June 12, 2008
42 days later
So lets be clear on this, the police can now hold terrorism suspects without charge for 42 days. Isn’t it just amazing what you can force through the House of Commons if you dole out enough pork!
Now I for one have absolutely no problem with hunting down any terrorist, wherever they may be & whoever they may be. But we are now required to trust the civil servants, police & the security services to make judgement calls on holding suspects without charge for a month & a half.
& these are the same said individuals that cant even manage their own filing??
June 9, 2008
"Bank set to name Bean as deputy"
As we stare into abyss of a global recession, why am I not even surprised when I read this…
June 6, 2008
Of financial evolution
Police have clashed with hundreds of bankers protesting against the high cost of finance outside the headquarters of the European Union in Brussels.
Several bottles of ‘Bolly’ were broken & protestors burned copies of the Financial Times Companies & Markets section. However the largely peaceful but vocal protests turned nasty when members of Goldman Sach’s M&A department tried to storm the Commission building
Riot police responded by switching off the 3G/GPRS network in the area thereby disabling protestors Blackberries.
The bankers have said they will go out of business unless the EU allows national governments to give them more financial aid and subsidise their dirivative trading activities.
Some investors withdrew from the primary markets several months ago over the current cost of funds & the reluctance of lending institutions to allow extremely high levels of leverage on senior debt positions. LIBOR & EUROBOR rates have risen significantly in recent months.
By late afternoon traffic in the city centre had been all but brought to a standstill by a blockade of major routes by Lehman’s Corporate Advisory Team
In recent days protestors have been joined by structured financiers well as employees of many Mezz houses from the UK, Spain, Portugal and Italy.
This would of course be as absurd as for example a Government saying that it can hold anyone it likes for 42 days without charge. Over the last few months the arbitrage between yields & cost of funds has evaporated & there is no point crying into your Moet about it. We are at the end of a good 10 year run & now the market has changed. Either deal with it & find a different way of making money or go out of business. The market in its widest sense & nature are remarkably similar in that respect: evolve or die.
In exactly the same way, it is patently absurd for European fishermen to be demanding higher fuel subsidies from the taxpayer in response to raising fuel costs. Either charge more for your product because your unit cost has increased, or change your business model because the market has moved on. If you are not prepared to do either of these then you had better start scanning the situations vacant section of the newspaper.
I am never one to habour a grudge, but French fishermen especially deserve all that is coming to them. Part of the danegelt that was demanded for Great Britain as our entry ticket to the then EEC was essentially the simultaneous destruction of our deep sea fishing industry & our fish stocks by continental fleets. If their job description going forward involves asking Voulez-vous des frites avec cela I for one wont be crying into my Moet.
June 5, 2008
Iran: its time to spread the love
No wise nation would be interested in making a nuclear weapon today. They are against rational thought
Ayatollah Ali Khamenei
& that’s the whole crux of the whole nuclear Iran debate isn’t it? Iran is many many things, but a rational country led by ‘statesmen’ it certainly is not – how about something along the lines of globally one of the largest net exporters of terrorism? Is that closer to the mark? Even the those serial appeasers of dictators at the United Nations have grave concerns about the direction of Iran’s (ahem) nuclear power programme, you don’t just smell a rat so much as you know that the Pied Piper could be kept busy until he reached retirement.
& the EU’s response is what exactly?
European Union foreign policy chief Javier Solana is planning to travel to Tehran soon to submit a new package of incentives for Iran to stop its most sensitive nuclear work.
Ah, more appeasement? Well that’s really likely to work. In fact when you hear US presidential candidates talk about wanting to sit down & ‘engage’ with these lunatics you really have to start to think that maybe the allegations of foreign policy inexperience might just have a grain of truth about them.
& the answer to this seemly intractable problem … at the risk of sounding like a management consultant; outsource it. Give the Israelis whatever additional capability that they require & let them go & spread the love.
Rightly or wrongly, Israeli might be in breech of a zillion UN resolutions (incidentally, many of which are of very questionable motivation) but over the last couple of decades, they have taken more practical measures to stop the proliferation of nuclear weapons than any other nation & certainly have proved to be more effective in this than any meaningless pieces of paper.
That ghastly woman
Have we really seen the back of her? Really? Promise?
Or is it time for the conspiracy claims to be thrown around? …. Oophs sorry, inevitably that has started already.
May 30, 2008
& the French are revolting (again)
So here we have a picture of French fishermen committing criminal damage & theft, handing out frozen fish to the public in protest to high fuel prices
& where exactly are the police in all of this?? No doubt having lunch somewhere & desperately trying not to get involved. What price the Rule of Law eh?
Needless to say, Darth Sarko’s government that promised to stand up to the unions & introduce market reforms has been predictably swift in its capitulation in the face of rising fuel costs with the offer of more taxpayer handouts…
President Nicolas Sarkozy's government last week announced 100 million euros (173 million dollars) in immediate aid for the fishermen
As if we needed it, here is Reason No.53,619 to get the hell out of the European Union: every time the macro-economic environment is less than benign, governments capitulate to the hysterical demands of the socialist trades unions.
Our policy to the ‘continent’ should clear, consistent & unequivocal - we go there to observe, to trade (on our terms) and occasionally fight the French & Germans.
May 27, 2008
Little Miss Moffat
My erstwhile host in Texas recommends that whenever striking up a conversation with a member of the Pictish nation, you should politely invite your counterparty to
Punch me now Jock & get it over with
because you just know that it is going to happen sooner of later. Indeed the social morels north of 'the wall' do seem to dictate that an evening out should involve, at the very least, a few casual heeeeedbutts (aka the Glasgow kiss) or the gratuitous use of a broken beer bottle.
Now in no way do I countenance violence against women in any of its many disgusting forms but when I read that
Police have launched an investigation after Labour MP Anne Moffat was attacked, BBC Scotland has learned. Ms Moffat said she was mugged by a gang of drunken youths and left with broken ribs while jogging near her home, in Cockenzie, East Lothian. The East Lothian MP was knocked unconscious and her watch and jewellery taken by her attackers
I cannot help but conclude that Hadrian was right all along.
However this post doesn’t intend to question why little Miz Moffat was wearing jewellery while out jogging … clearly her concept of physical exercise & mine, are markedly different. Where your humble correspondent would like to go with this post is to cast a jaundiced & bloodshot eye over her response to these events.
Now I know that many of you, upon hearing the news of this attack, will have a similar reaction to mine, which runs along the lines of why on earth haven’t more of our perfidious MPs been bludgeoned unconscious & how can we ensure that this occurs more regularly in the future. But it is Miz Moffat’s reaction that I find both interesting & distressing on two separate but connected levels.
Firstly, her statement that
These people are just scum
Of course, it is very rare to find such candour from our political class. However, I would have thought that calling anyone scum these days breaks about 25 pieces of anti-incitement legislation. Surely these people aren't scum, they are just disadvantaged?
I have no doubt that if your humble correspondent were to refer to anyone as scum public, I’d be on the receiving end of the six o’clock knock & the bracelets would be well & truly. If fact, these days even referring to anyone as Jock or Taffy probably constitutes racial harassment. Calling someone scum whether they are or not is an open invitation to the Crown Prosecution Service to try & pin one on you However in ZANU-Labour’s Britain, some are more equal than others.
Secondly & even more crucially, is Miz Moffat’s assertion that
Its made me more aware of what it's like to be a victim
Ah, the socialists holy of holies … she has ascended to the most hallowed of deities … that of victimhood. Note that she isn’t going to figure out how to ensure that this never happens again. She isn’t going to work out how to defend herself in future. She isn’t going to take any responsibility for herself or her actions: quite the reverse in fact, because she is now a VICTIM*.
To my mind, anyone that thinks of themselves as a victim deserves all that is coming to them.
Victim: (noun) a burden on others, a burden on the taxpayer
May 26, 2008
Your start the week quickies
The word ‘politics’ is derived from the word ‘poly’, meaning ‘many’, and the word ‘ticks’, meaning ‘blood sucking parasites’
Larry Hardiman & stolen from The England Project & this from the Religion of Peace
Two things happened in Iraq last week. A US soldier shot a discarded copy of the Qur’an, and al-Qaeda strapped explosives to an 8-year-old girl, killing more Iraqis in the name of Allah. Only one of these acts enraged Muslims. Do you know Islam well enough to know which?
Lawyers & social security scroungers
Of course, we were all uplifted to the Nu Labour take a complete & utter drubbing in the Crewe by-election if for no other reason that it heralded the start of a long line of government ministers all try to explain that the electorate as sending a “clear message”.
The clear message isn’t that we want government policies to change, it is that want the entire government not just to be collectively killed but hideously mutilated in some freak traffic accident. That way we can simply dig a pit, pour in body parts, gore, a few gallons of unleaded & then toss the match & try & forget about how ghastly the last eleven years have been. Sadly this is only a dream as accordingly to the Laws of Cumulative Probability it is unlikely that we can hope for the entire Parliamentary Labour Party to be wiped out in a single car crash & given that the other day, it cost Mrs FM £96 to fill up her Landrover, the aforementioned few gallons of unleaded would undoubtedly bankrupt the country.
So, do we delight in the trustafarian Tories’ victory? Well to my mind, I have yet to hear anything from the Notting Hill set that would lead me to believe that they are any better than the other lot. Just-call-me-Dave Cameron is many many things, but another Thatcher he is definitely not.
Indeed, as just about every political commentator starts to predict the next General Election outcome, its worth noting that one swallow doesn’t make a summer.
Maybe Crewe is an indicator of the mood of the country, but I have to confess that I’d be hard pushed to find it on a map – somewhere in the North, I think. I believe that I went there once. I know that I do not propose to return.
However to my warped & twisted little mind, the whole by-election thing highlighted just about everything that it wrong with dear Blighty.
In the red corner we had Tamsin Dunwoody who sought to attack her principal opponent because he has money – nothing like the politics of envy as The Huntsman points out. Indeed, Ms Dunwoody even described herself as
a single, unemployed mother of five
So Tamsin, you & your ‘family’ are already a burden on the state & yet you feel that just because your mother was an MP for a few years, that qualifies you for office? Really? & if you had been elected, would you have exercised the same degree of judgement when considering legislation that you have so clearly exercised in your personal life?
Now as for matey boy in the blue corner, we had Edward Timpson, an independently wealthy lawyer & another lawyer in Parliament is just what we all need.
So lets be clear here, the choice that was offered to the Crewe electorate was a dole mole or a another posturing advocate. Now explain to me exactly how that in any way constitutes a choice? I used to think that we stout bulldogs deserved better: these days I just cant be bothered
Footnote: RM points out just how much money Tammy's family have sponged from the taxpayer
May 25, 2008
Are you as bored of this as I am??
We only get 1/100 of the coverage that our cousins across on the other side of the pond have to endure but forget that ghastly woman’s apologies for her Kennedy gaff, I just wish that one of ‘em would shoot the other & have done with it once & for all
May 23, 2008
Another missed opportunity
Israeli fighter aircraft were scrambled to intercept a jet carrying former UK Prime Minister Tony Blair after its crew failed to identify themselves.
The only misgivings that I have about Blair potentially getting a Sidewinder missile right up the wazoo is that he deserves to die much much more slowly
May 19, 2008
Its all gone wrong for Gordon
I thought that we might start this week with a little medley of recent Gordo cartoons…
It couldn't happen to a nicer bloke
May 16, 2008
The $500 million dollar banknote
The central bank has issued a 500m Zimbabwe dollar banknote, worth US$2, to try to ease cash shortages amid the world's highest rate of inflation. The previous highest denomination note was for Z$250m, issued 10 days ago. At 'independence' in 1980, one Zimbabwe dollar was worth more than US$1.
There is of course an alternative ...
but liberals would rather let Africans starve than go & sort the place out. On the other hand, at least there is one currency that the US$ is appreciating against! See, theres an upside to everything
May 14, 2008
More Euro food fun
Germany believes China, India and the US should be forced to adopt higher environmental and health standards if they want to export food products to the European Union, says Horst Seehofer, Germany’s farm minister
… & when the German’s start to make any sort of demands we know that it’s time to dust down Bomber Command’s old target maps. However its not just the boxheads that are currently on the foodie high horse …
[Seehofer’s] comments echo calls by Paris for new EU barriers to free trade in response to rising global demand for food. Michel Barnier, France’s farm minister, last month called for curbs on “free-market liberalism”, a view reflected by Mr Seehofer: “We need more market liberalisation, but under fair conditions.”
“This does not mean more protectionism. We do not want to isolate the EU but to apply EU standards in other parts of the world.”
Nothing like the Franco-German two step to have you reaching for your SMLE & sword bayonet. Now dear readers compare the above Euro moral high ground with this …
European poultry producers are using a chlorine-washing process on exported chicken, while the same cleaning method in the US has led to a de facto ban on American sales in the EU
May I refer you to this mornings earlier post on tariffs & protectionism. As for those duplicitous continental politicans & if don’t have one of the Enfield Work’s excellent products close to hand, please feel free to avail yourselves of one of the many trees that surround Free Market Towers.
Mrs FM always has an ample supply of well oiled hemp rope cut to an appropreiate length. To my mind, the rotting corpses of load of Eurocrats swinging gently in the breeze would certainly make excellent wind chimes. Besides the rooks need feeding.
Globalisation, tariffs & free trade
from Lawrence C. Marsh, Professor Emeritus at the Department of Economics and Econometrics, University of Notre Dame writing in todays Financial Times
We all seem to have forgotten basic economics in general and international trade theory in particular. What happen to the issue of the efficient allocation of resources? Since when do tariffs, trade restrictions and other methods of distorting prices help increase the welfare of society?
Free trade brings in more competition forcing businesses to improve their productivity and efficiency and to lower prices.
Would poor people be better off without all those low priced products from China sold at WalMart?
Since everyone is a consumer, everyone benefits from lower prices. Lowering prices is the most democratic policy a country can pursue, because it helps everyone and not just some special interest group or a particular group of workers.
What about the retired and elderly on Social Security? Don’t they benefit from lower prices just like everyone else? Why does the debate about trade always seem to ignore them?
When I took international economics in graduate school it was all about comparative advantage and resource allocation. How did the debate become centered on jobs and wages?
The number of jobs in our economy is the responsibility of monetary and fiscal policy and not trade policy.
The quality of jobs depends upon education. Modern economies require significantly higher levels of appropriate skills. Workers who have not done anything to increase their personal productivity should not expect wage increases anymore than companies that have not offered new or better products at lower cost should expect profit increases. Government policy should help people enhance their jobs skills.
To be honest the system that Adam Smith described so well is not designed to help the capitalist or the worker. A company with high profits and a worker earning high wages both induce competition from others to drive down their profits and wages respectively. It is ironic that the consumer who does nothing other than show up at the store offering the best quality product at the lowest price is ultimately the winner. From this perspective the system should be called “consumerism” instead of “capitalism.”
A tariff is a hidden tax. A sales tax shows up on your store receipt. You see exactly how much you paid in taxes. When sales tax is too high, you can complain to your district representative or simply vote the incumbent out of office in favor of the candidate who promises to cut the sales tax. With a tariff you don’t even know you are paying it. It can take as much or more out of your dollar than the sales tax, but you don’t ever see it. Some believe that this lack of transparency is tantamount to taxation without representation. We dumped their tea in the Boston harbor and threw the British out when they tried putting an import tariff on tea. Yet now we absorb these hidden tariff duties as if they didn’t exist.
Does the tariff of 54 cents a gallon on imported ethanol really benefit the average consumer at the gas pump?
Since we all benefit from lower prices, it is unfair to put the cost of that benefit on a relatively small group of workers. Workers who lose their jobs to technology or to overseas competitors should be given special assistance. However, we should not impose tariffs or otherwise interfere with free trade. To do so would mean short-changing everyone to protect the jobs of a few. We need specific policies to assist workers who lose their jobs, but not policies that raise prices and, thereby, lower the real wages of all Americans.
Since our most productive and competitive companies can offer better jobs than our inefficient and uncompetitive ones, better jobs will be created to replace the ones eliminated. Whenever we can encourage more efficient production anywhere in the world, we are better off through lower world prices.
A common misconception about trade policy is that we would lose by unilaterally lowering our tariffs, and, therefore, we must require a tit-for-tat in tariff reduction in order to benefit. Nothing could be farther from the truth. In 1936 Lerner’s Theorem published in Economica proved that the damage caused by tariffs in the exchange of two products between two countries does not depend on which country’s government receives the tariff revenues. In other words, the price distortions and misallocation of world resources does not depend upon which government is responsible for the trade distortion. The world is equally worse off in either case. Even the revenues themselves do not help the country receiving them because they just inflate prices by a compensating amount.
If other countries insist on continuing their import tariffs and/or subsidies, they just hurt themselves by protecting inefficiency. If isolation from world trade was good, then Myanmar, North Korea and Cuba would be stellar performers and the Soviet and old Chinese economic systems would have succeeded.
May 6, 2008
Of peasants & piss poor economics
I am typing this in the business class cabin of a 747 en route from London to San Francisco. I am making this journey not because I need to rack up the airmiles or indeed, that I particular enjoy British Airways’ coffee, the quality of which should at the very least be considered a crime against humanity. However in the absence of hearings in The Hague, I am making this trip to make money: not just small amount of money but great big pots, overflowing with the filthiest of lucre. I am currently at 36,000 ft over Greenland with the expressed intention of over the next few months, delivering a lot of shareholder value. & that should cheer you up if your pension fund holds shares in our company, which I can guarantee you it almost certainly does.
In my luggage I have a spare laptop, a brace of BlackBerrys & 3G card with global coverage & enough financial modelling software to ‘arb’ just about any market you care to mention. Next week I will be in Hong Kong & the week after in China. I am globalisation. My carbon footprint can crush entire tribes of illiterate indigenous peoples who are still several hundred years away from discovering the benefits of soap let alone dental floss. I am become big business … or at least its willing accomplice.
Now on the subject of progress, last week saw the launch of the 4th incarnation of the computer game, Grand Theft Auto or GTA4 to use the vernacular. Its release was heralded by a luddite-like reaction from the usual sandal shod suspects. Apparently this computer game is going to bring about the destruction of the entire Western canon in a hail of violent plasma screen graphics. More than one commentator seems to be calling for the digital ducking stool to be broken out. Turn back the clock, up go the arms of anguished protest in the meejar section of The Guardian … burn the Playstation … smash the xBox … all hail the hop scotch sqaures, all hail the yo-yo.
In a saner world & happier times, this posturing brouhaha could be treated with distain, a barrage of personal abuse directed at the liberal left mainstream media outlets or a fusillade of No.6 shot depending upon your own viewpoint, disposition & level of medication. Yet in the face of reality, the sack cloth & ashes routine goes on. All the column inches are proof, as if it were needed, of the lengths that some people will go to deny reality. You can’t turn the clock back. Pandora’s box is well & truly open. You can’t uninvent the persistent nerve agents, long haul travel, the internal combustion engine or even computer games. The genie won’t go back in the bottle, mainly because he’s just boosted some wheels & was last seen in da’hood doing a drive by. Fo’shure.
Sadly exactly the same mentality is applied to agri-economics. Yes, an acre used to be the amount of land that a team of horses could plough in a day: currently an acre is roughly 1/60th of the area that man & machine can cover in the equivalent time. It is progress, efficiency, not starving or being beholding to those that control the land & the means of food production. A few hundred years ago we completely revolutionised the agricultural economy that culmination of which gives us the ability to feed the world’s population of 6 billion.
Now before anyone starts trying to canter around the moral high ground on a What About The Starving of Africa hobby horse, please allow me to most humbly point out that there is indeed more than enough food to go around; shortages are caused by bad politics & the gratuitous application of equally bad economic theory. This incidentally is why you tend not to get famine in democracies.
Peasant farming produces enough food for peasants. Maybe. Some of the time. It doesn’t provide the amounts of surpluses that are required to allow advanced economies to develop & be maintained. That requires the industrialisation of the means of production.
The most realistic way to raise global supply is to replicate the Brazilian model of large, technologically sophisticated agro-companies supplying for the world market. Many areas of the world have good land that could be used more productively if it were managed by large companies. For example, almost 90% of Mozambique’s land, an enormous area, is idle.
Unfortunately, large scale commercial agriculture is unromantic. We laud the production style of the peasant: environmentally sustainable and human in scale.
Please note dear readers I said industrialisation, not collectivization as China’s Great Leap Forward so disastrously proved. However I can’t help thinking that judging by how tight my suits currently feel, I could do with a few weeks on the Ukrainian Collective Farm Diet.
Sadly, the whinging classes demand that emerging markets are not allowed to benefit from the same advances in agriculture that we so enjoy. Whilst they demand that we plough (forgive the pun) more of our money into these countries so that people can be fed, equally they deny them the very technologies that who allow these populations to feed themselves. Much better that the clock is turned back to the sort of medieval rural idyll that Pol Pot would have been proud than to give the hungry both the means & the ability to feed themselves. Nothing like a bit of dependency culture, eh?
Maybe this is because the last thing that the liberal left want is for people with black or yellow skins to actually be able to provide for themselves. If that every happened, how would all those F-list celeb-braties fill their diaries. No more televised fund raisers at which to re-launch their careers. Goodness me, before you know it aging Irish minstrels would be reduced to selling copies of the Big Issue on the streets.
So, if you won’t tackle this problem in a sensible manner & with the best tools & technologies that we have to hand … let’em starve. It won’t for one moment reduce the choice of ports to accompany my cheese course on the flight home.
May 2, 2008
May 1, 2008
Local Government Elections
Oh lorks-o-lordy, today is local election day. To say that I am currently feeling detacthed from the political process would be something of an understatement. Indeed, ever since Mrs FM subjected our local Lib-Dem candidate to a few hours of waterboarding, word seemed to have got out amoungst the canvasing community that ours was one farm to be avoided if you didn’t want of enjoy the full Fritzl expirence.
Actually, I don’t care if that b*stard Brown is going to take a shoeing
Gordon Brown faces the first electoral test of his premiership today, with Labour chiefs braced for the party’s worst showing at the polls in a generation. Ministers fear the loss of London and scores of council seats across the country as voters cast the first ballots since Mr Brown was anointed Prime Minister and ducked an early general election. Labour strategists fear that the party could record its lowest share of the vote in local elections since the 1970s, falling as low as 25 per cent and finishing third behind the Tories and Liberal Democrats - a humiliation for Mr Brown.
Or if Mr Never Done A Real Days Work In His Life Cameroon (who incidentally is to the left of Brown on a number of topics) gets more seats on the Parish Council or whatever we a supposed to be voting on
Gains of 200 seats in today's local elections and a victory for Boris Johnson in the London mayoral contest would enable him to claim the Conservative party's most important breakthrough while in opposition. Mr Cameron is looking for the Tories to record more than 40 per cent of the vote – a share which could see the party elected to Government if repeated at a general election.
In London, the choice is even more unappealing: you can vote for Red Ken (the corrupt one), Boris (big on amusement value & that’s about it) & then there’s the other one. Frankly, the London electorate get more choice down at the Golden Arches.
It doesn’t really matter where which end of the political spectrum that you look at, nowhere can you find a commitment to low taxes & individual freedoms. In fact these days candidates of every shade seem to want to claim bragging rights for how much their respective parties are going to spend. That’s why I have a large flask of coffee & some sandwiches made up …
April 29, 2008
IT Security
When you read stories like this (via Guido)
As the government contemplates a law to criminalise "reckless" losses of data it is worth reflecting on the sophisticated data security employed by Harriet Harman to prevent hacking of her blog:
username : harriet
password : harman
It makes you realise that its no wonder that this happened...
What an utter utter nanger!
(Pointed out by EX_STAB)
April 28, 2008
April 25, 2008
Still tough on crime?
Tough on crime, tough on the causes of crime. That was the now infamous Labour campaign slogan. Yet after a decade of in power, Judges are being repeatedly advised by the so-called Ministry of Justice not to incarcerate convicted criminals & even when they do, they are released early.
However, it seems that there is now a new issue with our prison service
Inmates are so comfortable in jail that they do not want to escape, a prison officer union leader says.
Clearly these early release schemes must come as a bitter disappointment to some prisoners especially as for example
It tells me something is wrong in society when people are breaking in to prisons to bring in drugs, but the prisoners are quite happy to stay inside … drugs are coming into prisons at a rate that's so dramatic that drugs in prison are actually cheaper than on the outside
Well, can I just suggest that in the absence of being able to moor prison hulks in the Medway estuary the other solution is this…
When Government logos go wrong
For those of you that don’t already know, the UK Office of Government Commerce is
responsible for improving value for money by driving up standards and capability in procurement
& to prove it, they have a new logo
Now forget the fact that yet another government department is wasting even more of our money on ‘marketing’ the real problem comes when you rotate the image…
According to Danny Finkelstein
Apparently they are pressing ahead with it anyway. A spokesman for the OGC said (I kid you not) this;
We concluded that the effect was generic to the particular combination of the letters 'OGC' - and is not inappropriate to an organisation that's looking to have a firm grip on government spend.
A Vikings view of American politics
This is best summary of the current Amercian political landscape that I've read in some time...
We in Denmark cannot figure out why you are even bothering to hold an election.
On one side, you have a bitch who is a lawyer, married to a lawyer, and a
lawyer who is married to a bitch who is a lawyer.
On the other side, you have a true war hero married to a woman with a huge
chest who owns a beer distributorship.
Is there a contest here?
You can't say clearer than that! Stolen from The Smallest Minority who in turn stole it from Irons in the Fire
April 23, 2008
Pick a number, any number
The government was "entirely unrealistic" in estimating the cost of hosting the 2012 Olympics, a group of MPs have said. The Public Accounts Committee said ministers used "wishful thinking" and "ignored foreseeable major factors" such as tax and security. At the time of the bid, costs were estimated at just over £4bn, but last year the budget was put at £9.325bn. The government says "a lot has changed" since the period the report focuses on. In its report, the committee outlined the division of costs anticipated at the time of the bid - which were to be met by public sector funding of £3.4bn and a further £738m from the private sector
Yes, "a lot has changed" since the original bid was made … like the numbers.
Now in the normal course of a working day, your humble correspondent deals with quite a lot of numbers, but I can assure you all that if I, like the Olympic Committee was wrong by over £5,000,000,000 on a financial projection, I’d be in front of the Chief Executive for the proverbial interview without coffee & shown the door. Oh to work for the public sector, eh?
At the moment, you find me mid way through a reasonably sized deal. The ‘net realisation’ will be in Sterling, an 8 figure number. Most of yesterday was spent haggling over a small sum of money, 0.021% of the total the Company will make. Why? Its not because I am particularly pedantic, its because its not my money. It’s the Company’s money. It’s the shareholders funds. Sadly but somewhat inevitably, the Government does seem to think that it owes the same ‘duty of care’ towards the taxpayer.
Maybe this is because the cost of London Olympics has become the new racism – we are just not allowed to talk about it. You would think that having got a cost plan that wrong there would be a national outcry & demands for ministers heads … publicly displayed, impaled on pointy sticks at the Tower of London. But no, there is almost silence.
It could be that the public has become numbed by both the regularity & the size at which every Government project overshoots its budget or maybe we all knew that when we read the original cost estimates & heard the assurances from Ministers, we all knew they were lying in the first place
April 22, 2008
Wax dummies?
Can it be true? Madame Tussauds wax creations are now so realistic that they can give TV interviews? Or are these two just a pair of Economic Crash Test Dummies?
April 14, 2008
The Texan Economic Model
There is the old joke about the Texan rancher visiting a distant relative who still farms in England. Having been shown around said bulldogs farm (& there are those that to this day believe that the farm in question actually belonged to The Englishman), the rancher announces that it takes him all day to drive from one side of his ranch to the other, to which the farmer replies that he too once had a tractor like that.
As regular readers guessed, last week saw your humble correspondent managing to tack a couple of days vacation onto his business trip to the States & stay with the Du Toits, at the Nation of Riflemen’s super secretive Texas compound. Rest assured dear readers, there are several gun posts to come (no surprises there then) but while my current laptop issues persist posting has been a little lighter than I would like it to be. However in the interim, here are a few impressions gleaned from my visit.
The thing that strikes you driving north from Dallas is the sheer scale of development that is taking place there. Where not so long ago were small towns & by local standards, little ranches, there are now business parks, mall developments & new homes. We are talking about an area of land that is probably in excess of 200 square miles.
Despite what our own socialist control freak government would have you believe, this scale of new economic activity isn’t being driven by taxpayer funded inward investment agencies … it is in fact a result of a distinct lack of government: this development results from a low tax business friendly environment & the knowledge that if you create the right economic conditions, the market will work in your favour. Put in some infrastructure, the six lane suburban highways are the size of our motorways & what is loosely known as the market will do the rest for you. Before you know it, major corporations will have relocated, other smaller business will have sprung up & developers will be building new homes as fast as they can because people, the best sort of people, economically active people, will be moving to the area to fill all of the new jobs that have been created.
Compare that if you will to the UK’s approach. Instead of trusting individuals to want to do what is best for themselves & allowing businesses to create shareholder value, it has for the last ten years approached job creation & the generation of economic activity in a slightly different fashion. Our Government’s view is that the way ahead is to tie up businesses in an ever more complex regulatory environment & increasingly oppressive taxation regime. Then, as levels of employment & business activity inevitably fall, the Government can step in to create new ‘taskforces’ to try & sort things out – the majority of new employment created being in Nu Labour voting civil service jobs.
& don’t even get me started on the argument that in the UK we simply don’t have the land to achieve that sort of new development. We have so much land in Britain that the taxpayer is in the position to subsidies farmers to the tune of many billions of pounds a year to do nothing with their land because it is no longer required for food production. The underlying principle of this policy is also mirrored in our attitude to immigration where we are consistently told that we have serve skills shortages that are adversely impacting upon the Country’s competitiveness. Therefore we now have the luxury of importing lots of unskilled & non English speaking workers, just so that the taxpayer can give them our money in the form of absurd levels of social security handouts. Much better that than to create an environment where the private sector can thrive & families can get on with life without constant recourse to our increasingly hydra-headed government.
March 31, 2008
Chill out?
Former President Clinton greeted a raucous Democratic Party gathering Sunday by telling partisans to "chill out" over fears that a contentious primary race could cost them the White House in the fall.
When people mention Clinton, I am always reminded of Ann Coulter's summation of him
To refresh the memory, Clinton procured the services of an intern for oral sex in the Oval Office, lied, perjured himself, suborned the perjury of others, and obstructed justice to cover it up.
March 24, 2008
Gao ju angang xianfa de guanghui qizhi, duoqu gongye shengchan de geng da shengli
For the first time under Chinese law, employees are entitled to paid annual leave. Under regulations that came into effect on January 1 2008, employees who have worked for between one and 10 years are entitled to five days' annual leave, rising to 10 days for over 10 years' work and 15 days for over 20 years' work.
Employees must take their entire annual leave entitlement within the calendar year; if an employer cannot arrange for an employee to do so because of workplace demands, the employee may carry over leave to the following year, but this may be done once only. However, if the employee so agrees, the employer may pay him or her 300% of his or her average daily wage for each day of annual leave accrued but not taken.
Anyone fancy a spot of global competition?
Oh, & if you have turned over the fold & clearly you have if you are reading this, the title of this morning's post translates as:
Hold aloft the glorious banner of the "Angang Constitution" to gain a greater victory in industrial production.
March 18, 2008
UK Workforce Statistics 2008
I know that when you look at these startling new statistics you will all be asking yourself the same question ...
... where's the Corporate & Social Responsibility Manager?
March 17, 2008
Monday mornings economic question
Stolen from the Saturday's leader in the Torygraph
Westminster is a cosy place, insulated by soft furnishings & their mental equivalent: a belief that Western sized public sectors are compatible with the ruthless global competition of the 21st century. This is a delusion comparable to the 1970s belief that economies could thrive with double digit inflation. Margaret Thatcher shattered that myth; with storm clouds nearing, we shall soon need another Mrs Thatcher to shake us out of our complacency. But who will rise to the challenge?
Certainly not todays so-called Tories.
"Homes fit for MPs"
As the extent of the largess the our political class graze upon continues to be revealed, I spied this excellent suggestion, made in the letters page of the Saturday Torygraph
Sir
To assist MPs find suitable affordable accommodation, they could use the housing system adopted by the Armed Forces. MPs would be assigned accommodation for their time in Parliament & would be offered the option of having it furnished or unfurnished. Provision of furniture would of course be entirely at their own expense.
Lt Col Jeremy Prescott (Retd)
Oadby, Leicestershire
Indeed, better still, because the MoD has a large London estate, why not billet MPs in forces quarters. After all, if a quarter is good enough for a member of the Armed Forces, it is more than adequate for a pondlife politician
March 13, 2008
March 12, 2008
The Oath of Allegiance
Plans to make school-leavers swear an oath of allegiance to Queen and country as a way of enhancing British citizenship were unraveling last night under a barrage of criticism in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland.
Nationalist politicians in Wales and Scotland pledged to use their devolved powers to block the plan. And a nationalist politician in Northern Ireland said that any attempt to force an oath to the Queen and United Kingdom on the Province would be “divisive and dangerous”.
…which is all fine & dandy as far as your humble correspondent is concerned. In fact I completely understand the feelings on the Celtic fringe on this one & fully respect the position on this particular issue.
In exactly the same way, I have no doubt that the same said nationalist politicians will fully respect the fact that we in England find that massive (& I mean massive) amounts of disproportionate government spending on this small minority of Her Majesty’s citizens equally as “divisive and dangerous”. So how about you don’t have to swear an oath of allegiance if we don’t have to continue to shovel vast sums subsidies & additional state spending in your direction. Seems like a fair trade to me.
March 10, 2008
Economics explained
You might have looked at this before, but this version (via AJDS) has a couple of additions that I have not seen...
SOCIALISM: You have 2 cows, and you give one to your neighbour
COMMUNISM: You have 2 cows. The State takes both and gives you some milk
FASCISM: You have 2 cows. The State takes both and sells you some milk
NAZISM: You have 2 cows. The State takes both and shoots you
BUREAUCRATISE: You have 2 cows. The State takes both, shoots one, milks the other, then throws the milk away
TRADITIONAL CAPITALISM: You have two cows. You sell one and buy a bull.Your herd multiplies, and the economy grows. You sell them and retire on the income
SURREALISM: You have two giraffes. The government requires you to take harmonica lessons
AN AMERICAN CORPORATION: You have two cows. You sell one, and force the other to produce the milk of four cows. Later, you hire a consultant to analyse why the cow has dropped dead
ENRON VENTURE CAPITALISM: You have two cows. You sell three of them to your publicly listed company, using letters of credit opened by your brother-in-law at the bank,then execute a debt/equity swap with an associated general offer so that you get all four cows back, with a tax exemption for fivecows. The milk rights of the six cows is transferred via an intermediary to a Cayman Island Company secretly owned by the majority shareholder who sells the rights to all seven cows back to your listed company. The annual report says the company owns eight cows, with an option on one more.Sell one cow to buy a new President of the United States, leaving you with nine cows. No balance sheet provided with the release. The public buys your bull
THE ANDERSEN MODEL: You have two cows. You shred them
A FRENCH CORPORATION: You have two cows. You go on strike, organise a riot, and block the roads, because you want three cows
A JAPANESE CORPORATION: You have two cows. You redesign them so they are one-tenth the size of an ordinary cow and produce twenty times the milk.You then create a clever cow cartoon image called 'cowkimon' and market it worldwide
A GERMAN CORPORATION: You have two cows. You re-engineer them so theylive for 100 years, eat once a month, and milk themselves
AN ITALIAN CORPORATION: You have two cows, but you don't know where they are. You decide to have lunch
A RUSSIAN CORPORATION: You have two cows. You count them and learn you have five cows. You count them again and learn you have 42 cows. You count them again and learn you have 2 cows. You stop counting cows and open another bottle of vodka
A SWISS CORPORATION: You have 5000 cows. None of them belong to you.You charge the owners for storing them
A CHINESE CORPORATION: You have two cows. You have 300 people milking them. You claim that you have full employment, and high bovine productivity, and arrest the newsman who reported otherwise
AN INDIAN CORPORATION: You have two cows. You worship them
A BRITISH CORPORATION: You have two cows. Both are mad
IRAQI CORPORATION: Everyone thinks you have lots of cows. You tell them that you have none. No-one believes you, so they bomb the **** out ofyou and invade your country. You still have no cows, but at least now you are part of a democracy
AUSTRALIAN CORPORATION: You have two cows. Business seems pretty good. You close the office and go for a few beers to celebrate
WELSH CORPORATION: You have two cows. The one on the left looks very attractive
March 6, 2008
Sold out
MPs have rejected proposals to hold a UK-wide referendum on whether to ratify the EU's Lisbon Treaty. The House of Commons turned down the Conservative proposal by 311 votes to 248 - a margin of 63. The result means Parliament itself will decide whether to ratify the treaty, signed by EU leaders last December.
So despite every political party saying at the last General Election we would have a referendum on ratification, times change as it would it seem, a lot of politicians positions on their electoral promises.
At this point, I am minded to paraphrase Kipling’s Epitaphs (with sincerest & most grovelling apologies) …
I could not dig: I dared not rob:
So I lied to please the Euro mob.
Now all my lies are proved untrue
And I must face the men I knew.
What tale shall serve me here among
Mine angry & defrauded young?
As for your humble correspondent, its time to take fight to the enemy … I’m off sausage side at lunchtime
March 3, 2008
"This broken promise is part of a wider fear of democracy" - Simon Jenkins
Some 88% of the British public want a referendum on the EU's Lisbon Treaty, according to private polls for the I Want a Referendum (IWAR) campaign. The unofficial ballot was conducted by postal vote last month in 10 Labour and Liberal Democrat marginal seats. A total of 152,520 people voted, with 133,251 backing a referendum.
Of course, the reason that there is no way on earth, flat or not (see posts passim) that our political masters will give us the referendum that was promised because they don’t trust us to deliver the answers that they want
So just for the record & because this is probably the only place where I will get to voice my opinion, call in a Constitution, Treaty or call it what you like …
February 28, 2008
Pigs & Parliament
This morning I have been marvelling at this story
A three-year-old boy has been eaten alive by a neighbour's herd of pigs on the outskirts of the Indian capital
which jaundiced though I may be, strikes me as a metaphor for what is going on in Parliament at the moment. Now please note dear readers that I said ‘in Parliament’ & not ‘on Parliament’; we will come to the latter, a little bit later on.
MPs are all in a huff because they are finally being called to account for all of their personal expenses, something that I note that the European Parliament is still refusing to do with MEPs. As those of us that live in the real world know, at the end of each calendar month when you put your expenses in, they will be checked at least twice & also ultimately on an annual basis, further examined by the company auditors. Over time you learn that if you are going to claim back that £500 you spent in Stringfellows as client entertainment, you are going to need to have a reasonably robust story. Quite why MPs think that they should be exempt normal accounting practice remains a bit of a mystery to me.
As for those numpties that where protesting on the roof of the Palace of Westminster yesterday, just two questions:
1. Can we take it that the person who is responsible for the security of Parliament is being given his P45 this morning? After all, supposedly, it is one of the more secure buildings in this country. Not an easy job I know with approximately 14,000 people working there. However it is quite clear that that particular person isn’t up to the job & we the taxpayer, need someone who is. After all, we would hate it if all of those MP’s unpaid expense claims were consumed by say, the flames of Islam.
2. Secondly, compare & contrast if you will. The last time we saw rus in urbe in Parliament Square to protest against the ludicrous Hunting Bill, the Metropolitan Police took in upon themselves to remove that right to protest will riot sticks. Clearly illegally accessing secure areas & handcuffing yourself to the roof is less of a crime than protesting in the public areas around Parliament.
February 27, 2008
More from Londonistan
A Muslim fanatic who boasted of being “Osama bin London” has been found guilty of organising terrorist training camps, including one for the 21/7 "bombers". Mohammed Hamid, 50, was also convicted of encouraging others to murder non-believers at the end of a four-month trial at Woolwich Crown Court. Three of his followers, Kibley da Costa, 25, Mohammed Al-Figari, 45, and Kader Ahmed, 20, were found guilty of attending terror camps in the New Forest
I could write page upon page of invective but you might well be delighted that my feelings on this topic can be neatly summarised by Mrs FM who on hearing the news report last night was moved to comment
& just think, these [people] have the same passports as my children
February 25, 2008
Fairtrade v Free Trade
But you knew this already...
Fairtrade is a nice idea, and it is great that so many consumers want to help the poor in the developing world. But it is important that we ask whether Fairtrade really helps. After all, 'Fairtrade' does not mean anyone who gives better terms to third-world farmers. It is a particular brand, which competes with other ethical schemes and charities for people's money.
There are a number of inconvenient truths about Fairtrade. Indeed, on closer inspection it may not be that fair at all. It only offers a very small number of farmers a higher fixed price for their goods. Given the way markets work, these higher prices come at the expense of many other farmers, who – unable to qualify for Fairtrade certification – are left even worse off.
More importantly, the Fairtrade scheme does not aid economic development. It sustains uncompetitive farmers on their land, holding back diversification, mechanization and moves up the value chain. In doing so it denies future generations the chance of a better life.
The fact that will surprise consumers most, however, is that only 10 percent of the premium they pay for their Fairtrade products actually gets to the producer. The rest goes to people further along the retail chain.
February 22, 2008
Late night flights & political lies
This morning dear readers I feel as though I might be the only person in Blighty that doesn’t seen to be getting all angsty about these two super secret CIA fights that stopped over to refuel on a small island in the Indian Ocean.
The Foreign Secretary apologised to MPs today after it emerged that two American “rendition flights” of CIA detainees had landed on British soil, contradicting previous statements from the Government.
Jimmy Garcia, Diego Garcia, Jerry Garcia … frankly who gives a damn? Terrorist scumbags deserve everything that is coming to them. Indeed over in the digital conspiracy theory corner of the Internet the ‘in-flight entertainment’ available on these flights causes much conjecture – indeed, I for one feel reassured that Rendition Air’s ‘passengers charter’ must make amusing reading, unlike this sent in by reader AEG …
Labour has been in government since 1997 and our achievements have revolutionised the lives of the British people. The values Labour stands for today are those which have guided it throughout its existence: social justice, strong communities, reward for hard work, decency and rights matched by responsibilities. We stand for the many not the few.
Certainly among many many others that I would dearly love to see unceremoniously hauled on to a one way flight to Guantanamo Bay, are the entire Labour Party given that they seem to have spent a lot of the last 7 years trying at the very least to appease our home grown Taliban & their supporters.
However, the socialists, shameless as ever go on to list their (cough cough) ‘top 50 achievements’ as follows …
1. Longest period of sustained low inflation since the 60s.
2. Low mortgage rates.
3. Introduced the National Minimum Wage and raised it to £5.52.
4. Over 14,000 more police in England and Wales.
5. Cut overall crime by 32 per cent.
6. Record levels of literacy and numeracy in schools.
7. Young people achieving some of the best ever results at 14, 16, and 18.
8. Funding for every pupil in England has doubled.
9. Employment is at its highest level ever.
10. Written off up to 100 per cent of debt owed by poorest countries.
11. 85,000 more nurses.
12. 32,000 more doctors.
13. Brought back matrons to hospital wards.
14. Devolved power to the Scottish Parliament.
15. Devolved power to the Welsh Assembly.
16. Dads now get paternity leave of 2 weeks for the first time.
17. NHS Direct offering free convenient patient advice.
18. Gift aid was worth £828 million to charities last year.
19. Restored city-wide government to London.
20. Record number of students in higher education.
21. Child benefit up 26 per cent since 1997.
22. Delivered 2,200 Sure Start Children’s Centres.
23. Introduced the Equality and Human Rights Commission.
24. £200 winter fuel payment to pensioners & up to £300 for over-80s.
25. On course to exceed our Kyoto target for reducing greenhouse gas emissions.
26. Restored devolved government to Northern Ireland.
27. Over 36,000 more teachers in England and 274,000 more support staff and teaching assistants.
28. All full time workers now have a right to 24 days paid holiday.
29. A million pensioners lifted out of poverty.
30. 600,000 children lifted out of relative poverty.
31. Introduced child tax credit giving more money to parents.
32. Scrapped Section 28 and introduced Civil Partnerships.
33. Brought over 1 million social homes up to standard.
34. Inpatient waiting lists down by over half a million since 1997.
35. Banned fox hunting.
36. Cleanest rivers, beaches, drinking water and air since before the industrial revolution.
37. Free TV licences for over-75s.
38. Banned fur farming and the testing of cosmetics on animals.
39. Free breast cancer screening for all women aged between 50-70.
40. Free off peak local bus travel for over-60s.
41. New Deal - helped over 1.8 million people into work.
42. Over 3 million child trust funds have been started.
43. Free eye test for over 60s.
44. More than doubled the number of apprenticeships.
45. Free entry to national museums and galleries.
46. Overseas aid budget more than doubled.
47. Heart disease deaths down by 150,000 and cancer deaths down by 50,000.
48. Cut long-term youth unemployment by 75 per cent.
49. Free nursery places for every three and four-year-olds.
50. Free fruit for most four to six-year-olds at school.
Yeah right! Now among my many favourites which by some mysterious editorial oversight, are not listed in Liebour's websh*te are:
A. Destruction of both the Union
B. Selling out the UK to Brussels
C. Exponential growth in the size of government
D. More sleaze that the top shelf of a porn store
E. Expropriation of billions of pounds of taxpayers money
F. Lies to Parliament & lies to the electorate
G. No viable policy on the economy, law & order, immigration, education, transport, health the environment or any thing else come to that
H. Pandering to the increasingly absurd whims of anyone that wears a pair of sandals or who works for the Health & Safety Executive
I. Overseeing the destruction of our long standing civil liberties
J. The continuing appeasement of the economically inactive
& lots more besides which I don’t have time to list here as I need to spend some time this morning, finishing off my latest lorry bomb. Sadly however, if there is one thing that is worse than the Labour Party under Blair or Brown, it’s the Tories under whichever muppet is leading them this week … which is why, come the next election (whenever that might be) you will be able to find me, suitably tooled up, in the clock tower