Wolverines!

The big news (to me at least) apart from David Laws's defenestration (guilty, but the Daily Telegraph is clearly on a homophobic, anti-Lib Dem crusade to destabilise the coalition from the right), is the remake of infamous, awful, horrendously racist and rightwing 1980s film, Red Dawn.



This kind of rubbish always appears when a nation is culturally stressed: the 80s was packed with neo-fascist militarism in response to getting a huge and well-deserved hammering in Vietnam.

The interesting thing about Red Dawn the remake is that the evil, invading Other is no longer the Soviet Union with support from Cuba and the Mexicans, but China - clearly Hollywood's bothered by that country's financial, military and soft power.

Why is it that Americans are so keen to produce films in which they're the plucky underdogs resisting the cruel oppressors. A quick review of history: it happened ONCE, when you (very impressively) chucked the British out (though they burned the White House in 1812). Since then, Mexico, Puerto Rico, the Phillipines, Cuba (repeatedly), Diego Garcia, Vietnam, Panama, Grenada and Iraq have reason to differ - and that's not including all the countries tossed around by your mates. The US hasn't been the resistance since 1789.

Star Trek, the Rebel Alliance, the A-Team (now a film too), Red Dawn, Terminator, Jaws and a host of other texts suggest that you're in deep denial about being the Empire. At least in the 1950s, your Westerns featured a sheriff who was sure that he was Doing The Right Thing, enforcing justice and the American Way even if that did mostly consist of killing as many Native Americans as possible. Now you seem insecure, always looking for ways to appear the plucky underdog. Give it up. The first stage is to admit that you are a global superpower. Then you can think about the responsibilities that brings, rather than pretending that you're the victims here.

Meanwhile, here's a thought. It looks like the European hegemony is well and truly over, thanks to the activities of the bond markets. America may well be next, given that China's buying up Africa and quietly collecting as much US Treasury debt as possible. The question is, why fight it? You obviously approve of superpowers dominating the globe - give someone else a go.

One fascinating fact about the Red Dawn remake that supports my suggestion that it's time to ask somebody else for help is this: the scenes of urban devastation were all filmed in Detroit, because that's what it looks like - one of the former richest cities in the US has lost a massive chunk of its population to drugs, drink, murder and escape. Huge swathes of residential and industrial areas are abandoned and the economy is dead. Well done, capitalism. (New Orleans has also been used for post-apocalypse scenes too).

If you're not convinced, read Gwyneth Jones's Rainbow Bridge, in which the assorted rock stars and hippies who've been forced to take over England after representative government collapses, eventually realise that a Chinese takeover is by far the best option, and devote their efforts to persuading the remains of the armed forces and other bands to choose life over principle (there's a lot of sex and Arthuriana in it too).

OK, I'm mostly joking - the Chinese regime is almost as awful as some of our allies, such as Saudi Arabia. But as the product of Britain's colonial rapaciousness, I've learned a thing or two. Subaltern cultures adapt, survive and maybe even prosper. States aren't innocent, or they don't remain so - they all want to invade someone. If you do it enough, and use the right weaponry, you get a permanent seat on the Security Council.

Me? I'd like the Norwegians to invade, or one of their neighbours. Seriously. Greener, good food, high taxes, great healthcare, high degree of equality, low crime, less conspicuous consumption, better welfare provision, better education - and yet they're still much, much richer than the Anglo countries. Ask the CIA!

This is a robbery. Get your cheque books out

Bob Diamond, president of Barclays, declined his bonus this year, to deflect criticism of banks which have been saved by the taxpayer, directly or indirectly.

What a gent.

As a result, selfless, poor old Bob has had to scrape by on a mere £60 million this year. If you'd like to send donations, I'll put together a food parcel.

Do massive executive pay deals and bonuses improve company performance?

That's the standard justification.

The answer is… er, no. Company directors now earn around 250-350 times more than their employees. Meanwhile, the bonuses for some banks (the season's starting this week) are now equivalent to the billions poured in by taxpayers to keep said banks open.

Since 2000, stock market valuation by the FTSE 100 has declined 25% while relevant executive pay has risen 85%, and bonuses by 350%. 

Students: has your loan come through yet?

I think the student loan system is despicable. I think selling the loan book off to corporations is utterly despicable, and I think that the massive delays in getting the cash to 150,000  students was reprehensible and despicable.

I've now run out of adjectives for the massive bonuses for Student Loan Company bosses announced today. Perhaps you should come up with a few, and put them on a postcard to:

Student Loans Company
100 Bothwell Street
Glasgow
G2 7JD

Cash back!

Neal has passed on this TED lecture on why bonuses don't work.

Executive here get Performance Related Pay (£11 million, in the last year for which figures are available). I wonder how a multimillion pound shortfall, 250 redundancies, reduced courses and bigger classes are calculated… they'll probably get a bonus for their genius (ahem) solutions to the problems they've caused.

Reading the papers, getting angry

I've been reading about the bankers who are receiving bonuses from their now-state-owned banks because they're 'legally entitled' to it. So I checked the OED definition of 'bonus':

A boon or gift over and above what is normally due as remuneration to the receiver, and which is therefore something wholly ‘to the good’.    a. (a) Money or its equivalent, given as a premium, or as an extra or irregular remuneration, in consideration of offices performed, or to encourage their performance; sometimes merely a euphemism for douceur, bribe. Hence bonus-fed adj.

A gratuity paid to workmen, masters of vessels, etc., over and above their stated salary.

There's nothing in there about entitlement - rather the opposite, in fact. So is it the case, as Simon Jenkins (not an habitual critic of the City) suggests, a legal dodge to avoid tax yet again. If so, let them have their bonuses, then send in the taxman to take a large chunk of it away - if bankers expect this cash, and it's in the contract, it's pay - to be taxed at 40%.

The wider issue is that bonuses enforce a culture of individualism, greed, short-termism and recklessness. If your bonus is linked to turning a quick buck, you'll short-sell a respectable company's shares overnight without a qualm as to whether this will wreck its chances of investing in new machinery or staff, rendering it unable to compete and leading to the loss of jobs… good work, you selfish bastards (and yes, I do mean those of my relatives working for 'investment' banks).