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mrjjjohnson

Listed below are comments made by mrjjjohnson between Monday, 16th June 2008 and Thursday, 22nd October 2009.

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Will Wall Street slashers impress Main Street ? 09:24am on 22 Oct 2009 Vast amounts of taxpayers' money have been used worldwide to stop the financial industry's house of cards from collapsing. If this money had not been spent to stop the row of dominoes from falling there would have been total meltdown, i.e. the employees in the financial industry wouldn't have jobs, let alone bonuses, irrespective of how they performed. Those employees should now go down on their bended knees and thank the taxpayers for their jobs. It's time for them to come down to this planet and realise that they have a massive debt to the taxpayers which they should now repay over the coming years.
This has nothing to do with Socialism or Capitalism or any other -isms. The plunderers must simply return their spoils and begin to grasp that the vast majority of the taxpaying population has had enough of their behaviour. Those banks that feel they have to pay big bonuses to retain "their brightest people" should be told to let those "brightest people" go. It's the "brightest people" who got us into this mess in the first place.
Humbling of our banks 09:29am on 13 Oct 2008 I'd be interested to hear whether the various architects of the current disaster(s) will be called to account in the coming months and years and, if so, how. In the USA, for example, the FBI is looking into cases of suspected fraud or misrepresentation (e.g. in the course of selling mortgages) and I can imagine that hordes of contingency-fee-paid lawyers will be targeting some of the deep-pocketed heads (or ex-heads) of financial institutions. Or am I being naïve ? Will the people who raked in enormous bonuses for bringing down their companies and ruining thousands of businesses and conservative shareholders simply disappear unscathed through the fog of history to their Caribbean estates until the old-boy network decides the dust has settled and calls them back to well-bonused positions in new companies.

What do you think will happen in this respect, Robert ?
EU crisis talks begin 7:31pm on 16 Jun 2008 Listening to you on this evening's news report, and hearing the comments of the European politicians claiming that Europe (i.e. they) wants the treaty to be ratified despite the fact that the European people have not been asked for their opinions, I visualised a headline for tomorrow's papers: The Gadarene Rush to the Cliffs of Lisbon.
Why politicians hate referendums 09:31am on 16 Jun 2008 I just posted a comment but all the inverted commas in my comment have been replaced by question marks, making the comment difficult or impossible to interpret.
Why politicians hate referendums 08:55am on 16 Jun 2008 The rejection of the Lisbon treaty by the Irish, and the subsequent reaction of professional European politicians, has thrown up a fundamental issue which is of much greater importance than the Lisbon treaty: should the long-term fates of the people of Europe be decided by sporadically elected and notoriously short-lived governments or should the people themselves be given the opportunity to vote on fundamental constitutional issues ?

Just as one avoids a dog turd on the street and stares straight ahead as if it did not exist, so do professional politicians go out of their way to avoid discussions on direct democracy. Indeed their reactions to the idea of a referendum are often akin to those of the Devil when confronted with holy water. They throw up their hands and shriek in horror at the idea of the people bothering their little heads with issues that they will (thank God ?) never understand. Then, once they have calmed down they resort to the usual politician's subterfuges when faced with a difficult issue: the Red Herring and the Smoke Screen. The red herring in the case of the Lisbon treaty problem is the mantra “The Irish Voters Are To Blame”. It attempts to distract from the fact that the key issue is no longer the Lisbon treaty: it is the way decisions on constitutions are taken in Europe. To the discomfiture of the professional politicians, demographic surveys in various European countries, and those referenda which have been conducted, show a widespread disquiet in the European population about the way decisions are being made about their futures and, oh horrors, the people want referenda. The smoke screen which is used to back up the red herring and which is being unconsciously (or consciously ?) promulgated by the European press and media consists of statements to the effect that “France (or Germany, or Spain, or.....) will go ahead and ratify the treaty. This implies that the people of France (or Germany, or Spain, or....) want to ratify the treaty. In fact, the bodies which want to ratify the treaty are the governments which happen to be in power this week and which will have disappeared into the dustbin of history while the European people are still having to live out the consequences of their decisions.

Following the Irish referendum direct democracy has become – to use an overworked phrase – the elephant in the European political room. The politicians and the press are doing their damnedest to ignore it.

Whilst the Lisbon treaty is, in my opinion, now a secondary issue it documents the disingenuousness and cynicism of its drafters in a language which the person on the street can clearly understand within minutes. Just glance at Article 8B on the Citizens Initiative which states that “Not less than one million citizens who are nationals of a significant number of Member States may take the initiative of inviting the Commission, within the framework of its powers, to submit any appropriate proposal on matters where citizens consider that a legal act of the Union is required for the purpose of implementing the Treaties”. What meaningless rubbish ! It “....allows...” one million citizens to “...invite...” the EU Commission to consider a proposal but only if they are “...nationals of a significant number of Member States.....”. In fact, as things stand there is nothing to prevent one citizen or a million citizens from “inviting” the EU Commission or any other body to consider anything, irrespective of whether they are nationals of what the Commission arrogantly considers to be “....a significant number of Member States....”. The EU Commission is in no way obliged to respond to the invitation. In fact, the experience of the last few years has shown that the EU Commission is highly resistant to peoples' democracy and one may rest assured that they will continue to obstruct it with all their might if the Lisbon treaty is implemented. For me, this paragraph alone clearly documented the drafters' contempt for the people they are supposed to be serving.

I write as one who has experienced the British system of sporadically elected government and the Swiss system of sporadically elected government coupled with the safety mechanism of direct democracy. Only last week the Swiss voted on two issues and the results once again showed, in my mind, that the people are quite capable of understanding complex political issues if (a) they live in a referendum tradition which forces proponents and opponents to explain their positions in plain language and (b) the issues are broken down into understandable sub-issues, each of which is voted on. The results also showed how surprisingly acute the people are in recognising politicians' shenanigans and forked tongues in the runup to a vote.

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