Let's stick together...

So I watched David Cameron’s speech. I’ve seen little of the Tory party conference but it is, undoubtedly, a well-oiled machine. But these days, every political conference appears to have the air of the Leni Riefenstahl about it.

We – and by that I mean us capitalist westerners - appear to have reached our fin de siècle: we’re staring not into an abyss so much as a simultaneous zenith and nadir. We dunno which way to turn. Our politicians – those creepy, grey personality-free zones that purport to lead us - are none the wiser. What Cameron’s speech said to me, and I’m not taking his words literally just scratching about for the subtext, are that politicians will do and say whatever’s necessary to preserve the status quo, to maintain the systems we have, to uphold the very things that are rotten to the core, because that justifies their existence. Throwing money around to underpin the so-called free economy is done to ensure that business, at some point, returns to usual. Whereas the answer requires something, well, much more radical. The cycle needs to break. Boom and bust does not need - and should not be allowed - to continue in perpetuity.

This is an opportunity to take stock, to really think about what is important. It is not just a time to talk about people as being sub-prime and the debts that they have accrued - not because they were selfish and irresponsible but because lenders thought that they would make even more money - as toxic. People are the only things that matter. The rich don’t have to keep getting richer. Wealth can be redistributed. Poverty can be wiped out. The west is creating a legion of people that will have nothing left to lose. And when people have nothing to lose, they have nothing to be afraid of, and old orders will be replaced with something new. So we can change, or change will, inevitably, follow anyway. These are scary days. Killing Time recommends you withdraw your worthless cash, stock up on tins of baked beans and start accumulating a huge arsenal of weapons.