David Folkerts-Landau, Chief Economist of Deutsche Bank, who has claimed that Scotland would have a “Great Depression” if independent, has a second home he bought for US $11.6 million dollars. His first home is in London – where he would have been well-placed to notice that Deutsche Bank was at the very heart of the LIBOR interest rate fixing scandal. Naturally neither Folkerts-Landau (he and his wife are friends of the Camerons) nor any other senior banker was jailed for that long term criminal illegality.
Folkerts-Landau must, you might assume, have great powers of economic prediction to have accumulated a fortune of hundreds of millions of dollars from banking salary and bonuses. Yet he failed to notice that Deutsche Bank was running up 92 billion dollars of US sub-prime mortgage junk that would be written off in the actual great crash, in which Deutsche Bank was again in the centre. Why a man who failed to notice that his own work was contributing to an actual great depression, should be taken seriously in ridiculous prognostications of a new one, is rather beyond me.
It is interesting that Folkerts-Landau states that Winston Churchill’s return to the gold standard was a major cause of the great depression. From the German Deutsche bank, that dismissed its Jewish directors in 1933 and denounced Jewish employees, and received expropriated Jewish assets through direct cooperation with Hitler, this criticism of Winston Churchill might be thought culturally insensitive.
Folkerts-Landau is just another example of the super-rich who realise that the people-based movement for Scottish independence is currently the most potent threat to the neo-con hegemony that has resulted in the destruction of social-democratic society and the massive gap between the super-rich and real people. If you look at the other boards on which sit members of the board of Deutsche Bank, it reads like a catalogue of corporate dominance:
Coca Cola
Pepsi Cola
Microsoft
Accenture
IBM
Bayer
Daimler
EON Energy
Thyssen
XL Group
Alliance Trust
Bilfinger
BMW
That is an illustration of the fact that mega corporations are not really competitive, but part of an interlinked web of capital interests all sharing directors. Those interests have bombarded Scotland with apocalyptic threats the last few days. There will be a great depression, major businesses will leave, energy bills will go up, interest rates will go up, oil will run out, shopping bills will go up, call charges will go up, terrorists will run round unimpeded, Russia will invade. These nonsensical claims have been hammered home relentlessly in perhaps the most concentrated stream of mainstream media propaganda in history.
The extraordinary resilience of the Scottish people, in face of these ludicrous levels of threat and intimidation from “authority figures” like Folkerts-Landau, is something of which I am very, very proud.
Yup. If it fails to stop a Yes vote, CIA guys in DoS billets will be working night and day to set up a crooked autocratic banana republic in Scotland. Scotland can fight that with capacity-building assistance from Nordic countries, international civil society, OSCE, or UN agencies.
Its completely surreal that anyone in Scotland should listen to what all these bankers predicting economic depression following a Yes vote are wailing about
These bankers took the global economy to a near catastrophic collapse in 2008.
Why would anyone believe a word these charlatans say?
Aljazeera TV, gave good coverage of the O/O march, Orange bigots from NI and England were among the marchers today, as they massed in Edinburgh, in full band regalia banging their drums and spewing their bigoted rhetoric, they paused and sang out loud “God save the Queen.”
When they eventually stopped, a reporter, asked them why they were singing God save the Queen the reply was its our national anthem. Ask another question what if yes win the referendum, the pretend Scotsman said he’d leave Scotland for good.
Interested that no-one has picked up on Mary’s first post about Lord Kerr. As avid readers of Craig’s books will know, the key information for this blog is that he once called Craig a “stupid cunt”. Craig seems not to have been much bothered.
The argument for an independent Scotland, that it would better protect socialism because of better popular support than in England, is a valid argument worth making a case for.
On the other hand we should remember the book “Animal Farm”. Maybe an independent Scotland will compromise principles because of expediency. Maybe an independent Scotland will go bankrupt like Argentina, without the rest of the UK to bail it out.
I wish G_d’s wisdom on Scotland on the 18th, whatever they decide.
What’s getting rather interesting is the growing awareness that regions (s.l.) other than Scotland are not too happy with UK plc either. Both Matthew Paris and Hugo Rifkind express this in today’s Times – hardly disunionists, either of them. Paywall, but both articles are worth a look. Warning – the Times cartoonist today is probably Havvacluck, but as there is some doubt whether the subject is Gove or Salmond, the intended offence is diluted.
The Deutsche Bank statement said it was “incomprehensible” why anyone would “want to exit a successful economic and political union with a G5 country – a union which another part of Europe so desperately seeks to emulate – to go it alone for the benefit of what exactly?”
The usual disconnect between what constitutes success for a/ the nexus of nonproductive megaliths for whom globalisation means cheap labour, and margins inflated to keep the boardroom in the style -ever more luxurious- to which it is in the habit of accustoming itself;
and b/ The poor bloody infantry, without job security, on falling real wages, under a government which claims to represent, if not the people, then ‘hard working families’ but has found time to listen o any.
As Paris, Rifkind, Monbiot, your good self and other reputable commentators are noticing, the issue is not restricted to Scotland, and the independence question has acted as a catalyst for that realisation.
As usual, the obscenely wealthy ruling strata – the hedge funds, international banks and global monopolies – are responding to serious concerns with ‘let them eat cake’…which is what the Deutsche Bank statement amounts to.
‘Has found time to…’ Has NOT! Has NOT!
“‘I have always worried that Germany’s absolute uncaring attitude to human rights in Central Asia…represented an inherent German failure to feel distaste for dictatorship or gross human rights abuse.’
Did you write that or did you farm it out to Basil Fawlty? You really think the Germans like dictators and don’t feel distaste for gross human rights abuses? Have you met many Germans? I have and they are as appalled by human rights abuses as anybody else. What their political elites get up to aboard is largely beyond their control and in no way reflects their character. Just like us.”
Thanks KoWN and Phil, for stepping on Craigs carpet before it takes orf.
Human rights are valued In germany as much as anywhere else and \i take no lesson from apologists to all sorts of colonial bastardry, whether it happened in India Afghanistan or elsewhere.
It is noteworthy to see Anon1 deswperation in trying to link the current DB flauncing with, yawn, who would have guessed it, the last great calamity that hit this country, oooh what a lovely war, jibber jibber.
I thought this debate is about Scotland, not of some thetralic Folkerts Landau, a clown who has cried wolf before and was slapped down for it.
I suspect that he was forcedm to come out in favour of the NO nonsense becausem someone said’ look David, there are some discrepancies in your past the public might not like to hear, would you be so kind and scream blue murder’.
So he did, get over this bluster, bankers know that they will earnm whichever way the axe falls.
This campaign has shown that the elitist establishment is rather boring, only interested in money and the pursuits of making more of it. what sad lives they must lead, having such brilliant education lavished on most of them, they squander and abuse their interlects with shallow boring values. It has shown Britain up for what it is, still class ridden and full of OBN zeal.
Britain needs a good old fashioned cull, not just badgers, but those who set themselves up as rulers of our destinies.
Ba’al ^
Excellent post.
In the last few weeks here in Glasgow ive spoken to many nationalities about the Referendum.
Fasinatingly,and greatly encouraging,most see this as an issue way beyond the traditional paramaters of ideology and nationalism.
Most people see it as a universal moral issue.
A chance for Scotland to express a global and growing sentiment of hope,principles and morality against the howling greedy amoral inequalities of the current system and the 1% overlords.
It’s palpable.
Republicofscotland
“54% NO
46% YES
————-
This is the result of the latest Survation poll carried for the Better Together camp, do I believe it? NO WAY!”
That seems about right. I’ve said all along 55% No 45% Yes. SNP threats of a “day of retribution” against UK businesses should swing it another percentage point.
“I would have thought you might have noticed these manipulations in the Scottish struggle for independence.”
It’s easy enough to see.
Nobody who preached hatred and division ever had the interests of the common man at heart. All they care about is satisfying their own lust for power and control and they don’t care how many lives they ruin to do it.
Those who care about the ordinary people preach harmony, friendship and cooperation.
Nevermind
“Britain needs a good old fashioned cull, not just badgers, but those who set themselves up as rulers of our destinies.”
________________
. “An old fashioned cull”. You mean…sort of…errr, sort of like what Hitler and the SS did to the SA, like?
If anyone needs to be culled, it’s mental defectives like yourself.
Jim Sillars earlier today –
“The heads of these companies are rich men, in cahoots with a rich English Tory Prime Minister, to keep Scotland’s poor poorer through lies and distortions. The power they have now to subvert our democracy will come to an end with a Yes.
“BP, in an independent Scotland, will need to learn the meaning of nationalisation, in part or in whole, as it has in other countries who have not been as soft as we have been forced to be.
“As for the bankers: your casino days, rescued by socialisation of your liabilities while you waltz off with the profits, will be over.”
Mr Sillars added: “What kind of people do these companies think we are? They will find out.”
Also on a BBC video
Sillars: Cameron ‘has organised fear campaign’
The former SNP deputy leader Jim Sillars claims David Cameron has organised “an orchestrated fear campaign”, as the Scottish referendum nears.
A row over the intervention of business leaders and banks in the Scottish independence debate has intensified on the final weekend of campaigning.
First Minister Alex Salmond said the Scots would not be “bullied” by oil companies, supermarkets or London.
Read more
Scottish independence: Business row marks weekend campaign
Scottish independence: Guardian backs pro-Union campaign
Scottish independence: Jim Sillars warns of ‘day of reckoning’
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-29188893
“It is interesting that Folkerts-Landau states that Winston Churchill’s return to the gold standard was a major cause of the great depression.”
I don’t know enough to know if that’s true. Churchill was in favour of the gold standard as far as I’m aware, though if I am informed correctly, he foolishly tried to peg Sterling to gold at the pre-WWI rate which totally ignored the inflation which had occurred since Sterling went off the gold standard in 1914 or so.
I’ve no idea where Deutsche Bank get off meddling in what is, for a little while anyway, an internal British matter, but in any event, both unionists and separatists seem to be getting their knickers in a twist about the economy. They both seem to ignore the fact that nothing stops trade. The continentals couldn’t stop British goods flowing in the early 19th century; the Empire couldn’t keep out American manufactures in the early 20th; the Americans couldn’t keep out Scotch or gin during prohibition and people are buying ‘recreational’ drugs despite attempts to interdict the flow. Those are examples of the failures of government attempts to stop people buying things for which there is a demand; there are others. Neither Scotland nor the rU.K. has any interest in curbing trade or business between them, so I don’t expect they’ll try. One can reasonably expect goods and services to continue to flow then.
Having said that, we could be in for a period of uncertainty. The Union with Scotland should be broken anyway if, for some reason, the ‘Nos’ just scrape home; it’s sad, it’s mad, but it’s over. Nothing lasts forever and it is time for a new beginning. The rest of the country needs to be shaken up: it has become sclerotic and has totally lost its way. This is always dangerous and more than one post-revolutionary nation has looked back on the ante-revolutionary period with nostalgia. People forget now, if they ever knew, just how unpleasant things got in the newly formed U.S.A. for the first few decades. We could be in for twenty years or so of upset something akin to post-soviet Russia; but we’ll get through it. Foolish and parochial though it is to set up a plurality of nation states on this biddy island, it is nonetheless an opportunity to break with the past and do some things which have needed doing for years. U.K.I.P. offer a serious opportunity to break with the E.U. I don’t know what their policy towards N.A.T.O. is, but to be consistent they should want to leave that organisation too. Leaving one without leaving the other is a job half-done. It is the best opportunity for years to rid ourselves of the expensive and useless obscenity of nuclear weapons. In addition, education and training should be massively improved and that’s just a start. The rU.K. also needs to resist the curse of “Regional Assemblies” and that will be much easier without Scotland.
But there we go: everyone’s entitled to my opinion!
Best wishes all.
Habbakuk you need definately culling, you’re worse than any badger I can think of, you little nazi supporter you, just as the establishment who once supported the fascists, the same scum is still alive and now sucks up to Ukraine’s fascists, and you are part of the excuse, you poor sod.
Always looking back to victory in war and for maintaining the status quo even though it’s a rotten system. No mention of the pre-war inflation in Germany in the 20s followed by massive deflation in the 30s that brought Hitler to power. I suppose that banks played no part at all in that. 😉
Scottish independence: 15,000 on Orange march
http://www.edinburghnews.scotsman.com/news/scottish-independence-15-000-on-orange-march-1-3540764
~~
Pope Francis asks if we are already seeing WWIII.
Pope Francis warns on ‘piecemeal World War III’
BBC News - 4 minutes ago
A “piecemeal” World War III may have already begun with the current spate of crimes, massacres and destruction, Pope Francis has warned.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-29190890
Jim Sillars only managed to get on radio by being rabid, purporting that Scotland would nationalise certain companies, a day of reckoning. Much of what he said had hand and foot.
At least now everyone in Scotland is aware of which companies to avoid like the pest and Folkert Landaus comments will come back to haunt him at the next board meeting.
He is clearly not interested in Scottish oil business anymore and Standard& life really don’t want to ensure Scottish people anymore, not unless they are Nazi’s or part of the establishment.
DB, just as Nestle, have bad form, two cupboards full of skeletons, but nothing worth raking up, its irrelevant and not part of Scotlands future I feel.
If the Yes vote wins it its going to be down to the young voters, Scotlands future!
Bitter Together are getting really desperate.
Brown has just been seen on Sky News repeating this slur that Darling made in June.
Alistair Darling makes Alex Salmond Kim Jong-il jibe.
The comments are in the New Statesman magazine
The leader of the pro-union Better Together campaign has compared Alex Salmond to former North Korean dictator Kim Jong-il.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-scotland-politics-27696811
Jives – thanks. Met a lovely Aberdonian lady* in a local motorcycle shop today, and if she were still living there she’d be voting yes for sure. I took the opportunity to loudly damn UK plc for the benefit of others in the shop…the seeds are there, but they need watering with information.
*Ducati 996, wow.
Richard: nothing stops trade
Absolutely. Key point. The trick is to keep it socially useful, no?
Scotland: Vote Yes for World Peace
by Finian Cunningham / September 13th, 2014
There’s one good reason for why Scotland should vote yes for independence: the breaking up of the United Kingdom would be an eminently good thing for the sake of world peace.
Anything that lessens the power of the London-centered United Kingdom is bound to be a good thing. So, if Scots walk away from the Union on September 18 by voting to establish their own separate, sovereign nation, that will deliver a positive blow to further weaken Britain’s legacy as an imperial power.
British Prime Minister David Cameron has said so himself, albeit indirectly. This week Cameron has run up the Scottish flag over Downing Street and begged the Scots that he will be heartbroken if they should leave the “family of nations” that he euphemistically calls the United Kingdom. His desperation reflects the deep concern among the British ruling establishment over the impact Scottish independence will have on their power.
If the No campaign should lose the referendum, the Conservative Party has the knives out for its leader. That’s how serious the London government is taking the potential loss of Scotland.
/..
http://dissidentvoice.org/2014/09/scotland-vote-yes-for-world-peace/
…the leader of the pro-union Better Together campaign has compared Alex Salmond to former North Korean dictator Kim Jong-il.
The far less obscure cartoonist Martin Rowson has instead considered the evidence, and for years has depicted Cameron as Little Lord Fauntleroy. Let us keep this image in mind.
Cap in Hand – The Proclaimers
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pNCFR8SqioE
Scottish independence: Proclaimers song tops chart
http://members5.boardhost.com/medialens/thread/1410600881.html
Craig, it’s abour saving the £, pure and simple. DB expressed concerns back in May, and the last week’s drop in the £ even before the referendum just on one single opinion poll shows that the effect has been underestimated.
Scare off the Scots by using language like “Great Depression”, job done, £ safe.
Pure (impure) and simple (devious).
“An old fashioned cull”. You mean…sort of…errr, sort of like what Hitler and the SS did to the SA, like?
If anyone needs to be culled, it’s mental defectives like yourself.
—————–
No don’t you mean, like the Neo-Nazi Israeli’s and the way they’re culling the Palestinians, you dickhead.
@CM:
that the people-based movement for Scottish independence is currently the most potent threat to the neo-con hegemony that has resulted in the destruction of social-democratic society and the massive gap between the super-rich and real people.
If that’s what the vote’s about why was the referendum not framed in those terms?
But tell us more about this “social-democratic society” that has been destroyed, so you say.
With 23% of GDP going to welfare, Britain is surely a pretty socially democratic society now. When was public spending on the sick, the halt, the blind, the aged ever greater?
And why, should anyone suppose that the government of an independent Scotland will become “people-based”? What does that mean, anyway: referendums on everything; Workplace soviets, or what?
That seems about right. I’ve said all along 55% No 45% Yes. SNP threats of a “day of retribution” against UK businesses should swing it another percentage point.
————————–
About right my arse, I don’t believe for one minute, No’s in the lead, the poll was conducted for Better Together, they’ll spin it away they see fit.
Nobody who preached hatred and division ever had the interests of the common man at heart. All they care about is satisfying their own lust for power and control and they don’t care how many lives they ruin to do it.
Those who care about the ordinary people preach harmony, friendship and cooperation.
————————–
Well a wee naff like you is definitely a member of the former and not the latter, that’s for sure.
RoS
Scots will vote No, that is certain, it’s just a question of by what percentage.
Personally I would like to see them vote Yes. But if they can’t do it, give the vote to the English and we’ll do it for them.
75% YES, 25% NO.
“An old fashioned cull”. You mean…sort of…errr, sort of like what Hitler and the SS did to the SA, like?
If anyone needs to be culled, it’s mental defectives like yourself.”
—————–
No don’t you mean, like the Neo-Nazi Israeli’s and the way they’re culling the Palestinians, you dickhead.
You missed the punchline, RoS. Which is the second statement. The writer is unaware that the Nazis sent thousands of, er, ‘mental defectives’ to the camps. and that its comment is self-referential.
I’m guessing, Havvacluck. Typical.