It is the bankers who pay the rat Lawson who want London as an offshore money-laundering centre outside the EU. This is what Lawson said about the EU today:
“Economic disadvantages are much greater than the advantages. In particular – it is not the only thing, but in particular – the attempt to overregulate and to cut down to size the financial services sector, banking and financial services including insurance which we need in this country, this is already causing great concern to people in the Bank of England, it is extremely damaging to one of our biggest industries so the economic minus is a very big one.”
BBC News Channel today 12.43PM.
It was of course Lawson who was Thatcher’s accomplice in destroying most of our real industries, the ones which actually made something visible. It was replaced by the crazed idea of elevating the financial services sector, from providers of middlemen services for a small percentage, into the greatest net recipients of income in the economy, through creation of price gambling instruments and South Sea Bubble schemes. The result has on average cost everybody in the UK and US the equivalent of their housing cost again in extra tax, plus plunged the entire world into recession.
All that tax, plus the 225 billion sterling extra money from QE in the UK alone, has just been given to the bankers so they can have no interruption in their gambling or lifestyles.
Let us not exaggerate the marginal changes the EU has been seeking to make. Instead of banning whole classes of derivative trading, they are merely looking to institute a transaction tax (entirely sensible in itself) and put some limit to the financial rewards of bankers – who will still get massively better paid than equivalent workers elsewhere. But even that is too much moderation for the insatiable greed of Lawson and his ilk, and they would rather destroy the EU than have any bounds placed on their wealth.
In a recent posting, I pointed out that, precisely opposite to the way it had been reported in the mainstream media, the recent Eurobarometer poll showed that voters, specifically including UK voters, had more trust in the EU than in national government. They also wanted the EU to control the likes of Lawson and his chums in the City:
Here are some more details of the Eurobarometer poll the Guardian omitted in its total misrepresentation. 70% wish to see a stronger EU role in regulating the financial services industry (p.28) and on the same page, 76% want to see stronger EU coordination of economic policy.
Large majorities across Europe support:
the introduction of a tax on financial transactions (71%)
tighter rules for credit rating agencies (79%)
a tax on profits made by banks (83%)
tighter rules on tax avoidance and tax havens (61%)These are all areas where the Tory government has been among those blocking effective EU action, against the will of the people of the EU.
That is why the bankers are against the EU.
There is good news, eight HBOS bankers were charged with criminal offences by Thames Valley Police.
http://www.thamesvalley.police.uk/newsevents/newsevents-pressreleases/newsevents-pressreleases-item.htm?id=241720
But what of the activities of Scotland’s oldest bank north of the border? Don’t know, hasn’t been an investigation north of the border.
Thanks to Jives for the 12-year-old’s excellent economic analysis.
Supplementary to which, a lot of questions and frighteningly true answers on the subject of ‘quantitative easing’ aka printing money:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PTUY16CkS-k
“The only thing I can see deflating right now is the Fed’s credibility”
The naff cartoon format makes it work better IMO
“The Queen’s Speech will include a parliamentary bill aimed at making it easier to deport foreign criminals and those who enter the UK illegally.’” (from April Showers/Mary)
———-
What is the objection to that?
“The thick pile carpets have been vacuumed, the thrones dusted, Black Rod prepares to put on his tights and pick up his stick and the flunkeys are at the ready. Even the police outside are wearing white gloves we hear.” (April Showers/Mary)
It’s called the ceremonial opening of a new session of Parliament. What are the objections to this?
——–
“I never listen to the German lady anyway..all she does is spout a lot of bunkum” (Frazer)
Well, it may be bunkum, but she’s simlpy reading out the govt’s legislative intentions for the next session.
What is the objection to that?
**********
Craig, I suggest a new thread, this one is beginning to get a little silly.
How about something on the first effects (if any) of the changes to UK social security provisions/payments?
Geoffrey – “Nor is it reasonable to blame him for the loss of manufacturing,which would have happened with or without him.”
Folk keep on stating this myth.
Letting manufacturing die was a deliberate economic policy, not some form of natural evolution.
Other countries chose to invest in, and modernise their industrial sector, and are doing rather well at the moment.
Which ones Juteman?
A tax on financial transactions? Agreed. And extend that to speculative currency exchanges and share transactions. When wealth flows from one person to another without anything of true value being produced and conveyed, then you have a scam. The fake economy is based on ignoble principles of greed and trickery. It’s time that these fancy casino-banks were closed down or completely isolated from the real economy.
I think the Germans still make things Geoffrey, and they seem to be doing quite well.
Some of the Scandinavian countries make the odd thing or two as well.
That would be a good idea-though it would probably reduce UK economic activity by about 99%.
‘Without being submerged in a larger market of some description, we can’t conceal our basic bankruptcy.’
Agree with you there Komodo; however Iceland is part of the EEA, as we would also be if we left the EU. Any attempt by the EU to impede our access to the EEA after leaving would, firstly, be counter productive (as our balance of trade with them is in deficit) and, secondly, would likely fall foul of the WTO.
As for the ‘common culture’ which the EU attempts to embody, I see scant evidence of it myself, beyond the usual cultural exchanges and subsidised cross border film productions. There are clear differences in Europe between the common law/code Napoleon states, between the Germanic & Latin states, and between the Balkan & Western states. Some of these cleavages are also being exacerbated by the common currency project, as some believers in it (Wolfgang Munchau in the FT, for example) now grudgingly admit.
Yes good idea. Change the subject Craig. This thread became really silly at 8.12pm last night.
I’m not a supporter of the common currency either. Which is a recipe for monster banking fraud. On the other hand, metric engineering is a boon and a blessing.(despite nostalgia for Whitworth/BSF); we have been reintroduced in my lifetime to cheap and fair-quality wine and Mediterranean produce, and I bet more of our retired criminals even now wind up in Spain than in the USA (voluntarily, that is) Part of our culture is deeply involved in hating the French, and this is reciprocated with enthusiasm: part of our common cultural heritage. And it’s good to see that despite the two periods of extreme nastiness during the last century, we are rediscovering some natural affinities with the Germans.
I wish I could see your expression, Old Mark. 🙂
Old Mark
I think you have failed to notice that if were to leave the EU but stay in the EEA we would be required to accept whole chunks of EU legislation (which certainly include most of those that those against the EU object to) but would lose our right to partcipate in the EU institutions that set those rules.
Also I suspect the likes of Lawson are being incredibly naive/arrogant to believe that if we were to leave the EU that the City would continue to be the main financial centre of Europe. Do they really think that those with an interest in developing Frankfurt as an alternative would sit back idly and allow business to be conducted in what they see as a lightly regulated centre with minimal consumer protection and which avoids making its contributions in taxes. The City needs to wake up and recognise that its days as masters of the universe are now over.
‘we have been reintroduced in my lifetime to cheap and fair-quality wine and Mediterranean produce, and I bet more of our retired criminals even now wind up in Spain than in the USA (voluntarily, that is)’
Good points Komodo, but these developments have no connection with our membership of the EU. The growth in wine appreciation here began in the 70s (as Dominic Sandbrook pointed out in his recent TV mini series), when the ‘plebs’ got a taste for it via cheap holidays to Spain… which didn’t join the EU until 1986. The Costa del Crime phenomenon meanwhile has nothing to do with the cultural affinities between English & Spanish criminals, but has more to do with the Franco era hangover of the lack of a decent extradition treaty.
Has any of the parties, for or against Independence for Scotland, set out their stalls yet?
What for example, would citizens rights and responsibilities entail, what Human rights legislation will be adopted, that of the EU, or that of the UN?
I suppose it depends whether one would like to garner brownie points for a possible EU entry/application for entry.
But what is being debated with regards to citizens rights, will an Independent Scotland be accountable to each and everyone?
Time to come out with some nitty gritty, something that will turn down the BBC’s voluminous lamenting.
Scotland wil still be bound by the ECHR which despite common belief is nothing to do with the EU.
Knocking copy about Prince Andrew by Alice Thomson. It’s behind the Times paywall. She is angry that the Royal Society, of which her great grandfather was President, has admitted P Andrew as a Fellow.
One more reform for the Queen: her family
May 8 2013
She needs to streamline ‘the Firm’, especially when the Royal Society treats a minor royal with absurd deference.
Brunel, Babbage, Crick, Darwin, Faraday, Fleming, Livingstone, Newton, Rutherford, Wren, Watt. Oh yes, and now Prince Andrew. The Queen’s middle son has become a Fellow of the Royal Society, joining an institution that champions intellectual rigour and scientific understanding.
Yet the Fellows (or rather 11 per cent of these illustrious academics) have elected the grand young Duke of York to their number, a man who may have many hidden talents but who paddles at the shallower end of the intellectual pool.
My great-grandfather, J. J. Thomson, a bookseller’s son, who left school at 14 and worked his way to a……..
http://www.thetimes.co.uk/tto/opinion/columnists/alicethomson/article3758543.ece
Will an independent Scotland be a member of NATO?
Or will it – like Eire during WW2 – rely on the UK for its defence while maintaining a lofty ‘neutral’ position?
“Knocking copy about Prince Andrew by Alice Thomson. It’s behind the Times paywall.”
——–
“Paywall” – what is this commenter talking about?
I have before me a copy of today’s The Times and the whole article is there (Opinion section, page 19).
Note to said commenter : buy hard copies of your favorite newspaper and support the economy and jobs!
To expect to read newspapers for free on the internet is morally as short-sighted and selfish as well-off European people who buy very cheap clothes made in Bangladesh.
Why on earth should anyone listen to a word former Chancellor Nigel Lawson has to say about anything?
Every single policy choice adopted by the man was an utter failure (M3, shadowing the DM, the list goes on…).
A fine one to lecture Nick Clegg for ignorance about economics!
“Or will it – like Eire during WW2 – rely on the UK for its defence while maintaining a lofty ‘neutral’ position?”
Ireland was supposedly neutral during WWII. But actually it gave quite a bit of help to the Allies. (Some programmes from the Open University have been very interesting on this subject.)
If Ireland had wanted to be “defended by the UK” during WWII, surely insisting on taking back the Treaty Ports was not the way to go about it?
“Following the establishment of the Irish Free State, three deep water Treaty Ports at Berehaven, Queenstown (modern Cobh) and Lough Swilly were retained by the United Kingdom in accordance with the Anglo-Irish Treaty of 6 December 1921.[1] Formerly, when the Free State was a part of United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, the Royal Navy had designated its Ireland Station as a long-standing separate command.[2]
“The main reason for the retention of the ports was the recent U-boat Campaign around Irish coasts during World War I, and a concern by the British government that it might re-occur. As a part of the overall Anglo-Irish settlement it was envisaged that all other Royal Navy, British Army and RAF personnel and equipment were to evacuate the Free State.
“As part of the resolution of the Anglo-Irish Trade War in the 1930s, the ports were returned to Ireland (the Free State’s successor) in 1938 following agreements reached between the British and Irish Governments.”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Treaty_Ports_%28Ireland%29
‘Every single policy choice adopted by the man was an utter failure (M3, shadowing the DM, the list goes on…).’
The 1988 decision to reduce the top rate of tax to 40% was also Lawson’s; Thatcher herself wanted a more measured cut to just 50%.
Habbakuk,
“To expect to read newspapers for free on the internet is morally as short-sighted and selfish as well-off European people who buy very cheap clothes made in Bangladesh.”
Nonsense.When most papers are free online how on earth is it immoral to expect some not to be?
Yet another hyberbolic and oafish statement.
You really think the well-off in Europe shop cheaply do you?
Keep filling Murdoch’s coffers Habbabkuk…now that’s a genuine moral failure.
The shit hits the fan for the US State Dept and Hillary Clinton.
Big style.
http://m.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/may/08/benghazi-us-officials-blocked-congress-hearing
O/T (sort of, still speaking about a rigged global financial system)
Credit card gateway for donations to Wikileaks back open (though maybe only for another six weeks – Visa gave two months’ notice to terminate their contract with Datacell altogether the day after they lost the Icelandic Supreme Court case).
http://www.businessweek.com/news/2013-05-08/wikileaks-sees-credit-card-donations-return-after-court-ruling
Anyone know exactly where to go to make a credit card donation today through the reopened gateway? I know there are other routes – Freedom of the Press Foundation, FDNN, etc – but I feel it’s important to send a message to Visa by doing it through the re-opened gateway somehow. As Visa, Mastercard, etc are so dominant in the global money transfer market they make money whichever route one uses, so a symbolic donation is as good a way of registering protest as a boycott, I feel.
I hope Wikileaks tweets a link or something telling people exactly how to go about putting their donation through Visa’s (grudging, reluctant) processing system.
these developments have no connection with our membership of the EU.
OM-
Astounding as it may seem, I can occasionally spot the bleeding obvious, too. I was citing our pre-existing cultural connections, not assigning these benefits to the EU. You seem to have missed my attempt to lighten it up a bit.
Maybe, after millenia of various alliances, trade and warfare, our European neighbours and the UK understand each other a good deal better than is the case with the US and the UK. Also, the EU is about 20 miles away, not 2000+, and any products we make now mainly conform with EU-wide standards. Which means we have a better chance of selling them to the EU than the US, which has its own special fluid measure, and uses UNF threads…
Certainly it is an expensive gravy train for some, as is our own dear government and monarchy, and one of those trains needs derailed, while the other could do with a retrofitted green diesel engine. I’ve no problem with that. I just think you’re derailing the wrong train.
Having dragged our feet continuously since accession, and got ourselves pretty favourable terms on many issues, should we now throw our toys out of the pram? It’s not going to improve our economic situation one iota to do so. And the alternative – hitching ourselves even more irrevocably to the USA, as Lawson and his Atlantic Bridge-associated chums undoubtedly would like, ties us to ongoing and chaotic involvement in the ME and elsewhere. Would it save us any money? No. (I’m not sure if Farrage has discussed this in the pub where he does his thinking, but I’m guessing he doesn’t speak Foreign, so would favour the US option too)
Anyway, the Europe issue is a sideshow to the rottenness of the global economy in general, and ours in particular. Very large questions of sustainability (economic and ecological) are screaming for urgent attention, and doubts about the EU are no more than handy distraction for the Mail-reading plebs, who are encouraged, by our dim and self-deluded leaders, to think that a return to the status quo ante 2007 is even possible.
“@Fred..Why not ? Our children are far better educated than those south of the border. And I am quite sure we will all pay our own bus tickets thank you very much.”
Because it shows a blatant disregard for the principles of democracy. But then they are Nationalist, principles don’t seem to mean much to them.
Only four in a row above. Afraid that there is no pay out from the fruit machine for four lemons.
Ref the Bangladesh disaster, the death toll is now 800. There has been a fire in another ‘factory’ ie sweatshop.
I write to an American friend. She writes in reply to my comment first:
‘Terrible about the women in Cleveland being imprisoned but no irony that Amerika has over 100 imprisoned in Guantanamo some never charged. I have signed this petition pleading for Lynne Stewart to be released. http://www.change.org/petitions/petition-to-free-lynne-stewart-save-her-life-release-her-now-2 / ‘
~~
‘I also signed that petition! I think I wrote you that I met her at that conference I helped to organize a few yrs ago. A fine, powerful person!
I’m already tired of hearing about the Cleveland prisoners! It’s been the lead story on all the MSM channels. (They have given very scant play to the hunger strikers at Guantanamo.) For 2 weeks the news here was all about crazy North Korea; then, for 3 weeks, it was all about the Boston Marathon bombing. Now it will all be about these 3 unfortunate women (at least it ended well for them!). We will also get too much Republican party ear-wax about the “terrorist” attack on Benghazi last September & how Obama and Hillary Clinton failed the nation (well, I can’t stand them anyway… but I do tire of all this nonsense from our “Republicrats”!)
I read and write and bike and try to keep going in spite of our decadent literary establishment which is as full of horse manure as our politicians and news media.’
____
We obviously live under identical systems.