South Wales Echo letters: Saturday, August 12, 2017 – WalesOnline

Means-test shareholders before compensation...

More than 850bn of public money was thrown at keeping Britains banking sector afloat during the 2007/8 international financial crisis.

Billions more has since been squandered on quantitative easing, in other words artificially stimulating the economy and laying the foundations of an even more damaging crash that will most likely strike at some point in the next fifteen years.

Capitalist doctrine dictates that bailing out criminal fat cats and allowing them to carry on as before without sanctions is a perfectly sensible plan. Imagine if such gracious courtesy were applied to students currently struggling with personal finances!

Jeremy Corbyns election pledge to scrap tuition fees spoke directly to aspirational young people and contributed vastly to his appeal among first-time voters.

It is no happy coincidence that two-thirds of youth voters endorsed a candidate who presented leftist policies such as nationalisation, abandoning the austerity experiment and a 10-an-hour living wage.

The average graduate was in an incredible 44,000 worth of debt last year; students from disadvantaged backgrounds often owe anything up to 60,000 upon completing a three-year degree. The average workers annual salary amounts to around 21,638 after tax.

Interest rates are expected to increase to 6.1% in September, meaning unsustainable escalation of the already exorbitant sums owed and a lifetime of debt slavery, encouraged by declining wages and increased insecure, low-paid work amongst graduates.

Collective student loan debt amounts to more than 100bn, at the time of writing, and this figure is an eye-watering 16.6% increase on last year. Corbyns suggestion that student debts could be written off was well-received amongst the student demographic although this was not technically a commitment as full costings hadnt yet been made.

Britain spends 6.6m each day on lethal nuclear weapons. 123bn is lost to avoided, evaded and uncollected taxes every year. Those two figures combined amount to 8.3 times the entire 2017/8 budget for Wales.

We could also cover the costs by nationalising the bloated financial sector and using the profit for collective betterment.

Id like to propose a means-tested scheme which would require shareholders to prove they are deserving of compensation, on condition of proven need, with meticulous planning and oversight from an elected civil society collective.

Daniel Pitt

Mountain Ash

Following on from the poor communication issues I have encountered with C2C at Cardiff Council, I cannot believe their latest response to my last email. I requested to meet with them in person to discuss my concerns and have been informed this is not possible. Apparently it is not feasible to meet with every person who requests to meet in person. I have been directed to the ombudsman service. C2C feel they have addressed my compliant satisfactorily.

When did face to face dialogue become an issue for a service funded by the public? How do people without internet access communicate with C2C? Unbelievable, then again maybe not!

Tracy Warrington

Llanedeyrn, Cardiff

GlobaliSation and the development of trade blocs, such as the EU, are highly contentious issues where the good,the bad and the ugly of its consequences are digested daily in the media.

Put simply, globalisation involves a high degree of freedom of movement of goods, services, labour, capital, technology and managerial expertise in response to market incentives and, thus, opportunities.

On the positive side, as a consumer, I am offered considerable choice in that I can log on to Amazon, say, and buy an obscure Metallica live CD from a small distributor in San Diego; on the negative side, we witness low-skilled textile workers in Africa churning out clothing for value-seeking UK customers at relatively low wages (and the UK masses love a bargain at Asda etc).

In summary, the net effect of globalisation is to offer greater consumer choice, increased global output and employment and lower prices. Overall, a good thing.

This issue of freedom of movement of factors of production is crucial within the EU as the resulting single market has generated considerable post-war wealth. I value my nations sovereignty and independence and I deplore the corrupt and suffocating bureaucracy witnessed in Brussels, Strasbourg and Luxembourg City. However, I wish to retain the advantages of regionalism expounded above to enable the UK, post-Brexit, to be ultra competitive in global markets. Therefore, it is imperative that we continue to allow talented and scarce employees to migrate here if skill shortage emerge and they will.

Thanks to market forces, skills-shortages are evident when wage rates accelerate upwards eg engineering, IT, healthcare etc. To conclude, it is imperative that we adopt a points-based immigration system, post Brexit, while saying an emphatic NO to any people coming here with relatively little to offer. It really is that simple. Antonio Conte, good; President Maduro, bad.

Ian Roblin

Llanishen, Cardiff

The Feudal society of 12th century England, was founded upon the universal belief, that there were four levels of humans royal, nobles, commoners and serfs, who were owned like dogs. This distinction was one of genetic breeding, so it was not possible to move from one class to another, but when one married outside ones class, that was strongly condemned and not fully accepted.

This belief about society then shaped the type of economy, that the higher orders owned all the land, wealth and everything else, because they were superior and deserved it. That lasted hundreds of years, and millions of commoners accepted that belief, all their life.

Only 25% of the Conservative Party still hold this view of the human race, that superior breeding sets some persons above all the rest, and so deserve all the privileges and loot of rank.

The other 75% of the Tories have discovered a new theory, that all rich people are superior to the rest of us, because money makes it so, regardless of breeding. These Tories should be congratulated upon this awakening, to find a much wider view of humanity, that any crooked villain should be revered in the upper classes, if he has billions. This wealth then controls or destroys the lives of the lower classes. The right to vote is a tiny power.

Our nations economy is no longer based upon the idea of an unjust, divided society as before, but instead, todays unjust society has been shaped by the corrupt Market economy, which does not even pretend to be honest, compassionate or ethical. Tories believe in money, as the highest guide for humanity.

Neville Westerman

Brynna

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South Wales Echo letters: Saturday, August 12, 2017 - WalesOnline