I totally agree with your comment there. Very timely to mention the Bilderburgers too, as they're meeting this coming weekend in St Moritz.

IMO it's very much a case of a steady, inexorable process over time of 'capture' of people & institutions that are supposed to operate in the wider, majority public interest – but don't.

This is precisely the purpose of Bilderburg. Very, very powerful & wealthy people spending a considerable concentration of time, with complete confidentiality, to persuade & assess the amenability of politicians likely to rise to power, to their views. Kissinger, Rockefeller & co. must have wet themselves in joy when one T Blair attended Bilderburg in '94, already a top candidate for the UK Labour party leadership.

Nick Davies in his book 'Flat Earth News' talked about this process in Journalism at the Guardian. Career advancement depended on being careful to avoid certain avenues of analysis that the 'facts' would otherwise plainly indicate. It was most often a subtle process. And of course, such a process inherently has a positive, reinforcing feedback loop. Subsequent supervising editors refining the process further at each appointment.

The results of this are the stuff of medialens.org superbly written & incisive critiques of the supposedly more 'balanced' & 'intelligent' end of the journalism spectrum – Broadsheets & the BBC.

There's no doubt whatever that a similar process has taken place in the economics profession & civil service. Tho' it is perhaps most damaging of all in that suppsed last barrier to 'capture' – the 'fourth estate'.

This is the 'groupthink' that Nyberg mentioned, but didn't elaborate on, in is otherwise feeble report on Ireland's banking fiasco.

I watched that BBC News interview a couple of days ago with some Tory finance MP & an Open University economics professor who had just published a report critical of the 'austerity' policy to reduce the budget defecit. A key question, repeated after the Tory clearly didn't understand the concept – "…yes, but where is the actual 'demand' going to come from for those new private sector jobs/production to be needed to 'supply'…?" Again, the gormless, but TV attractive female BBC News interviewer clearly did not understand the purpose of this one & only vital & most important question on the issue, & failed to press the Tory for a sensible answer. I've seen Kirsty Wark of BBC supposed flagship current affairs program, Newsnight, doing exactly the same thing. She clearly has not the slightest notion of the basic economics arguments or theory. Pathetic, but she's laughing all the way to the bank, as are her fellow presenters & producers.

Another snippet of evidence for this process of narrowing the views & background of UK journalists is the dramatic increase in proportion of ex 'public' school (ie private education) pupils compared to 3 or 4 decades ago. Approaching 50% now. Political leadership, of any hue, I don't doubt is similarly afflicted. So much for social mobility & equality of opportunity.

As has been posted here recently, the worlds few percent 'wealthy' have been barely affected by the financial crisis, recession & thinly disguised, ideologically based 'solutions'.

As I've said before, 'democracy' – as in the interests of the majority – does not exist any longer. If, in any real way, it ever has.

I'd be very pleased if you did. Thank you.

Hello folks. Just got back.

May I blogroll you?

There is no need for a question mark at the end.

They all were "got at" years ago. The simple proof of this is that it wouldn't all be f'd now if they hadn't. I know we all like to give the benefit of doubt.

Just not for them anymore.

I can see a song in that but it's so far away in my mind I can't even hear it. Benefit of Doubt has a nice ring though. They be cutting benefits so I suggest we all do the same.

In the article he quotes Prof. Bill Black asking a question which I am sure puzzles many:

"“One of the great paradoxes is that the periphery’s generally left-wing governments adopted so enthusiastically the ECB’s ultra-right wing economic nostrums – austerity is an appropriate response to a great recession. … Why left-wing parties embrace the advice of the ultra-right wing economists whose anti-regulatory dogmas helped cause the crisis is one of the great mysteries of life. Their policies are self-destructive to the economy and suicidal politically.”

Thanks to a post on CiF this w/e, I came across this snippet in a 2001 Jon Ronson interview with Denis Healey about the Bilderberg conference:

"He said, "Bilderberg is a way of bringing together politicians, industrialists, financiers and journalists. Politics should involve people who aren't politicians. We make a point of getting along younger politicians who are obviously rising, to bring them together with financiers and industrialists who offer them wise words. It increases the chance of having a sensible global policy."

"Does going help your career?" I asked.

"Oh yes," he said. Then he added, "Your new understanding of the world will certainly help your career."

http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2001/mar/10/extract1

Perhaps that explains the capitulation of the European leftist leaders to the international financial oligarchy?

In other words, straight out of the horse's mouth, they were "got at" years ago?

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article28245.htm

"Replacing Economic Democracy with Fianancial Oligarchy"

Most of the way there I think?

The share of labour wages has plummeted in the USA and I never thought I'd live to see the day when even the guys at Zerohedge concede the marxists may have a point.

Can these figures be compiled for the UK? I am off to investigate this but does anyone know? Please post if so.

In the meantime ther Fed is plundering pensions to get round the debt ceiling being breached. In the UK the banks stick two fingers up at the coalition and refuse to lend under the Merlin deal.

Still I take great reassurance that this fabulous new found wealth is all for the benefit of "grannies and orphans" and that it will "trickle down" to make us all richer.

Please don't laugh at my last paragraph, there are still deluded people who seriously believe this.

bill40