Balancing Act

I seem to have put a couple of noses out of joint with that last tirade. Good to see the system works, eh? But I'm nothing if not easy to manipulate, so in the interests of balance let's turn our attention to the private sector - pension-accruing or not - and see if there isn't room for improvement.

While the public sector - beyond the essentials of road-mending, schooling, bandaging-up and dinner-ladying - dreams up ever-inventive ways of spending your money by stealth, the private sector is very much in the open. As long as humans continue to prove Mencken right, insofar as intelligence is concerned, the private sector will find ways to part you from your money voluntarily. And laugh in your face while it does so. It doesn't mean they're not parasites, so let's start a list:

Peddlers of proprietary cures and enhancers from radium pills to power balance bands are devious, malignant predator scum and should be hunted down and force-fed their own remedies until expiration ends their torment. A fitting punishment, I feel, entirely in keeping with the contempt in which they hold their victims. (The power balancers will have to, literally, run themselves to death.)

Private clamping operators who maliciously exploit the vulnerability of many solo drivers to extort hideous fees by  employing intimidation and menace should be clamped to a post and publicly ravaged by a randy gorilla until every last spectator has had their fill.

How do you feel about salespeople? I don't mean those who await your interest and then helpfully guide you to a purchase. No, I mean those who invade your life via clipboard or phone or leaflet or email and are too cowardly to come out and say, "Do you want to buy my stuff?" Instead they enquire, "Would you like to be lovely/manly/happy or cool/groovy/sick or rich/powerful/retired and then use their own made-up language to part you from your money for what can only be described as 'shit'. Why can't they just ask, "Do you want to buy some of my shit?" then gracefully accept rejection and get a proper job? No punishment is necessary for these people, further than the abject revulsion with which they must surely view their own souls.

I'm in two minds about the Avon Lady. She dutifully shoves her catalogue through my door and then comes back on Tuesday, when it's pissing it down, to pick it up off the doorstep. On the one hand it's annoying that I have to remember to leave it out for her, on the other hand I think her job is already punishment enough.

So, here's the thing. I have nothing against the strikers per se, just the notion that a strike will achieve much of value and that their particular protest in this instance is without sympathy from those who do not have any kind of job security. We'd all be better off aiming the right kind of action at the right targets. You want to get back at the banks? Form your own cooperatives and look after your own money. Hate the politicians? Stand outside their houses with pitchforks until they resign. Don't like McDonalds? Don't eat fast food. Hate Tesco? Shop at the local market.

If you seek justice for all, the answer is in your own hands. Of course, everything you do will result in a shrunken global economy, but if you're prepared to actually tighten your belts and live within your means you might just give the globalisers a bloody nose.

I ain't holding my breath.