Economic Growth is Not Progress

The absurd god of infinite economic growth has to be renounced.
Another tranche of scientists provide evidence that consumerism is madness. That makes a long list including the environmentalists, the chaos mathematicians and economics Nobel Prizewinners.
What more do the politicians need? Except maybe a good kicking in the polls.
 Alongside this anti-growth heresy, there is another theory that the electronic economy is working towards a reversal of the old corporate/consumer power relationship, not to be confused with old style 'consumer power'. The general idea being that the growing ability to create micro-economic systems can undermine the C20th dinosaurs and make them the servants. After all, we seem to actually own many of them already.

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Midas

The world which made debt into a commodity to be bought and sold at a profit was one which efectively brought to life the wish of King Midas. Everything he touched turned to gold - the dream of every desperate American Blue-collar worker trying to put at least one of his kids through college, pay for health insurance for all the family, and be true to the American Dream he had voted for. The magic formula for wealth and happiness had apparently been discovered.
But the lesson of the Midas parable is that golden food and drink are poisonous. The commodification of debt turned the tables on the global capitalist system just as surely as Dionysus tricked the mad king.
Cityphobia: John Lanchester
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Brown to Blame For Armageddon, Says Cameron.

Alone all among world leaders who trusted the markets and their disciples in the last ten years, Gordon Brown is the sole villain in the calamitous collapse of global capitalism, Diddy David Cameron proclaimed this morning at 8am. Without him, we would not be in this mess, in spite of the fact that there are no democratic states untouched by this crisis.
After massaging some feeling back into its aching ribs, the country is simply left to reflect on just how the tories would have sold property and personal debt in the same period, especially considering the vested interests of both the party and leading tories in making money from it.
The opinion polls today showed Brown & Darling leading Cameron & Osbourne in financial competence. Tory columnists are circling Osbourne, like vultures over an exhausted goat. But what is he supposed to do? He cannot rewrite history, and can't convince anyone that he would have done anything different to Brown. Nevertheless, Cameron still tried to condemn the decision to give independence to the Bank Of England, which, at the time, the tories had harrumphed loudest in favour of.
Meanwhile, Ken Livingstone finds another way of looking at it.
"I would have waited for the banks to fail and then nationalised them for nothing."
And seeing as they are still on strike, even after their demands have been met, he does have a point. If this was war, they could be tried as traitors, surely?
And if they had been miners in Tonypandy, Winston Churchill would have brought the troops in. bank strike crash08

GLOBAL PANIC AT GLOBAL BROWNIFICATION

The red mist rises again the markets fall and the banks and their shareholders read the small print in their rescue deals. No more divi 'till the bill is paid. 3484 our divi number used to be with the co-op when I were a lad in the Hovis-brown days of yesteryear.
But happily the interback lending rate is still going down. Unhappily, so are shares in mining, shipping, and materials. Next year's French Grand Prix at Magny Cours has already been cancelled.
 The free-market delusions of the Thatcher Era got us into this mess, and the long-depised state now has to save us. The lessons are stark and simple, don't ever again relinquish power to unelected lunatics crazed with greed. Profit isn't king. The Market Knows Worst. Greed Is Good is very bad. There IS such a thing as society, and the sooner we remember it the better. Co-operation is more important (and natural ) than competition.
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TICKER TAPE RECEPTION FOR GLOBAL BROWNIFICATION

Weeks ago, when the Archbishop of Canterbury was citing Marx, Gordon Brown was still seen as pathetic flop. Today, as Marx seems to be truer than ever, the international right wing are hailing him as their Saviour and singing his praises. If Gordon Brown were to ride down Wall Street, he would get a ticker-tape reception, which is exactly what his policies did get yesterday when the market started buying again. Is there life left in the old dog of politics yet? What would Marx be drinking if he were alive today?
As Orwell also foresaw, revolutions are not all coloured shirts, rubber truncheons and barricades. They can be as mundane and natural as childbirth, or as a buckled bicycle wheel breaking under strain of too many sacks of spuds, which is essentially what has happened to capitalism under the strain of its new and untested internet load, as Marx predicted without even knowing about the internet - or global warming.
The free-market dogma was essentially based on a wilful misinterpretation of Chaos Theory. Not for the first time, science was used to justify political ambition and greed, and the inherent instability and unpredictability of capitalism was smothered under a blanket of propaganda, strategic risk assessment systems analysis and the other mumbo-jumbo which hit the fan last week. In spite of the mathematical impossibility of predicting a vast ands complex global economic system, the myth was pursued and believed in with religious fervour, even to the extent of beliving that a finite system could grow forever. Fuelling the system with the internet only made it more unstable and its collapse more sudden.
Ever since the Big Bang on October 27th 1986, and before, the free market freaks were warned of their lunatic error by the environmentalists, historians, socialists and mathematicians. Now reality has proved them wrong. But since when did the proof that tobacco is poison stop people smoking?

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While on his tour to secure an Obama presidency, Gordon Brown could perhaps do some groundwork for the new Channel 5 reality show 'Homes In The $un'. Doris and Frank from Widnes are looking for a retirement home in Florida, Gordon. Any suggestions? crash08

'When The Lights Go On Again - All Over The World...'

The day after Gordon Brown saved the world - according to Nobel Economics Prizewinner - Paul Krugman, the first local councils have decided to save money by turning off their streetlights, and the Daily Mail is solemnly warning Gordon Brown not to turn into Josef Stalin. This is the hiss of a tory snake with its head in a forked stick.
While nobody knows what is going to happen next, it does seem that the fever has passed, and the patient is taking nourishment. The excitement of the most exciting month since 1968 is over, and now the long hard job of creating a different world begins.
Some smartalecs on the New York Times came up with a graphthis week tracking the use of key words during the Crash Crisis of 2008. 'Recession' 'depression' 'inflation' etc. The one word noticeably absent was 'co-operation', which I've been seeing a lot of lately, in one sense or another.
On the grand diplomatic scale there has been the usual predictable assurances of co-operation between banks to release credit, co-operation between nations to set the 'level playing field', and between leaders to play the game.. But it has also come nearer to real people in the debate over the crash in building society credibility, and the whole problem of 'de-mutualisation'. Various academics are now being given fresh space to put forward their angle on the simple agenda that at this stage in our history we need to co-operate more than compete. We have nothing to compete for other than an excess of luxury which we can't enjoy, knowing that any day it may be snatched away by another global crisis of capitalism. Calls for 'People's Banks' cannot be far off. And the internet does make such a thing a possibility, just as it helped secrete the virus of toxic debt into the remotest lymph nodes of global capitalism.
The Credit Unions could see a massive boost from this, as could all kinds of de-globalising projects which would return services and production to a more local, sustainable market. As all sane commentators were demanding all along.

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Merry Monday.

Phew!
After a weekend's frantic international dealing and shinanegans, and a £35 billion buyout of key British banks, the stock market breathed a sigh of relief and recorded gains.
 People are naturally angry that their money is being spent on rescuing the banks, but the more businesses go bust, the cheaper they will be when the government buys them. So the choice facing capitalism is stop sulking and get back to work, or risk being an ex-company in a planned economy, bought at the global bargain basement bankruptcy sale. When the going gets tough, the rich go shopping. And at times of extreme crisis, only the nation state is rich enough. Any renounciation of power, any return to the days of the poisonous free market experiment, will then be seen as an act of charity which the electorates of most countries will not allow their governments to indulge in.
 Politics has a chance to redeem itself and get back to the job its voters want it do: provide them with security and the conditions to make a life worth living; not force them onto a lifelong hamster-wheel of debt, consumption, promotion-backstabbing, training, bonding, image-building, networking, property-worship and suspicion of everyone except their nearest family, while they last.
 And as the worst is far from over, any failure of the political classes we choose to take the reins from the money-men and give them back to the people will end up with us all carrying guns to the soup-kitchens. So we have to elect the right politicians.
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Crash of the Day.

There's a new reality TV show in this.
Incorporating the Fall of the Month competition.

A candidate for yesterday's record fall is RBS with a full 13% scorcher.

This comes on top of its fantastic performance two days before. A firm on truly dire form.

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IT'S WAR!

Your Country Needs
YOUR ACCOUNTS

The first Crash War has broken out. Britain financially invaded Iceland yesterday in response to the treatment of the British financial enclave by the brutal Icelandic authorities. Financial nuns have been savaged on financial tables.
Key British assets have been destroyed by the bankruptcy of this new financial rogue state, and so we have retaliated against Icelandic assets in Britain to defend our national interest. War with suits and ethernet cards.
If the collapse of Lehman's was the shot in Sarajevo, this is something like the invasion of Gallant Little Belgium. If Iceland, like Serbia, decides to seek support from Russia - what larks! Across europe, nations will be fighting like rats for the last scraps of credit-credibility. Does this mean we now have to invent an insulting nickname for Icelanders? As I write, hundreds of ex-human beings at The Sun are trying to kill the English language in the hunt for the popular new hate-name. I bet.
The point is that giving bankers unrestricted access to the internet - the Big Bang - was like giving a three year old a candyfloss machine - or a machine gun.
After a decade of gluttony, the result is a diabetic, inert, obscenely bloated, lazy, corrupt teenager, now desperately trying to cope with the collapse of its health. Not unlike the Austro-Hungarian Empire, as was. The only difference we can hope for is that whereas the Imperial structure which collapsed in 1914 was suffering from geriatric problems, the problems of the new digital democracy are merely adolescent growing pains, self indulgence and tantrums.
The only benefit of war is absurdity.
Meanwhile the walls are running red with panic. Shares prices collapsing this morning along with shipping rates, commodity prices, even copper - which a few weeks ago gave us the urban legend of the penny in your pocket being worth more than its face value. Today, every copper penny in your pocket counts. Everyone is digging a financial bunker.
The Tehran stock market, however is apparently doing just fine. Which is nice for them. Buy Iranian preferred now to avoid disappointment - would seem to be the message. Or abandon the abominable hedonism of of usury. The Invisible Hand of the market writes; and, having writ, moves on indeed. The Market works in wondrous ways its good work to perform. It may look crazy to us, but trust them, the financial high priests know best, they will get us all out of this terrible mess if we let them. Exactly as they always have.
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'Greed Is Good' Is Bad

That's one thing settled at least. The ideology of the free market is a dead dog.The future's down to social altruism and common sense. And if Britain can gamble a third of its GNP to save a banking industry which still might collapse, it can devote as much energy into creating a society in which toilet cleaners are treated with as much respect as merchant bankers used to be. We need to look for new definitions of respect, success, and happiness. Granting status according to wealth was never going to work.
The Bill.
125,000 hospitals.
£16,000 / person
33% of GNP
Total including Northern Rock & Bradford & Bingley

= £640 billion.

Meanwhile.
The parallels with the 1930's keep emerging. The Special Investment Vehicles of today mirroring the submerged parallel banking system which collapsed in the runs of 1930 and 1931. Then, banks were simply allowed to fail, as Lehman 's was.
It remains to be seen whether the expensive remedies since then mean we have learned the lessons of history.
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Red Wall Fever. History - LIve! Stuff Their Mouths With Gold

Nobody in the world knows what is happening or what will happen next.
Expert after expert is offering the expert opinion that 'Your guess is as good as mine.' And they're right. As the Virtual Digital War rages on the red walls of the exchanges, and the traders clutch their heads in both hands, everyone knows the basic truth that the bombs will fall in the High Streets first, and hit hardest those least able to defend themselves.
So we happen to be living during a rare moment of history; a microscopic sliver of universal democracy in the space-time continuum. Shaw's common dustman is at least as original as any of the experts who sold us this bear trap as a waterbed.
Today's British part-nationalisation of the banks is working one minute, failing the next. Yesterday's meeting between the banks' shop stewards and Britain UK directors happened to a chorus of demands to Do Something!! There was the distinct impression that something was up. And as the most popular request was for a cut in interest rates, that seemed the likeliest outcome. Then this very un-Brown stunt. Buy the banks when they were cheap. Or, in someone else's words, "Stuff Their Mouths With Gold." Or, 'Management gave in to the demands of the workers.'
The market hated it first thing in the morning, but now seems to be coming to terms? Who knows? Stock markets everywhere plunging. Banks dropping like London teenagers. Iceland bankrupt - the country, not the frozen fish shop. None of the sticking plasters seem to be working. Everyone still hanging on for grim death and making a note of where the cushions are. Half percent cut in interest rates. The bankforce will call off its strike action and man the credit-pumps again. Phew. Or so we're told. But what does anyone KNOW?
Whether this is all too little too late or too much too soon nobody can say. Nobody's ever done it before. Which either makes Brown & Darling bold pioneers or desperate spivs on the run at the taxpayers expense.
Brown at the dispatch box. 'The risk of excessive risk-taking is that it risks putting the economy at risk.' Brilliant.
Cameron trying to look tough and significant by demanding that all executive bonuses be capped for all banks in the scheme.
Brown can't really lose. As the polls will show.
Meanwhile in America, Anorak & Chips are still battling fiercely to prove which is the greyest, dullest drabbest and most awful. They look like the finalists of a reality TV contest to win the post of night watchman at a lap-dancing club.
The only hope is that the Obama administration is stuffed to the gills with first class advisors. After last night's gruesome parade of the undead, Nashville is now a colder sadder place. crash08 bank strike

Paddy Power

Calls for concerted european approach to bank crisis. Otherwise:

Step 1. Ireland guarantees all deposits in major banks.
Step 2. Nervous money flows into Irish banks courtesy of the internet. Grand.
Step 3. Other countries have to do the same or risk a drain on deposits when the banks need them most.
Step 4. Countries now in full competition for nervous money.

And so it begins.
At the conference, Ireland argues that its' need is the greater, being in a deeper property recession than most. Spain supports it.
Germany argues that Ireland should have thought of that before getting involved. It wasn't as if they hadn't been warned etc etc.
Result, lengthy impotent bickering in the style of the League of Nations instead of the decisive co-operation which is needed.

Meanwhile, the class war continues in America. Wall Street is now paying a nice visit to America saying

'This is a nice society you have here. It would cause us much distress to learn that it had been destroyed by an economic depression or whatnot. And when you consider that for a reasonable trillion dollars to our welfare fund, you will have complete peace and mind for yourself and your family. We are sure you will make the responsible decision.
We will be back on friday for our donation. We are not used to disappointment.'

It's the American way.

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Anniversary of Munich Agreement. Chamberlain's Shame.

General quivering optimism from television experts that Congress republicans have had their bit of fun, and will come to heel on Thursday, possibly voting for the same bill they rejected yesterday. And all will be well, after a fashion. 
Even if they do perform this backflip, McCain is now a dead man walking and the Republican Party has lost the election, so what's in it for the renegades? In fact, if they have judged the mood on their reservations correctly, this might be the only way they get to keep their jobs. It's all very well for the American Chamber of Commerce to speak in general terms about those responsible being punished by the electorate:

"The US Chamber of Commerce said the vote had caused "uncertainty and turmoil" in the markets, destroying billions of dollars of household wealth. "Make no mistake - when the aftermath of congressional inaction becomes clear, Americans will not tolerate those who stood by and let the calamity happen," it said."

But if the local electorate is as stupid as their chosen representative, which is likely, the culprits will be rewarded, not punished.
The other words being used are 'failure of politics' - not politicians, or policies, but politics itself, as opposed to business, the military and the church. Is it any wonder? One of the many lessons which may or may not be learned is that politics is not a tap which can be safely turned off for years and still do its job, it is a muscle which has to be constantly used to stay useful.
It would seem that this principle would be second nature to the Thatcherite self-improvement-manual-consuming gymnauts of the sadoku generation. 'Use it Or Lose It' is their dreary motto. But only as far as maintaining the machinery and instincts needed to be an efficient, ruthless, consumer and colleague backstabber, which are the opposite of those needed to maintain and advance a modern society. Fine for a nomadic hunter gatherer tribe, but obsolete since civilisation began in pre-historic Babylon and the Indus delta.
Societies have to keep making decisions which matter, or they lose the ability. The dictatorship of the markets has reduced politics to the status of a desk-clerk in the corporation. A nobhi in Human Resources addressing envelopes and running the stationery trolley; which is yet another echo of 30's Britain, especially, when a series of inert governments and shameless capitalists made the rise of militaristic authoritarianism inevitable.
Then, Britain had to look back two generations to find a politician who still had political blood in his veins, and the cavalry-era Churchill only knew how to wage war, which was why the sensible British people got rid of him once it was won. But who are the politicians of today who still remember how to govern from the front? Who will take the market bunko artists by the hand, take away their snake oil, and find them a desk where they can lead useful lives, with suitable rewards for their efforts and talents? Why should an expert on money be a hundred times more valuable than an expert on curing cancer or an expert at cleaning the sewers? Which is more important to the basis of civil society?
 Another term being used is 'market free-fall'. Namely, the gap between now and any decision by Congress when marketeers and politicians will be doing what they need to do, assuming that there is a decision in Congress. If not, the Rosh Hashanah Massacre will be a fact, and a new economic Ice Age will return - according to most experts, of all political persuasions. (All news of any optimists extremely welcome.)
China is being suitably Confucian at the moment. Deng Xiao Peng He say:-

"Confidence Is More Precious Than Gold."

Fat lot of use that is.


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The Day The Sky Fell In

After today's failure of the American political machine to act in defence of the economy, it's obvious that in the generations since the cult of the free market became fashionable, the managerial instinct of the political classes has been bred out of the pedigree. So that now, when the state needs to assert its authority and meets its responsibilities, it doesn't have the genes for the job. Like expecting a poodle to hunt a stag.
The banks have been on strike for some time, now the state, represented by the US House of Representatives, has abandoned its post. Who else is there for the electorate to trust with managing their general security?

McCain's Had His Chips
The Republican Party is now in tatters, having rejected its own leadership and its candidate. Who will Republican voters be voting for?
This will also reflect a wider split in the country as a whole between those seeking a progressive solution and those retreating even further into the myth of the free market which caused this mess in the first place. Which is also a choice facing the rest of the world, it seems. Hopefully the polarisation will not go as far as it did after the last comparable crash, the 20% in 1929, because the falls today were still only around 6%. But commentators are predicting that if the markets continue as they did today, with still another 3 days at least to fall before any new deal is struck on Capitol Hill, 20% might not be just a nightmare. If the effects on Main St are as accelerated by the global communications as the crash on Wall Street, mass political extremism could re-emerge in America. Led by the existing lords of organised crime, most likely, who will look like honest Robin Hoods compared with the sleazy conspiracy of jobsworth politicians and rapacious corporations fighting for their own survival. After all, Gangsta Rap turned out to be right all along.
There are European hints at some form of international initiative, possibly involving the Chinese, who have a lot of stake in western markets. Peter Mandelson has just returned (again?) from China as full of beans as a Mitford from Nuremburg, calling for increased investment and general pulling together.
Anorak Obama took the opportunity to attack the 'philosophies of greed' in very general terms, sounding more like Harold MacMillan in his 'I'm alright Jack' phase, than a man of destiny. Much more. Even though 'No Welfare For Wall Street' is probably a good enough campaign slogan.
The fact is that Computer-driven global consumerism is simply too hot for C19 industrial capitalism to control. The instant transfer of assets and information, and the processing power available to make complex Game Theory projections of the market, have been key factors in creating this crisis. And many saw the dangers of electronic distribution and exchange systems which could turn irrecoverable debts into commodities and hide them in a labyrinth of transactions until they infected the entire credit system. Which is exactly what has happened. Cosy, middle-aged oil-fed postwar capitalism discovered crack cocaine and didn't have the constitution to survive it.
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Banking Strike - Holding the World To Ransom

In spite of all the all the apocalyptic predictions, the banking fraternity is still holding out for its claim of 1 Trillion dollars before it will go back to its job of providing credit.
If a trade union was to take such action, it would be immediately branded as a blackmailer 'holding the public to ransom' for its own selfish interests. But as these are some of the richest men in the world, and their industry is a powerful enough to be a major political force, their demands must be met without question.
If and when the dust does settle on this predictable collapse, which today saw the Archbishop of Canterbury citing Marx, any thinking human being will want sane people running the asylum, or better yet, a sane system in the first place. crash08 bank strike

The Trillion Dollar Trick. Margaret Thatcher R.I.P.

Meltdown Monday

The age of Reagan and Thatcher is over. Everyone's agreed on that. The US taxpayer is paying for its government to nationalise property in a desperate bid to stop the international financial house of cards from collapsing. As it will be again in 20 years time, or less, given the same culture of greed and competition. It will be no use saying 'We told You So' then, either.

The real money wagered on this desperate attempt to save the markets from themselves has to come from somewhere. And unless the taxpayer already footing the bill is also expected to suffer fewer hospitals, schools and transport improvements, then the age of the corporate tax-dodge has to be over. The biggest free lunch in history has closed its All-You-Can-Eat buffet.

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The inherent ability of the Chinese dictatorship to endure more financial hardship than Western democracies will pose a greater ideological attraction than ever. The Beijing Olympics really couldn't have been better timed. And the new oil-rich, Russian oligarchy may have McDonalds and iPods, but the bulk of Mother Russia still knows what it is like to suffer, and will merely see a great world depression as their generation's rite of passage, and blame it on the west, as they always have done. Both these dictatorships will seem more cuddly political animals to a property-harassed western electorate trying to recover from the blessings of unbridled Consumerism, and hoping to find a way of not repeating the experience.

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One lesson of this week is that competitors do not co-operate even in their own survival. The truth is that, with the amount of sheer technological power and historical experience available, the social need for competition has shrivelled to almost nothing. The same power which could be used to provide a decent standard of free life for everyone has been used instead to fuel competition for its own sake. The result being the chaos of regular Depressions, constant wars, the manipulation of the food markets to create profit and starvation, and the sabotage of the climate.
The market-worshipping ideology fashionable until last week was still operating in the Steam Age. It was historically obsolete. A deliberate, perverse attempt to hold back the process of technology which tends to make the lives of more people more bearable and reduce the need for competition and war. The social formula which states that the more technology is available, the less brute labour and competition are necessary to maintain a civil society.
A certain ratio of competition to co-operation has always been needed, but with each labour-saving, information-sharing, pain-relieving advance, there is less need for human beings to fight each other for their survival. The required amount of conflict today must be down at spice level, from its heyday as a bulk staple in the stone age recipe. Never has more technology been available, but making it work for people is not profitable, while making it produce cheap Kalashnikovs, cosmetic surgery and sub-prime mortgages is very profitable - for a short time. But short term profit is now discovered to be a very dangerous thing, it makes planets uninhabitable, and if allowed to rampage, will mean there is no long term to worry about. Wall Street and the City of London will be under thirty foot of water. This week was another warning that if we insist on behaving like cavemen, we will probably end up being cavemen.

"freaky friday" "meltdown monday"
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From Crunchie to Crusty. The Value of Your Home Will Go Down.

The package of assistance for Crunchies at risk of repossession has naturally raised the old question of personal responsibility and the virtue of the modest, sustainable lifestyle; of living within your means and other subversive Dickensian notions - often in newspapers which exist because of the advertising they sell which urges people to get in as much debt as possible. This hilarious wave of anti-consumerist moralising from the crunch-crazed high priests of Consumerism entirely misses the point.
Whatever Alastair Darling announces, the object of the exercise is not to 'bail out' the individuals, however feckless or misled by the massed propaganda of the market, but to bail out the market itself. Rescuing individuals from eviction will deliver a new generation of healthy consumers again, and prevent them from dropping out of the cycle of work and spend, thereby feeding the market again in due course. A consumer saved is a consumer earned, after all. And we can't have them all turning into disillusioned crusties, can we? And it's a short step from Crunchie to Crusty.
An added bonus is that this 'getting and spending' lays waste their powers as it did to every other generation, smothering understanding under a routine of drudgery and gluttony.
Help for mortgagees about to be made homeless is not the mythical Nanny State of right-wing fantasy, mollycoddling the individual and creating a nation of children, but a purely pragmatic way of mollycoddling a market which has feasted not wisely but too well, so that it can keep on doing so. crash08

ITV Broke - Auntie Picks Up The Pieces

The mass audience is dead? Then the mass advertising audience is dead. Boo hoo. Perhaps this will mean fewer fat, sick, indoctrinated children, junked out on chemical foods and synthetic pastimes - as highlighted by this week's belated call for certain food poisons to be banned.
 The only problem is that, according to this week's Ofsted Report, because it has spent its time being a socially responsible broadcaster, the BBC will now have to pay for the excesses, follies and anti-social opportunism of the commercial sector. In the same way, the taxpayer is now having to pay for the equivalent follies of the banks. When they make obscene profits from very dodgy investments, they get to keep the money and gloat about the universal benificence of the spriti of the free market. When the short-term greed of the market turns to disaster, the taxpayer pays.
The Licence to Print Money from TV commercials has finally expired, as it was always going to as technology gave more pesky power to consumers. Making them less and less like sheep. It transpires that as a basis for broadcasting, advertising was only ever a passing phase - at least in a responsible culture like Britain, which saw the limitations of the industrial marketplace from an early stage - having invented it. But why should the licence payer now pick up the pieces and buy Mr Grade's cigars and Rolls Royces? Why does the state owe the media billionaires a living for peddling their monumentally narcotic trash? Where is that written? Why does the taxpayer always have to pay for the business errors (the greed) of a marketplace which cannot see beyond its annual shareholders meeting?
Commercial TV and the advertising industry were warned almost a decade ago that the narrative TV ad was under serious threat from advancing technology - even the humble remote control eliminated commercials which cost as much as running and A&E department in an inner city borough for a week. Alan McCulloch of Saatchi's in 1999, urging the industry to adapt in order to survive: “TV advertising has to become more interactive. The agencies are failing to create new forms. Their heads are still stuck up their arses doing TV ads.” As were the heads of the TV companies.

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