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Stanley
Local Historian & Old Fart


36804 Posts
Posted -  28/04/2011  :  07:37
Political comment is a high risk activity on the site these days so I thought I'd try again to give those who are interested in politics a safe haven!


Stanley Challenger Graham




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stanley at barnoldswick.freeserve.co.uk
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Stanley
Local Historian & Old Fart


36804 Posts
Posted - 07/11/2011 : 05:25
Interesting factoid on World Service this morning. During the 1930s depression the US had 12 successive quarters of negative growth. Greece has just notched up its 13th quarter. Pappandreou has gone but there is till no guarantee that Greece can avoid default and leaving the Euro, indeed, the opinion of many commentators is that this is inevitable.

In Italy (World's 7th largest economy) they are re-running the Greek scenario.  Salutory to realise that the fate of the Euro/EU/global trade lies in the hands of a clown called Berlusconi. Deep joy! In connection with this take note that Angela Merkel admitted after the G20 meeting that they were having difficulty getting anyone to contribute to the bail-out fund (surprise!). At the same time the ECB admitted thay were debating whether they sould continue buying Italian bonds. At the moment this is all that is keeping Italy afloat. Their bod interest rate is at over 6.7% and worsening. 7% is seen as the tipping point where the Italian economy goes into terminal decline.

Never forget that the architects of this 'rescue' operation are the same people who got us into the hole in the first place. Ossie says 'steady as she goes'. My advice is still to make sure the bunker is stocked up and the tin hats polished.....  The train wreck coninues in slow motion. Where will the next shock come from? Watch the US very carefully particularly in matters of trade barriers.

Meanwhile Ted, a report notes the rise of right wing opinion over the last five years particularly amongst young men preoccupied by matters of National Identity. I seem to have been here before.....


Stanley Challenger Graham




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stanley at barnoldswick.freeserve.co.uk Go to Top of Page
handlamp
Senior Member


1100 Posts
Posted - 07/11/2011 : 14:56
Events, events, Dear Boy||||


TedGo to Top of Page
Stanley
Local Historian & Old Fart


36804 Posts
Posted - 08/11/2011 : 05:08
I knew you were watching Ted!

I see that pressure is mounting on Hartnet at HMRC over the Vodaphone sweetheart deal on back tax. A Commons Committee had one of his ex-officials under the grill yesterday. PE has been banging on about this for a long time. Has someone woken up?

By the way, 50th Anniversary edition of Private Eye is well worth a coat of looking over.....


Stanley Challenger Graham




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stanley at barnoldswick.freeserve.co.uk Go to Top of Page
Stanley
Local Historian & Old Fart


36804 Posts
Posted - 09/11/2011 : 05:55
Border Agency affair isn't going away. All the evidence is pointing to Home Secretary being 'economical with the truth'.

Did you see the report of Obama and Sacarov being caught slagging Israel off on mike at the G20 meeting?  When will they learn that wearing a mike can mean trouble?

Papandreou gone, Berlusconi going (so he says) and markets yo-yo. An American trader was on World Service this morning and he was saying that he has never seen US markets influenced so much by European news. A sign of the times, the markets and politicians seem helpless like rabbits caught in the headlights. A sad commentary on the times and the state of global trade. The bottom line is that everone is scared of admitting the truth which is that the gravy train has hit the buffers and the Western economies have to admit the reality that decades of living off debt has finally caught up with us. Sooner or later this will have to be addressed.


Stanley Challenger Graham




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Tizer
VIP Member


5150 Posts
Posted - 09/11/2011 : 10:37
It really upset me when the Europe ministers started asking China to bail them out. How can they be so hypocritical as to support the downfall of Gaddaffi and, potentially, Syria's leader yet ask for money from such a tyrannical regime as that in Beijing? The USA has gone the same way, the `land of the free' becoming dependent on a tyrannical regime that murders its citizens.


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Tardis
Regular Member


453 Posts
Posted - 09/11/2011 : 14:47
Well I'm guessing its:

Coalition 1 : 1 Civil Service

though there are a couple of civil servants heads still on the blocks. They are probably minor minions.

Strange that some papers are saying May should have sacked instantly, but that is what Ed Balls did and failed to follow proper Employment Law.

By resigning, however, the Home office will still have to proceed with protocol in case of the threatened legal action.


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Tardis
Regular Member


453 Posts
Posted - 09/11/2011 : 14:51
Local politics:

Very unsavoury at the end of last night's West Craven Area commitee meeting.

Cllr Whipp shouting all kinds of insults across the tables because they wouldn't go against the advice of the planning officer Neil Watson. Other parties very restrained and professional. He was still fuming stood outside the hall afterwards. Wonder if he went home and kicked the cat?


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Stanley
Local Historian & Old Fart


36804 Posts
Posted - 10/11/2011 : 05:20
Birmingham, Alabama has filed for bankruptcy. Not a first but the biggest municipal financial failure in US history. Straws in the wind?

Teresa up to her neck and grabbing all the headlines. This won't be bad news for Cameron as it diverts public attention from the real problem, the possibility of Europe imploding as Italy slides into a slow motion catastrophe. I couldn't care less about the politicians, they will know where their next meal is coming from. It's the people who are being hit hardest.  Think of the effect on personal incomes, mortgage repayments and savings. Then add to that the consequences for public services. How about children whose lives are being blighted? What effect does all this have on public order and trust in government? Dangerous stuff.


Stanley Challenger Graham




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Tardis
Regular Member


453 Posts
Posted - 10/11/2011 : 10:49
Labour MP reported to standards commitee for accepting Union money to put down amendments to Bills in HoC.

Eurozone in meltdown, negoitiations emerging of Frau Merkel fleeing to the deutschmark.

Evidence of imposition of non-elected technocrats to run the failed economies. Irish debt higher than Italian in percentage terms, and that is where UK banks have greatest exposure.


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Stanley
Local Historian & Old Fart


36804 Posts
Posted - 11/11/2011 : 06:08
I see one commentator referred to the 'train wreck' this morning that is the Eurozone. I am more certain than ever that what we are looking at now is inevitable. I don't know what is actually going to happen but it is going to be historic. The politicians are all trying to sound as though they have some control but they must know that they are helpless. Cameron should be very careful, he stood on his soapbox and lectured the EU with a speech full of what I call the 'bleeding obvious'. He says that the EU crisis is the 'central problem' obstructing an improvement in global growth. He is wrong, it is only a symtom of a broken financial system based on massive global debt. Now is the time to adopt 'worst case' in terms of the effects on UK economy and start putting an emergency Bill though Parliament to give us the power to take really drastic measures.

One of the advantages of managing a crisis (read Naomi Klein!!!!) is that draconian measures can be imposed with public support. This time these should be aimed exlusively at rectifying the obvious contractual disadvantages that are bleeding us dry and not the ordinary taxpayer. Bring forward the bank reforms. Turn the PFI tap off and apply the money saved to investment in the infrastructure. As for the letter this morning calling for the abolition of the 50% tax rate to 'stimulate the economy'....  Which planet do these people come from? Even if there was a cast iron economic case for doing this (and there isn't) it would give entirely the wrong message. Do they really think that this would escape public attention and protest?

All eyes are on the EU, this is a mistake, it is only playing catch-up. The world has to get together and make a leap of logic to try to get in front of the game. If necessary this should be at the expense of the banks by stopping the flow of money out of the real economy into Alice in Wonderland. I know this is the unthinkable but it is action on this scale that is needed. NOW!

I am an historian and I see the parallels between what is happening now and the dithering of politicians before WW1 and WW2. I am not saying that all this is a prelude to world war but it is the same syndrome, a political system shackled by rivalry and inability to seek wider wisdom from outside the Westminster Village. Hearing MPs arguing and scoring political points in PMQs is deeply depressing when they should all be sitting down together and talking sensibly about the real problems.


Stanley Challenger Graham




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stanley at barnoldswick.freeserve.co.uk Go to Top of Page
Tardis
Regular Member


453 Posts
Posted - 11/11/2011 : 10:40
Another sign reported in the FT:

UK gilts reached another low as money flocks to "safe harbours"

Government has no money to stimulate the tax economy so must do it through measured tax cutting. It will give an initial shortfall, but the longer term it will mean more money flows into the treasury. It is typical economics, and a measured response. The letter also requested a £1000 increase in personal allowances, maybe that got lost in the beeboid envy.

Remember the greatest debt is the banks, and if the country could offload those by getting money flowing through the economy then it would actually save us all rather a lot. They already know that when they are off the books they have to close the door on the way out.

Barclays have sold their private equity part to the management.


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Invernahaille
Regular Member


669 Posts
Posted - 14/11/2011 : 01:32
Stanley,
             You make an intersting point. After the two last world wars, wars were moved from the battlefield into the financial sector. Taht is to say wars are being fought in the market place. I hope to god they dont return to the battlefield. The only losers are the working man in both cases.


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Stanley
Local Historian & Old Fart


36804 Posts
Posted - 14/11/2011 : 05:15
Robert, quite right, some of us have longer memories than most. Ted has made the same point. The thing that strikes me over the last few days is the artificial relief following the change in leadership in Greece and Italy. A casual observer could be forgiven for assuming that the crisis was over but in reality nothing has changed, the deficits are still there and growing. Watch the markets this week as reality dawns on the traders.

The bottom line is that wealth is only created by industries where value is added to a raw material. Planting seeds to grow a crop, making a tree into useful articles or taking steel and making a ship or some other saleable good. This is complicated and hard work. Creating debt by inflating prices and lending money to buy goods is a lot easier. The best example in recent years is the housing market  leading to the dodgy mortgages and then trading those bad debts as derivatives. Loads of 'profit' for the banks but no real money. Transfer this mechanism to almost any other tradeable commodity and you have where we are now.

Private enterprise can't alleviate this rot in the system, it takes government intervention. The US realised this in 1926 and introduced punitive measures to restrain the bankers and it worked. From the 1960s onwards we relaxed those controls and enabled a rerun of the inter war years. This is where I see the parallel and it's spooky how close the comparison is becoming. 

The Western economies are so inefficient and saddled with debt that they can't stimulate domestic consumption to get the value-adding economy going again so they haver to look to exports. So you have your trade wars again.  It won't work, everyone is looking to the same solution. My bottom line is that we need a genuine 'new economy' based on solid values not phantom money. I shall stop, it gets boring....

One thought Robert that you know well. After both WW1 and WW2 there was a world shortage of shipping. The governments that realised this and subsidised their  shipbuilders to modernise and compete took the market. Compare that with what the UK government did. They abandoned the industry and allowed the asset of yards and skills to ebb away. Result? Who builds the ships now? The countries that invested public money in their shipbuilders. Transfer that story to the other high end manufacturing industries and you have the reason why we are in such a mess when we need a new nuclear power station or a big infrastructure project. 


Stanley Challenger Graham




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stanley at barnoldswick.freeserve.co.uk Go to Top of Page
Stanley
Local Historian & Old Fart


36804 Posts
Posted - 15/11/2011 : 06:10
Inflation figures for October due today. A slight fall in official figures is expected but nobody will mention true inflation on the essential food, goods and services which make up the major part of the expenses of the bottom 85% of the electorate. I reckon that's running at about 8%.

Pressure building to scrap the fuel escalator tax. If you reckon in VAT as well fuel will go up 33p a gallon in April 2012.


Stanley Challenger Graham




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stanley at barnoldswick.freeserve.co.uk Go to Top of Page
Stanley
Local Historian & Old Fart


36804 Posts
Posted - 16/11/2011 : 06:07
It looks as though the markets have taken a close look at Mediterranean bonds and they don't like them. All at unsustainable interest levels. This 'crisis' is by no means over.

I note that France is keeping very quiet as the banks digest the Euro/Mediterranean  bond issues. There could be a big shock here shortly.

NAO pronounces on PFI and the Treasury has had to react. It looks as though PFI as we know it is at last dead in the water. Question is what will replace it? NAO has also slammed the MOD over cuts saying that in many cases the cuts made last June have resulted in extra costs and a reduction in the efficiency of the armed forces. Good governance or the results of knee-jerk cutting?


Stanley Challenger Graham




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stanley at barnoldswick.freeserve.co.uk Go to Top of Page
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