The class war that is flaring up all over.

Ellroon quoted Herman Melville: “Of all the preposterous assumptions of humanity, nothing exceeds the criticisms made of the habits of the poor by the well-housed, well-warmed, and well-fed.”

That reminded me of the similar statement by Anatole France: “The law, in its majestic equality, forbids the rich and the poor alike to sleep under bridges, to beg in the streets, and to steal bread.”

The wealthy ran wild and destroyed the economy, but the punishment falls mainly on the lower classes, and this is presented as justice. The politicians and media don’t seem to understand why the lower classes might be more than slightly upset.

Scientist have discovered that all species of primates seem to have an innate sense of fairness. Humans don’t need laws to know when they are being treated unfairly. If they resort to violence and destruction, it may be that nothing else seems to work. It’s a variation on the old saying ‘don’t do the crime, if you can’t do the time’, i.e. if you are being punished, you may as well do something that justifies the punishment.

Somehow I missed this one from the CBC on August 4^th Some banks now charging for deposits

Faced with a torrent of cash from customers looking for ways to escape the market turmoil, some banks have begun charging major depositors to hold their cash.

Bank of New York Mellon Corp., a leading U.S.-based custodial bank, said in a note to clients this week that it will introduce a new fee on large cash balances effective Aug 8.

As corporations and institutions move their assets to safe havens such as cash, players such as BNY Mellon are seeing a surge in deposits. Between mid-June and mid-July demand deposit and commercial savings deposits grew by nearly US$200-billion according to Barclays Capital analyst Joe Abate.

Such deposits typically earn no interest but are covered by U.S. deposit insurance, a cost the banks must cover.

BNY Mellon said it will charge .13% on abnormally large cash deposits with an additional fee if the yield on a one-month U.S. Treasury Bill falls below a certain point.

Next I assume they will charge you a fee for charging you fees.

I found this because someone mentioned it in a comment thread, and I couldn’t believe it, so I checked. And banks are different from the check cashing stores and pay-day lenders in what way? I ask because there was a time, not that long ago, when organized crime was prosecuted for a lot of what major banks do today. We have ‘normalized’ usury and loan-sharking.

The BBC reports David Cameron: Police admit they got riots wrong

Mr Cameron told MPs that it had become clear there had been problems in the initial police response to the disorder.

“There were simply far too few police deployed on to our streets and the tactics they were using weren’t working,” said the prime minister

“Police chiefs have been frank with me about why this happened.

“Initially the police treated the situation too much as a public order issue – rather than essentially one of crime.

“The truth is that the police have been facing a new and unique challenge with different people doing the same thing – basically looting – in different places all at the same time.”

Ah, yes, the silly coppers assumed that riots were a ‘public order issue’, probably because they assumed that masses of people burning cars and throwing things at them was disorderly.

Apparently David Cameron is unaware that rioting is illegal, and criminal on its face. He was so worried about what was going on that he … remained on vacation, just like the mayor of London, but the weekend shift at the ‘cop shop’ are at fault for not calling out tanks and air strikes on the rioters, many as young as 10 years old.

The Metropolitan Police Service has about 35,000 officers to cover London and the surrounding area 24 hours per day, every day. Some percentage of the force will be on vacation or sick leave, as well as normal time off. In a normal department the weekend duty officer in charge is not going to have the authority to call in any massive number of off-duty officers, they are going to have to contact higher level officers, who may not be readily available on a weekend. The thing about ‘cop shops’ is that they have rules and procedures that must be followed, you can’t just ‘wing it’.

Oh, yes, it spite of what happened, Cameron sees no reason to re-think his plan to cut police services. He is also apparently considering a consult with Syria and Iran about cutting off social media, rather than having the police equipped to watch it to figure out where the problems are, or will be.

I have mentioned before that WalMart sales have been down for over two years, well, now sales a the dollar stores are slipping.

The upscale stores are all doing better, but now sales at the bottom of the line are in trouble. Customers are buying necessities and nothing else. While the people at the top are getting bonuses, the people at the bottom can’t afford to go to WalMart.

Despite news like this, and the statements of the traders on Wall Street, the looneytarian Local Puppy Trainer put up this – EDITORIAL: Market makes the case for cuts

That queasy feeling Americans had in September 2008, when the bottom fell out of the financial markets, has returned. Is the American economy slipping back into recession?

Last week, the Dow Jones industrial average lost 699 points, or 5.75 percent. After the stock market closed Friday, Standard & Poor’s, one of the Big Three credit-rating agencies, announced it had lowered its rating of the U.S. government’s credit, from AAA to AA-plus. It was the firm’s first-ever downgrading of U.S. creditworthiness from the top rung. Markets plunged again Monday, with the Dow declining another 634 points, before rebounding Tuesday. They were slumping again Wednesday.

Conditions deteriorated last week after Congress passed a bill raising the debt ceiling by $2.7 trillion, to $17 trillion, which was supposed to stabilize markets. The debt number is staggering. U.S. gross domestic product will be about $15 trillion this year.

The market crashed because the government refuses to even discuss the measure that we know will improve the economy, because it has always worked in the past – stimulus, ‘priming the pump’, call it what you will.

The private sector is not going to spend its trillions in cash until demand increases, and demand can’t increase until people go back to work. Government is the ‘spender of last resort’ and it refuses to spend.