I predict a riot!!!

[UndercoverElephant]

yup good analysis mrG

I'd also note how poorly the shops were defended by their owners who have had generations of being told not to arm themselves, to not fight back and basically be passive victims, also how badly you do when you depend on the police when they are over stretched.

Some community's did try to defend their property but lots didn't and to celebrate the community clearing up after their shops have been looted I'd say was celebrating failure in the first place .

you can expect people to defend their shops just as badly the next time Ive seen no real change.

That's what has changed, IMO. A lot of people in the UK are now very much aware of what might happen if the police are overstretched. I'm not sure what they are supposed to do about it though.

[Mean Mr Mustard]

I've pm'd Alex Scarrow. Hopefully he will be joining us shortly.

[jonny2mad]

yup good analysis mrG

I'd also note how poorly the shops were defended by their owners who have had generations of being told not to arm themselves, to not fight back and basically be passive victims, also how badly you do when you depend on the police when they are over stretched.

Some community's did try to defend their property but lots didn't and to celebrate the community clearing up after their shops have been looted I'd say was celebrating failure in the first place .

you can expect people to defend their shops just as badly the next time Ive seen no real change.

That's what has changed, IMO. A lot of people in the UK are now very much aware of what might happen if the police are overstretched. I'm not sure what they are supposed to do about it though.

Get weapons stand guard in shops if gangs come to rob and loot them fight them, you can try talking to them first but basically say this is my stuff or this stuffs important to me I'm prepared to fight you over it. and I have been mugged and I have fought back, so I'm not telling other people to do something I haven't done or wouldn't do .

The problem we have is the law would be against you and you are likely to end up in jail, but maybe thats what it needs for the law to change is lots of people to go to jail for defending their property which the police aren't defending.

If community's had been in their local shops with shotguns defending them its doubtful there would have been any looting, which tesco would you prefer to loot one where everyones scared of you, or one where you have armed staff and community volunteers ready to shoot you

[Mean Mr Mustard]

The Korean American community, seeing the police force's abandonment of Koreatown, organized armed security teams composed of store workers, who defended their livelihoods from assault by the mobs. Open gun battles were televised as Korean shopkeepers shot at the mob to protect their businesses, and most likely their lives, from crowds of violent looters, some of whom were armed

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1992_Los_Angeles_riots

[DominicJ]

MrG

I think it's worth remembering that altough people may not have been in the main looting food, that doesn't mean they aren't looting in some sense for basic nececcities. Just because they aren't stealing basic neccesities

Basic neccesities are turnips and water, these people were stealing iPods to sell for beer and crack, or just to keep.

I think people are taking what they think they can sell and are doing it because they are being squeezed in every direction.

I disagree.
These people arent the jarrow marchers, they arent the chartists.
They saw a chance to steal everything that wasnt nailed down, and they took it.
It has F--k all to do with "cuts"

Anyway that's an aside.. this isn't an Alex Scarrow event in the classic sense because food is still available in the shops, the cash machines still work etc. But I guess this is realistically what we should of expected to happen first. Life is starting to get hard for a lot of people.

Again I disagree, very little has changed, if anythingpeople simply saw the police werent going to stop them, so they took what they wanted.
This might be an indication of what will happen as things actualy start to fall apart. But it was not an indication of things falling apart.

It also gives us a taste of how badly things are going to unravel if there is some kind of disruption to essential services such as that imagined by Scarrow. And in that situation I guess people will still do the same at first (loot useless junk) because they think the power will come back on, everything will go back to normal and they be able to sell off the flat screen tv's (just as in the book).

Agree with that, with on proviso, you aint seen nothing yet.
This was a small (relatively) group of criminal scum who relaised that for a few days, the police wouldnt stop them, make hay when the sun shines and all that.
When these same scum are hungry, and realise that the police are gone for months, or forever, expect there to be a lot more of them, and them to be a lot more violent.

For the first few nights in Last Light there is the assumption by those causing the choas that things will return to normal and they are enjoying their day of freedom from law enforcment while they can.
It sounds like this is exactly what has just happened in London and that's why they steal nikes when they can't eat nikes because they expect everything to return to normal (well it has) and they then expect to be able to sell nikes and then buy... food, nappies, baby milk, alcohol, fags, drugs, rent, petrol, credit for the electric meter... whatever

Except in this case, it did return to normal, after their few days of freedom.

[MrG]

I was in the middle of this

http://allafrica.com/stories/201108091167.html

Interesting. I guess we don't often see the gentle squeeze on oil supplies in Africa. We've been of the bumpy peak plateau for six years, the BRICS growing rapidly, the west grinding to a halt. Somebody, somewhere is going to have to be using less.

Kerosene is becoming an issue apparantly. I could only find this

http://allafrica.com/stories/201107250339.html

from just before the problems really started but the Tanzanian press are pretty vocal about the issue (in Nigeria) and especially about the injustice of Nigeria being an oil exporter but lacking their own refinery capacity and now having a shortage of kereosene.

They use a lot of kerosene for lighting and stuff. Saw plenty of filling stations in Tanzania with a price for petrol, a price for diesel and then 'Kerosene' crossed out at the bottom or just 'xxxxx' where the price should be... sorry no kerosene try elsewhere!

[emordnilap]

the injustice of Nigeria being an oil exporter but

Hah!

[DominicJ]

the injustice of Nigeria being an oil exporter but lacking their own refinery capacity and now having a shortage of kereosene.

I thought that was fairly common?

Much as they complain about it, none of the exporters seem to have any refining capability.
Wasnt that Osamas big complaint? The west buys a barrel of oil for $10 and sells oil products back for $100?

[emordnilap]

Naomi Klein is one of the more perceptive commentators:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree ... lights-off

And here's another spot-on article: Fed secretly loaned trillions to big banks

The US Federal Reserve Board secretly handed out trillions of dollars in virtually free loans to major American and European banks at the height of the financial crisis between 2007 and 2010, according to an article posted Sunday by Bloomberg News. The article, based on an independent investigation carried out by Bloomberg of previously sealed Federal Reserve documents, is headlined "Wall Street Aristocracy Got $1.2 Trillion in Loans from Fed."

The amount cited in the headline is somewhat misleading, as it refers only to the highest single-day amount of loans provided by the US central bank under seven emergency programs it launched to cover the bad debts of the Wall Street elite. The $1.2 trillion figure is undoubtedly lower than the total amount in Fed loans disbursed over the course of the programs' existence, including loans to banks that came to the Fed for money multiple times.

Now, nearly three years after the Wall Street crash and government bailout, no serious financial reforms have been implemented, no banking monopolies have been broken up, let alone seized by the government, not a single major banker has been prosecuted, and none of those responsible for the worst crisis since the Great Depression have been held to account. On the contrary, the banks have recorded record profits and CEO pay has soared, even while the banks continue to sit on billions of dollars in worthless mortgage securities.

Over the same period, mass unemployment has been used to slash the wages and benefits of workers and intensify their exploitation. Social inequality is greater than ever.

[DominicJ]

Secretly?
Did it bollocks do it secretly!

What the hell do you think the "liquidity" operations the Fed, ECB and BoE were doing were?

The same swap lines were just tapped for half a billion dollars by the ECB from the Fed for an as yet unknown bank.

[JavaScriptDonkey]

Secretly?
Did it bollocks do it secretly!

What the hell do you think the "liquidity" operations the Fed, ECB and BoE were doing were?

The same swap lines were just tapped for half a billion dollars by the ECB from the Fed for an as yet unknown bank.

My wild guess would be UniCredit.

[Lord Beria3]

http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2011/aug/2 ... nces-riots

Absolutely hilarious comments from some of the Guardian reading leftie-liberals... there contempt for the working classes of this country is simply massive.

Anyway, shows that the general public common sense is far above our liberal elite.

[Ludwig]

Absolutely hilarious comments from some of the Guardian reading leftie-liberals... there contempt for the working classes of this country is simply massive.

That's a bit rich coming from you Beria, with all your recent talk of "the underclass" and "scum".

[featherstick]

Absolutely hilarious comments from some of the Guardian reading leftie-liberals... there contempt for the working classes of this country is simply massive.

That's a bit rich coming from you Beria, with all your recent talk of "the underclass" and "scum".

Never mind, Ludwig, he's only one spelling mistake away from joining them...

[Totally_Baffled]

TB
Do you pay more tax than you are legaly required to pay?
No?
So why should anyone else?

Tax evasion is illegaly not paying tax owed.
Tax avoidance is following the law.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-14649194

Awww cmon Dom, there is a very fine line between tax avoidance/mitigation and evasion.

I notice a deal with the Swiss (see link) could acheive £6bn+ for UK governments coffers, for example.

The wider point is that , tax avoidance/mitigation or evasion or whatever you want to call it, at present even from my slightly right of centre political point of view, too much is accumulating at the top, and the gap is widening between the top and bottom. This is one of the failings of the capitalist system IMO. It maybe that it wasnt one of the causes of this particular set of riots, but it soon will be if even the trickle down of wealth from the progressive tax system is "avoided" for too much longer!