A silent coup d'etat.

Having been lucky enough to have lived a pretty colourful and exhilarating life, I have been privileged to meet people from many different backgrounds. Regular readers may read my ranting text and come to the conclusion that I am an aggressively opinionated shit. 

I can see how you might make that mistake.

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I'm no stranger to a booze-fueled, heated debate; however, once I've ranted about something, I generally forget about it - unless of course it's anything to do with Bono. I'm actually quite placid in my day to day life, even more so since I cut back on the booze. I see my blogs as a cathartic space, a place where I can vent frustrations and discuss some of the odd things that I encounter.

Politically speaking I consider myself a country liberal. I have a huge problem with a lot of socialist ideology, as much as I loathe certain aspects of reactionary conservatism. So, during my life, I have been open to befriending many people with completely different opinions to my own, which I have always found incredibly stimulating. I've always attempted to see both sides of an argument you see.

However, on my return to the UK after being away from Europe for 3 years, I have had to re-evaluate my priorities. 

I suppose the distance has enabled me to look at things with fresh eyes; though I don't think I was prepared for just how horrified I would be upon my return.

I came home and had a whistle stop tour of the north, then down to the west-country to see family and then back to London. 

I don't think that I'm exaggerating when I tell you that huge parts of the UK that I witnessed are in a worse state of repair than many of the supposed 3rd world countries that I have visited. 

Why has so much of the infrastructure been run into the ground?

Why have entire communities been disenfranchised and bankrupt? Why does the public transport system cost so much money? Didn't we invent the concept of rail transport on this island? 

Of course everyone has an opinion as to why this is happening, the media and the internet are buzzing with opinions of who is to blame, so many fingers being pointed in so many different directions. It's the benefit thieves, it's the Liberals, it's Labour, it's the Tories, it's the students, it's the immigrants...The most shocking thing for me to deal with upon my return has been the vast array of electronic media and it's intoxicating effect. Not having tuned into anything other than the internet for the last 3 years, I have found it incredibly overwhelming to be inundated with a barrage of conflicting messages. It is both disorientating and distracting. 

Over the last few weeks I have been catching up with friends in London, many quite successful in their careers, and I feel I have encountered a huge turning point. I just don't think I can keep quiet about this any more, the appalling state of this country has really shocked me. 

It all started when I had dinner in North Greenwich with a friend who worked for a credit card company, and his friends who worked for a well known investment bank and an accountancy firm. I don't really mix with too many people in Asia who work for the financial service industry, so I suppose I'd forgotten exactly how boring these things can be, maybe that's why I always used to get horrendously drunk? Who knows.

Being sober, I noticed how hard everyone was trying to be nice.

In fact, when introduced, the guy who worked for the notorious investment bank seemed perfectly apologetic saying that he was, he hoped, "one of the good guys." I don't want to sound rude, in many ways these are great people, but I think the idea of good bankers and bad bankers is an oversimplification. I'm sure these guys are great friends, wonderful family men, fun at parties, caring lovers, just like anyone else.  

I myself have worked for an institution that has been pivotal in orchestrating violence and social unrest culminating in the shooting of nearly 60 people - do I agree with that? Of course not! Do I consider forgoing my pay-cheque? Well, um... No, I need that to pay the bills. So does this make me a bad person? Well, of course not - I didn't incite anyone to shoot anyone. Believe me when I say that I understand that blanket statements of morality are incredibly problematic. But, this doesn't change my opinion of what I can see. 

It is really clear to me that the financial and private banking sectors have committed a silent coup d'etat. Our families and our communities are being stripped of resources and run into the ground and enslaved to a rapidly expanding financial service industry. It is an industry that produces nothing but profit and debt and boom and bust. It doesn't take a genius to see where all of our money is going, and yet the message is continually distorted and the object of our collective discussion becomes obscured.

Is it the white pikeys on Benefit street who have taken control of our services? Maybe it's UKIP or the BNP who have artificially inflated the cost of living without increasing any productivity? Maybe it's the immigrants, or even the feminists who write their own laws and print their own money? Maybe it's the blacks or the racists or the Muslims who destroy affordable housing and live in gated communities that are serviced by unrepresented, underpaid surfs? Seriously people, you don't have to be an expert in economics to figure out where the money is going. Just look at all the shiny new developments around Canary wharf. 

That's OUR money!

Legislation is used to proactively enforce the policies of a city which resembles a feudal, medieval city-state with iphones. It isn't progressive at all. Many people I speak to say things like, "that's just the way it is," as though this reasoning in any way excuses the theft of our national infrastructures and the death of all democratic process. It doesn't make a difference if it's UKIP, Green, Liberal, Tory or Labour. 

You cannot vote against the interest of Goldman Sachs.

I'm not being naive here, I understand there will always be bias towards privilege and a skew towards an elite, but the financial service industry is a parasite that is indiscernible from a totalitarian regime, it is un-elected, practically unregulated, and does nothing but destroy our society.

My Grandfather worked hard as a plumber, owned his own 3 bedroom house, raised a family of four children while my Grandmother was a house wife. They never worried about debt. In no way do I wish to paint a glossy, rose tinted picture here, but can you ever imagine that happening in the UK now? We are in a position where more people, work harder and spend more money than ever before. So where is all this money going? Where have our pensions gone? Why are we reliant on debt?

There comes a point where it can no longer be viable to allow the reckless behaviour of money men to carry on unregulated. Tell me, what are we supposed to do about this situation? Who is going to challenge organisations which are totally corrupt and beyond reproach?

I really believe we need to sort out the issue of money and finance before we can even begin to look at any other social problem. It should be our collective priority. To think that anyone is happy to freeload and live in an over-priced broken down world is just insane. There are good people everywhere, they just don't need to be enslaved by debt. 

It has reached the point for me that I can no longer sit comfortably in ludicrously overpriced apartments and pretend to be nice about this. I really believe that people who work in finance should accept some responsibility for their company's mismanagement and relearn the concept of 'economics'(hint - it probably shouldn't be reliant upon creating scarcity and debt).

True, you probably are a 'good' person - I'm not disputing that, but you have to recognise the real damage your industry is inflicting on the majority of people who live in the UK. I have no problem with people being successful in their careers or people being well off financially. That is none of my business. I do however, have a problem with the unchecked greed that is clearly prevalent and running rampant throughout private banks. So the question is, good people of finance, what are you going to do about this?  

More to the point, why should we in the UK fund your extravagant lifestyles?

What are you giving back?