Rioting and flatscreen TVs

As if to prove the point about satiation, rioters and loiters in London organize themselves on blackberry. They are so deprived they use the same smartphones as city lawyers or investment bankers.

That's not to say some are relatively disadvantaged. But that's the issue. The deprivation is relative. They are ripping flatscreen TVs off walls. It isn't a bread riot.

And many of them probably have flatscreen TVs at home. TV is important if you have few other aims in life.

It's much more a matter of drift and purposelessness and lack of education. Like the road where every store was looted except the Bookstore. Billions of dollars or pounds of welfare spending won't necessarily fix that cultural and educational poverty.