Did you get your invite to the Davos conference? It should surprise no one that I was passed over again this year…of course, I’d be double screwed if I had to get there on my own…it’s one hell of a swim/walk!
After two consecutive post on the rapaciousness of Employers, we have today’s offering on that annual, global gathering of the ‘one percent’ and they’re lackeys Davos.
What is difficult to determine, good citizen is if the following snippet comes from this year’s conference (which presumably begins today) or if it is from last year:
Others say, however, that this self-flagellation is misguided. Raising taxes on high earners or restricting their pay will do nothing to increase economic growth or to create jobs, said Ben Verwaayen, chief executive of Alcatel Lucent.
To stimulate sluggish Western economies, he said, policy makers will have to make the tough fiscal choices needed to bring budget deficits into line, increasing business confidence. And in Europe, he said, restrictive employment rules should be loosened to encourage companies to hire.
“If you are standing outside the job market today and you think inequality is the problem, you have an ugly surprise coming,” Mr. Verwaayen said. “If you want to kick the cat, kick the cat. If it makes you feel better, fine. But if the pie is not growing, we’re not going to create jobs.”
Maurice Lévy, chief executive of the advertising company Publicis Groupe, based in Paris, agreed that measures to promote growth were crucial. But Mr. Lévy, one of the signatories of an open letter to the French government calling for higher taxes on the wealthy, said it was only fair, at a time when governments were cutting welfare spending to bring budget deficits into line, that the rich should share the burden.
“When you have this situation of fear, and little hope of getting out of the dark, there is also anger,” Mr. Lévy said. “People see that there is a minority of people who are well-off. This anger should be taken into account by the people who are, if not their target, their preoccupation. We should all be conscious of the money we are receiving for the services we render. We have to be reasonable.”
So, we have the ‘production line slaver’ stuck in the old rut of there’s no increase in the workforce without proportionate ‘growth’ in market activity. (The unsustainable ‘pie’ has to get larger axiom.)
This ignores two ‘truths’, the pie IS getting larger. We humans are multiplying at a record pace! BUT! As I mentioned yesterday, robots don’t need the products they produce.
Let us ignore this ‘hand waving’ that CEO’s perform for public consumption. They KNOW this as well as you do (if you stopped for a moment and thought about it…but you haven’t, have you?)
The second truth is less obvious, IF these mismanaging fucktards DID, er, double their workforce by halving the workday/week, it would cost them in benefits (There IS a way to dial this back to zero, but not under capitalism!)
Because the halving of the workday without an equal reduction in expense would put the remainder of the ‘housing market’ underwater…and there’s the answer to the second problem…but again, it won’t happen under ‘more for me’ capitalism.
In fact, we won’t see hiring on a scale we need to see it until AFTER capitalism is abandoned! CEO’s reap huge bonuses for ‘eliminating’ the ‘expense’ of employees.
They aren’t about to hire them back (unless they think firing them again will generate more bonuses for themselves!)
Which is weird because ‘hire them back’ is exactly what society needs them to do!
We won’t even visit the topic of ‘Are corporate boards that stupid?’ As the answer lies in our own current circumstances!
[Lord yes!]
As long as we live under an ‘extractive’ social model like capitalism, participation will always be predicated upon ‘infinite growth’.
Since we do not have an ‘infinite pie’, infinite growth is ‘impossible’.
Worse, we have probably already exceeded ‘sustainable’ population levels.
Which brings us back to these highly secretive Davos conferences…what do you suppose the ‘Masters of the Universe’ discuss when they have each other’s ear?
Conversely, it would be naïve in the extreme to think they need conferences such as this one to commune with one another!
The reason the public isn’t allowed to see the goings on for themselves is they don’t want you to know just who is in whose pocket!
Most of the proclaimed ‘Masters’ are really just someone else’s ‘sock puppet’.
Firings are rare and exterminations rarer still…but
There’s one wall the press doesn’t dare to knock down…and so it will remain until we establish a ‘not-for profit’ media! (And even such a body would require an ever vigilant watch dog to keep it honest!)
Not that there wouldn’t be those who would go to any length to keep their goals a secret!
Which is to remind you all that even A Simple Plan is neither ‘fool-proof’ nor is it ‘maintenance free’.
As The Who admonishes us in their tune ‘Slip Kick’, there’s no easy way to be free!
Thanks for letting me inside your head…
Don’t you wish those Davos dudes were as forthcoming?
Gegner
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