Watch out! Inflation is eating away at your wealth and gradually making the bulk of the population poorer every year.Lately Bank of England officials have been entertaining an amendment to the Inflation target to 3% or even higher, to coincide with money printing Mark Carney's arrival. So if 2% delivers an average inflation rate of 3.5%, what can we expect from a 3% Inflation target ? An average rate of 4.5%, with a trend oscillating between a rate of 7% to 2.5%, which is the probable UK inflation trajectory over the next 5 years, with real inflation averaging at 6% per annum.
At the rate the Bank of England is monetizing UK government debt by the end of 2015 more than 50% of UK government debt will have been bought by the Bank of England (current approx 1/3rd). However the consequences of what I termed as the Quantum of Quantitative Easing (July 2012) is that it will result in an further acceleration of the inflation trend which amounts to the stealth theft of purchasing power of wages and lifetime savings.
http://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2013/05 ... s-m20.html
As the Marxists say...
The same principle for the UK as well.The chief base of support for the abrogation of democratic rights and the lurch towards a police state lies in the financial aristocracy, i.e., the tiny layer of multimillionaires and billionaires who have made spectacular fortunes by means of speculation, theft, criminality and corruption. This layer has grown even richer since the eruption of the global economic crisis in 2008, subsidized to the tune of trillions of dollars by the state, while the working class has been devastated by mass unemployment and austerity policies.
Democratic rights and historic reforms mean nothing to these kleptomaniacs, who view the broad mass of the population with extreme fear and hostility. Jealous of its ill-gotten gains, this layer supports police-state measures to violently suppress social opposition.
Behind Obama, and next to the financial aristocracy, stands a privileged middle class layer—approximately the top 90th to 99th percentile. Some within this layer maintain minor differences with the financial aristocrats on lifestyle, race, culture and identity issues. However, they depend on the existing setup for their privileged status, income and respectable positions in corporate management, university departments, law firms, the entertainment industry, the trade unions, NGOs, the media and so forth. On board for imperialist war and the defense of the capitalist system in general, this layer is prepared to go along with a police state if the alternative is a revolutionary overthrow of the system by the working class.
The vast majority of the American population—the bottom 80 to 90 percent—is wholly excluded from the official political life of the country. Obama does not address himself to them. Their interests are not taken into account in any major political decision. They do not matter.
Ask an American worker in that bottom 80 to 90 percent whether the First Amendment contains mere suggestions conditioned on “government interests,” or whether it guarantees absolute, inalienable rights. Ask whether the US president and military should have unlimited and unchecked powers for the indefinite future, up to and including the power to violently suppress “civil disturbances” without regard for the Constitution or basic rights. Ask whether the president should be able to secretly order the assassination of US citizens. Ask, and you are highly likely to get very different answers than if you ask a Supreme Court justice, a member of Congress, a “liberal” newspaper columnist or the president (who is purportedly a one-time “constitutional law lecturer” at a top US law school).
Analyzing the theft of the 2000 elections, the World Socialist Web Site observed at the time that there remained no significant constituency for the defense of democratic rights within the American ruling class or its political establishment. The WSWS predicted a rapid shift towards authoritarian forms of rule and reiterated these warnings in the period following the September 11, 2001 attacks.
It is now necessary to issue a new warning. More than a decade has passed since the launch of the so-called “war on terror.” The process of disintegration of American democracy has accelerated and advanced sharply, in particular under the Obama administration. Now looming on the horizon is an American police state.
Got to admit, although no Commie myself, I have been consistently impressed with the accuracy of the WSWS in their writings and their warnings of a coming US police state seems to be current direction of the US ruling class.
It does seem that at least when it comes to analyising capitalism, that historical materialism has a lot to say.
