Now is the winter and everyone is discontent, made worse by the global elite who hoard trillions of money, like so many Ebeneezers. It will do them no good in the end because they can't eat it. They can, of course, burn it to keep the freezing fingers of winter from squeezing their bloated testicles. Or they could build castles to keep the grasping fingers of the filthy rabble from grabbing their golden geese and cooking them. But whatever they do, their geese will, sooner or later, be cooked. I like a bit of goose, don't you? We are in a global prison of our own design - although, to be fair, I wasn't consulted about the design, it was merely presented to me as the best thing since the previous best thing...whatever that was. I can't keep track of all the best things that politicians and so-called "experts" have laid before me with the promise of eternal benefits for which should be eternally grateful. I can't think of one, off the top of my head, that has actually delivered much, but we live in hope because without hope, where would we be? Anyway, I'm confident that whatever my government tells me, it must be right and I have every one of these hopes for the future carefully stashed away in a large box under the sink. They'll come in handy one day. It reminds of the time I met a wizened old lady on the way to the market who offered me a handful of beans for a quick fuck, but I declined because I've already been fucked by the government and sundry other agencies. Anyway, I didn't fall for that old story about beanstalks and golden showers...or something. So, here we are again, up to our ears in misery and fear - the torture never stops, does it? Perhaps revolution might be unleashed as the only way to share the loot between us all, but that doesn't really work either because for all their fine words and heartfelt polemics, the erstwhile leaders of revolutions always seem to end up with a somewhat larger slice of the cake and more cherries than the rest of us, because they're really just the same as the global elite, except without the cash. But aren't we all? Having taken my fair share of abuse and been forced to watch the board of governors stuffing their faces with fois gras, steak and christmas pudding while my nose is pressed against the window of the workhouse and the economic snowstorm gradually buries me, I'm not averse to the prospect of changing places with one of the fat bastards, 'arter all, ve all need a bit 'o good wittles an' a drop 'o good cheer t' keep us 'appy guvnor! Merry Christmas and Gawd bless us, every one! 

Globalism. This is what it means: close down all your manufacturing industries and give them to an impoverished developing nation like...just off the top of my head...China. Invest in their industrial revolution and educate them so that they can sell us cheap products. So we get cheap t-shirts and shoes and they get...very, very RICH! What a great idea, huh? No need for us to soil our hands with filthy machinery and all the pollution that goes hand-in-hand with industry, we can buy everything much more cheaply from the Chinese without worrying about the shit. Hang on, you might reasonably ask, how do we keep our own economic boat afloat if we have nothing - or in the vernacular, fuck-all - to trade with? Ah, well now, here's the miracle ingredient - we become a service economy! Yes folks, that's right, we sell services! Oh, right, you may say, so we're going to transition from making and trading stuff, like clothes, cars, bikes, steel etc, in other words, real things that have a use, to trading services that have no intrinsic value as such because there isn't anything that is useful...like a washing machine. Hold on my little doubting Thomas, don't worry about the intrinsic stuff for now, just go with it. Selling services means that we sell financial services, banking and money orientated stuff, as well as other things like...err, hospitality and tourism and shopping...which is also part of money, as is everything else. So you buy a cup of coffee with a debit card and that comes with a cost to the business because the banks who use electronic financial transfer systems levy a charge for each transaction...which of course is added to the cost of your cup of coffee. Thus, a service has been provided and a trade has taken place. In short, an economic cycle is in motion. All well and good. Except, when things go wrong - or in the vernacular, tits-up - the service economy rapidly collapses into a smouldering heap. Meanwhile, the Chinese are still selling their stuff to the rest of us. Now, it may well be the case that eventually the entire global ediface crumbles into a heap of rusty nails because those who can't sell services can't pay their employees, who can't buy Chinese washing machines, so the washing machine industry goes pop. But people will always buy stuff and as most of it is made in China, the Chinese are pretty well safe. Be that as it may, we are all in it together - 'it' being a big hole that is gradually filling up with mucho unpleasant and toxic global effluent in the form of abject poverty and despair. But it's ok, I still have a box full of hope under the sink. See? I said it would come in handy!