samedi 7 juin 2008

Freeze market

"According to recent European Union statistics, only pensioners in Latvia, Spain and Cyprus are more likely to fall into poverty than those in the UK. 'The huge rise in the cost of living recently is hitting many of the poorest pensioners particularly hard,' said Gordon Lishman, director general of Age Concern. 'Hikes in food, water and energy bills have been a heavy blow to older people on low fixed incomes already struggling to make ends meet, and many will be cutting back to reduce their bills.' "

Even Age Concern try to lull people by calm words and worn cliché - "hikes" "heavy blow" "make ends meet" "cutting back" If you put it thus, "The free market takes so much from the poor to give to the rich that old poor people freeze to death." then there is no 'heavy blow' the arbitrary nature of which makes the 'hikes' (i.e. profit taking speculation price rises) look like random events, no 'make ends meet' which is so clichéd that it ceased to have any meaning decades ago and no 'cutting back' which makes turning the fire off appear as a choice rather than an enforced rationing.

There comes a time when you have to ask whether these organisations, and by extension the unions, advice bureaus and many of the NGO's are not in the end doing the governance's work for them.

I remember when Neil Kinnock just before te election in '92 said words to the effect that if you vote Tory tomorrow "don't get sick, don't lose your job don't get old" - well we all voted Labour the next time but it all worked out the same in the end. Yeh, cheers.