The 2008 global economic crash was catastrophic, sparking another Great Recession which resulted in increases in unemployment, suicide, far-right extremism & dangerous levels of societal polarisation, & decreases in institutional trust & fertility.
In Britain, it led to a decade of catastrophic #austerity which cost 330,000 lives & meant cuts to essential public services & various benefits, wage stagnation,
massive bail-outs of financial institutions, & new policies designed to prevent collapse of Global financial system.
Free-market extremists are the greatest threat to peace & humanity, & to nature & the planet. Failed neoliberal deregulatory policies have led to unsustainable use of finite natural resources, catastrophic climate change & other environmental problems, which have all accelerated.
Unbridled market forces leads to selfish competitive individualism & the breakdown of local, national. & global communities, & social cohesion.
Income from privatised public services which used to benefit everyone, now goes to already rich shareholders.
Neoliberal policies have led to dangerous concentration of ownership of media channels in the hands of grotesquely wealthy elites, & have demonstrably increased insecurity, mistrust, polarisation, & inequality in personal & national wealth, widening the gap between rich & poor.
The richest 1% now own 45% of global wealth. The richest 10% own 76%. Since beginning of pandemic the world’s 10 richest men doubled their fortunes, from $700bn to $1.5 TRILLION (a rate of $15,000/SECOND) & have accumulated more wealth than the bottom 3.1 billion people combined.
The new ideologically extreme & reckless changes UK Government Chancellor Jeremy Hunt is introducing will redraw the financial services rule book, including casting aside some of the safeguards explicitly designed to avoid a repeat of the 2008 crash!
Hunt argues some of the changes are only possible because of “freedoms” gained from #Brexit, but there will also be a relaxation of rules Britain introduced unilaterally after 2008 - changes that often went FURTHER than the EU - making the UK a riskier place to do business.
Regulators have privately expressed doubts about the government’s efforts to loosen the reins on banks, especially given the recession, & the Bank of England has unveiling plans to introduce a tighter version of new global banking capital rules than those being pursued in the EU.
And as if they aren't already sufficiently grotesquely wealthy, Jeremy Hunt is removing the cap on bankers’ bonuses during the #CostOfLivingCrisis, while rules intended to separate risky investment banking from retail operations will be 'relaxed' to help “retail-focused banks”.
The regime introduced to hold bankers responsible for infractions that happened on their watch will be reviewed, & City regulators will be given a new “secondary objective” of 'delivering growth & competitiveness', alongside ensuring financial stability & consumer protection.
Sir John Vickers, who chaired an independent commission on banking, says the secondary objective was either “pointless or dangerous”. Lord Adair Turner, FSA Chair after 2008, agreed: “It is a mistake to give the regulators of the finance sector a competitiveness objective.”
"But some of the reforms you are scrapping came after the financial crisis, & were considered for years before being implemented. Are there risks to removing them?"
Hunt insists there are not. He talks about the need to be careful not to unlearn the lessons of the 2008 crisis.🤪
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I missed this story about Kevin Roberts - President of the Heritage Foundation & the man behind #Project2025, who has close ties to Truss, Patel, Oliver Dowden & Jenrick (who have all given speeches at the Heritage Foundation) - KILLING HIS NEIGHBOUR'S DOG WITH A SHOVEL!
“He was discussing in the hallway with various members of the faculty, including me, that a neighbor’s dog had been barking pretty relentlessly... he kind of lost it & took a shovel and killed the dog. End of problem,” said Kenneth Hammond, chair of the History Dept at the time.
Farage may become Britain's Trump, & Reform UK, Britain's Republicans: same divisive 1930s-style propaganda; same support from the same handful of billionaires; same climate change denial; same policies, from the same opaquely funded global network of free-market think-tanks.🤑
Tommy Robinson CHECKS HIS SOURCES, so he knows Evie is a right-wing online magazine which has spread COVID-19 & vaccine misinformation, & has a traditionalist/antifeminist worldview.
In 2022, Evie launched an app which collects menstruation data, funded by Peter Thiel.
Evie’s anti-vax blogs provide a window into how COVID denialism & misinformation are being marketed in right-wing women’s media. Evie’s founder and editor-in-chief is a former model turned would-be Catholic lifestyle influencer named Brittany Martinez.
In 2023, Rolling Stone described as the "Gen Z ‘Cosmo’ for the far-right" (so Tiny Tommy obviously gravitates towards it), the Peter Thiel-linked Evie Magazine is "harnessing the culture war to grow its audience."
Nazi propaganda dehumanized Jews in order to facilitate the Holocaust.
In the book 'Unhumans', right-wing conspiracy theorists Jack Posobiec &Joshua Lisec claim that Progressive-minded Americans are bloodthirsty Communist "unhumans" hellbent on destrying civilization.
This 🧵quotes this article by Gil Duran of @GeorgeLakoff's #FrameLab. George is a cognitive linguist & philosopher, best known for his thesis that our lives are significantly influenced by the conceptual metaphors used use to explain complex phenomena.
Here's the context debunking the abhorrent lies about Springfield Haitians 'eating geese & pets' currently being pushed by Trump, Vance, endless gullible MAGAs, & much of the US right-wing media, which have so far resulted in two bomb threats.
Not content with attacking the UK & Brazilian Governments & spreading wild conspiracy theories, petulant sociopathic politically illiterate one-man-disinformation machine Elon Musk has now lambasted Australia’s government as “fascists”.
The Australian Government has proposed laws that could levy substantial fines on social media companies if they fail to comply with rules to combat the spread of #disinformation and online scams - which Musk has zero interest in doing.
The billionaire owner of @X posted the word “fascists” above a childish tweet posted by the Tesla-loving dimwit who designed the shit X logo, who referred to misinformation as "so-called misinformation".