per week for a one-bedroom property, or up to £400 a week for four bedrooms or more

via Zero Hedge http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/zerohedge/feed/~3/3KVwcs9oiKA/story01.htm Tyler Durden

 

The US can now collectively breathe a sigh of relief that we’ve averted the “debt ceiling debacle.”

The only problem is that this entire “crisis” was a lie. The US actually hit its debt ceiling back in May 2013, a full five months ago.

At that time neither the Treasury Department, nor the White House, nor Congress talked about this.

So for five months, the US debt level was frozen. The reason was because the Treasury was resorting to “extraordinary measures” to keep us below the debt ceiling. It’s interesting that no one in the media talked about this, nor that anyone seemed to care at all.

Then, suddenly we had yet another “crisis” in which the world would literally end if the political class didn’t get their way. The US would default if we don’t spend more money now!

Our President and other political “leaders” fussed about this for two weeks and basically wasted all of our time. The whole exercise was totally pointless outside of setting up an “issue” on which to campaign for the 2014 Congressional elections.

How do I know it was pointless?

Because the deal they made doesn’t raise the debt ceiling. All it did was make the debt ceiling unenforced for a few months… until February 17 2014 specifically.

So we hit the debt ceiling in May… manufactured a crisis in October… just to ignore the issue another three months…

THIS is the state of Government in the US today. The fact the media in this country goes along with this as “news” tells you everything you need to know about the “objectivity” of the fifth estate.

If you want to talk about a real debt crisis, let’s talk about the US Federal Reserve.

The Fed’s current balance sheet is $3.86 trillion. It will be over $4 trillion before the end of 2013 and over $5 trillion before the end of 2014.

THE FED is the debt problem. It is allowing the deficit and the debt to swell like this for the sake of benefiting a handful of banks and screwing the economy. QE doesn’t create jobs. It never has.

 

For a FREE Special Report outlining how to protect your portfolio from the Fed’s policies, swing by: http://phoenixcapitalmarketing.com/special-reports.html

 

Best Regards

Phoenix Capital Research  

via Zero Hedge http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/zerohedge/feed/~3/jo-9gtg_ubo/story01.htm Phoenix Capital Research

One of the great ironies of the Obama presidency is that it has been a disaster for the young people who form the core of his political coalition. High unemployment is paired with exploding debt that they will have to finance whenever they eventually find jobs, and as Stan Druckenmiller explains in his WSJ interview, the “rat through the python theory,” (that fiscal disaster will only be temporary while the baby-boom generation moves through the benefit pipeline and then entitlement costs will become bearable) is simply wrong; since, by then Druck exclaims, “you have so much debt on the books that it’s too late.” Unfortunately for taxpayers, “the debt accumulates while the rat’s going through the python.” The hedge fund billionaire adds that he “did not think it would be nutty to tie entitlements to the debt ceiling because there’s a massive long-term problem. And this president, despite what he says, has shown time and time again that he needs a gun at his head to negotiate in good faith.” The interview goes much, much further…

On The Thieving Generation…

While many seniors believe they are simply drawing out the “savings” they were forced to deposit into Social Security and Medicare, they are actually drawing out much more, especially relative to later generations. That’s because politicians have voted to award the seniors ever more generous benefits. As a result, while today’s 65-year-olds will receive on average net lifetime benefits of $327,400, children born now will suffer net lifetime losses of $420,600 as they struggle to pay the bills of aging Americans.

 

“Oh, so you’ve paid 18.5% for your 40 years and now you want the next generation of workers to pay 30% to finance your largess?” He added that if 18.5% was “so immoral, why don’t you give back some of your ill-gotten gains of the last 40 years?“

But the “kids” still don’t get it…

One of the great ironies of the Obama presidency is that it has been a disaster for the young people who form the core of his political coalition. High unemployment is paired with exploding debt that they will have to finance whenever they eventually find jobs.

 

Are the kids finally figuring out that the Obama economy is a lousy deal for them? “No, I don’t sense that,”

On Entitlements…

…for those on the left who say entitlements can be fixed with an eventual increase in payroll taxes. “Oh, I see,” he says. “So I get to pay a 12% payroll tax now until I’m 65 and then I don’t pay. But the next generation—instead of me paying 15% or having my benefits slightly reduced—they’re going to pay 17% in 2033. That’s why we’re waiting—so we can shift even more to the future than to now?”

 

and it’s not going to get any better… despite the left’s claims…

He also rejects the “rat through the python theory,” which holds that the fiscal disaster will only be temporary while the baby-boom generation moves through the benefit pipeline and then entitlement costs will become bearable. By then, he says, “you have so much debt on the books that it’s too late.”

 

Unfortunately for taxpayers, “the debt accumulates while the rat’s going through the python,” so by the 2040s the debt itself and its gargantuan interest payments become bigger problems than entitlements.

On a disingenuous President Obama…

“I did not think it would be nutty to tie entitlements to the debt ceiling because there’s a massive long-term problem. And this president, despite what he says, has shown time and time again that he needs a gun at his head to negotiate in good faith. All this talk about, ‘I won’t negotiate with a gun at my head.’ OK, you’ve been president for five years.”

 

His voice rising now, Mr. Druckenmiller pounds his fist on the conference table. “Show me, President Obama, when the period was when you initiated budget discussions without a gun at your head.”

On changing the tax code…

Druckenmiller wants to raise taxes now on capital gains and dividends, bringing both up to ordinary income rates. He says the current tax code represents “another intergenerational transfer, because 60-year-olds are worth five times what 30-year-olds are.”

 

And 65-year-olds are “much wealthier than the working-age population. So the guy who’s out there working—the plumber, the stockbroker, whatever he is—he’s paying the 40% rate and the coupon clippers who are not working anymore are paying a 20% rate.”

 

Ah, but what about the destructive double taxation on corporate income? The Druckenmiller plan is to raise tax rates on investors while at the same time cutting the corporate tax rate to zero.

 

“Who owns corporations? Shareholders. But who makes the decisions at corporations? The guys running the companies. So if you tax the shareholder at ordinary income [rates] but you tax the economic actors at zero,” he explains, “you get the actual economic actors incented to hire people, to do capital spending. It’s not the coupon clippers that are making those decisions. It’s the people at the operating level.”

 

As an added bonus, wiping out the corporate tax eliminates myriad opportunities for crony capitalism and corporate welfare. “How do the lobbying groups and the special interests work in Washington? Through the tax code. There’s no more building plants in Puerto Rico or Ireland and double-leasebacks and all this stuff. If you take corporate tax rates to zero, that’s gone. But in terms of the fairness argument, you are taxing the shareholder. So you eliminate double taxation. To me it could be very, very good for growth, which is a huge part of the solution to the debt problem long-term. You can’t do it without growth.”

What the Republicans should do…

Republicans should demand entitlement reform in exchange for the next debt-limit vote this winter or spring. “Maybe they need a break,” he says. “I think a much more effective strategy would be for them to publicly shine a light on something so obvious as means-testing and take their case to the American people rather than go through the actual debt limit.”

 

If Mr. Obama rejects the idea, “then we will really know where he is on entitlement reform.” For this reason, Mr. Druckenmiller views means-testing as “really the perfect start—and it should only be a start—to find out who’s telling the truth here and who’s not.”

Read mor
e at WSJ…

via Zero Hedge http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/zerohedge/feed/~3/BdmVMQujivo/story01.htm Tyler Durden

One of the great ironies of the Obama presidency is that it has been a disaster for the young people who form the core of his political coalition. High unemployment is paired with exploding debt that they will have to finance whenever they eventually find jobs, and as Stan Druckenmiller explains in his WSJ interview, the “rat through the python theory,” (that fiscal disaster will only be temporary while the baby-boom generation moves through the benefit pipeline and then entitlement costs will become bearable) is simply wrong; since, by then Druck exclaims, “you have so much debt on the books that it’s too late.” Unfortunately for taxpayers, “the debt accumulates while the rat’s going through the python.” The hedge fund billionaire adds that he “did not think it would be nutty to tie entitlements to the debt ceiling because there’s a massive long-term problem. And this president, despite what he says, has shown time and time again that he needs a gun at his head to negotiate in good faith.” The interview goes much, much further…

On The Thieving Generation…

While many seniors believe they are simply drawing out the “savings” they were forced to deposit into Social Security and Medicare, they are actually drawing out much more, especially relative to later generations. That’s because politicians have voted to award the seniors ever more generous benefits. As a result, while today’s 65-year-olds will receive on average net lifetime benefits of $327,400, children born now will suffer net lifetime losses of $420,600 as they struggle to pay the bills of aging Americans.

 

“Oh, so you’ve paid 18.5% for your 40 years and now you want the next generation of workers to pay 30% to finance your largess?” He added that if 18.5% was “so immoral, why don’t you give back some of your ill-gotten gains of the last 40 years?“

But the “kids” still don’t get it…

One of the great ironies of the Obama presidency is that it has been a disaster for the young people who form the core of his political coalition. High unemployment is paired with exploding debt that they will have to finance whenever they eventually find jobs.

 

Are the kids finally figuring out that the Obama economy is a lousy deal for them? “No, I don’t sense that,”

On Entitlements…

…for those on the left who say entitlements can be fixed with an eventual increase in payroll taxes. “Oh, I see,” he says. “So I get to pay a 12% payroll tax now until I’m 65 and then I don’t pay. But the next generation—instead of me paying 15% or having my benefits slightly reduced—they’re going to pay 17% in 2033. That’s why we’re waiting—so we can shift even more to the future than to now?”

 

and it’s not going to get any better… despite the left’s claims…

He also rejects the “rat through the python theory,” which holds that the fiscal disaster will only be temporary while the baby-boom generation moves through the benefit pipeline and then entitlement costs will become bearable. By then, he says, “you have so much debt on the books that it’s too late.”

 

Unfortunately for taxpayers, “the debt accumulates while the rat’s going through the python,” so by the 2040s the debt itself and its gargantuan interest payments become bigger problems than entitlements.

On a disingenuous President Obama…

“I did not think it would be nutty to tie entitlements to the debt ceiling because there’s a massive long-term problem. And this president, despite what he says, has shown time and time again that he needs a gun at his head to negotiate in good faith. All this talk about, ‘I won’t negotiate with a gun at my head.’ OK, you’ve been president for five years.”

 

His voice rising now, Mr. Druckenmiller pounds his fist on the conference table. “Show me, President Obama, when the period was when you initiated budget discussions without a gun at your head.”

On changing the tax code…

Druckenmiller wants to raise taxes now on capital gains and dividends, bringing both up to ordinary income rates. He says the current tax code represents “another intergenerational transfer, because 60-year-olds are worth five times what 30-year-olds are.”

 

And 65-year-olds are “much wealthier than the working-age population. So the guy who’s out there working—the plumber, the stockbroker, whatever he is—he’s paying the 40% rate and the coupon clippers who are not working anymore are paying a 20% rate.”

 

Ah, but what about the destructive double taxation on corporate income? The Druckenmiller plan is to raise tax rates on investors while at the same time cutting the corporate tax rate to zero.

 

“Who owns corporations? Shareholders. But who makes the decisions at corporations? The guys running the companies. So if you tax the shareholder at ordinary income [rates] but you tax the economic actors at zero,” he explains, “you get the actual economic actors incented to hire people, to do capital spending. It’s not the coupon clippers that are making those decisions. It’s the people at the operating level.”

 

As an added bonus, wiping out the corporate tax eliminates myriad opportunities for crony capitalism and corporate welfare. “How do the lobbying groups and the special interests work in Washington? Through the tax code. There’s no more building plants in Puerto Rico or Ireland and double-leasebacks and all this stuff. If you take corporate tax rates to zero, that’s gone. But in terms of the fairness argument, you are taxing the shareholder. So you eliminate double taxation. To me it could be very, very good for growth, which is a huge part of the solution to the debt problem long-term. You can’t do it without growth.”

What the Republicans should do…

Republicans should demand entitlement reform in exchange for the next debt-limit vote this winter or spring. “Maybe they need a break,” he says. “I think a much more effective strategy would be for them to publicly shine a light on something so obvious as means-testing and take their case to the American people rather than go through the actual debt limit.”

 

If Mr. Obama rejects the idea, “then we will really know where he is on entitlement reform.” For this reason, Mr. Druckenmiller views means-testing as “really the perfect start—and it should only be a start—to find out who’s telling the truth here and who’s not.”

Read more at WSJ…

via Zero Hedge http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/zerohedge/feed/~3/BdmVMQujivo/story01.htm Tyler Durden

Presented with no comment…

 

 

Source: Jim Quinn’s Burning Platform – Sunday Funnies

via Zero Hedge http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/zerohedge/feed/~3/tUU6NePJMcw/story01.htm Tyler Durden

“It’s clear to us now that the US economy just isn’t going to reach escape velocity,” said Andrew Law, head of Caxton Associates (one of the hedge fund industry’s most successful money managers) in a wide-ranging and rare interview with the Financial Times. “Tapering is off the table for the foreseeable future.” As we have explained numerous times, Caxton notes the Fed has little option but to continue its policy of extraordinary monetary easing indefinitely, adding “what happened [last week] was just another can kicking exercise. The problem has not been solved and the hopes for a grand bargain are in tatters.” Simply put, he concludes rather dismally, “there are no incentives for the corporate world to go out and spend right now…“

Via The FT,

One of the hedge fund industry’s most successful money managers has warned that dysfunction in Washington has damaged the US economy, leaving the Federal Reserve with little option but to continue its policy of extraordinary monetary easing indefinitely.

 

“It’s clear to us now that the US economy just isn’t going to reach escape velocity,” said Andrew Law, head of Caxton Associates, in a wide-ranging and rare interview with the Financial Times. “Tapering is off the table for the foreseeable future.”

 

…

 

Mr Law’s stark outlook for the US contrasts with widely-held expectations that the US economy will bounce back quickly in the coming months. Most investors and Wall Street analysts expect the Fed to begin “tapering” its programme of quantitative easing in December.

 

…

 

The 47-year old Mr Law said the shutdown and debt-ceiling debate in Washington had “undoubtedly” caused damage to the country’s economy.

 

“What happened [last week] was just another can kicking exercise,” he said of the political deal reached between Democrats and Republicans in Washington to raise the cap on the government’s ability to borrow. “The problem has not been solved and the hopes for a grand bargain are in tatters . . . the lack of visibility is very damaging.”

 

…

 

“We just don’t see how the economy is going to accelerate in the foreseeable future,” he said.

 

“Sequester spending cuts, the debt ceiling and shutdown have all taken their toll . . .  there are no incentives for the corporate world to go out and spend right now . . . that, and the housing market are critical. You’ve already seen earnings release statements for companies mentioning shutdown as a reason for a drop-off in orders.”

 

The grim outlook, while contrarian, is shared by a number of hedge funds.

 

…

 

Caxton also believes the dollar will continue to weaken against the euro – potentially precipitating a currency fight with the eurozone.

 

“It will be fascinating to see how the ECB [European Central Bank] responds,” said Mr Law, adding that one likely option for Frankfurt would be for it to lower rates. “They are not going to be too pleased [with a weakening dollar],”

via Zero Hedge http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/zerohedge/feed/~3/IMf2DI9PhjU/story01.htm Tyler Durden

A physically deflated Larry Summers spoke with Charlie Rose about the US economy (“all we need is a few tenths of a percentage more growth…“), the political process (“nobody should be proud of the governance process…”), and the state of American education (“reward merit, remove tenure…”). The following 86 seconds summarizes the twice-denied would-be-central banker’s thoughts…

 

 

via Zero Hedge http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/zerohedge/feed/~3/NoasbwWPXCs/story01.htm Tyler Durden

Submitted by James H. Kunstler via Peak Prosperity blog,

 

via Zero Hedge http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/zerohedge/feed/~3/SvF5OdcTBU8/story01.htm Tyler Durden

Every country is Number One when it comes to something, and this map from webcomic Doghouse Diaries just what all those somethings are.

 

As , of course, it's not all maple syrup and raspberries; some countries have some rather tragic distinctions.

(click map for massive version)

via Zero Hedge http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/zerohedge/feed/~3/sUn5z5_68Wc/story01.htm Tyler Durden

As we sit in our comfortable living rooms, loafing back into our sofas, munching on a bar of chocolate and slurping down the coffee whilst checking the smartphone for message most of us have little idea that the chocolate, the coffee and the smartphone were made by resorting to indirect slavery quite probably. Whether we like it or not, we are contributing to the indirect slave trade of the companies that provide those things and many more to us. Whether we like it or not we are directly contributing to slavery because there are slaves employed in our own back yard still today.

Global Slavery Figures

• There are 29.8 million slaves in the world.
• They mostly work in developing and emerging countries producing goods that are destined for the Western world and our own markets.
• Those 29.8 million people account for 1.82% of world population today.
• India is the worst country in the world for the total number of slaves.
• There are 14 million of them.
• China comes in way behind and in second place with 2.9 million of them.
• Pakistan has 2.1 million slaves.
• Mauritania has the highest ratio of slaves to the population.
• The total population stands at 3.4 million and 4.3% are enslaved people.

The top ten countries that make up 76% of all of the enslaved people in the world are:

• India
• China
• Pakistan
• Nigeria
• Ethiopia
• Russia
• Thailand
• Democratic Republic of Congo
• Myanmar
• Bangladesh

The USA is 139th on the list out of a total of 162. The UK is 160th.

India is the worst country in the world for slavery today. Perhaps if they were to ratify the Worst Forms of Child Labour Convention, then they might be able to deal with that problem. Bonded labor might have been outlawed as from 1976by the Bonded Labour System (Abolition) Act 1976, but it has rarely been enforced.

But there are slaves working in the Western world too such as the forced laborers that are made to work on the cannabis farms in the UK. For the first time, the Global Slavery Index has been published this year and it is a telling story of the misery not only of the developing world, but of our own countries. It’s a quantitative index of 162 countries which means that it accounts for almost the entire world population. . Until this report was published estimates stood only at roughly 10 million under the 29.8-million estimate of the Global Slavery Index. Previously, the method of calculation did not include forced labor and did not consider that human trafficking was part of slavery. The Index also uses forced servile marriage and debt bondage in the calculation.

The Global Slavery Index estimates that there is a margin of error of between 5% and 10% and they hope that it will be a “wake-up call” to governments around the world. It is however highly unlikely that this will become reality.Governments in the West remain complacently asleep when it comes to slavery in their own back yards and certainly even more so with other countries that are toiling away for us.

Endemic cultural problems have maintained people entrapped in slavery in countries like India due to caste issues (despite that officially having been abolished (at least Article 17 of the Indian Constitution made untouchability and discrimination on that basis illegal).

Maybe some leaves should be taken out of Brazil’s book and we should be doing more of what they do there. There is a list of ‘dirty’ companies that have used slaves in the production of products. Their national plan is to do away with slavery.

Slavery is not just a figment of our imagination, it means jobs that we can’t walk away from, it’s working for nothing and it’s control through violence and pressure as well as being nothing more than the boss’s property.

We’re All Slaves

To some extent we are all slaves in daily life in the societies that have been elaborated for the benefit of those either at the top or even for those at the bottom. There’s rarely something for those that are stuck in the middle. We go to work, we earn a living and we pay that money to someone else in taxation so that it can go to the common good of all in society under the supreme principle of providing for the needy, whoever they are and whatever being needy really does mean.

But, we work like drudges even though the 19th century sweatshops went long ago from our societies; at least, for most of us, although they still exist in some back room of a dingy apartment building somewhere in the rough part of towns of most cities we live in. We created democracy (or we thought we did) and the upper class was reduced (or the wealth just got spread around with fewer people allowed to rake it in). The poorer got richer and the majority got thrown into the middle band of the class that got little or nothing. Democracy created what we have right now. The few rich people get most of the earnings and the poorest get doled out and propped up. The guys in the middle pay for the rest and get their shoulders thrown into the grindstone, regardless of whether they want their money to be handed around to the needy or to fill the cash-fat obese accounts of the super wealthy in Geneva or somewhere else.

We have all a role to play in the slave trade. But, there are some that are worse off than others in countries around the world.

Which is better: being a slave in India or being a middle-class slave that finances the government through taxation? A no-brainer? Or, does it depend on where we’re sitting?

 

Originally posted: (In)Direct Slavery: We’re All Guilty

 

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via Zero Hedge http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/zerohedge/feed/~3/5pQ7QVl8ep4/story01.htm Pivotfarm