Sunday 11 December 2011

....EHRR... IS THE MANAGER IN, PLEASE?


The newspapers in the UK today are full of praise for the Great British Bulldog, David Cameron. His own right wing are having a love fest, along with the City and the usual suspects in the Press (Mail, Express and yesterday's Sun* which carried the picture below). 

So what has he done, this British Bullshit, sorry dog? 

The way I see it, you may be able to stand alone when you are strong. But the UK is the most indebted country in the West. The banks, the government and personal debt through mortgages, bank loans and credit cards, are in debt to 1000% of GDP. 

How long will it be before one of these rating agencies come after Britain? And then what. Remember the UK makes Greece look solvent, and there's hardly any gold, because McCavity sold it off cheap.

I'm obliged, as I so often am for my stories, to Cynical Highlander. He pointed me in the direction of Max Keiser. 

Max pulls no punches.

Both Cameron, whom in comparison to Angela Merkel he considers to be a little boy playing at the grown ups' table, and Gordon Brown come in for  total ridicule.

Just how come we have been so badly governed all my life?

*I quote yesterday's Sun; there is, for the moment, no Sunday paper from that stable, because it (The News of the World) was shut down in a cynical and ultimately unsuccessful attempt to stop the inquiry into phone hacking  digging deeper and deeper into the sordid business of tabloid newspapers in the UK. 

21 comments:

  1. Tris,

    I welcome the shift in public perception of the EU which this non-existent "veto" is bringing. The eurozone has done nothing different to what it has done many times before. Any "big bazooka" of finance will have to rely on the existing system which is so overloaded with debt as to be literally incredible. The Chinese are not going to be fairy godmother. There is a big difference between the Germans and French. The French desperately want access to "quantitative easing" on continental scale to stop four or five of their biggest banks from going under and Frau Merkel doesn't like that sort of thing!

    In eighteen months time (probably) we will have our very own, full-blown sterling crisis because those cuts have not gone deep enough to balance HMG's books - and we are still giving away money for "aid" which has to be borrowed. Britannia is a bankrupt Lady Bountiful.

    An otherwise fairly sensible Conservative MP tried to tell me that this was "soft power". I said it was obvious who the softie was - the taxpayer! I fear that I did not convince.

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  2. Yes Mr S,

    We are also having to fund a massively expensive Olympics for London (Scots are having their own games in 2014, but we have to pay for them ourselves, which I thought at bit unfair as we are helping to pay for London's).

    I agree that it is nonsense to be borrowing money to give in aid. But we know perfectly well why it is done. Membership of the "world stage" club is meted out on the basis of how much you give in aid. We can't have our halfwit PMs not at the top table, however much they don't deserve to be, and however much it costs you and me.

    I can't remember the actual figures, of debt, but the total adds up to around 1000% of GDP, and raising, because Osborne hasn't done enough.

    He needs to:

    get rid of most of our forces and retain a defence force;

    reduce benefits to the barest minimum possible to sustain life;

    close down most of the NHS and go back to the days where you could get treatment if you had the money (like dentists) except for emergencies;

    reduce the retirement pensions by £10 a week;

    stop all aid and get rid of Andrew Mitchell and his department;

    reduce the pay of all public workers to about 70% of what it is;

    do the same with their pensions;

    raise VAT to 25%;

    raise income tax by 5p in the pound;

    take all credit cards away from anyone with under £40,000 a year;

    sell the BBC;

    scrap the Lords and reduce the Commons to half its size and cut pay for MPs to £40,000;

    put all the royals in one palace and sell the rest to whoever has that kind of money;

    tell the banks that they don't get another penny and they had better start paying back NOW what they owe.

    Ok, I'm only joking, but how else will he pay off the debts. Everyone is hurting at the moment (except the bankers, MPS, Lords and the royals so he could save on them) and the debt is going up by millions a day.

    What's poor George to do?

    PS: I know some good high buildings.

    I read that the Chinese are considering putting a vast amount of money into the IMF... yesterday's Telegraph I think.

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  3. Drat. I thought you had finally woken up and drunk the coffee tris. But then you said "only joking".

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  4. How appropriate throbber.... I just had a lovely cup of Nescafé 37.

    Well, I was only partially joking. That's what they could do to make a start on paying the money back.

    But they won't, because even the supine Brits would turn to mass rebellion if all that happened (well, after the final of 'Strictly' and' X factor' and' I'm a Z-list Celebrity, Try to Remember Me'.

    Apparently crime has risen in England because of the poverty. (I mention England, because that's where the figures I read were for. It may well have happened in Scotland too.)

    Imagine if all the NHS staff, council staff, armed forces, and the companies that rely upon them were put on the dole all at once...

    But they could start with the royals and the houses of parliament...

    No one would notice if a few of them were unemployed.

    Talking of royals, I see that Andrew is looking for some sort of maid. 40 hours a week, but may have to work late. Evenings and weekends will be included. Duties very varied from cleaning shoes and pressing suits, etc, to helping guests get dressed. (These aristos are thick as mince; they would wear their underpants round the wrong way if they didn't have a human to help them.)

    To be based at Royal Lodge, a 35 bedroomed house in Windsor Great Park that he got when his granny died, but belonging to us, and shared by his ex-wife and either Tubby or Goofie, one of his daughters.

    £16,000

    "Applicants are reminded that this work will involve contact with members of the royal family..." so be prepared to think for two.

    £16,000 a year... suffering heavens.

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  5. It doesn't matter what cuts they do it is not going to make any difference.

    Nothing they do will make a dent in the interest payments - never mind the debt.

    This financial system is on it's last legs and they are going to have to come up with a new one that does not involve the banks having control and ths stupid debt based economy.

    If they want to get rid of the corrupt illuminati and their poodle politicians then they are going to have to come up with a sytem that replaces money - we will never change things unless these people and the stuff that gives them all the control is dealt with.

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  6. Badly governed all your life? Maybe its due to the fact that so many voters of your generation have taken so long to start shaking up the Scots political establishment and break from voting for the ZanuLiebore party?

    :P

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  7. Billy: they would find a way to steal even if there was no money.

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  8. Absolutely Dean.

    It's started.

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  9. Tris,
    as one of my Glasgow relatives remarked of a light-fingered aquaintance,
    "That yin would steal the cross off an ass's back".

    Having sat at the feet of the redoubtable Old Labour peer, Lord Stoddart of Swindon for some years, I have considerably more time for the Lords than you have. He was chairman of the Campaign for an Independent Britain
    and is now an honorary life member.

    Even the egalitarian US founding fathers realised that a democratic majority could be as tyrannical as any dictator. I think it was Thomas Jefferson who warned his fellow Virginians against "too democratical" a constitution "else we will but have exchanged King George for King Numbers".

    The Lords actually to a pretty good job of revising badly drafted stuff which arrives from the other place after inadequate, guillotined debates.

    One thing you can be sure of - any "democratic" replacement will cost a great deal more. I have just written a short article on the subject for our local paper. If you'd like it, let me know.
    I'd back a decent hereditary - like the Countess of Marr for instance - against a Blairite placeman on any ground they go!

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  10. I would like everybody on this blog to watch this animation about a financial tidal wave of debt which is about to implode probably on London. It will make 2008 look like the Campsies set against the Himalayas.

    Basically the 2008 financial implosion happened because banks were creating money by lending each other, based on notional values of assets, physical and ephemeral. They were insuring that this would be paid by taking out what is Credit Default Swaps. This was not in the normal Insurance market where assets have to be assessed and valued as collateral. The banks created an unregulated market for these devices outside normal banking insurance and national laws. It was like everybody was taking in each others; washing and ramping up the rates each cycle so they could borrow money against their future cash flows, again and again.

    This started with the bundled sub prime mortgages from the USA, which were laundered by way of this credit insurance scam and soon progressed into the banks lending and borrowing from each other to buy other banks, pub chains departments Stores etc. Anything to keep the money churning.

    It all went pear shaped when the true value of the security used was found to be way way short of what it was supposed to be, starting with when people found they couldn't pay the instalments in the USA and the lender, or whoever had bought the debt foreclosed.

    What is not widely talked about was that most of the funny stuff was conducted by Americans in London using the UK's lax bank laws and financial policing

    A fund called MF Global went bust two weeks ago in the USA and, as a Ponzi scheme it make Bernie Madoff look like a beginner.

    The same credit insurance scam was run on futures, such as the price of commodities and everything you can think about that goes up and down daily, like currency values.

    MF Global went down for at least $1.2 trillion and that is only what they have identified in two weeks. There are bigger MF Globals lurking about about to implode.

    One calculation is that the Ponzis is worth $600 trillion or way more than the World's GDP.

    Why am I posting this?

    Well you should know that what is about to hit the UK and us.

    Second, most of the paperwork on these swaps was done in London because of lax bank laws and poor financial policing.

    We were assured that banks would be brought under control and had been but it is still going on as we are about to find out, big time.

    My guess is that Bruxelles, vetoes and summit walkout will be swept aside by financial chaos which will make Scotland's independence from London vital.


    Remember these are the people that Cameron sided with when he walked out of the Bruxelles summit.

    I hope Eck knows what is going on and is developing a plan when it does happen.

    I predict one big opportunity arriving but may be one involving bloodshed as London tries to force Scotland not to leave.

    I hope not.



    http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=jLt05sN7vK0

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  11. Mr S.

    I've never heard that one about the cross on the asses back. Good though.

    Of course I'd like to read your piece on a replacement for the House of Lords. If you'd like to send it: trisp@gmail.com.

    Incidentally, I've no problems with some of the people who make up the lords, although I find the idea of an honour which changes your name to be repulsive, and it goes without much saying that the hereditary principle is all wrong in my opinion.

    The Tory peer who was sent to prison for 9 short weeks for stealing from the lords (and may escape being sent back for stealing from his local council because he's old and not very well) said that 80% of the "noble" members were doing the same thing!

    Well, he would, wouldn't he.

    He's clearly a liar and a thief and not to be trusted, but, there's no smoke without fire, and most of them were protected by their "lordly status" because the lords simply wouldn't let anyone see anything, under some idiotic charter dating to mists of time, and something about it being a royal palace and not subject to the laws of the common man,

    That all needs changing.

    And there's more that needs changing, but I'll keep these opinions till I've read your article.

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  12. Good piece Wolfman.

    I'll watch the video when I get home.

    You paint a frightening picture, but yeah, I know, it could happen.

    Eck has written to Cameron asking him to explain why he did what he did. There are 6 specific questions, which I heard this morning but have forgotten as I was half asleep at 6.15! but I'm sure they are in the Scottish papers (Huh). Or the SNP website!

    Mr Cameron will be cheered in the Commons this afternoon by his right wing. Clegg is in for an embarrassing time (and I'm already looking forward to the next DPMQs), but the cheers will be short lived, I fear.

    The future looks grim.

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  13. On an unrelated topic, well not really because her dirty paw prints are all over The City, it appears that Margaret Thatcher wants her Lying in State, when she medically and verifiably snuffs it,will not be open to the Great Unwashed. It will be open to MPs and members of the H of Ls

    Presumably it will be held during the night only.

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  14. Yeah Wolfie, they're a pile of crooks, and they are not in jail.

    All our wages and savings are being made worthless by the inflation caused by printing money.

    They are making money by betting on the countries like Ireland, Greece, Spain and Italy. One day it will be the UK and the entire world.

    They are putting kids in prison for 6 months for stealing a couple of bottles of water... and The Daily Mail and its like are supporting this position...

    Allegedly.

    And the Tories, ie the UK government, are funded by, and in hock to, these people.

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  15. There's nothing I wouldn't believe about the Thatcher creature.

    It is probably wise, however, not to allow the public anywhere near her when she finally goes.

    What might happen would be unseemly and doubtless leave the culprit(s) in prison for 200 years. They might even bring back hanging specially.

    That woman getting a state funeral after all the damage she did... Pfffffffff...

    No wonder I dislike the UK so intensely. Their values (????????) are repugnant.

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  16. Even Thatcher conceded that Britain had to be 'in the room', and never used her veto (she indeed signed us up to some very integrationist policies btw)

    So ... Cameron is going further to the extreme, xenophobic racist right on the Europe question than even the good Baroness ever did.

    Nothing to be proud of there.

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  17. Well, from what I heard, he was popular in the house today. Nick Clegg refused to sit next to him, so he got his friends George and George on either side.

    He looked really happy.

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  18. Short term, sure, this will be perceived popularly across the country. Just wait a year, when the consequences see the UK not getting representation at key summits where British jobs are lost etc... then the mood of his veto decision shall return to bite him royally.

    As for Nick, I've been impressed by his stance on this, putting UK interests first.

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  19. O Dean, do come off it.

    My German colleagues
    www.german-foreign-policy.com

    would be very surprised to learn that I am from the racist right.

    The anti-authoritarian right, perhaps!

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  20. I think Nick is putting his own interests first.

    I mean he folds his tent on tuition fees and gives in on his PR agenda as Scot Goes Pop said, he only has to back the re-introduction of capital punishment and he's joined the right of the Tory Party.

    I think he must have decided (after 24 hours) that he was going to say something to appease his voters.

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  21. Mr S; Dean...

    I'll leave you two to sort out your differences. :)

    I sure you will.

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