‘Cameron govt. set to create financial apartheid’ - Analysis with Max Keiser, Rodney Shakespeare and Zita Holbourne

British Finance Minister George Osborne has unveiled the country’s 2012 annual budget to the house of commons which is intended to maintain the tough austerity push for yet another year. Britain has been struggling with a dire economic situation since the beginning of the worldwide economic crisis and has implemented austerity measures in a bid to put an end to its crippling economic condition.


A prominent journalist believes that the austerity measure is only for the ordinary people and not for the very large corporations and the banking system which are “flushed with money” and its only effects are driving the prices higher and not even creating jobs because that money is not intended to be injected to the “general economy.”
Press TV has interviewed renowned Journalist and Broadcaster Max Keiser to further discuss the issue. The program also offers opinions of two other guests, professor of Binary economics Rodney Shakespeare and also National Co-Chair of Black Activists Rising against Cuts, Zita Holbourne from London. What follows is a rough transcript of the interview.
Press TV: Mr. Keiser, critics argue that the new budget will bring more misery for the working class people. Your thoughts on that?
Keiser: Well, Osborne says that there is no money and that austerity must be imposed. But let us keep in mind that banks and the corporations are flushed with cash...

The corporations are sitting on huge cash bonuses, they are hitting record profits, banks are sitting on huge cash bonuses, they are awarding record bonuses and salaries to their top executives and so what we have here, is a situation where the Bank of England is printing cash to satisfy the interests of these very large banks and corporations.

But this cash does not make it into the general economy. It does not do anything in terms of creating jobs and it does have the effect of forcing the price of food and energy higher.

So if you are not part of the elite banking infrastructure you have the problem of no job and the price of your food and energy going higher.

So you are being squeezed at both ends because the Bank of England, George Osborne, David Cameron, mervyn king, work together to create what I call, this ‘financial segregation’ or ‘financial apartheid’ where, it is very easy for the one portion of the economy but it is a bloody hell for everybody else .

Press TV: Mr. Keiser, the Office for Budget Responsibility, the OBR’s overall assessment of the outlook and risk for the British economy is called ‘broadly unchanged’.

Does this hint that the double dip recession is inevitable for Britain?

Keiser: When I hear people like the budgetary officer, George Osborne talking about austerity measures he reminds me of the old TV commercials I used to see played repeated for the 1950’s when you had doctors talking about the health benefits of smoking cigarettes.

It is institutional blindness, these civil servants, George Osborne and the rest; they are simply only looking at a few pieces of data that support their ideology – a market fundamentalist ideology-an ideology no less pernicious or ugly than any extremist ideology in the world today, including the so-called terrorist and they are adopting these blinders to impose an economic theory that has been discredited, it does not work. It has not worked for generations.

The whole Thatcher period on Britain has proved to be a huge failure and yet they are clinging to that.

They are doubling down on policies that have been proven that they do not work. And as Rodney Shakespeare said, they are being smug about it.

They think it is amusing, but after all these are the same people that go into Iraq and kill a million Iraqis and find it out terribly posh and amusing.

Washington won’t give a hoot if they exterminate a few of their own along the way, on the way to the club, they do not care, they are sadists in my opinion, they are just absolutely intolerable.

Press TV: Mr. Keiser, if there is a huge budget deficit and cuts need to be made, then how come it has not been translated to the military issue?

The British government is keen on upgrading its trident missile systems. That is over –I believe– a hundred billion pounds and that is not going to be done with pocket change and handouts.

Keiser: Well, just to follow up the point that was just made in terms of having a bank that is a national bank, serves the interests of the population as a whole.

Keep in mind that Britain has just announced that they are going to be selling off their infrastructure, their roads in particular to the governments like the government of Qatar and the Sovereign Wealth Fund.

So the situation is becoming quite dire in that the country is selling off its assets. Its income producing assets, they are selling the cow to buy the milk, as it is referred to in economics.

So this government is completely acting outside of the interests of (citizens), it is tyrannical, I mean it is the very definition of the tyranny.

So the British people have a problem on their hands and that their sitting government is acting in the interest of foreign government.

That is a tyrannical situation that if you do not do something about it very quickly, your sovereignty will be washed away.

But we have seen this happen in Greece, we have seen happen in Ireland and those people do not seem to mind… their sovereignty.

But you get to the military question and the defense spending; even in Greece where the people are being absolutely gutted with unemployment at 50 percent amongst the youth, they are still buying weapons to fight their Turkish enemy. They are still buying German submarines.

They are still…, because the troika that controls the country they get a fee on this, they get a profit, it is their business. Same thing in the UK, the defense contractors.

Even the British airspace was caught with slush fund with Tony Blair, Prince Bandar of Saudi Arabia was in Tony Blair’s office and he threatened him.

He said him, if you do call for office investigation by the Serious Fraud Office into the slush fund that has been talked about in the Financial Times, I cannot guarantee another 7/7 bus bombing won’t happen in London.

So you have Prince Bandar, a Saudi Prince threatening a sitting Prime Minister with act of terrorism. That is basically the British Prime Minister for here that is what they are doing for their people. Absolutely nothing, it is a disgrace.

Press TV: Max Keiser one last question very briefly if you may. In his comments the Chancellor George Osborne said that the country would earn its way out of its problems.

But at what cost?

Keiser: Well, it is impossible to earn your way out of these problems. I think he was talking about unearned income that comes to speculators and those who are profiteering in the banking sector.

And he hopes that their fraud will generate enough income to cover the debt service. But you know that is of course the typical thinking of a gambleholic.

George Osborne is a gambleholic, he needs to go to gamblers anonymous he has got either drug problem, a drinking problem or a gambling problem. He should not be a public servant.

He is a sick, sick man that needs help.

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