am appreciating the real education I'm getting here, thanks for contributing.
It's all helping to focus the rage that's shaking me from my englamoured slumber. And I'm now seeing that fighting the kleptocracy has two sides: fighting against that which is reducing us, and fighting for that which can support us.

I'd still like to know where the QE money has gone: who has got richer these past few years? Then the austerity the many have to suffer can be contrasted, in concrete terms, with the benefits the few have reaped. Even better if it could be displayed graphically, e.g. http://www.gapminder.org/

More power to all who reveal the lies ..

Not sure how that one slipped through.

Your perceptions are getting trenchant. I too think we are in some kind of 'last chance saloon' with respect to the idea of coherent democracy. If there is no collective assertive response to the mauling and dissembling people are receiving in order to prop up a destructive economic dogma then we are more or less acceding to a life as either privileged slaves or 'the abandoned', within a degrading social and physical environment.

And the UK is one of the critical places where a rejection of these roles might happen that could make a difference. I think the UK is going to be critical because the government is an unstable, 'best guess' choice out of a bunch of rotten apples and Nulab is still in some disarray and growing disrepute, and its leader is really quite stuck and uninspiring.
The policies of the coalition are extreme and risk serious fall-out, much worse than they need to be. I sense the Labour party are waiting for a major 'slip' or event to pounce, rather being pro-active( i.e. politically honest) but they are political opportunists of exactly the same kind as the coalition and exactly as they were in the Blair era.
Their dishonesty really needs to be exposed by people like yourself and David.
They are not an opposition; they are simply the reserve team operating within an enclosed detached system.
I have already said that we first have to break the duopoly of power and the easiest, least painful way is for lots of unaligned people to be elected. I think this is the purpose of the blog here-it is ahead of the mainstream and is partly shaping debate, not just getting in beforehand and politically energising a lot of people who might not otherwise have spoken up.
I am also pretty sure there are some very anonymous big-hit lurkers who are taking their cues from blogs, including this one.

I was thinking that David probably needs to consider how to get elected somewhere.

I think David is sloughing quite a lonely furrow but doing a fantastic job. I can see how it might be quite personally demanding but rest assured, it is much appreciated.

There probably isn't one locus of control and power, although many voices take aim at the moneyed powers behind the Central Banks (e.g. Rothschilds / JP Morgan etc.).

I'd say it's more about who can siphon off profits from a huge cash flow generating mechanism, regardless of the system or structure.

The early crude forms of this Asymmetric Accumulation resorted to violence and intimidation (think early empires and current Middle East dictators extracting enormous wealth through tribute). The 20th Century brought us a different form: the Military Industrial Complex (think Boeing, Haliburton, big Oil etc), as a backlash against the Post War Social Democratic experiment (whereby power concentration was briefly tempered by an enlightened and empowered majority).

This period of relative harmony could be shortlived, however, as the latest incarnation of power control is more subtle. But ultimately aimed at restoring the feudalistic power structure, once again.

First there is the Predator State: the parasite that feeds off the tax system. James Galbraith explains how the prime function of the State then, is as collector of taxes and enforcer of private contracts and social compliance (all in the name of Social Democracy, of course), whilst the spoils are then doled out to the private sector.

Secondly, we are seeing even greater pillaging of the lower & middle class with the rising financialisation and the utter enforcement of debt contracts now emboldening those who favour "Indentured Servitude" as the cash cow of choice. Michael Hudson calls this the Counter Enlightenment.

Same ultimate end-game, just different operating methods.

You'll make no friends telling Brits to lay off the tea. I'd pass up on oxygen first thanks mate 🙂

@Golem

Sorry to hear you're having a bad day. It must be tough to keep driving this message home and then see that little or nothing changes. Following your work helps me to avoid getting looped in to the mindless journalism spouted by the mainstream media. You should be giving yourself a massive pat on the back that Mervin King largely agrees with your analysis.

Do you think that the reason QE has been relatively non-inflationary is down to the fact that in a system were debt is money, deleveraging of households and companies (as now appears to be happening) will inevitably lead to shrinkage in the money supply and hence deflation? The people running QE probably know that if the general populace had deflationary expections it would only lead to further deleveraging and those expectations being fulfilled. In that situation the overhang of public sector borrowing becomes doubly toxic and systemic failure unavoidable.

What I still want to know is: Who has the money gone to? Names, not just ‘senior bond holders’ etc. And this is important to me because then I will have more than just an abstract entity to relate to. Because this “Financial Crisis” (WMD, anyone?), in the scale and depth of its asset transfer from one group to another, is in practise more akin to warfare. And it’s utterly asymmetric – the target has been, very specifically, the personal wealth of ordinary public service users: me and you – but who in fact is benefiting? Wars against the abstract never work (wars against drugs, terror, poverty), so where can I find the names of the bastards that are fighting us? Or has the glittering spectre that has been devouring public assets (utilities and infrastructure), and now public services (hospitals, schools) for the past generation, which we must now subsidise for our own good, become so insane that it will eat itself?

In which case we can all go home and back to our comic books.

Anyway, thanks for the chance to toss my brass farthing into the ring, Steady as you go …