HowourEconomyReallyWorks

I have seen no finer explanation regarding how our economy is working at present. So with thanks to those inventive thinkers who created this example...

A Rudd Stimulus Story

It is the month of April, on the shores of the Black Sea . It is raining, and the little town looks totally deserted. It is tough times, everybody is in debt, and everybody lives on credit.

Suddenly, a rich tourist comes to town.

He enters the only hotel, lays a 100 Euro note on the reception counter, and goes to inspect the rooms upstairs in order to pick one.

The hotel proprietor takes the 100 Euro note and runs to pay his debt to the butcher.

The Butcher takes the 100 Euro note, and runs to pay his debt to the pig grower.

The pig grower takes the 100 Euro note, and runs to pay his debt to the supplier of his feed and fuel.

The supplier of feed and fuel takes the 100 Euro note and runs to pay his debt to the town's prostitute that in these hard times, gave her "services"
on credit.

The hooker runs to the hotel, and pays off her debt with the 100 Euro note to the hotel proprietor to pay for the rooms that she rented when she brought her clients there.

The hotel proprietor then lays the 100 Euro note back on the counter. At that moment, the rich tourist comes down after inspecting the rooms, and takes his 100 Euro note, after saying that he did not like any of the rooms, and leaves town.

No one earned anything. However, the whole town is now without debt, and looks to the future with a lot of optimism.

And that, ladies and gentlemen, is how the Government is doing business today.

TheSpeaker

In the UK we have many ancient traditions. One of these is that in our Parliament, the mother of parliaments, we have a Speaker of the House. His duty is to supervise the behavior of our elected representatives, the Members of Parliament.

The Speaker, once elected, becomes neutral to the political prejudices and party controls. He must be above reproach, have total integrity and possess the gravitas considered necessary to command respect from everyone in Parliament.

Normally the election of the Speaker is pretty much a certainty for the man or woman who has been considered a safe pair of hands by most Members. However these times are not normal.

The outgoing Speaker, Michael Martin, had to go because he had lost respect and control. He also had the misfortune to be in office when the whole political process unraveled; when many members of parliament have been found to be involved with varying degrees of dubious expense claims, malfeasance, fraud and inappropriate claims mostly born out of arrogance, greed and corruption of an epic scale.

Last week John Bercow was elected to the post of Speaker. I don’t know the man. I witnessed him make his successful pitch to be elected. I saw that he was most widely supported by his natural political foes in the Labour party, whereas his own party, the Conservatives, presently in opposition, appear to despise him. Ever since Bercow was elected there has been an outpouring of scorn and hatred aimed in his direction. One of the headlines in today’s Sunday Times is “Little Mr Turncoat in an awfully big chair” another is “The titchy Tory married to a leggy Labourite.” Another called him, "The Squeeker".

Make no mistake the man is hated with unreasoning hatred and vitriol. I have watched him in his new job and he hasn’t been outstanding but he has not been terrible either. Compared to his immediate predecessor he has been terrific.

So why have so many media pundits and highborn Conservatives evidenced such contempt, hate and scorn on John Bercow? I believe the answer is another ancient tradition in the UK. It is called anti-Semitism. Almost every negative article or opinion piece, and there has been many, stated that Bercow is pushy, duplicitous, greasy, short, over ambitious, oily and yes, you guessed it, Jewish.

To attack anyone in this manner is unacceptable and would be considered dangerous if this man were a Muslim or a black man but its OK to ascribe supposedly “Jewish” negative traits to the new Speaker. Judge Bercow for what he does now that he has fairly won his democratic election, not for what he is.

The closet anti-Semites who have run their despicable and demeaning whispering campaign against the man and the democratic process should crawl back under the slimy rock they usually inhabit.

DeadManWalking

During the last year or so I wake up every day wondering what disaster has happened overnight in our once stable and fair land. There is a common misconception in far off foreign lands that the UK is quaint and quiet and never changing. Oh how I wish that were so. Nowadays it seems as if this once peaceful land is on some kind of universal speedy drug. Too much happens too fast and for all the wrong reasons. I long for the social and relative political continuity and stability of the USA, Canada or most of mainland Europe.

The UK has endured the global economic collapse, two wars in Afghanistan and Iraq that are tying down many thousands of servicemen and women, and huge amounts of resources. We are also disproportionately in the front line of the global financial meltdown because we are such huge players in that sector. If that was not enough we have now experienced the ignominious and distasteful spectacle of our Members of Parliament abusing our trust with grossly excessive expenses claims.

Late last night the results of the European election started to come through. It quickly became evident that it was another disaster for Britain’s Labour Party. Their share of the votes cast is a derisory 15%.

This is the party’s worst performance in living memory and translates to about 6% of the electorate bothering to vote for the Government of the day.

More rude evidence of the British political malaise is the fact that the British National Party (the BNP) gained two seats in the European Parliament, in which Britain has 75 MEP’s.

Labour limped into third place almost tied with the Liberal Democrats but behind both the currently dominant Conservatives and the anti European UKIP (United Kingdom Independence Party).

We are left in awe as Prime Minister Gordon Brown staggers around Downing Street like Frankenstein’s monster after one electrical shock too many. How does he remain standing, why does he remain at all?

But, and this is perhaps the biggest but of all, perhaps we should pause and consider the implication of all the political madness swirling around our collective head.

Who does it serve for us to demand the head of Gordon Brown right now?

Do we really need another election and yet more uncertainty at this tipping point moment?

We need some stability as we work towards economic recovery. As much as we want to get rid of Brown expeditiously Great Britain Limited might do better to wait.

TwilightoftheGods

You know how it is. You realize that the drug is no good for you, that it can damage your health and well being, but you can’t resist it. That’s me and writing blogs and articles. I tried to stay away, to go cold turkey but I could no longer resist.

I stopped writing my commentary on the world at the end of April and here we are, about a month later and the world has got in an even bigger mess. They needed me.

The real reason for my absence, which you shall hear me mention many times in the near
future, was my readying my book, Twilight of the Gods, for publication on John Blake Publishing this week. Available to order now on Amazon.co.uk, it is, I hope a fun book that you will enjoy greatly!

But I digress. I was talking about how the world has gone even crazier during my absence. I figure there are three really important places on the planet, the UK, USA and Israel.

Everywhere else, all those other places might be fun, even interesting occasionally, but for things that hinge on the fulcrum, you have to look to these three countries. I could write a book just on the subject of why this is so, but its true that these are the three places that grab the worlds attention and never ending fascination. Today I shall keep our attention on the UK, and over the coming days it will be the other two legs of this strangely configured tripod we shall examine.

I, like many of my readers, have good reason to be particularly intrigued by these places because I was born in the UK, my ancestral roots are in Israel and one of my daughters and her two wonderful kids live permanently in the USA.

I am not saying that these countries are the centers of the universe or anything stupid like that, but I do contend that what happens to them, through them or because of them is of hugely disproportionate impact on the world at large. That is why what’s happening now is so crucial as I truly believe we might well be at a fateful crossroads in the fate of mankind.

The story of the seemingly endemic corruption amongst the elected Members of the British Parliament has been growing for the last several weeks. It is shameful and disappointing to see this degree of venality and ineptitude from both our elected representatives and the bureaucrats paid to provide checks and balances. It makes us angry and diminishes us all. Above all it robs us of the vestiges of faith we had in the probity and once proud tradition of our “clean” parliament. Of course the right thing to do would be for the tainted Prime Minister to call an immediate election allowing us the opportunity to clean house. That won’t happen unless it’s forced because our incumbent leader knows that the result will be his losing. The man is clinging on to power by his fingernails despite having no mandate to do so.

The history of the UK is littered with wars, collapses and civil strife as a result of disasters such as the long-term conflicts and insufferable economic problems we are currently suffering. There is a simmering and growing anger boiling just under the surface of this great country that is truly dangerous.
A survey released this week stated that 85% of the population wants a judicial review and oversight group to oversee the future control of the elected House of Commons. This must not be allowed to happen. If it was put in place we will have moved one step closer to a totalitarian regime that we must avoid at all costs. No one in this country can be allowed to have power over our elected representatives. They must be the paramount level of our government. It really isn’t difficult to put in place sensible and simple rules and regulations to govern expenses and allowances. We must not throw away the concepts and centuries of traditional democratic evolution because of the petty misdemeanors and crimes of a few corrupt and contemptible thieves posing as politicians.

However there should be a transparent and speedy examination, and where necessary, after due process, prosecution and trial of all the miscreants. The punishment for those found guilty should be precisely the same as that given to any other criminal guilty of stealing from the public purse. Certainly no less or more just because of who they are.

I remember, not too many years back when the MP’s in the UK were either rich white men who were Conservatives or working class white men who were sponsored by the Trades Unions who were Labour. Because the wages became a little higher and the allowances were (too) loosely administered we found ourselves with a new and different political elite who actually was much closer in identity to the people they were representing. We must not lose sight of the advantages this break from the past of privilege and class warfare gave the UK. We mustn’t return to that inglorious and unworthy past.
It’s good to be back!

Obama100Days

I want to be amongst the first to write briefly about the first 100 days of President Obama. To achieve this I shall cunningly write this article before he hits the magic number on April 29 in the meantime I have to travel the north of the UK on academic business.

During the Democrat primaries it became obvious that candidate Obama was a great orator, an excellent communicator and a leader who can and does inspire. Furthermore, and a little less evident was the fact that he is a terrific political strategist, but not so wonderful as a tactician.

We then saw these attributes become clearer in the race for the White House. Obama would wait while others raced to take a political position and Obama would assume the Noel Coward stance of masterly inactivity. Then Barak claimed the middle ground making everyone else look hasty and far out on the loony edges of political suicide.

Now we are just a few days from the American government declaring its findings on the financial robustness of the country’s banks. This is going to show progress but not totally assured solvency for all these former colossal and sound institutions.

The President now needs to act with his economic team to clear up the toxic debts. He is still to do so, and he has been slow, some say too slow, but now he must sort this out. Until he does so there can be no lasting solutions to the American and world economic crisis. This is perhaps the biggest test facing the President.

President Obama ritual grade for his first 100 days in office will be compared to FDR and his first 100 days, perhaps to a lesser extent JFK's. But it is not a fair comparison. FDR faced the worst economic crisis in American history. JFK faced the Russians over Cuba but relatively few domestic problems. President Obama falls between the two.

Perversely Obama is looking much more like President George W Bush, his immediate predecessor. There are strange but clear similarities in the way both men handled their first 100 days.

The Bush legacy is considered truly dreadful, but it didn’t look that way when he began his tenure. Like all recent American Presidents he got the same first 100 days pass from voters that Obama received. In April 2001 Bush’s popularity poll numbers topped sixty percent, which matches those for Obama in April. A Washington Post/ABC Poll of the time even gave Bush high marks on his handling of the economy.

Bush, like most new presidents during the first heady hundred days used the customary early public goodwill to make politically favorable appointments, sign executive orders and shove through Congress programs that later would never get through, whilst making certain he had almost total executive power. Even at the start he was concerned to cement his historic legacy. Obama has followed more or less an identical approach.

Bush introduced his $1.6 trillion tax-cutting program to Congress, whist launching the "Faith-Based" Initiative to help local charitable groups, and his "New Freedom" Initiative to help disabled Americans. In his first address to Congress, he, copying Prime Minister Tony Blair in the UK, cast himself as the education president, talked about health care reform. He even made vague promises to tackle paying off the national debt. Obama has followed pretty much the same script.

Bush and Obama worked hard in their first 100 days to look good overseas and this usually becomes the refuge of the Presidential last 100 days.

Bush took stabs at bipartisanship but later reneged on all of them. But that hasn’t stopped Obama make these same type of initiatives his priorities also.

Bush's most controversial early cabinet appointment was the Bible quoting, fundamentalist John Ashcroft as Attorney General. Obama picked Eric Holder as Attorney General, which stirred similar controversy over his partisanship and ideology.

Bush totally supported the construction of a national missile defense system in Europe. So to has Obama, albeit to a lesser extent. He called a missile defense system in the Czech Republic and Poland the most cost-effective and proven defense system. He tied his decision to go ahead with it directly to Iran's nuclear threat and international security concerns. Critics hotly disputed the need for the system when Bush backed it. They will continue to dispute its need.

America and Bush had a love affair that didn’t last very long. The same was true for FDR, JFK and every other president. But I think President Obama will do better after his first 100 days than many predecessors because he has been faced with such a terrible starting point for America that anything he does will feel good compared to Bush.

BritishBudgetBlues

British Chancellor of the Exchequer, Alistair Darling, the highest financial minister in the UK, today delivered his second Budget report to Parliament amid a dismal economic outlook, fast increasing unemployment and a deflated housing market. Public sector net borrowing is set at 175 billion pounds, 12% of Gross Domestic Product, the highest figure and percentage of this country’s wealth ever. These are truly shocking figures.

The Government borrowing levels are the highest since the Second World War, this at the same time as the economy shrinks, which means that the books will not balance for another decade!

Addressing the Parliament’s packed and rowdy House of Commons, the Chancellor started his report with a prediction that the economy will start growing again before the end of 2009. He claimed the Budget would help get people back into work and support business and homeowners amid the most serious turmoil for over 60 years.

The measures the Labour Government are going to take rekindle memories of old style left wing socialism, red in tooth and claw. They are heavy in yet more borrowing, now at stratospheric levels; approaching three quarters of a trillion pounds, or more than one trillion dollars.

Most depressing in the announced measures was the second major increase of tax to 50% on the highest 1% of earners. This doesn’t actually achieve much additional revenue since these people have good accountants and the ability to vote with their feet. What such petty and ill-considered moves will achieve is the very opposite of their aim. Such high earners are the rainmakers of any economy, people that create jobs and opportunities for everyone by their endeavor. Make UK Limited an unattractive and expensive place to live and they will re-locate.

Before the world woke up to the major failings of laissez faire capitalism it already knew that old style central command style socialism was a busted flush. It now appears as if we might be moving to a new system that encompasses many of the worst elements of both those systems and virtually none of the good bits.

The enormous amount of British debt underpins this governments attempt to spend its way out of the current economic disaster. It is continuing to ramp up public expenditure until it is beginning to become obvious that it is an insupportably large percentage of Britain’s Gross Domestic Product.

The reason that the immediate and necessary tax increases and general move toward a reduction in debt levels is not taking place in the UK is almost totally political. The government has to call an election within the next 14 months and is aware that their popularity is at an all time low. Of course there is the possibility that the all time stupidity of these buffoons is such that they don’t understand this. Put another way, they were almost certain to lose the next election before this budget, now they are totally certain to lose the next general election by a landslide.

"This Budget will speed the recovery," he said. "We have good grounds for confidence."

MAIN PERSONAL FINANCE HIGHLIGHTS
* New £2,000 car scrappage scheme
* Stamp Duty holiday extended by three months
* Statutory redundancy pay will increase from £350 to £380
* Fuel duty to increase by 2p
* New 50% rate of tax for people earning over £150,000.
* Personal allowances scrapped for people earning over £100,000
* Tax relief on pension contributions scrapped for people earning £150,000

OTHER HIGHLIGHTS
Economy:
* Expectation that the economy will start growing again before the end of 2009.
"There can be no quick fix or overnight solution," said Darling.

* Darling forecast that the economy would shrink by 3.5% during 2009 - in line with predictions. 2010 will see 1.25% growth, he added, with 3.5% growth from 2011. In the pre-Budget report, Darling forecast a 0.75% to 1.25% slowdown in economic growth in 2009, with 1% growth in 2010.

The cost of the measures being enacted will haunt our grand children. Remember this is the political party that promised it was never going to put up the top rate of tax and it was the government, which had promised an end to economic boom and bust. Just two more broken pledges from a broken government.

TheOldestLies

At yesterday’s UN racism conference IRANIAN president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad described the Holocaust as a "pretext" for aggression against Palestinians, prompting European diplomats to walk out of a speech disrupted by pro Israel protesters tossing red clown noses at the hard-line leader.

The myth being perpetrated by the Israel baiting Iranian is that Israel is a racist state partly because it has Judaism as its state religion and partly because it has a law of return that entitle Jews to become Israeli citizens.

The truth is that every other country in the area, including the Palestine Authority, has Islam as its state religion. Israel does not discriminate against the interests of any of its citizens, whatever they are. Contrast this with the country’s Muslim neighbours who routinely discriminate against all non-Muslims, particularly Jews. In addition to which several of these states have their own laws of return for their own people, and again this includes the Palestine Authority. Jordan goes so far to have a law, which explicitly prohibits Jews from citizenship, but only Israel is condemned for its law of return. Why?

Several hundred thousand Arabs either ran or were pushed from Israel when it was fighting the Arab armies seeking to destroy it on its UN sanctioned formation in 1948. There is compelling evidence that most Arab refugees left on their own accord.

What is less well known is that simultaneously three quarters of a million Jews were forced to leave the Arab countries they had inhabited for millennia and run to Israel in fear for their lives.

The difference between these two sagas is that Israel took in the Jewish refugees and made them into productive Israeli citizens whereas the rich Arab states kept their co-religionists in festering refugee camps for three stateless generations to make political capital from their awful plight.

It is no surprise to find the Iranian leader expressing such racist and revisionist views, after all he had previously denied the Holocaust and threatened to wipe Israel off the face of the world map. The man is so intensely anti Semitic he would have received honorary membership in Hitler’s Nazi Party, but for the fact that he is a bit too brown skinned to have passed for an Aryan super being.

Mr Ahmadinejad was the first government official to take the floor at the conference, opening on the eve of Israel's Holocaust Memorial Day. Two protesters in clown costumes tossed red noses at Mr Ahmadinejad as he recited Muslim prayer to begin his speech.

A Jewish student group from France later took credit for causing the disturbance, saying that members threw clown noses to "symbolise the masquerade that this conference represents".

Mr Ahmadinejad restarted his talk and delivered a speech that lasted more than half an hour, saying the United States and Europe had helped to establish Israel after the Second World War and victimise Palestinians "under the pretext of Jewish suffering".

That prompted a walkout by some 40 diplomats from Britain, France and other European countries that had threatened to leave the conference if it descended into anti-Semitism or other rhetoric harshly critical of Israel.

All the sneering Iranian leader needs to complete his visible hatred of all things Jewish, Israeli and Zionist is for him to hold aloft his copy of Hitler’s “Mien Kampf”.

The walkout was temporary, with most diplomats returning after Mr Ahmadinejad finished speaking, but the Czech delegation, which currently holds the European Union presidency, said it would not return to the conference.

The US was already boycotting the event, along with Australia, Canada, Germany, Israel, Italy, the Netherlands, New Zealand and Poland. This was due to the advance knowledge of all participants that like its predecessor conference at Durban 2, this conference was been built on a false pretext. Supposedly devised to combat racism it is, in reality, hijacked by those wishing to demonize and delegitmise Israel and anybody who dares support the Jewish state’s right to exist.

Mr Ahmadinejad went on to accuse Israel of being the "most cruel and racist regime".

Protesters against the Iranian leader held placards reading, "This is a circus. A racist cannot fight racism", and repeatedly interrupted the speech with shouts of "Shame! Shame!" and "Racist! Racist!"

UN secretary-general Ban Ki-moon met Mr Ahmadinejad prior to his speech to specifically advise the Iranian leader to avoid dividing the conference. Clearly this advice was ignored in much the same way as President Obama’s peace overtures have been.

Mr Ban, who was plainly both disgusted and angry, added that he was disappointed Mr Ahmadinejad had misused his speech "to accuse, divide and even incite", directly opposing the aim of the meeting.

Mr Ahmadinejad, as head of state, had the right to speak and did not need a UN invitation to the event, aimed at stamping out intolerance worldwide.

Speaking after Mr Ahmadinejad's speech, Norway's foreign minister said the comments "run counter to the very spirit of dignity of the conference".
Mr Ahmadinejad "has made Iran the odd man out", Jonas Gahr Store said.

Sadly Mr Ahmadinejad has been praised in the Muslim world for calling for Israel's destruction and making other anti-Israeli comments. What chance a peace deal in the Middle East with such myopic and evil lunatics in charge of important nation states?

We must remember our history, or we are doomed to repeat our mistakes. No other people but the Jews have endured such persecution, annihilation, pogroms, expulsions and destruction, yet survives and flourishes. No other nation has been hated for so long by so many, yet, is still here, while most of the nations who tried so hard to wipe the Jewish people from the face of the earth, have themselves been wiped off. Think hard about the lessons you might learn from that Mr Ahmadinejad before you cost your people dear.

BanksandSunnyDays

For those of you who follow my articles you are already aware that on Mondays in particular I can get angry about our governments and their stupidity or our suicidal economic leaders.

Particularly in the UK, one day before our major budget, when we are all aware that the news will not be good, the taxes will have to be higher, the costs and expenditure cut back and the public works put back.

This is all exacerbated when one’s own bank write an e-mail letter to state that yes, you’re meeting, in fact exceeding your agreement with us, which proves you could do even more, so let’s talk about increasing your payments!

Have these people no morality, no sense of fair play, or is it just these idiots that have to be bailed out?

Think about their lunacy when a bank attacks a customer who is exceeding his obligations. This is, by the way, the same bank that is now virtually nationalized since it was so much in debt that it was going under.

Step forward into the spotlight and take a bow NatWest Bank, a subsidiary of the Royal Bank of Scotland, which is now just a collection of low level bankers run by a bunch of incompetent twits from the Civil Service who are, in turn managed, by third rate, soon to be out of office politicians.

Thank the Lord I am not in the hands of these lunatics as I am not reliant on them, but many millions of others are, and the bankers plainly have no clue what to do.

My blood pressure was probably going up when I saw the offending e-mail this morning, but then I looked out of the window and saw the wonderful first signs of Spring, the sun shining, the grass with that special English green sheen, and the clouds skipping by in the clear blue sky and good sense returned to me. Soon it will be summer, and it won’t be long before there will be another turn in the affairs of man and no doubt things economic will turn, until the next time.

In the meantime I shall take a slow stroll in the soft spring air, and feel the embrace of balmier air as people’s faces relax with smiles of better times ahead.

And, as far as the bank’s communication is concerned; Where’s that shredder?

GreedandSocialism

During these dark economic days following the almost total collapse of our financial system we all dared hope that there might be some chink of light, some moral compass injected by common sense and self preservation.

But the decision by the hierarchy of the greedy bastards, formerly known as Goldman Sachs, to pay huge bonuses at this precise moment proves these pigs at our common trough have learned precisely nothing.

Remember this bank was, like others, very recently bailed out by the public purse to the tune of about $10 billion.

What is wrong with these people, don’t they possess any sensitivity or decency?

This story prompted me to select two general responses on these themes from a bulging electronic postbag to share with you.

The first is about socialism and the second is about greed and the“lucky sperm club!"

Our first contributor is Steve.

“An economics professor at a well-known university said he had never failed a single student before but had, once, failed an entire class. That class had insisted that socialism worked and that no one would be poor and no one would be rich, a great equalizer. The professor then said ok,
We will have an experiment in this class on socialism.

All grades would be averaged and everyone would receive the same grade so no one would fail and no one would receive an A. After the first test the grades were averaged and everyone got a B. The students who studied hard were upset and the students who studied little were happy. But, as the second test rolled around, the students who studied little had studied even less and the ones who studied hard decided they wanted a free ride too; so they studied little... The second test average was a D! No one was happy. When the 3rd test rolled around the average was an F.

The scores never increased as bickering, blame, name calling all resulted in hard feelings and no one would study for the benefit of anyone else. All failed, to there great surprise, and the professor told them that socialism
would also ultimately fail because when the reward is great, the effort to succeed is great; but when government takes all the reward away; no one will try or want to succeed.

Could not be any simpler than that…


“The problem with socialism is that you eventually run out of other people’s money.” – Margaret Thatcher

From Richard I received the following heartfelt “rant” which I have edited for space.





…”For those of us who have, by the grace of g-d, had the good fortune to have received a blessed life and all the trappings and trimmings; we are the envy of all mankind.

Yet we have been hoodwinked to accept the crime and corruption of a few well heeled elite to define the world in their terms: The lifestyles of the rich and famous visuals, the supreme materialism that throughout the decades that has been broadcast as the "DREAM" (here in the USA as the "American Dream”) to aspire to.... the challenge to throw all your chips into the cauldron and accept the pits and falls in hope that you land on your feet and later head to the bank with sacks of gold and silver. and Credit...yes let's not forget the credit.

So with all the rules intact which limited the rewards to what Donald Trump called the "lucky sperm club"!! The remainder of humanity was lead to believe that they, the unfortunate, must turn to their g-d and accept their plight and the kingdom they seek is in the hereafter.... In the past the various immigrant populations accepted their low wages and poor surroundings as long as the rewards might eventually be bestowed on their offspring through either educational advancement or other street smarts.... This was acceptable and will most likely prevail for a long time...student loans are still being offered for such advancement...So why do I write that something is amiss....

Well, we now have to come to the realization that the gulf between the super wealthy and the masses once thought to be surmountable has taken a turn where we must now agree that instead of an economy where the playing field is even or at least appears to be...it is now insurmountable...we now live in a Ponzi scheme! (And may have lived in one for a very long time). We have been hoodwinked that the brass ring, which in the past was always in reach, is now a bygone thought...

The select hedge fund financed dynasty has relegated our productive economy to a service economy where we merely serve them and continue to hold them in high regard, they have replaced the divine rule of monarchies and control every facit of our economic lives...the politicians are in their pockets and the rules are skewed to keep them in power.

After learning here that the recession has been in place since late 2007 and the situation has monstrously been getting worse in the months that have followed has not in the slightest been dealt with...Here a $300.00- $400.00 payroll reduction per worker prorated over the year has been put in place while the future tax debt indemnity to the government loans and bailouts has reached $130.000.000 per American man, woman, or child...The Financial Oligarchs along with the Media Oligarchs and the Governmental Oligarchs have control of all our methods of expression: through words ( verbal pleasure or displeasure ), through the use of our monetary power and through our right to vote...each method by which we express our support or opposition has been co-opted by the power elite....We have become an impotent democratic constitutional republic here and in Britain an impotent constitutional monarchy...and by whom? Well by the unregulated and untaxed offshore financial oligarchs.... who no longer need the permission of neither the voters nor the elected officials...a coup d'etat has truly taken place.

We might remain in the left / right paradigm...cast blame hither and yon...but we miss the mark...the financial problem causers have become the financial problem solvers.... they are circling the wagons and calling those of us who voice opposition as that hideous term "terrorist”,

We the unwashed masses are to be feared whether there is a reason or not the use of tasers--a substitute method of deadly force has become widely used here. Death and severe injury has been the result...Here the 1st Amendment right to free speech is the ideal held high by almost every other nation on earth as the epitome of the true meaning of what it means to be an American is under fire here. The alternative media is fighting the good fight. But we witness that the MSM has co-opted their message. This time coming out for the Tea Parties when in the recent past they opposed the leaders (i.e.: Congressman. Dr. Ron Paul, etc.) during the election campaign...

The call to end the Federal Reserve Bank is getting louder here while the call to end the Bank of England is mute. Both organizations have promoted the use of fractional reserve banking (taken to the extremes by the former investment banks @ 30:1 and the surviving hedge funds which occasionally reached 100:1). So why bring this up? Well none of the financial structure that is/was the underlying problem has in the slightest been replaced!!! And nor have most of the handlers and CEO's!!!! Transparency has not occurred!!! We now face further bailouts (here the GM and Chrysler funding enabled Cerberus to continue---the productive arm of GM and Chrysler may eventually go bankrupt...) The AIG insurance company is a shell for the arm that is a hedge fund and issued the trillions in CDS instruments now the recipient of billions later to be handed out to various international "counterparties" and Goldman Sachs as well....


We await the new Private Public Partnership to further de-leverage the massive derivative MBSs and CDOs that flood the books and off books of so many financial institutions and here the foreclosure numbers have once more advanced by 24% last month...clearly we are reaching a point of critical mass...with hyper/stagflation further down the road.... Max Keiser calls these folks Financial Terrorists (it reminds me when in days gone by we actually had a term State Terrorism) does that ring a bell?”

Thanks to both Richard and Steve and all the rest of you who have taken the trouble to write to me. I shall, in future, be including as many of these messages as possible and shall continue to respond to your terrific input.

Hooyah

Off the coast of Somalia during the last week pirates had taken hostage Captain Richard Phillips from his ship, the Maesrsk Alabama. He had tried to fight off the pirates but had, when the effort proved futile, given himself in exchange for his crew.

Since then Phillips had been in a small covered life raft with his four captors, as ransom demands were discussed between them and the negotiators from the FBI. The Americans stood firm in the face of these financial demands, refusing to pay any money.

There are times when the good guys win, and the bad boys get what they deserve. Over the Easter weekend there was such an outcome as U.S. Navy Seals aboard the warship Bainbridge shot dead three of the pirates and captured the fourth.

Previously there had been an agreement in place to swap the Captain with a pirate that his crew had captured during the initial battle, but they reneged on their promise as soon as their man was returned to them.

The shootings took place when the Navy Seals witnessed the pirates pointing their guns at Captain Phillips and considered his life to be in imminent danger. Their rules of engagement, specifically at the orders of President Obama, were that the US Navy Commander on site, Frank Castallano, had the right to issue the shoot to kill order in those circumstances, which he exercised.

The crew of the Maersk Alabama celebrated wildly at news of the successful release of their heroic Captain whose family was also overjoyed to hear of the happy outcome.

President Obama said, “I share the country’s admiration for the bravery of Captain Phillips and his selfless concern for his crew.

His courage is a model for all Americans. His safety has been our primary concern.” He went on to add that he was proud of the way the military had handled the crisis.

This must be the first step in a concerted, long term and coordinated international assault to achieve total elimination of the pirates, their bases and infrastructure.

In the words of the Navy Seals, “The only easy day was yesterday.”

SpinnersandFakers

Those that live by the spin will also die by the spin. Everything stinks about the latest scandal in which one of the most senior aides to British Prime Minister Gordon Brown, Special Adviser Damien McBride, resigned Saturday after he circulated untrue and scurrilous rumors about leaders of Britain’s Conservative Party, including David Cameron.

There are two things very wrong about this story. First, the accusations made against the Conservative leaders are outright lies and should not have been fabricated or disseminated, particularly on government time from within the seat of government.

10 Downing Street is not the place for Labour party spin, especially, and this is the second major strand of guilt, when McBride was a Civil Servant, paid for by the public purse, he is not a Labour party employee.

McBride had to resign after a newspaper published a summary of emails he sent to prominent political blogger Derek Draper, a supporter of the ruling Labour party. No doubt it was the Prime Minister who required McBride’s sacrificial removal.

McBride is to Brown what Alastair Campbell was to previous Prime Minister Tony Blair, another spin-doctor. Like we need another bloody spin-doctor. McBride is the very closest of Brown’s political allies, an attack dog who is at the epicenter of Britain’s ruling Labour party elite. He is also a long term intimate friend of the Prime Minister and might well survive in some mutated form in the Labour party’s murky political backwaters.

Is it only me that remembers how Gordon Brown made speeches that under his leadership the days of political spin would be over? Another lie.

Draper said the emails, sent in January, were intended to provide fodder for a gossip website called "The Red Rag" which would attack members of the opposition Conservative party. But in a post to his blog, Labour List, he noted that the website never got off the ground and that the personal attacks were never published.

"In truth these (rumors) were a bit juvenile and inappropriate, and some were in bad taste, though I have to admit some were also brilliant and rather funny," Draper wrote. "As anyone involved in politics knows, though, people come up with lots of daft plans that don't make it off the drawing board."

He did not go into detail about what the stories were and in an interview perversely still tried to defend and justified McBride’s actions with an attack on the media that is publishing them. Draper’s contention being that the perpetrator, McBride, wasn’t really going to pursue these false and childish stories, forgetting that his friend, McBride, had totally fabricated them in the first place. Such warped logic tells you everything about the paranoia and craziness now surrounding the British Prime Minister. 10 Downing Street is beginning to look like the Nixon White House after Watergate.

The Daily Telegraph newspaper said the emails made "innuendo-laden suggestions" about the private lives of Conservative party leaders - but also did not go into any detail.

Brown said in a statement released by his office that there was "no place in politics for the dissemination or publication of material of this kind," without discussing what it said or recognizing that Brown, being the boss behind McBride, shares a great deal of responsibility for the actions of those he hires.

Today the media published the emails – some of them complete with the lurid allegations in them. Like Watergate this small scandal reinforces my view that the people charged with the government of our great democracies are themselves seized by pettiness and stupidity lent to them by their total isolation from reality, otherwise how could they be this stupid.

FakeStudentsAReaction

Yesterday’s column was about the Fake Students coming into the UK (and the same things are happening elsewhere!) and the threat this is to our security. I wrote from personal experience working in British universities and my knowledge of how our systems are allowing in people who not only want to economically immigrate, but also the hateful minority who hate our society, and want us all subjugated to their will, failing which they want us dead.

Your responses were passionate and well informed, and I have decided to print one of them, since John makes some important points.

“Great stuff Tony.

The access for Foreign Students to UK Universities and I daresay all Western
Universities including the USA without the appropriate diligence &
background checks can only be described as gross negligence and totally Irresponsible on the part of overworked & underpaid University Staff
members.

The absence of stringent due diligence represents a huge potential threat to National Security to all Western countries.

It must be understood that the age group making applications to western
Universities outside their own country are the most vulnerable age group to be influenced by educational & religious establishments, which are fertile hunting grounds for extremist groups actively harvesting recruits for
deployment in the West. Either as long term "Sleepers" to be activated
In the medium or long term future or as provocateurs with an immediate
missions to subvert the youth of long established law abiding and productive immigrant communities residing in the West.

Unfortunately, again it's all about the bottom line.

Universities under immense pressure to fulfill their quota of paying students
for their own economic survival represent and ill informed focus on the
numbers.

The huge and additional expense required by Western National Security
Agencies in vetting EACH & EVERY application by Foreign Students wishing to enter Western Educational Institutions represent a quantum increase of the resources required. And I don't suggest just cursory checks.!!!

I would not be surprised that 99% of all foreign students making
applications to Western Educational Institutions will pass the stringent
security Litmus Test with flying colors and prove and to be 100% legitimate and ideologically benign.

It is assumed that 100% of all foreign students who have graduated at
Western Educational Institutions will do their damndest to remain in the
West and not return to their country of origin. Most will find good jobs
pay their taxes and make a valuable contribution to the economy, science and society in general.

As always it is the virulent and committed extremist fringe that are of
major concern.

As the good chairman Mao once said, " it does not take much explosives
material to derail a freight train coming down the railroad track. A tiny
charge strategically placed will have the desired effect and cause chaos.

John”

FakeStudents

Happy Easter to some of you and Happy Passover to others, and if I am missing any other festival observance forgive me.

Our subject today is the security strike by the forces of law and order that in the last couple of days swooped on a suspected terrorist cell of about a dozen people of whom 11 are in the UK on student visas.

The Pakistani government accused the UK today of not doing enough to check the 10,000 holders of such visas prior to their being able to travel.

I have some direct knowledge of the nature and scope of this dangerous and long-term immigration fiddle. Some years back I was Director of a department of a London University. There is tremendous pressure on all universities to meet student recruitment and retention target numbers. Their entire budgets are based on hitting these numbers and they will do whatever they can to meet them.

It was annual student recruitment time for the university and as usual the computer science department was a rich source of overseas students. As part of my job I was checking some of the documentation of the applicants as they went through the clearing process before entry to the university. I noticed that a very large number of these students had apparently already graduated a university in Delhi with identical degrees. This smelt fishy to me and I telephoned India to check a few sets of documents at random. It transpired that the university they had supposedly attended simply did not exist.

I told my university of this finding and they dealt with the offending applicants. I thought that my institution would automatically check all such applications. I was wrong.

It transpired that several hundred more overseas Asian students did gain entrance to our computer science department. About 400 of these student visa holders arrived on the first day of the course for signing up and induction. The next day about 225 of them vanished without trace and have never been seen since. No one knows where these people are, or what they’re doing in this country.

I was telephoned by a journalist for the Guardian newspaper who asked whether I thought it was possible that any students, such as these or others who did attend our university could be terrorists in waiting. I replied that I would be astonished if they were not. I still believe this to be the case.

Certain sections of the university admissions service remain ridiculously lax in its vigilance regarding overseas student applications and the reasons include the misguided and inappropriate application of the human rights ethos. Regulations and liberal attitudes of our educational institutions in favor of people who should not be here in the first place and who regard such rights as a validation of their view of our Western democracy; that it is both decadent and stupid. We need to wake up before it is too late.

CryRape

There is a rape crisis in the UK. Today it was revealed that a woman lied when claiming her husband had raped her. The British rape laws allow the victim anonymity whereas the alleged perpetrator can be named.

The accused man, who has now been cleared of all charges, is ruined both socially and emotionally. No one can understand the terrible damage done to an innocent man, even when acquitted. The reason the man is irreparably damaged is that there will always be those that whisper, “There’s no smoke without fire.”

I have seen the damage such an accusation can make. A colleague, a middle-aged man with a loving family, worked with a female workmate late one evening. He needed some documents to be prepared before he took a dawn flight to Australia, and she volunteered. At the end of their work it was late and the young woman asked him for a ride home.

My work friend dropped the young woman at her home but declined her invite for a drink partly because he thought she was coming onto him. She became angry when he rejected her advances but he told her he had to get home. He thought she might have been a bit drunk but took no action about it thinking he might do so when he returned from his overseas business trip.

When he returned home the police knocked on the door and his wife answered. They stormed in to the house and arrested him in front of his family. His wife was so shocked that she had a stroke very shortly thereafter. She is semi paralyzed and wheelchair bound ever since. My friend was traumatized by the experience and initially didn’t know how to deal with the accusation.
It took my colleague a while to regain his equilibrium and when he did he hired a private detective. After a thorough investigation he discovered that the woman making the accusation had done the same thing twice before, falsely accusing two other men of raping her before finally being proven to be a malicious perjurer.

When confronted with this history the woman withdrew her rape accusation. But my colleague’s wife will remain in her wheelchair for the rest of her life.

It is often noted that the vast majority of rape prosecutions do not end in conviction. But the truth is that this crime is extremely difficult to prove and often boils down to the relative believability of the protagonists. With the law being updated to keep up with changing social mores it is now accepted that the current rape laws should mean that a woman saying no, at any stage, means no.

There are further moves to interpret the law to mean that if a woman is too drunk to say no, then any sexual intercourse she later deems to have been perpetrated against her conscious will should also be deemed rape.

What strikes me, as truly menacing and stupid were the words uttered after the case of the woman who falsely accused her ex husband of rape. PC Elizabeth Graham of Durham Police domestic abuse investigation team said after the hearing that the force was very victim-focused and the allegation of rape had been taken seriously and fully investigated.

She went on to correctly say that she hoped the case would not deter genuine victims of rape and sexual assault from reporting crimes to the police.

Of course all of us would agree that genuine rape accusations must be made wherever necessary and then be properly investigated by the police and prosecutions made as appropriate.

But the forces of law and order should think again about being “victim-focused,” their only true aim, be “ justice focused.”

AnarchyRulesOK

During the last week there were a series of huge set piece meetings held in various European cities. These were the London G20 economic summit followed by the NATO gathering of our political leaders held on the border of Germany and France.

Also present at both were protesters who are entitled, some would say obliged, to peacefully protest in our profoundly democratic countries. Their attendance and voicing of their profound disquiet about the management of the world economy and conflicts is not only fitting but essential.

What else can you do when you agree with the sentiments expressed in an article by Douglas Rushkoff called Let It Die in which he stated, "... We do not live in an economy, we live in a Ponzi scheme."

Trying to wreck these gatherings were the usual motley gang of fundamentally anti capitalist, anti democratic and anti free choice groups. These include revolutionary Trotskyites, Maoists, but more of interest to me right now, Anarchists.

Anarchy is defined in my dictionary as; Absence of government, disorder, lawlessness; The principles of anarchy are a theory of government based on the free agreement of individuals rather than a submission to law and authority and an anarchist is One opposed to all forms of government.

These days the anarchists wear a uniform for their protests. They dress all in black with hoods up and scarves around their faces to disguise their identities. It seems odd to me that people against all conformity dress identically to intimidate. But they are full of contradictions these anarchists, willing to wear a uniform, any uniform, as long as it is not a uniform in which to serve any country.

The English anarchists promised the end of capitalism would begin with their “Four Horseman” protests in London on April First, but it hasn’t worked out that way. In fact, although the systematic failures of capitalism are all around us we still haven’t devised a better system for our trade and lives to prosper.

It might seem unnecessarily jaded to state that if anarchists could ever organize anything, which is, in itself somewhat of an oxymoronic thought process, there should be an anarchists league table. I am usually proud of British accomplishments but in this instance I think the British would come woefully down the pecking order. We are, as a nation, a bit too much into organizational structures to be any good at spontaneous anarchy. You would, in my view, favor the more laid back Latin nations or perhaps the newly de-communized East Europeans to furnish the best kind of anarchists.

The police in England handled the anarchists very well and in fact the protestors finished by looking silly, their threats to “eat the bankers” ringing hollow. It wasn’t quite the same jolly affair on the borders of France and Germany where the anarchists and their fellow travelers managed to torch a few shops and other buildings, sling some Molotov cocktails and attack the police.

There is almost universal agreement that the world’s economic and terrorist problems are huge and ongoing. However the general population remains remarkably, prosperous and peaceful when compared to any other period of history. This prosperity and peace was brought about by the application of the capitalist system and organizations such as NATO. The near total collapse of the financial system and the over emphasized threat of fundamentalist Islamic terror was engendered and inspired by a toxic mixture of fear, greed and ego, topped out by a lack of transparency and unwarranted over complication. No one really understood the entirety of how sophisticated shadow trading and hedge funds worked. Concurrently we fought the terrorists in an asymmetric conflict with no strategy but armed only with knee jerk tactical reactions.

Both will now change since President Obama does have a strategic vision and the rest of the democracies are beginning to listen to and respect renewed and enhanced American leadership.

It isn’t enough to be a black clad anarchist shouting at and burning hated symbols of capitalism when you have nothing to replace it with.

ANewNATO

Yesterday many leaders from around the world attended the G20 summit meeting in London.

Prime Minister Gordon Brown was roundly praised for his energetic and well-conceived groundwork plus excellent negotiating skills.

President Obama was even more warmly applauded for being President Obama. But there were reservations expressed. Most of these came from the non Anglo Saxon economies that have taken it in turn to fire broadsides of criticism at the USA and UK for their previous financial indiscipline that they state caused the entire global economic problem.

Today President Sarkozy of France is hosting President Obama and the other leaders of NATO in Paris. It will be interesting to see if the French and Germans in particular, can take criticism as well as hand it out.

France recently re-joined NATO as a full member but like the other “allies” in this organization they do more talking than fighting in Afghanistan. While the UK and USA do the hard fighting the majority of the Europeans in the alliance mainly just supply technical and moral support but when it comes to their forces using force, they demonstrate everything that is hypocritical about their countries. They simply don’t and won’t fight.

This is not meant to imply that the servicemen and women from those non-fighting European allies are cowards or are in any way deficient. Their governments have forbidden them to engage the enemy under almost all circumstances.

Despite all of the NATO allies agreeing that they would fight for democracy against the theocracy of the Taliban most of the allies avoid actual fighting.

This is a disgrace and makes you wonder if allies like these are worth having. If push came to shove and we really needed our NATO allies to save our own countries could we rely on them to help?

I think this proves that we could not rely on them for anything other than kind words, if we were lucky.

Even more disgraceful the government of Afghanistan is enacting Taliban inspired laws against the rights of their own women. President Hamid Karzai was roundly condemned by internal and external groups for signing into law legislation that effectively legalizes the rape of a wife by her husband and prevents women from leaving the house without a man's permission.

This law clearly undermines hard-won rights for women enacted after the fall of the Taliban's fanatical Islamist regime. Ask yourself why our soldiers for democracy should potentially risk their lives to enforce laws such as these.

The controversial law _ which many claim was not debated in parliament _ is intended to regulate family life inside Afghanistan's Shiite community, which makes up about 20 percent of this country of 30 million people. The law does not yet affect Afghan Sunnis.

The law stipulates that the wife "is bound to preen for her husband as and when he desires."

"As long as the husband is not traveling, he has the right to have sexual intercourse with his wife every fourth night," Article 132 of the law says. "Unless the wife is ill or has any kind of illness that intercourse could aggravate, the wife is bound to give a positive response to the sexual desires of her husband."

One provision of the law does seem to protect the woman's right to sex inside marriage, saying that the "man should not avoid having sexual relations with his wife longer than once every four months."

Critics claim that President Karzai signed the legislation for purely political gain several months before the country's presidential election.

The United Nations Development Fund for Women said the law "legalizes the rape of a wife by her husband."

"The law violates women's rights and human rights in numerous ways," a UNIFEM statement said.

The issue of women's rights is an ongoing fight between the country's conservative establishment and the relatively more liberal members of society. The Taliban government that ruled Afghanistan from 1996 to 2001 banned women from appearing in public without a body-covering burqa and a male escort from her family.

There are two big questions that have to be answered.

One is whether we should continue to support a government that seems to be morphing into a pale imitation of the Taliban maniacs it is there to replace.

The second question is what kind of alliance is NATO, and why are there two levels of membership?

These are hard questions that all the members of the organization must answer.

G20TheResult

Yesterday’s G20 summit resulted in an additional $1 trillion (£679bn) being made available to boost the world economy.

President Barack Obama claimed that the summit will signal a "turning point" in the pursuit of economic recovery and made progress in reforming a "failed regulatory system".

"By any measure the London summit was historic. It was historic because of the size and the scope of the challenges that we face and because of the timeliness and the magnitude of our response," he said.

There were some other headline initial results when World stock markets skyrocketed and a man caught up in the protests surrounding the event died.

The long anticipated violence broke out but was closely controlled by an overwhelming and well-drilled police operation that swamped the area. There are the usual repercussions that always seem to happen after huge police operations like this in Britain, with accusations flying about. But the general consensus from the watching world media was that the policing was fair, well conceived and executed.

Prime Minister Gordon Brown was a very relieved and happy man when he said the new extra funding would shorten the recession and save jobs. It follows what he described as the "new consensus" reached by heads of state on taking united action to deal with economic crisis.

"This is the day that the world came together, to fight back against the global recession. Not with words but a plan for global recovery and for reform and with a clear timetable," Mr Brown stated at the conference centre in London's Docklands close to the new financial centre at Canary Wharf.

Speaking at a press conference to mark the end of the summit, Mr Brown said G20 leaders had concluded "that global problems require global solutions" and that they will "do what is necessary" but that there are "no quick fixes".

President Obama is known to have played a key role in brokering the agreement, resolving differences between France and China on tax havens.

Another G20 summit will be held later this year to check on progress.

French President Nicolas Sarkozy said that the conclusions of this G20 summit were "more than we could have hoped for".

The $1 trillion injection includes $250 billion (£170.2bn) in International Monetary Fund special drawing rights - available to all IMF members. This is a $150 billion increase on what had previously been suggested in order to help get trade moving again.

The "unprecedented fiscal expansion" already under way will mean a $5 trillion (£3.4tn) injection by the middle of 2010, he said, helping to save or create millions of jobs.

Six pledges were made by leaders - to restore confidence, growth, and jobs; repair the financial system to restore lending; strengthen financial regulation to rebuild trust; fund and reform international financial institutions; promote global trade and investment and reject protectionism and finally to build a sustainable recovery.

A new "financial stability board" will "ensure co-operation across frontiers and to stop risk to the economy" and provide an early-warning mechanism, he said. And for the first time, there will be a "common global approach to how we deal with impaired, or toxic, assets".

Central banks had agreed to "maintain expansionary policies as long as they are needed using the full range of options available to them".

Mr Brown affirmed there were no splits at the talks, saying: "The issues that people thought divided us did not divide us at all. There was substantial agreement on the need for us to do whatever is necessary to return to growth."

Countries had also restated their commitment to the millennium development goals and to helping tackle poverty, he said, adding the summit had agreed measures totaling $50 billion (£34bn) to assist the poorest countries.

Brown added: "This time of financial crisis is no time to walk away from our commitment to the world's poorest. We will not pass by on the other side."

Mr Brown said, “After the Wall Street Crash in 1929 it took 15 years for the world to come together and address the problems.” That delay was unforgivable and disastrous.

The Prime Minister continued: "Our priority right through this summit has been the jobs, the homes, the businesses of hard-working families in this country and, indeed, every country.”

He added that world leaders have agreed to meet again later this year.

The UK and US emphasized the need for public spending to ease the crisis while France and Germany were obviously keener for tougher financial regulation.

Mr Sarkozy had threatened to walk out of the meeting if it did not yield concrete results but this had been largely discounted as gesture politics aimed squarely at his own electorate. Like everyone else he wanted to put his own country’s spin on this event.

Germany’s Chancellor Angela Merkel also praised the outcome.

She said the new measures would give the world a "clearer financial market architecture" and the agreement was "a very, very good, almost historic compromise" and it is clear that it did not oblige any country to launch any further economic stimulus packages.

The truth is that no one knows how well this package of measures might work, but we do know that the time to judge it will come in the months and years to come, not here or now.

We can all agree that this package is promising and perhaps, just perhaps we have seen the end of the beginning of our current crisis.

PremiereAvril

The G20 summit takes place tomorrow in London. Already the great and the good are arriving here with their retinues. Some times it is hard to remember that the Roman Empire is history, especially when one sees the size and majesty surrounding these political leaders.

President Obama has 500 people traveling with him, of whom 200 are security personnel. However I don’t know how necessary his French dessert taster, Monsieur Premiere Avril, is in the democracies of today.

Does he really need Guiy de Maupassant Rabinowitz as his fan bearer, or is he compelled to listen to his personal Chicago back up singers even if they double up as his ostrich feather fan bearers?

The 3 people surrounding Prime Minister Brown is modest in comparison, but as is well known he does have a great deal to be modest about. His retinue contains an information guy who tells him why the public in the UK want to string him up and another two guys who tell him to ignore the first chap.

President Sarkozy of France has announced that he will refuse to sign any agreement with which he doesn’t agree. I feel this is a trend that could take hold since I can announce that as from today I shall also refuse to sign any agreements that I don’t agree with.

Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany smiled in the direction of the small but perfectly formed French President, and said something along the lines of, I’ll have whatever he’s having and send it to my room. I am confident that rumors stating that she was seen buying underwear from Victoria’s Secret in London are false. It can also be discounted that she entered the Chinese embassy by a side entrance and left some hours later looking disheveled but happy.

The Chinese Prime Minister later stated that his country remains ready, willing and able to inject the necessary liquidity wherever necessary. Roughly translated his statement read, “We’ve been getting it for a very long time, it’s payback time.”

The Japanese smiled and said nothing at all, except they were seen to snigger when asked their view on bailing out the Western economies.

President Obama and Prime Minister Brown went to Saville Row for fittings of their Superman suits but this writer is not entirely sure they are going to fit.

TakingABreak

I am taking a break from writing these articles for a few days, it’s a kind of a blog writers “gone fishing”. Except I can think of nothing I would like to do less. Actually I can. What would be worse is to attend the G20 conference in London next week to listen to the man who was created in a lab when Tony Blair took all the worst aspects of Socialism and conjoined these with the most scabrous parts of Capitalism to create a Frankenstein monster called Gordon Brown.

What did the UK do so wrong to deserve this man?

Brown’s week was enlivened when he delivered his speech to one of the most boring and creepy centers of world government, the European Parliament in Strasbourg.

In response to the Brown presence a British backbench Conservative Member of the European Parliament for South East England, Daniel Hannan delivered an eviscerating condemnation directly to Brown who can be seen trying to smile his way through the attack. In doing this the young Tory has touched a nerve around the world, with approximately a million hits on You Tube in just a couple of days.

Brown looked on helplessly while gritting his teeth, smiling mirthlessly, he shook his head as the Tory caricatured him as a 'Brezhnev era apparatchik' who is ' pathologically incapable' of accepting any of the responsibility for his role in the financial crisis.

The video of MEP Daniel Hannan delivering this no holds barred but measured verbal assassination of the Prime Minister and his gross mis-handling of the economic crisis instantly flowered into a surprise hit on the Internet.

The 37-year-old MEP, who was the youngest British member elected to the European Parliament in 1999, yesterday received plaudits for his tongue-lashing.

Major Broadcasters - including the BBC – totally and abysmally failed to report Mr Hannan's onslaught despite giving full coverage to Mr Brown's most pro-European speech to date and having been forewarned that Hannan was going to respond.

But the world of the old-fashioned broadcaster having the ultimate control over what we are allowed to see is now gone with the advent of almost universal access to the Internet, twitter and mobile communications.

So the speech by the young Conservative firebrand was quickly posted on You Tube and news outlets from Australia to America seized on his comments.

The clip lingers on Prime Minister Brown looking on with a frozen smile, while Hannan warned how Britain was entering the recession in a 'dilapidated condition' with an 'almost unbelievable' deficit.”

It’s time more responsible people took up this battle and said what needs saying. The Emperor, Gordon Brown, has no clothes, he is being transported around the earth in borrowed transportation, shouting to anyone who will listen, “look at my wonderful clothing!” but he is as naked and feeble as the day he was born and it is our duty to tell him until he is forced to listen.

In the meantime I shall be doing something completely different as the G20 convenes in London to the inevitable riots of protesters finding any excuse to misbehave like anarchists in the name of democracy. Whilst inside the hallowed halls of diplomacy a bunch of small well padded boys and girls pretend to be serious politicians and economists who know the economic answers and do their best to avoid another Great Depression.

Let’s just hope we get lucky because nothing, so far, makes me believe our leaders have a clue what to do.

TheJuryIsOut

President Obama retains a great deal of his victorious feel good factor. Almost everyone, even his political foes need and want him to succeed if for nothing more than enlightened self-interest. He, unlike Gordon Brown retains a feel good aura; a ready smile and the appropriate words that make us believe he might have the right answers.

But does anyone really have the required knowledge to navigate these uncharted and dangerous economic storms?

Gordon Brown became Britain’s Chancellor of the Exchequer as part of then Prime Minister Tony Blair’s first government, a dozen years ago. His first action was to divorce the Bank of England from his own direct control. The reason he gave for doing this was so that the Bank of England would set interest rates in order to control inflation independent of any political considerations.

Now Gordon Brown is Prime Minister I would bet big money that he wishes the Bank of England were still in his own direct control. Last night the Governor of the Bank shook the government to the tips of its toes when he said that finance deficits were already too high and therefore there is no room for the Prime Minister to engineer either big tax cuts or any further spending increases to spark life into the economy.

The timing of the Bank Governors intervention couldn’t have been more embarrassing or unfortunately timed for Brown. It comes a few weeks before the next big budget, on April 22 and more or less simultaneous to the Prime Minister making an impassioned pro financial stimulus package to the European Parliament in Strasbourg. He has been touring the world promoting his ideas of a global stimulus package prior to the next G20 summit of the world’s economic superpowers, which he is hosting in London next week.

Mervyn King, the Governor of England’s central Bank, doesn’t believe the country can afford any further stimuli. Gordon Brown believes we have to find a way to afford to stimulate the economy.

An auction in government debt in the UK failed to achieve the target sum for the first time in 7 years. A major warning sign we would do well to heed.

Brown believes that we must be prepared to do what is necessary to resume the growth in the economy achieved by the fiscal stimulus strategy promoted by President Obama and Brown, This includes quantitative easing and extraordinarily low interest rates and effectively means spending our way out of the recession.

The current European President, the Czech leader, believes that the road to hell is paved with the President Obama fiscal stimulus plan.

This is possibly the most important economic argument ever to be fought in the world since the Great Depression and the implications for our future well-being are enormous.

Although it is pleasing and somewhat cathartic to castigate and condemn the wrongdoers and criminals in the financial sector who cost us all so much with their stupidity and greed it is not the most important of the tasks that must be conquered.

Neither should we focus too much attention on more regulations when all we ever needed to do was enforce the regulations that already existed. In fact there is a very good argument to reduce regulations, and make the markets simpler.

Of equal or possibly even more far reaching consequence, we have to consider the future of markets that have operated more like bookmakers. We should eliminate shadow markets and return to a world where financial instruments must be real and paid for.

Right now the battle for the hearts and minds of the G20 leaders is under way and during the next week they will decide whether we spend our way forward, hopefully out of the recession or, as I think is equally likely, we move into a Japanese style decade of stagflation. The jury is out.

Recovery

The announcement of the plans released by the US Treasury Secretary, Tim Geithner seems to have excited the market in Wall Street. The main indexes rose by 6% whilst the banks roared ahead by 15%.

The fundamental underpinning of the plan is that America is committing $1 trillion to buy huge amounts of toxic debt. The idea behind this is that this will unplug the capital markets and credit will again be available in a more normal manner. Like it used to be. But the sad fact is that it isn’t going to ever be quite like it was before.

As the American housing market seems to be picking up a bit, and a chink of sunlight is soothing the incipient panic in the US banking sector the German GDP is expected to fall between 6 to 7% during this year. China is taking progressively more defensive measures and the eastern European countries, formerly part of the Soviet bloc are on the edge of the financial precipice.

No one knows how our collective vulnerability will show itself next. Will the bigger economies have to bail out more of the second and third world countries, and do they have the firepower to do so?

The new emperors of the universe come from Asia and Arabia but it is a very flawed power.

The Chinese continue to live with a paradox. A relatively capitalist economy that is centrally managed by an underlying Soviet type politburo be it political or military. Their controlling fingers are in every pie. But now the global economy is in chaos at precisely the moment China is about to assert itself as a superpower. Is it tenable for China to keep the lid on personal and political freedom whilst energizing and possibly liberalizing their economy and that of the world around them?

There must be a huge temptation for the fairly geriatric Chinese leadership to totally withdraw from the international disaster. However there must be an even more compelling temptation to use the country’s huge reserves for maximum strategic leverage. Will China tear itself apart because of the contradictions of its system or survive and go on to become the pre-eminent global superpower?

The oil rich Arab countries wealth is almost entirely due to their oil revenues and reserves. This is not a sound basis for long-term stability. At present these countries desperately need to create structure and broaden their resources.

As I have written before, you write America off at your peril. But the first shoots of recovery are still a very long way in the distance.

But it has become obvious that the old order is dead and will never come back.

LossOfTrust

Our society operates on the base of faith and trust. Lose this and we experience misery and possible anarchy.

The basis of what makes things tick is economic. If the oil of money is not in the engine it will seize up and that is precisely what’s happening. Once the money vanishes we are left with a future of damage control.

Everything else starts to fall apart without money. Taxation must rise, but the government take decreases as businesses and individuals make less profit, if they profit at all. There will be less cash available for public works and consumers have less money to spend. Even if they have money they lack the confidence to spend when there is growing doubt that they will keep their jobs. The people are suffering from an enormous confidence deficit and an almost total lack of faith in our system.

There was never a time in modern history when our banks held enough cash to meet a potential run on the bank. These institutions, even at their most prudent and solid, never held a dollar or a pound for each pound or dollar deposited with them. It was more like 10% to 15%. It all worked pretty well when no one questioned the solidity and credit worthiness of our banking giants.

Similarly governments work because of the acquiescence of a compliant and law abiding population. The deal being that we shall abide by your laws as long as we feel they’re reasonable and not too far from our notion of fairness. When laws are seen to be unfair there are many examples of the furious reaction of the people. Revolutions and civil wars have started huge bloodbaths because of perceived injustice.

Fundamental questions like this must be asked when the rulebook is being torn up and thrown away. A contemporary large-scale survey amongst young people in Germany found that this group, although largely apathetic about political parties in general, reserved their largest support for the far right. In Austria more than 30% of the general electorate now vote for the Fascist parties. The same trends are becoming evident for a growing swathe of Europe.

Over the last few days I have been conducting a straw pole. I asked an entirely unscientific group of people, here and in the USA a question. They have no link other than me as their common denominator.

The question is this: -

“If you were now to see a person come on your television and say that he is a banker, taking deposits, to be guaranteed by the government 100%, and this guarantee is backed up by a government spokesman. The banker offers a return of 7.5% per year, starting immediately. Will you invest your money with him?”

Well, what do you think?

The banker received a 100% rejection.

Not one person I questioned was prepared to invest their money with my fictitious banker.

This proves that our faith in banks and bankers has totally vanished, and it will be a very long time before it can be recaptured. There is no more important task for our leaders than to reverse this.

WhichWayForward

There are not many aspects of the present government in the UK or the last one in the US that I agree with. In fact the list is so small and inconsequential it’s hardly worth mentioning. On the other hand I don’t disagree with everything they did nor do I think they were or are entirely evil.

The single biggest mistakes they both made was to try and make facts conform to their political theories and if not, to force a fit. As an example I am convinced that one day in Britain we will discover that virtually unrestricted immigration was a social political experiment.

Don’t get me wrong, I am virulently opposed to both the hard left and hard right, and in fact every ”ism” appalls and scares me. But I just don’t believe it could have been possible for literally millions of foreign nationals to enter this country illegally without at least the tacit connivance of those responsible for our borders.

Either these officials are criminally inept or they wanted this to happen. The results are the same and in the present economic circumstances could prove catastrophic. I say this in the knowledge that less than one hundred years ago my grandparents and their siblings arrived in this country and America, penniless refugees.

The numbers of immigrants then allowed in was in direct proportion to the needs of their new host countries. Put another way, the bargain suited both sides of the equation. It made some sense.

Now there are a huge number of new immigrants in our countries and our economies are in free fall. If the economic migrants were to simply go home there wouldn’t be a problem here, but there would be a huge problem in their countries. The new reality is that there are new camps being built in France for all the new migrants fighting to get into the UK, and the net numbers in the UK are growing so fast that the UK is forecast to overtake Germany’s population having once been far smaller.

What will happen when the indigenous population can’t get or keep jobs but the new migrants stay and prosper? This will potentially lead to problems that could lead to substantial civil strife.

America has different but related problems. Of them all I believe that the most immediate and affordable will be remaking the economic model of the USA to re-emphasize its ability to manufacture its way out of most problems when taken together with its huge capacity to export raw materials. This must be achieved and the education system re-engineered to produce what America needs so that it can compete.

The UK has to re-imagine itself and recreate its ability to deliver great products that are brilliantly designed and engineered. That was what worked in the Anglo American economic model and we simply walked away because we became besotted in making money out of thin air and betting on futures. The so called “knowledge economy” only works if you have something worth saying.

The key problems are, as ever, related to our wallets and sense of well-being. As this becomes progressively more problematic there would be a cycle of action and reaction in proportion to the desperation of the population. We could see either Fascism or Communism become a power again and with it a major, equal and opposite, probably violent reaction.

We must address educational necessities, fixing the economy and immigration as matters of equal priority. No one of these fixes is going to be sufficient, we need them all.

AnAcademicResponse

Below I reproduce a letter received from Brad, an educator in the States. It is in response to my article yesterday in this column about the way forward for our education systems.

By way of explanation I was trying to make the point that we needed the hard subjects to be taught with rigor, I was arguing against pointless creative degrees that don’t help either the students or society. I wholeheartedly support and participate in higher education for meaningful creative degrees that result in fulfillment and jobs.

There is a very real advantage in higher education for its own sake, and we should all treasure and protect it. However, to survive and prosper as successful countries in every sense, we must re-learn some very basic lessons. One of these is that we have to manufacture for ourselves, grow more and sell more. To achieve this we must educate our young to these ends; perhaps not instead of entirely, but as well as.

Now over to Brad: -

“As you can well imagine, I am on board with your column on education.

One caveat: you can't build a math/science culture by freaking out about foreign competition. There has to be a "pure" interest in science in the culture at large--as there was in physics and logic at the beginning of
this century, the space race later on, etc.

The most revolutionary ideas emerge from pure research and this is what is disappearing e.g.—the supercollider, kyboshed in Texas some years ago. Very few people could explain what that is all about; therefore, the money dries up. This was less of a problem with the moon shot. That's why the humanities are not trivial--science cannot situate itself as a narrative, metaphor or cultural vector--you need writers, thinkers, and moviemakers--but literate ones.

I'm struck in reading math bios how many got into the field because of George Gamow's "1,2,3...infinity." That little book sent a lot of
people on their way--as did science fiction, the very lucid philosophical,
Pop sci books of Einstein (Einstein and Infeld's Evolution of Physics),
Asimov, Raymond Smullyan...there's just no hook right now. The kids don't
care about outer space, which is fine and understandable, they care about inner space.

O.k., but innovations in computing require a background in
Math and mathematical logic--so the hook as to be elsewhere than
gadgets--e.g. --What exactly is a non-classical logic? Are we made of?
logic--or something else--is that "something else" writable in logic, or
does it show up as a barrier (we get knowledge of it negatively)? Why
does group theory explain so much at the level of particle physics--did
God make the world from group theory, or again, is there a "something
else" we will never get our hands on, but that keeps reinventing itself as
new paradigms? I would say there is even a mystical-religious hook
there for some--which is not a bad place for religion-- The "answers" to
these questions, open-ended as they are, are in the actual math and
science--that should be the hook.

Just putting a kid on a computer is not solving anything--though that is
much of the budget in education nowadays--building enormous computer labs.

I would slash way back on that and hire math science people at top dollar who actually know how to teach--a rare combination. Those people need a chalkboard and textbooks--that's about it really, at least in math/logic, which is the pedestal on which it all rests. Mostly they need money to make it worth their while--which will never happen as long as teacher's unions are in charge.”

AcademicMisconceptions

Today is one of those wonderful days when England is the greatest place in the world. The sun is shining and the world has a smile on its face. Dare I say that the winter is being replaced by the first warmer breath of a more gentle spring?

Yesterday was also fabulous but I spent the entire day in a series of meetings as Process Panel Member for two pre-validation meetings preparing new BA degrees. I mustn’t mention any details here but I do want to touch on what this means.

The English validation and external examiner systems are, if used correctly, excellent safeguards for the academic credibility of our country. Despite what you hear about our system being terrible you shouldn’t be too dismayed. Yes, there are faults, but the system is not all bad.

One of the best proofs of this is that so many other countries still envy our system of higher education. This is evidenced when they seek the services of our academics at every level and for all purposes.

Despite being constantly under funded our best universities still compare favorably with the best in the world. Our average institutions continue to be on a par with those of a similar type elsewhere and are better than most.

The poor universities in England are pretty bad if you measure them purely as academic or research institutions. But the truth is that the way we measure these places is not appropriate to their original design. They are more suited to their original vocational type qualifications created when they were still Polytechnics.

What must be understood and rectified is the most important element of the real problem. We are simply not creating enough graduates of excellence in the subject areas that will support our society in future.

We need an ever-growing cadre of engineers, mathematicians, scientists, doctors and computer designers but we lack them in sufficient numbers. This is because we have encouraged a generation of people such as unemployable ill-defined creative folks to accompany too many social scientists and psychologists. I make this statement despite the fact that I work in the creative area. As a country we will not be able to sustain so many people working in the non-productive Public sector, we can no longer afford such conceit.

Not only are we undershooting the number of people required for the essential disciplines but we are also failing to ensure that they are of top international top quality. The future graduate has to be to be able to battle with a chance of winning in the future very competitive fields they will inhabit.

The root cause of this lack of our people excelling in the right areas started in a perverse and seemingly unconnected manner. In the middle 1980’s it became acceptable for our doctrinaire educators to mislead our young children that winning and losing was finished. Competition was actively discouraged. Such positions as first or last were effectively abolished.

The results are self-evident and totally counter productive. How do you tell a student that his exam results matters when it has been drummed into him that competition is somehow evil and negative?

Similar muddled thinking and attempts at social engineering took place in the USA and the consequences in the Community College system has been progressively more dumb students.

This simply has to stop or we will be buried by more motivated and qualified graduates from the emerging powerhouse economies in such countries as India and China. All we will be qualified to do is consume the products of these countries and entertain our new masters in exchange for crumbs from their table.

TheFutureArrives

On Friday, October 17, 2008 I wrote an article entitled, “Predicting the Future” in which I stated;

“There are certain things a shrewd columnist should never do; chief amongst them is any attempt to predict the future. This article proves that I am not very shrewd as I am going to attempt some forecasting.

We start with a relative no brainer; Obama is going to be the next President of the USA. I’m not suggesting who my preference is here, as its not relevant, me not being American and therefore unable to cast a vote.

Once Obama is elected and in office I truly hope that the security services does everything to enhance his personal safety as he is sure to be a target for every nut case on the planet, particularly American lunatics who view him as if he were the anti-Christ.

The next people likely to test Obama once he’s in the White House will be the Russians, as its almost impossible to see President Putin not seeing how far he can push the new man. The likely spot for the test will be the Crimean Peninsula of the Ukraine, in which the majority of the population is ethnically Russian but the government is Ukrainian. The situation is made more volatile by the Ukrainian government wishing to move west politically whilst the Russian fleet has its base in Sebastopol within the Ukraine. This is the Georgian scenario writ large, and is a boil waiting to burst.”

Yesterday the future arrived without many people even noticing. During a speech to his military leaders President Dmitry Medvedev on Tuesday announced a "large-scale" rearmament and renewal of Russia's nuclear arsenal, accusing NATO of pushing ahead with expansion near Russian borders.

He was addressing a meeting of Russia’s defense chiefs in Moscow, Medvedev said, "From 2011, a large-scale rearmament of the army and navy will begin,”

He went on to call for a renewal of Russia's nuclear weapons arsenal whilst claiming that NATO is continuing its push to expand the alliance's physical presence surrounding Russia's borders.

"Analysis of the military-political situation in the world shows that a serious conflict potential remains in some regions," Medvedev said.

He focused on local crises and international terrorism as security threats and added: "Attempts to expand the military infrastructure of NATO near the borders of our country are continuing. The primary task is to increase the combat readiness of our forces, first of all our strategic nuclear forces. They must be able to fulfill all tasks necessary to ensure Russia's security,"

Medvedev went on to praise Russia's military thrust into Georgia last year in defense of the rebel region of South Ossetia, he also said the conflict had shown up the military's failings.

The comments came despite an apparent thawing of US-Russian relations since the inauguration of President Barack Obama in January. But this is the first test by the big beasts of the new President’s resolve.

NannyState

We return to one of my pet peeves, the Nanny State. In Britain almost every aspect of our lives is now considered fair game for our political masters.

Not satisfied with taxes, both visible and invisible, too numerous to mention, they now feel quite entitled to tell us what we should eat, how much, when to exercise, what our kids should eat at school, how much alcohol we should consume, how to sift our garbage, what type of cars to drive. In fact the list is endless.

If you go to the cinema in time for the advertising most of it features the things you should or shouldn’t do. Today I went to the movies and there were slots to tell you to conduct safe sex, another to remind you to drive slowly, and yet another to watch out for motorcyclists. This was in addition to the material extolling the virtue of continuing education and surely it can’t be long before they tell us to love our mothers!

Our government is now in the habit of floating some of their more outlandish ideas in advance to the media and then, dependant on the public reaction will decide whether to move forward with the plan.

Over the last weekend the Health gurus floated the idea of creating a minimum price for each unit of alcohol, thus eliminating cheap drink presently available from the supermarkets. The argument for doing this is to reduce the amount of ill health suffered and bad behavior perpetrated by those ignorant enough to over consume the demon booze.

Personally I consume virtually no alcohol so this doesn’t directly affect me, but it isn’t right for the government to use a tax to force anyone to drink less. It is not the government’s business to tell me how to live my life unless what I am doing directly and negatively affects someone else. Politicians should not, must not presume that they know what’s best for the individuals of our country.

Perhaps if the politicians were super efficient and morally and physically superior they could lead by example. But the sad truth is that they are now seen to be useless managers, inept at finance, are mean spirited, pompous and many of them are greedy and corrupt. Secretly many of them smoke, and the majority certainly doesn’t bear close physical examination.

It’s time our politicians concentrated on their jobs and left our lives to us.