Deliberate exacerbation of Poverty as a 'nudge' into low paid work, to maximise wealth extraction from workers. disTrussonomics is old, and toxic.

In other  less famous news, reliable, well studied evidence suggests post-COVID infection is strongly correlated with significant neurological disease, infection generating a variety of increased risk of damage to neurological systems, presenting as a variety of known disease processes. A 7% increase in risk. Post infection, severity or otherwise, of initial infection is not a factor. The Chinese Government and people, together have chosen to reduce possible spread of infection. USUK have not. Where will we see the biggest increase in neurological disease?

"Our results show that in the postacute phase of COVID-19, there was increased risk of an array of incident neurologic sequelae including ischemic and hemorrhagic stroke, cognition and memory disorders, peripheral nervous system disorders, episodic disorders (for example, migraine and seizures), extrapyramidal and movement disorders, mental health disorders, musculoskeletal disorders, sensory disorders, Guillain–Barré syndrome, and encephalitis or encephalopathy"

"It's the epithelial cells, citizen! It ain't a flu, that's now for sure a factual statement." 
As we head into winter. Onwards.
The Main Head LineDiSStrussonomics!

This is not incompetence. They know exactly what they are doing. The stonewalling and inane answers to serious questions is a tactic. Vast wealth is being made to flow in a certain direction, into the hands of the Oligarchy and poverty is being deliberately made worse and more intense, to drive people into low paid work. There is cruelty and intentionality all over this. They cannot say honestly what they are doing, in public. So they have to say nothing. And still speak. It's grim. That's how far they would go.
They are very, very good at what they do, and it is not healthy democratic governance by any measure. 

In a previous blog, I wrote up my observations on a 1981 Cabinet Discussion Paper on Long Term Planning, drawn up in September of that year, after the 'success' of The Falklands. 
It confidently discussed at what levels poverty should be maintained, in the long term, by tweaking the Social Welfare State provision, by funding from social care, education, health, welfare, policing (we have to pay for Victory).

The document made it crystal clear that low benefits were designed to 'make low paid work seem more attractive' and that the ultimate objective of that was the social engineering of a massive cheap labour force as a 'cost efficiency', increasing shareholder returns, who was then 'getting value for money'. 

In this clip from a talk with Charlie Munger, he makes it absolutely clear. Capitalism is effective because it imposes agony on young able bodied people.
Austerity, Pollution, Impoverishment - Any harm caused, unforeseen or otherwise, was a cost others bore. Those costs rested outside of the deal between the Board of Directors and Shareholders. Fines are nominal business operating expenses. Tax breaks.

This is the meaning of 'externalised costs'. 

The trauma of poverty is another externalised cost of this drive for 'efficiency', 'value for money', growing an economy in the interest of shareholders of immense monopolies, at the expense of the population. Billionaires sense of superiority and Beggars desperation and impotence. Power Disparity. It is as brutal as that and the people who are impoverished are not poor because they are flawed, it is because they are flayed, beaten down by a culture of violent Darwinian economic competition., a bigotry that broods in the core of this industrial culture. 

image source: https://www.theneweuropean.co.uk/category/british-politics/ 

This is what we are living through, this is that we are observing - that England's Political and Economic Power Infrastructure, it's democratic Legislature, commanded by two or three individuals in the highest offices of the Government plans to cause harm to millions of people?

An ideological policy, presented without Cabinet discussion, beyond announcing it in Parliament as an act of  dictatorial decree. a brazen demonstration of executive political power bearing down upon the entire economic, civil and social systems of the UK, already at breaking point in many places. The New Ruler demanding that  the citizens over whom she now Rules must willingly, loyally and stoically endure even greater economic and personal harm, in order to 're-start the economy' and 'cut costs of borrowing' and 'grow the economy'?

Starmer's 'Great British Energy Company' is a confidence trick, designed to protect the fossil fuel giants.

An economic and social material Somme.

Send the workers over the top, in their millions, to abject horror - COVID fatalities in care homes, impose poverty and ignore the chronic distress that causes: incrementally increasing the costs of life essentials, piling onto the bills the workers must pay, and even still, many will not have enough to eat and heat; shelter is so expensive because it underwrites mortgages, and the buy-to-let scam. Social and Economic Support is withdrawn. Raw Sewage flows into river systems and their water tables, polluting and killing the living river as it flows to the seas, spreading environmental disruption and disease causation - for profit. 350,000 excess deaths and rising, entirely due to Conservative Party policy since 2010. Climate disruption. 

Or is there more?
To be a little more nuanced : the implementation of a deliberate and intensive program of policies that will exacerbate existing poverty, and bring many, many more millions of families deeper into poverty, causing ill health, mental distress, chronic anxiety and death.
Gross National Poverty will increase at pace, as it has been in training mode with incremental stress exercises for the last 12 years, and now the race is on!
This is justified, rationalised, explained and presented as a means to encourage more and more people into work.  It's real purpose is to destroy the Welfare State, and enable the Corporate State. That is evil.

#MakeLowPaidWorkSeemMoreAttractive 

Lower wages improve shareholder returns, cheers them up when they are sad.
What remains unmentionable in News media, and indeed in the legislatures, and even within the political parties that 'oppose' these policies is the unvarnished raw simple truth - that the goal of the policy is maximising wealth extraction from people's labour, on behalf of the Wealth Extraction Faction and that it is a strategic stance of the English Oligarchy as a political force.
For example, when a producer of a product refuses to improve the product, (competition) their executives can always cut wage costs, cut staff, make them do more work for less, and then claim this is 'an increase in business efficiency', and gaslight the remaining workforce by claiming they were 'saving your jobs'. Be grateful.
A scam operated as a revenue generator for shareholders. 
"Which is what my job's worth." 
The Managing Director of any large corporate entity embodies a legal duty to enhance shareholders returns. Shareholders returns are the Law. If gambling with the lives of vulnerable marks enhances wealth extraction, rigging the tables ensures security. Expressed in business objectives jargon, presented to the public as face value. 'Growing the Economy'. Marketing and optics. Gaslighting,
Austerity was always about this.

Who are the Managing Directorship of UK Plc. Who are the major share holders, and what political collateral do they control?

Big Society
Cameron's Big Society was about exacerbating poverty by slowly, incrementally reducing the budgets for all state funded social care systems.

His slogan 'Hug a Hoodie' was really 'Mug Good People'.

Power cults with always gaslight, groom, bully, coerce, seduce and mislead enough of their subjects in to accepting their lot, or they resort to brute force. Brute force is always in the background. Waiting.

The Psychology of Power Cultures. We do have a choice.

They did this while exploiting the compassion dollar.

Marketing campaigns citing civic goodness and the general kindness of people in the community as a social good.

Marketing the goodness of ordinary people as if it informed Conservative Social Care policy, using the emotional connection to 'nudge' the population, and by returning some small part of of the withdrawn funding back towards the Community Voluntary Sector social care infrastructure run by local charitable groups, with the condition that they reframe as social enterprises. The chess move is to start to regulate them so that they operate as non-profit business entities.. 
A significant portion of those local groups were already struggling with underfunding, and because the new funding could not touch the sides of what had been withdrawn, many became unable to continue, and some quit, others were 'rescued' - acquired by social care companies, as formal Social Care Provider business organisations that 'deliver social care provision'. 
This withdrawal of unconditional state funding and moral support has caused immense harm to millions of lovely, decent people for far too long. it's really sad that the politicians are not as honest as this writer, about the harms caused, about avoidable harms.
In the neoLiberal fantasy 'The Business of Charity is Business' - an efficient business providing charitable service and shareholder returns. It is a conflict of interest with the Vocation of Care as a Social Economic and Material practice. 
The first duty of care of anyone with some power is to avoid avoidable harm. In every detail. 
Turning a charity which tries to correct a systemic harm into a business is strategic. This is used to lever in a corporate control and oversight dynamic that reduces the vocational staffing to a 'labour force' where in business terms 'low wages are a cost efficiency, and this adds efficiency to the business. Managers must be well paid, and increase in pay is success in 'efficiency' and 'savings' linked.
 Basic 80s Masters of Business Administration bullshit.
Cutting costs across any social system cannot improve any service or care to vulnerable people. 
Deploying funding in more effective ways that improve patient and staff outcomes is denied a chance to demonstrate it's efficacy..

If an efficiency action causes a person harm, for that person the experience is that it is violence. 
If the generator of that efficiency knew the likely adverse outcome, and went ahead without meaningful mitigation, then it really is a form of violence. 
There is a vast Power Disparity at the root of this, and it is being abused. Managers are in position to maintain the exercise of authority and power from the executive, to the work force. It is a command chain. You will do what you are told. 'Efficiency'.
If, after being notified of such a harm, as consequence, and the generator persists, then that is cruelty. Deliberate cruelty.
This is the way a vulnerable person might see, and directly experience all of this.
There's a lot of us about, and it's a really, really awful set of circumstances set be other people wielding vast power, and abusing it.
Everyone is vulnerable, by degree.
Everyone is made stronger by social solidarity.
Poverty is an externalised cost of efficient wealth extraction, designed to feed the engine of Wealth Accumulation as a form of political power, and deployed as a weapon with which to protect itself. The middle class fear poverty, and so they happily accept the gaslighting associated with blaming the impoverished as it sets them free of any obligation to correct the situation within which they enjoy so much comfort. They are careful to present as 'charitable' in order to preserve their modesty. 
Imposed poverty cannot be justified, rationalised, explained or tested against the evidence of the lived experience of the people affected by the policy of maintaining poverty. 

We know this, you and I. Our friends and family, our neighbours, our colleagues and dancing partners. Our children know this too, they see it more clearly because it's their immediate future and it's not looking good and we were in charge....

Because we are living in history all the time, the real history of ordinary people's lives as they are affected by the actions of a few people, operating distal power infrastructures long established, continually enhanced, always protected, no matter that harm befalls us.
Externalised Costs = Externalised Harm and getting away with it.
If an efficiency causes a person harm, for that person the experience is that it is violence. 
If the generator of that efficiency knew the likely adverse outcome, and went ahead without meaningful mitigation, then it really is a form of violence. 
There is a vast Power Disparity at the root of this, and it is being abused. Managers are in position to maintain the exercise of authority and power from the executive, to the work force. It is a command chain. You will do what you are told. 'Efficiency'.
Everyone is vulnerable, by degree.
Everyone is made stronger by social solidarity.

Solidarity

What then, can we do to best protect our interests as humane beings, citizens, parents, friends, colleagues and communities? What must we do to put a stop to this abuse of power?
The Wealth Extraction Faction's solidarity is entitlement, superiority, history and the hubris of getting away with it for so long. I thing it's disgusting. Here's a new word : Soilidarity. Dirty.

Clean Solidarity.
Social solidarity  is food banks supplied by individuals in the community, operated by groups in the community, to prevent real harm, with minimal infrastructure resources, networking across a population of 67 million people,  working, feeding millions of struggling workers and their families, a huge effort in an environment where access to free social service of all kinds is being reduced due to Government imposed budget cuts as another method of exacerbating poverty.

Solidarity is the power of association utilised to political advantage, to elect into the legislatures that we pay for, through our taxes - good people who will legislate to protect the interests of the people, to abolish poverty, warfare, racism and misogyny.

Starmer is none of this. Corbyn was, and still is, all of this.

That is the meaning of the complete silence of the UK News Media on the Al Jazeera 'Labour Files' Documentaries.

The Trauma of Poverty.
When one is poor, everything is more expensive. All our income goes into the local economy. 
Vat claims some of that back, as do many other taxes, even when someone earn less than the income taxation threshold. All the cash we, the  poor and the working poor, receive in State support, we return to economy and Government. 
The part that goes off shore is the profits from our economic spending, to the shareholders of Utility Industrial Complex, the Food Industrial Complex, the News Media Industrial Complex, the Military Industrial Complex..
Wealth Extraction as a hegemonic political, economic and cultural belief, activity and behaviour is Violence. The denial ofbr> invasions are quite obviously violent.

The Truth About Poverty
Everything we think we know about poverty is probably incorrect, a caricature of the impoverished, designed to mislead us. 

An institutional culture of deliberate judgemental paternalistic societally enforced snobbery, for profit. Peoples must see the poor as having only themselves to blame.

Whereas the truth is much simpler - most people are decent, honest and caring. Why? Because it's so much healthier. That's just common sense. 

Rutger Bergman gets into the detail, in the video just above - it's a friendly chat.

Make a cup of team sit back, open the popcorn, switch off the phone, take it all in. This is healthy science meets social care as an economic commons at it's very best.

Given our general good nature, what's happened to our perception of one another?

This raises the question as to why the caricature of poverty and the theme of the selfish individual remain as existential assumptions within the narratives of the established political and economic system, irrespective of ideology, creed, 
Hegemony 
Maintaining the dominance of Corporations and Wealth over the people, as it is,  is cruelty beyond imagination.
This is what the English Ruling Class really is, as an institutional infrastructure. A weapon system, designed for oppression and exploitation.
For the moment, set aside the individuals, the personalities who populate the active parts of it.
The infrastructure of power has certain directives - to gain power, to maintain power, to enhance power, to project power, to exercise power, to protect power. These directives are the very heart of The Security State and Militarism. Putin, Blair, Bush and Johnson are competitors in the same evil contest. Taking sides with any of them enrols us into the evil.
People who seek to work in that environment will likely internalise all of that, so that it then becomes an apparent emergent value of the person, as they normalise to that environment.
The more ambitious will compete to get ahead. Winner takes all. What ever it takes. How far will the competitor go to achieve objectives of Power? How far to protect Power?

Bearing in mind, practically everything this culture's narrative about poverty is not only wrong, it is deliberately wrong because it is meant to mislead, in order to evade to costs of not only not causing such harm, but also the task of nurturing the people, and our shared environment.
This is the psychology of Power, and the practice.
It is institutionalised cruelty to impose poverty upon a population. They have no morals. They have no empathy, They know exactly what they are doing. From Fossil Fuel Industry denying Climate Disruption for three generations to Liz Truss borrowing money through our enforced enlistment in the promise to pay it back, plus interest, as income tax payers, which she will then give to Fossil Fuel Shareholders to preserve their current profitability.

Externalising the Costs, a common industrial and military practice. Every violent hierarchy does this. Poverty is an externalised cost of efficient wealth extraction, to feed the structures of Power, and resource it to protect itself.
None of it can be justified, rationalised, explained or tested against the evidence of the lived experience of the people affected by the policy as it is implemented. 

We know this, you and I. Our friends and family, our neighbours, our colleagues and dancing partners. Our children know this too, they see it more clearly because it's their immediate future and it's not looking good and we were in charge....

Because we are living in history all the time, the real history of ordinary people's lives as they are affected by the actions of a few people, operating distal power infrastructures long established, continually enhanced, always protected, no matter that harm befalls us.

Kindest regards

Corneilius

Thank you for reading this blog.

"Do what you love, it is your gift to universe."

This blog, like all my other content creation work is not monetised via advertising. If you like what I present, consider sharing my content. If you can afford the price of a cup of coffee or a pint of beer/ale/cider for a few months, please donate via my Patreon account.

https://patreon.com/corneilius - donations gratefully received

https://www.reverbnation.com/corneilius - .mp3 songs

https://www.soundcloud.com/coreluminous - .wav Songs

https://www.corneilius.net - Archive

#folkmusic
#singersongwriter
#blogger
#music