Wealthy Philanthropist?

An article in the Observer about how wealthy peopel have made lots of money got me thinking. How did they get to be so rich. Some city guy has just given away 500 million and my thought is how did he get so rich., like where did the money come from.

So perhaps he just gave it away becuase of a bad conscience or is there something deeper going on. So hwo do you get to be rich, gambling, though in the city it is called somewthing else, or charging too much or paying workers badly. One alternative might be to give the business to the staff, an alternative chosen by the original John Lewis. It would be fair to say that most of the money came because of the work of their employees. So why not give the money back to them. That would mean no credit and no control of the money so that would not boost their egos in quite the same way. Of course they could just have paid the staff better earlier so they wouldn't have got so rich in the first place, but then they couldn't hav egiven it away later and looked so good.

The people in the City are even worse, they gamble but cleverly with other peoples money. Really clever borrow some money and gamble if you make lots great and when things are going well that is easy. When things go bad you make sure it is other peoples money you lose. the government is worrying about pensions, where is the money going to fund pensions, into the back pockets of the wonderful city gents, who of course make sure their money is safe and well away from any tax regime. Somewhere I read that City bonuses have been about 10 billion despite the almighty disasters, but where did the money come from and where has it gone. Certianly not tot he needy in Britain or into pension funds, which the taxpayer will have to subsidise. No it will vansih from Britain into tax havens to enable the rich to have a life style which depends on poor people working for them for miserable pay.

There are a few ricj people who have done something idetifiable which one understands but most are very good at having sticky fingers, footballers are more honest than most rich business men, at least you can see waht they do for their money.

Are MP's useless

Try to understand the debate about the proposal for detention for up to 42 days without charge one begins to feel that MP's do not know or understand what they are doing. It is clearly a matter of conscience, nothing to do with political parties much as the debate about embryology was taken away from the childish behaviour of political gangs.

Why if something is religious it is called a matter of conscience but if something is an ethical or moral issue is it not a matter of conscience. Surely to lock innocent people up for 42 days without being able to defend themselves is surely a serious matter but it is being discussed as if it is some sort of game. Why is it not seen like this, largely because those proposing the plans always present the case that the person being held will prove to be guilty but of course in practice that will not be the case.

We are constantly being told that after 11 September the world has changed. This is like most statements mostly false. There was at least one previous attempt to blow the twin towers up and even in Europe the IRA and ETA cheerfully blew up bombs which killed innocent civilians. The British government even tried internal exile, prison with trial to stop the IRA but that was not the solution.

Imprisoning people for 42 days will have no positive benefit and will clearly damage our human rights. Legislation to take away peoples rights almost never get reversed and the use will spread as as happened with other many such pieces of legislation. We have recently seen local authorities using anti-terrorist legislation to spy on families about school places, even a story of DWP using heat sensors to try to prove someone was cohabiting, 42 days will not become common but the prrsent maximum will soon become the norm and many innocent people will be locked up for a month merely because the police suspect them.

What is going on in Parliament, horse-trading up to the last minute, hardly a rational considered debate. The members of parliament should be ashamed of themselves and their collective behaviour.