It turns out the cost of the bank bailouts for the UK is £850 billion. That's £14,000for every man, woman and child in the country. At the same time the board of Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS) - which is now majority public-owned - is demanding bumper bonuses or they'll go off in a sulk. The bankers insist on continuing, despite the recession, to rake in massive bonuses.
Corus has announced it is slashing 1700 jobs in Teesside. This will devastate the local community, if allowed to happen. The GMB's National Secretary, Keith Hazlewood, says "What a terible contrast with 1700 losing their jobs on Teesside while the multi millionaire bankers gorge themselves at the expense of the tax payers.'
It is this contrast that highlights the chasm in British society and the insanity of our economic system: its crazy priorities, inhumanity and wastefulness. Rarely has what's wrong with capitalism been more obvious and stark, in the eyes of millions of working class people. The case for nationalising the steel industry is obvious: if they can bail out financiers, why can't the government intervene to save 1700 jobs?
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