The nauseating smugness of the Davos gathering is sickening enough at the best of times. In these very bad times, it is unbearable. The idea that we just need to recover confidence and get credit moving again, was precisely what the promoters of the South Seas and Darien schemes said when those schemes collapsed. The Church of England were quite right to characterise New Labour’s proposed remedies as “An addict returning to his drug”.
Brown’s extraordinary reliance on paid advisers from the merchant banks themselves to devise the way forward is laughable – not to mention the hideously unpleasant Baroness Vedera, one of the endless stream of democratically unaccountable Brown cronies parachuted into the Lords as ministers. And if one more penny of public money gets put into the banks without all bank bosses and staff being put on civil service pay rates, I am organising a tax strike.
Am in the middle of moving house, so no more from me until the end of the week.
@ George Dutton
Yes Ian Gilmour was a good man. Not my party but of the old patrician Tory school and very principled. He was my MP when I lived near Amersham. As you say, he saw it coming. He said that he wished he had resigned rather than being sacked in 1981. He saw that the country was heading for the rocks. Unlike the old bag Maggie (Gordo’s new friend) he did think that there was such a thing as ‘society’.
It certainly would be if we followed algernon’s advice and “prudently” withdrew our deposits. That would bring down the Government and also bring down the financial system. Hurrah! It would also be cutting our noses to spite our faces because we’d only receive a tiny fraction of our money.
The notion of withdrawing our deposits is an interesting one. If it were in the form of cheque or electronic transfer, where would we direct the money to go? If it were in cash…well, there just ain’t enough cash to go round.
mary
Gilmour believed in being benevolent towards the serfs.
Thatcher believes in being menevolent towards the serfs.
“They really respected each other’s views, and if that is not influence, I don’t know what is”
“President Reagan said: “We met before she became prime minister and I became president, and the moment we met, we discovered that we shared quite similar views of government and freedom. Margaret ended our first meeting by telling me that we must stand together, and that is exactly what we have done ever since”…
http://tinyurl.com/2266eb
I’m down with MJ. I frankly can’t see the point of discussing economics without acknowledging the private ownership of the reserve banks of the world. It’s not just the US Fed you know.
My own PM, one KRudd, declared in his pre-election party political tv spots that he vowed to uphold the independence of the Reserve Bank. What a strange thing to say to voters. As if a single one of them thought ‘Oh, if he’s going to do that, I’ll vote for him.’ Truth be known he wasn’t talking to the voters. He was talking to the people who own the RBA. It was his public declaration of fealty.
Otherwise consider the fundamental madness of the single most important entity in any country not being accountable to the voters or anyone at all. Politicians plead with them to lower rates etc.
That we view the reserve banks of the world as some kind of force of nature is madness. They’re no such thing. They’re all privately owned. The US Fed is a corporation registered in Bermuda. It’s no more ‘Federal’ that Fedex.
Google ‘creature from Jekyll island’ or otherwise go watch ‘the money masters’ on google video (it’s long but it’s worth it). And once you become convinced that the US Fed is privately owned (and you will be, I guarantee it. The history is bulletproof), then wonder at the likelihood of other smaller nations with smaller economies not being similarly controlled. Roll phrases like ‘The heads of the world’s reserve banks met today to coordinate policy…’ and wonder at what’s going on.
And sure enough, there’s my own PM, KRudd, declaring the need for a new world order. Under whom? Under the people who own the reserve banks of the world? Sure, who else?
nobody
The Australian Reserve Bank is owned by the Australian government. By its ‘independence’, Rudd was referring to independence from control by the government of the day.
http://tinyurl.com/b3w3zy
Cheers
I think that democracy, equality and citizenship are linked, at least in theory, alas in practice… The absolute ‘elite’ in relation to annual incomes, in the United States, according to the Internal Revenue Service, earned in excess of 105 billion dollars in 2006! Sounds a lot, and it is. What isn’t a lot is the number of people who shared in this tremendous bounty – 400 astro-rich individuals! The diamond-tipped, absolute top of the social pyramid. The magazine Forbes estimated that this same group had assets of 1.57 trillion dollars. Which if I’m not mistaken is more than the entire continent of Africa!
3 February 2009
“Obama prepares another trillion-dollar bank bailout”…
http://tinyurl.com/au84gw
They will be back for more…much more.
Will Milipede be discussing this with Clinton when they meet today? Probably not. Change? What change.
http://www.prospect.org/csnc/blogs/tapped_archive?month=02&year=2009&base_name=obama_and_rendition
The group blog of The American Prospect
THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN BUSH AND OBAMA ON RENDITION.
The LA Times reports that Obama will be preserving rendition as an anti-terrorism tool:
Under executive orders issued by Obama recently, the CIA still has authority to carry out what are known as renditions, secret abductions and transfers of prisoners to countries that cooperate with the United States.
Current and former U.S. intelligence officials said that the rendition program might be poised to play an expanded role going forward because it was the main remaining mechanism — aside from Predator missile strikes — for taking suspected terrorists off the street./….cont
What’s even more depressing:
“Under limited circumstances, there is a legitimate place” for renditions, said Tom Malinowski, the Washington advocacy director for Human Rights Watch.
I think the electoral success of Obama was probably the single, greatest, advertising/public relations triumph in history.
It was a brilliant, sophisticated and well-funded strategy to re-brand a product, the United States, which was failing in the market-place. It’s textbook stuff, cutting-edge marketing, and very, very, well done.
Whether this ‘face-lift’ has any real substance or not, is another question, and time will tell I suppose.
I stand corrected. If the RBA says it’s not privately owned, then it must not be privately owned. I mean, if they were privately owned, there’s no way the owners would misrepresent themselves, is there? Stands to reason.
And just because the US Fed does, doesn’t mean anyone else would. Not us. No way.
Besides with characters of unimpeachable moral stature like Frank Lowy on the RBA board, how could it be anything other than completely kosher. For those unfamiliar, Mr Lowy was partners with Larry Silverstein in the WTC real estate deal of the century. A few million down for a building full of asbestos and three months later, Bingo! A 5,000,000,000 dollar payout. That’s billions with a ‘B’. Boy, did he luck out!
And don’t pay any attention to his being tripped up in that recent Lichtenstein banking scam. How dare the Federal Police and the Tax Office investigate an RBA board member for fraud and tax evasion?! Bloody rudeness. It’ll be quite right if KRudd PM and the insanely unsackable Bill Keelty of the Feds put the whole thing in deep freeze.
Are you a gambling man Keifer? What odds will you give me on the likelihood of that? (Keifer! Mate! You’re not that fellow who explains the rightness of torturing Muslims in that completely brilliant ’24’ are you? Perhaps in Mufti. Shtum!)
Oops, changing the subject. Sorry.
Back to it – provided you’re not a shill for the Reserve Bank and have already seen ‘The Money Masters’ (and didn’t care for its crystal clear explanation of the reserve bank scam), do take the time to watch it. As God is my witness, you will never view things the same again.
PS Not forgetting that below the idea of central banks and monetary policy is the rotten-to-the-core idea that interest (as in usury, as in that which used to be considered a sin by Christians) makes any sense at all.
Honestly, ask yourself, Why do we have interest? Why do we pay money to the people who already have it all? What were they going to do with it otherwise? Eat it? Just roll it around in your head, and wonder how things might work without interest. Would it work? Or more specifically, wouldn’t it work completely brilliantly? Why does the fact that one has lots of money already mean that one should deserve more of it?
And don’t confuse repaying principal with interest. One is right and makes sense and the other isn’t and doesn’t.
And why does a people, by way of their government, have to borrow public monies at interest? Why doesn’t the government just print it themselves? If there’s not enough, they print more. And if there’s two much they just take it out of circulation. Between that and using interest, only one of them resembles loan-sharking.
If you look into the history of governments and control of the money supply, you’ll find over and over again that anyone who’s taken control of their own money supply (ie. from people like the good old “give me control of the money supply” Rothschild) has had a very stable economy.
I don’t know if anyone knows this but JFK did precisely this just before he was assassinated. Google ‘JFK executive order 11110’. I guarantee you will not find it dull. Sure enough there are sites discussing it that are written by people like our Keifer here. You may believe them if you wish.
Like I said, there’s no way anyone would misrepresent such a thing. Except for Mayer Amschel Rothschild. Such an obvious bullshit artist. “Give me control of the money supply…” Honestly, what was he on about it?
“I don’t know if anyone knows this but JFK did precisely this just before he was assassinated”
Yup.
The BIGGEST mistake JFK made…He was under the false impression that he was in charge off the USA…woe betide any president of the USA that thinks that.
Writerman “It was a brilliant, sophisticated and well-funded strategy to re-brand a product”
Yet another example of the weird conspiracy theories that infest this board. This comment shows huge ignorance of the US constitution and the process of electing a President. Who, Writerman, led this strategy? Have you actually read any of Obama’s books? Do you understand the process he went through to get elected? Do you know where he got his funding? Are you suggesting that corporate America took up this person and pushed him to the top for its own nefarious purposes? Presumably the Jews were somehow involved? Are you suggesting that my friends in San Francisco, who supported his campaign with funds, and millions like them, were unwitting participants in this conspiracy? Come off it.
Shenanigans with the NuLabour election result at Glenrothes – marked up electoral registers (i.e. those who voted) missing, see Postman: http://preview.tinyurl.com/amwwt7
& the BBC:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/scotland/7867022.stm
This was the election result, remember, that bounced back Gordy Brown, so we were told.
Nobody:
“A few million down for a building full of asbestos and three months later, Bingo!”
Yes. And isn’t it a good job he changed the insurance policy to include acts of terrorism?
Sorry Eddie, I know you don’t like conspiracy theories, but sometimes they make a bit more sense than coincidence theories.
While we’re on the subject, Lincoln won the American Civil War without taking loans from banks. He just printed his own money (greenbacks) when required, gambling, correctly, that people would just trust it and accept it.
He was about to introduce this as the fiscal system for the new United States but unfortunately…
It’s not a case of “not liking them” – they are simply not true. All of those listed above (Oswald was working for who exactly?) are on a par with the Book of Genesis. Perhaps you would point me to a single conspiracy theory that has ever been proven? You can’t because they don’t exist. The very word theory is a misnomer – it implies something that may possibly be true. “A conspiracy fantasy held simultaneously in the minds of minds of credulous individuals worldwide” would be a better description. People who believe this garbage are like Scientologists or creatonists. As Mark Twain said, “Faith is believing what you know ain’t so”.
“Perhaps you would point me to a single conspiracy theory that has ever been proven?”
How about two: firstly that it was Nero who destroyed Rome in AD 64 after all and not those peskie Christians; secondly that it was Hitler who ordered the burning of the Reichstag in 1933 and not those damned Jewish Communists.
Sometimes its just a case of needing time to pass, so we can assess the facts coldly and dispassionately, uninfluenced by the propaganda and brainwashing prevalent at the time, that “fantasy held simultaneously in the minds of minds of credulous individuals worldwide”.
Nice to see you back by the way Eddie.
Yeah, great to be back. Nero I will pass on, but I am assuming you are suggesting that Hitler ordered the Reichstag fire? You are wrong. There is no serious evidence to that effect. Van der Lubbe was involved in starting the fire, the only debate is whether he acted alone or as part of a wider plot. For Hitler it was obviously a heaven-sent opportunity to crack down on political opponents. Any others you care to mention?
“I am assuming you are suggesting that Hitler ordered the Reichstag fire? You are wrong”
I concede that the matter is still open to debate, but a good many serious historians eg Bullock take the view that Hitler had to have initiated it.
Any others you care to mention?
Since you ask, I could mention the sinking of USS Liberty in 1957. Blow if it didn’t turn out to be the US’s good friend Israel wot done it, and not Nasser, like those mischievous Israelis tried to make out!
Another wrong one. The Israelis owned up to that within 2 hours of doing it.
So that’s two dealt with. What about some of the bigger ones? Kennedy, Jewish conspiracies to rule the world, 9/11, 7/7, Osama funded by the CIA, Diana killed by MI5 etc. Do you believe those ones? As anyone who has ever worked in an office will know, once more than two people know about something it’s odds on that the truth will out. So to suggest that several hundred people can be in on a conspiracy and yet keep it quiet for decades simply defies rational belief. As I say, it’s akin to religious faith.
The thing is, what is a conspiracy theory? I’m only really interested in the truth of the matter, and acknowledge that the truth is not always as it first appears. People in power do have plans, and can be crafty. I’m a cynic I’m afraid, and don’t believe anything these days until it’s been officially denied.
The problem with using derogatory terms like conspiracy theory is that it tends to be sprayed around like it’s some kind of magic spell that renders untrue any idea it is aimed at.
One could argue that the official account of 9/11 has some of the hallmarks of a conspiracy theory, but the point is that that of itself neither makes it true nor false.
The Israelis only owned up because they were caught out. The US was about to nuke Egypt until one of the sailors reported that he spotted Israeli livery on one of the planes. If he hadn’t, no-one would have known. The fact that they were rumbled within two hours is neither here nor there.
“I don’t believe anything these days until it’s been officially denied.” That’s a strange construction – does God therefore exist because no one has “offically” denied his existence? By “officially denied”, I take it you mean governements? So anything a government says is by its very nature untrue? God exists, says Hamas. No he doesn’t, says Dawkins. So where does that leave us? I prefer to rely on scientific rationalism than crackpot theories. It sounds like you want to believe what you want to believe and the facts are either a side issue or they are manipualted to fit your truth. As for 9/11, well the “offical” account is the result of millions of hours of sifting through evidence, whereas the “unoffical” account is the work of a few cranks down the pub. I think I know which I would prefer to believe.
My remark was a rather clunking attempt at laconic wit. Don’t take it too seriously.
“As for 9/11, well the “offical” account is the result of millions of hours of sifting through evidence”.
No it isn’t. They came up with full story within 48 hours of the event.
No they didn’t – they came up with an intitial story based on certain self-evident truths – such as millions of witnesses seeing two planes flying into the towers, cockpit recordings, mobile phone calls from passengers saying the planes had been hijacked, video and other diaries of the hijackers etc etc. This was then confirmed by the full investigation and by the man in the cave himself. Given the overwhelming scale of the evidence witnessed by millions on the day itself the full enquiry was hardly going to conclude that the pilots had been trained by Mossad, was it?
“such as millions of witnesses seeing two planes flying into the towers”
Of itself proves nothing as to who did it.
“cockpit recordings”
Never released.
“mobile phone calls from passengers”
Shame the technology enabling mobile phone calls from planes wasn’t introduced until 2004.
“This was then confirmed by the full investigation”
What full investigation was that?
“…and by the man in the cave himself”
A known CIA asset.
Actually, the ‘hard’ evidence by which the alleged hijackers were identified and the official account formulated was, lest we forget:
1) A passport found in the rubble of WTC (remarkable it survived really, giving the flight data recorders didn’t)
2) A holdall belonging to Attah, which didn’t make it onto AA Flight 11, containing pilots’ uniforms, flying manuals and a copy of the Koran
3) A holdall found in an abandoned hire car at Logan airport, containing wills, a confessional letter written in a weird broken Arabic plus the obligatory flying manuals and a copy of the Koran.
I think actually there was also another passport found at the crash site of Flight 93 (again no fight data recorder alas) which all rather neatly tied things up.
For a professed believer in scientific rationalism, Eddie comes across as more than somewhat credulous.
Some may think that, I couldn’t possibly comment