A particularly mendacious lie by Danny Alexander puts the institutional start-up costs of Scottish Independence at £1.5 billion. That is a cool half billion pounds cheaper than Scotland’s share of the costs of the Iraq and Afghan wars, even on the Westminster government’s blatant under-estimate of the war costs.
So Scotland can afford criminal invasions killing hundreds of thousands to ‘bring freedom’, but cannot afford the smaller cost of its own freedom!!!
The £1.5 billion estimate is mendacious in two ways. Firstly, it is a simple recycling of a Canadian lie at the time of the Quebec independence referendum, apportioning with no argument 1% of GDP to startup costs.
Secondly, as nearly all the money will be spent in Scotland it is not a loss at all, but actually an increase to GDP, as any but the most nutty neo-con would be forced to acknowledge. And it would be the precursor of government money spent annually in Scotland rather than England for ever thereafter.
Thankfully Alexander won’t have a job much longer – and if he thinks a penny of Scottish public spending is going in future to support his huge arse and deceitful mouth, he is very wrong.
Came across this horror. You would think that the British Board of Deputies was a political party standing for election. Note the Israeli flag in the centre.
A European Manifesto.
http://www.bod.org.uk/content/EUManifesto.pdf
A reference to it was included within:
http://dissidentvoice.org/2014/05/why-boycotting-israel-is-so-important-and-necessary/
a lot of the start up costs will end up in the pockets of Edinburgh lawyers and IT suppliers.
As long as they don’t outsource the work to G4S and Crapita, it can only be an improvement on UK government…
Oh, and Price Waterhouse Cooper.
“As the song said, You can feel it in your fingers, you can feel it in your toes….’”
Beautifully expressed Mary 🙂
Banks lent £12.1bn last month in loans for mortgages. Up 50% on last year. When does the housing bubble burst?
Mary have you read the Paul Craig Robert’s report on the Truthseeker? Also discussed on the Rebel of Oz.
PCR seems to think that the future belongs to Russian, India and the East, which probably includes Australia, but only those Australians willing to ‘play the game’.
Expect the US to interfere soon in the Yes/No debate.
Undoubtedly on the side of the No campaign.
Hmm. If ‘Yes’ can get half the traction with Americans conscious of their Scottish roots that the IRA managed to do in the Boston MA area, I reckon that might be a dangerous prediction.
Simply Speaking: “The issue which has swept down the centuries and which will have to be fought sooner or later is the people versus the banks.”
-Lord Acton
I am laughing out very loudly here. They are laughing in our faces. Was P Charles checking up on his assets and investments?
Business Live: Lagarde attacks inequality and calls for more integrity in capitalism
Highlights of Lagarde’s speech start here
Inequality has risen “to the top of the agenda”
Lagarde cites Churchill, JFK, Aristotle and Wilde….
Photos: Prince Charles and Lady Rothschild consider inclusive inequality
http://www.theguardian.com/business/2014/may/27/markets-unruffled-by-eu-elections-as-lloyds-announces-tsb-float-business-live
Alderman Fiona Woolf, The Lord Mayor of London, Lady Lynn Forester De Rothschild, Chief Executive of E.L. Rothschild, Prince Charles, Christine Lagarde, Managing Director, International Monetary Fund.
http://static.guim.co.uk/sys-images/Guardian/Pix/pictures/2014/5/27/1401186200758/13e4d2f3-91bd-41cd-a691-d713dae057fd-460×307.jpeg
They pretend they care about our predicament. Lady Rothschild says all the right things. Clinton is there apparently. Not BLiar? $30 trillion of investments are in the control of this crowd.
This is a strong argument for anyone opposed to the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. The “No” campaign will have to make the case for being “better together” in terms of prosperity more strongly if they are to win.
Lazy platitude Habba ? No,
Syriza is the canary in the coal mine.No one has been able to do anything yet in Greece because the Troika still pull the strings. Syntagma give the Police orders.
I’m quite sure their army is still pretty right wing.
Since the early 80’s Greece has been very left of centre with Pasok, but they capitulated under Papandreou. Before Greece entered the EEC a family could eat out 3 times a week at least.The EEC brought immediate benefits… the roads for a start were amazing.I suddenly did not need to spend 1 whole day visiting the aliens buro and health centre for my work permit.”Life was good”.
As soon as the figures were fiddled to allow Greece into the Euro, life changed !
Everybodies eyebrows raised when they were told Greece had met all the conditions.
Sh**e !
Syriza is a party independent of the old guard that “might” just change something when they get into power,or they could be the power broker in Constitution Sq.
A breath of fresh air which Greece desperately needs.
With power,they’ll default on debt and leave the Euro but not the EU.That’s what needs to happen,and that’s what I hope will happen.The other side of the coin is that Greece will slide toward Golden Dawn, and that would be malakias.
Add to that the figure of 83& of all new car purchases are financed by one or other loan, Mary, on the never never, and you know why they work 60hour weeks to make ends meet.
🙂 babushka
Simply Speaking: “The biggest feminist issue which has been swept down the plughole for centuries and which will have to be fought over sooner or later is male centred freemasonry in public services and the lack of equal decision making by them.”
-citizen nevermind-
Iraq, Afghanistan, Ukraine, and Scots Independence, it’s all the same.
http://m.thenation.com/article/179986-western-media-coverage-ukraine-crisis-distorted-soviet-propaganda
Fascism on the march once again. Elections cut the path.
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article38616.htm
“India: Billionaires, Hindu Fascists and IT “Savants”
The election of Narendra Modi, leader of the BJP and long-time member of the Hindu fascist Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) para-military organization was based on three essential components:
(1) Multi-billion rupee funding from corporate India at home and abroad.
(2) Thousands of upwardly mobile IT technocrats mounting a massive propaganda campaign.
(3) Hundreds of thousands of RSS activists spreading the “Hindutva” racist doctrine among millions of villagers.
The Modi regime promises his capitalist backers that he will “open India”– namely end the land reserves of the tribes, convert farmland to industrial parks, deregulate labor and environmental controls.
” As long as they don’t outsource the work to G4S and Crapita ”
G4S, Crapita and that other supplier of PFI excellence Serco already have multi-billion pound contracts in Scotland. Despite the right royal cock-up at the Olympics G4S have been awarded a lucrative contract to supply stewards and security personnel for the Commonwealth Games in Glasgow later this year.
I understand the MoD has cancelled all leave.
Habbabkuk (La vita è bella) !
27 May, 2014 – 8:34 am
“…you’ll no doubt have time to provide the various answers you own me from yesterday and the day before, won’t you Doug?”
Please repeat the questions Habbabkuk; I’m not going to waste my time looking back on your posts to find out which questions I haven’t (apparently) answered.
“£821,427,538.99, obviously. But the point is, that whatever the precise figure it will be a welcome Keynesian stimulus. The money is not lost. In fact it will have a substantial multiplier effect.”
So you don’t know. You just assume the £1.5bn figure is wrong because you don’t like Danny Alexander and think it might harm the independence cause.
As to the multiplier, if it were such a guaranteed route to economic success, why has unprecedented UK public spending in the past few years not resulted in unprecedented levels of growth?
Mr Scorgie
“Please repeat the questions Habbabkuk;..”
_______________________
I “couldn’t be arsed”, Doug (do you recognise that expression of yours?)since you would simply find another excuse or pretext not to answer.
Do try to be a little less dilatory in future will you.
**********************
An answer a day keeps misleading comments at bay.
Tom asks (correctly)
“As to the multiplier, if it were such a guaranteed route to economic success, why has unprecedented UK public spending in the past few years not resulted in unprecedented levels of growth?”
and this gives me reason to repeat a comment/question of my own going in the same direction :
“Secondly, as nearly all the money will be spent in Scotland it is not a loss at all, but actually an increase to GDP,”
and
“As you say, the money will stay in Scotland and create jobs, which in turn will create more jobs.”
_______________________
On that basis (increased GDP, more jobs), would you recommend that the UK govt should create lots of new institutions in the non-Scottish UK?
Leaving Afghanistan? Not really.
US Troops To Stay In Afghanistan After 2014
The US plans to keep nearly 10,000 troops in Afghanistan for two years after the war formally ends later this year, officials say.
http://news.sky.com/story/1269994/us-troops-to-stay-in-afghanistan-after-2014
That fact was not obvious in Obama’s speech when he made a flying visit recently. He referred to a ‘small number’ of troops remaining.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-27568872
Establishment peer and former NATO secretary general, Lord Robertson is expected to amplify the Scottish independence ‘Project Fear’ manifold together with George Foulkes and John Reid, by forming a PAC to pull the wire with America to strong arm US institutions into resonating a global instability if the people of Scotland vote ‘yes’ to independence.
They will attempt to break the American silence on Scotland I believe by using cataclysmic terms such as acute geostrategic consequences where the “forces of darkness” will seize the opportunity to create instability in the West from a paralyzed United Kingdom.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6sRqyu6bnkg
Mark Golding
“They will attempt to break the American silence on Scotland I believe by using cataclysmic terms such as acute geostrategic consequences where the “forces of darkness” will seize the opportunity to create instability in the West from a paralyzed United Kingdom.”
______________________
Apocalyptic and paranoid tosh from you, as so often.
Habbakuk
Mark Golding
“They will attempt to break the American silence on Scotland I believe by using cataclysmic terms such as acute geostrategic consequences where the “forces of darkness” will seize the opportunity to create instability in the West from a paralyzed United Kingdom.”
______________________
Apocalyptic and paranoid tosh from you, as so often.
——————————————————————-
the usual shite with no links from billy nomates
Well found Mark. I do not think I have the stomach for 1.5 hours of their stuff though. I understood it was being broadcast from the Brookings Institute one of the neocon nests.
One of the comments.
‘Utterly sickening.
I have never heard so many lies and fear-mongering in one presentation. The wonderful thing about the Referendum campaign is that, as a result, the Scottish people’s interest in these matters has been re-awakened and the majority of Yes supporters could refute every single point made by George Robertson….I also noted that he made no mention, to his basically American audience, of the British Governments Diplomatic approach to Russia’s Putin for support against Scottish Independence…as Burns wrote “Sic a Parcel o’ Rogues in a Nation”’
·
I would never equate separatism with mass murder, but for my part I wouldn’t waste taxpayer’s money on either.
I’m surprised by Mary’s mention of a British approach to Russia. I had never heard of it, but I find it astonishing. How could the British imagine that Russia would be interested? And how could they possibly expect any help from Russia at all? The Kremlin clearly doesn’t take the British government seriously – after all, I don’t; why should they? – and since all the hideous and ignorant things Cameron, Hague and Clegg have said (and possibly done) in respect of the Ukrainian situation I simply don’t understand how they have the brass neck to ask.
“If tears could build a stairway, and memories a lane,
I’d walk right up to heaven and bring you home again” ~ Allah Yirhamik ya Oumi
All the politicians have failed the Eastern Ukrainians, Richard.
Only the people of the world can save them…
https://twitter.com/eshvedova2012/status/471392010755403776
Notice the hashtag.
Here’s another:
https://twitter.com/ARTEM_KLYUSHIN/status/471061619163025408
Isn’t this like Kosovo, but in reverse? I’m beginning to think that Blair might have got it partly right on that one (but you don’t need to bomb civilians to save civilians!).
A great reason to vote YES !
https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=sSS34o9WjpU
Ben-LA PACQUTE LO ES TODO – If Scots want independence like Afghanistan, Iraq or Ukraine – they better stay in union with Britain – otherwise they will Ira all over Scotland.
Food for thought: Why Rupert Murdoch favor break-up of United Kingdom?
http://rehmat1.com/2012/03/04/murdoch-favors-break-up-of-united-kingdom/
Is Freedom cheaper than gas?
http://www.caseyresearch.com/cdd/the-colder-war-and-the-end-of-the-petrodollar
But before I explain why that is, let’s put this deal in terms we can understand. The specific details have not been announced, but my sources tell me that the contract will bring in over US$10 billion a year of revenue to start with. The 30-year deal states that every year, the Russians will deliver 1.3 trillion cubic feet (TCF) of gas to China. The total capital expenditure to build the pipeline and all other infrastructure for the project will be more than $22 billion—this will be one of the largest projects in the world.
You can bet the Russians won’t take payment in US dollars for their gas. This is the beginning of the end for the petrodollar.
The Chinese and Russians are working together against the Americans, and there are many countries that would be happy to join them in dethroning the US dollar as the world’s reserve currency. This historic gas deal between Russia and China is very bad news for the petrodollar.
Through this one deal, the Russians will provide about 25% of China’s current natural gas demand. In a word, this is huge.
It’s also not a coincidence that Putin sealed the deal with China before the Australian, US, and Canadian liquefied natural gas (LNG) terminals are completed. If you read our recent Casey Energy Report issue on LNG, you know to be wary of the hype about LNG’s “bright future.” Take note: this deal is a serious negative for the global LNG projects.