Chronic averages....

2017, Thursday 10 February.  The world is still turning but if all the pioneers of our "freedom" and social systems would turn over in their graves at the same time, because of the relentless efforts of their successors to make space for only successful citizens, this globe just could start turning the other way around. How wry would it be for someone like Hans van Mierlo*, to look down from heaven, as a populist prick on behalf of his party, once founded to improve democracy and participation of the citizens, doesn’t even respect the basics of it’s founding and, unless it's election time, only preaches for a parish of better well-off individuals.  It is a chronic disease among politicians, that inexhaustible forget about the general interest, while proclaiming the personal thoughts to be the unfiltered truth.  Chronic, as in a persistent, a badly curable condition, is not only used for physical or mental diseases but also for the many consequences of political choices and disruptive measures.  The ancestors of the current politicians, tried to help people who lived in poverty for long periods with all sorts of social measures and authorities, not all ideas were successful and not all problems were solved, but it made a society in which there was at least an eye  for the faint.  On average, we are now, according to all statistics, rich.  On average, we live longer, healthier and we are especially more productive than ever.  But all those averages, in numbers, say little about the real situation in which real people live.  Only 9 percent of the Dutch families live in poverty, 91 percent are doing well or even better, that results in a fantastic average.  According to the Prime Minister, long-term poverty doesn’t exists and that's right, they came up with another term; chronic poverty.  The food banks however, remain just the same and 626. 000 families live with the fact that every month has a few days, or even weeks, too much.  Even though it does not affect the "average", after all the rich are becoming richer, there is a steadily growing group of "chronically" poor. Especially people above 50 years of age get fucked when they lose their jobs, get sick or just, because of the hard work, are worn out.  In many cases it means 17 more years, or longer, waiting on a national assistance benefit, for a small state pension and maybe a meagre privat pension, because of the premium, that they have paid for 30 years, should be saved for a generation still to be born.  The same politicians, who are responsible for killing compassion and social structures in their own Netherlands, boasts that they have lent billions to Greece and Portugal, or as a populist alternatively fact also called donations.  The tax charge for the Greek and Portuguese citizens surged up to repay the debt.  At the same time multinationals are dodging taxes by constructions and addresses in the Netherlands which makes it impossible for the Portugal and Greece authorities to collect right at the spots where the largest amounts should be payed.  Responsible for the Dutch fiscal policy is Minister of Finance Dijsselbloem, who also happens to be Chairman of the Euro group.  It is one of the examples of the corrupted policy of the populist right wing in Netherlands, a country that suffers from chronic averages......

*Hans van Mierlo was on of the founding fathers of a Dutch political party who wanted to modernize democracy, called D66. Over the years, and numerous leaders, they turned from "left of the middle" to the far right, and supported all the proposals of the current gouvernment to commercialize most institutions and down grading of workers rights, student allowances etc.