Blimey, I May have to vote for Corbyn ;-o eeeeeeeek!

economics, education, politics, stupid politicians 2 Responses »

Jun 042017

I can’t remember a general election where I have found it so difficult to summon up the enthusiasm to vote, and I have voted in every general election since I was in my mid twenties.

Both May & Corbyn look and sound like geography teachers instead of British leaders in whom we might have pride. As of today, the polls lead for the Tories has dropped to 4% (Times) or 2% (Guardian) from 20% of a few weeks ago.

“No election needed” – May’s first U-turn of many

Theresa May is robotic in her endless “strong & stable” meanderings containing little detail and has no interesting vision for Britain. She has repeatedly shown she cannot handle ordinary people whereas Corbyn has scored well.

The election May has called was a blatant opportunity to increase her hold over the UKIP Tory wing, but it has backfired beautifully 😉

Jeremy Corbyn does have a vision and some interesting policies (of which more later) but is surrounded by hypocrites (Diane Abbot to name but one) and he himself is the other. I say that because for the last 30 years he has been anti-EU (as have I) and then U-turned when Brexit became a reality. Diane Abbot proclaimed the benefits of state education until she had a child, became a single parent family and promptly employed private education. Abbot’s manner is so damn irritating and pontificatory (Ed: Is that actually a word?) that I find it impossible to listen to her.

The only hope I saw for the Labour Party was it being led by Tristram Hunt, but he recognised a lost cause when he saw one and left politics.

The Liberal Democrats (my former intellectual and perhaps natural home) are currently led by a twerp who looks 13 years old, talks bollocks and thinks the EU is great. The Lib Dems were ruined by their former twerp of a leader Nick Clegg who managed to alienate a whole generation of intelligent students.

UKIP without Farage are pointless and direction-less. Nigel Farage was a brief, breath of fresh air in the smoke filled room of party political fog but he, like Tristram Hunt, knew when the game was up.

In short – we have no person in today’s party politics for whom I can vote with any enthusiasm.

A fact of which you might be unaware: Every government from Thatcher’s era onwards has managed to double the national debt they inherited from the previous bunch of incompetents!

Labour & Tory governments have both proved endlessly to be financially and economically inept, based simply on the evidence of their inability to sort out the deficit and debt!

So, I had a look at their future policies instead to find some direction …

Education: The Tory manifesto wants to massively increase divisive “free” schools and thereby promote societal disunity. Labour does too.

Economics: The Tories are being a bit more honest in their spending plans but are not proposing to tax the real criminals like Google, Facebook, Sir Crooked Philip Green and Vodaphone to name but a few. Corbyn has done even less well in explaining how his tax plans will actually provide the cash for his hugely increased public spending plans.

Privatisation: I have always found Thatcher’s privatisation of our Water and our electricity grid to be one of the greatest crimes committed by a serving politician see here. So, I am happy with Corbyn’s desire to renationalise the railways (as in many European countries, e.g Germany for one) and reverse water privatisation.

Defence: The Tories seem to have the more robust policy here but the reality of the matter is that we are minnows compared to the USA. Therefore, Britain having nuclear weapons is almost pointless. I don’t mind paying the USA a few billion to keep theirs up to date which is, in my humble opinion, more useful and realistic than either party’s policy. I might even fund NATO more, but the time when we could afford a British nuclear arsenal is long past.

Neither manifesto is realistic or addresses any of my main concerns over debt reduction. Both private and public debt are HUGE, at about £1.6 Trillion quid, and yet the banks are lending more with PPC (we used to call it Hire Purchase 40 years ago) but neither party has a plan to stop it.

So there we are.

If I vote, and I suppose must, I will vote for Corbyn and hope that someone comes out of the woodwork with some common sense and statesmanlike leadership qualities soon!

Acknowledgement: Peter Brookes for his insightful cartoon

Brexit, the Supreme Court, lawyers and logic

economics, politics, stupid politicians No Responses »

Jan 242017

The Supreme Court is today ruling on something that really does not matter very much to ‘we the people’.

Lawyers, who form the largest and probably the most vocal part of our so-called democracy have missed a very simple fact, on purpose.

We know best you peasants

That fact is that a referendum is a direct approach to the people, and is the most powerful democratic tool that ‘we the people’ have. The executive, that is our government ministers, devolved the question of EU membership to ‘we the people’.

Logically therefore, the result of a referendum transcends the normal but gently flawed process of “first past the post” elections and party politics, and that is why MPs are in such a tizzy.

Many MPs are lawyers, just over 10% in fact, according to a recent YouGov poll, and they just hate being bypassed by us, ‘we the people’.

Remoaners have involved the legal system and the Supreme Court for several deeply flawed and suspect motivations.

Flawed argument 1) “Parliamentary supremacy is what the Brixiteers wanted, therefore parliament should therefore have its say”.

Logical response 1) Nonsense! We Brexiteers voted for the supremacy of Parliament over the EU, not the supremacy of Parliament over what the people voted for! See how easily they misrepresent and twist the facts?

Flawed argument 2) “The result was so close (52% to 48% of those who voted) that therefore we must ensure that the remainers have a big say.”

Logical response 2) More people voted in the referendum than voted in any general election in the last 70 years. Just imagine if Parliament wanted to adjust the result of a general election result because it was so close? General election results usually place a political party into power who have far less than 52% of the vote! The current conservative government has just 37% of the vote!

Flawed argument 3) “The devolved parliaments of Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland should be treated differently and Scotland in particular should have a new independence referendum because a majority of ‘Scots’ voted to remain in the EU”.

Logical response 3) Firstly, we are all part of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and therefore the British Parliament sitting in London is supreme. The fact that the majority of people voting, in say Watford, wanted to remain in the EU does not mean that the people of Watford should be allowed to remain in the EU. That is just plain potty!

Flawed argument 4) This is the unspoken one, underlying most of the other spoken reasons. “The people are ignorant of the facts and just cannot be given this amount of power.”

Logical response 4) We the people understood exactly why we wanted rid of the deeply flawed EU:-

It supports ever bigger corporations, we don’t
The EU is completely undemocratic, by design, we have spotted that too
the EU wants a federal government of Europe, we don’t
The EU is run by flawed and failed politicians, we spotted that too
Jean Claude Juncker, The president of the EU commission, is a tax avoidance specialist for global corporations, we don’t think that makes him qualified
The EU is financially incompetent and its lack of financial transparency has caused its accounts audit to fail each year for the last 20 years
The Euro was a daft, flawed and costly invention designed to promote a federal Europe which we don’t want
The EU breaks its own rules, repeatedly, the biggest example are bailouts for failing members: 3 for Greece, 1 for Ireland, 1 for Portugal, 1 for Cyprus and perhaps the largest was for Spanish banks
- The main issue here is that bailouts are specifically outlawed under the Maastricht treaty, but never mind that, eh?

The Supreme Court is today ruling on something that really does not matter very much to ‘we the people’, it just matters to the lawyers, journalists and politicians.

I realise that this is a simplistic response BUT my main point is that the whole legal ‘story’ is irrelevant fluff in a bigger picture!

Bah POO & piffle!

PS: Just heard that the Supreme Court got it wrong ;-(

The law is indeed an ass

But – three cheers for the three judges who dissented from the small majority – I think we should demand a recount because the vote went the wrong way 😉

PPS: Just seen Prime Minister’s questions – unbelievable bollocks from all sides on this question – Corbyn was a disaster – the Westminster bubble folk are living a LaLa Land.

Hinckley approved! Theresa May’s criminal incompetence

economics, politics, stupid politicians No Responses »

Sep 152016

This is a truly appalling and criminally incompetent decision by Theresa May.

Thirty odd years of indecision and delay in addressing our electricity requirements from both Labour and the Tories have led us to this ridiculous point. Yet again, party politics and our 4/5 year election cycle have been obstacles to logical and rational long term decision making.

PFI yet again – stupid, financial incompetence

The technology of the proposed reactor is unproven. The PFI business deal is so stupid that EDF & China must be laughing all the way to their bust banks.

Private Finance Initiatives (PFIs) first used by John Major in the 1980s, and then embraced by Blair & Brown, hide government debt from national statistics. A pathetic attempt to hide government’s financial incompetence. PFIs hide future debt from government borrowing statistics, a simple rule which could and should be easily be changed. Money which could have and should have been invested in Britain’s decentralised energy future has been invested in China’s and France’s future instead.

No caption required

Our children & grand children are doomed to keeping China’s polluted, massively over-indebted, corrupt, and unjust country alive!

Those who made this crap decision will retire on their huge pensions and be dead before the true ramifications will be felt in 30 years time.

PFI: Private companies borrow cash cheaply to build infrastructure for government and then charge the tax payer way over the odds for decades to come. A cynically corrupt, financially inept and self serving way to provide new schools & hospitals which superficially makes politicians look good but costs the nation dear!

Unbelievable

No more words …

Acknowledgements:

Clive Goddard for explaining PFI

David Simonds for the cartoon pointing out the blitheringly obvious in the Financial Times

When is a majority not democratic ..?

politics, stupid politicians No Responses »

Aug 252016

… when it gives us the wrong answer, or so it seems 😉

I keep reading, in the last few days, an ever more prominent but completely illogical viewpoint being expressed in the press and on the airwaves.

Orwell's brave new world has a lesson for us ...

Orwell’s 1984 has a lesson for us …

It is this: “…the referendum vote was so close that we need another referendum to sort out the mess we are in.”

The latest bandwagon jumperer-onner to espouse this laughable view is Owen Smith, the lacklustre and doomed alternative to Jezza (the Trot) Corbyn, on Wednesday’s Radio 4 Today program. John Harumphries did a wonderful job in showing us what a lightweight twerp he is.

One feels sorry for what was the Labour party…

Well, OK I don’t really 😉

But then again one is not impressed by any of the alternatives; the Liberal Democraps or the unelected PM, Theresa May (but one grudgingly has to say that she is probably the best of a pretty poor bunch).

If you recall, the 2015 election was so close that even our Dave, who had already packed his Orlebar Brown “swim shorts” (£225, but not from M& S) had to unpack them again and wait for his referendum result get-out of jail card.

“Phewee, that was jolly close Sam, I thought we might have to stay on for three more years!”

The result was indeed close, BUT it was a result that our system says we have to abide by!

Oh, and by the way, more people voted in the referendum that any British general election since King Alfred burnt his cakes (Ed: may need verification?). That makes the LEAVE result even more unarguable with.

Try to imagine that Nicola Sturgeon has dropped the ice cream – my Photoshop skills are not up to scratch

The same truth applies to that irritating Scottish woman who keeps an banging on and on and on about the need for another Scottish referendum. The “No” side won, with 2,001,926 (55.3%) voting against independence and 1,617,989 (44.7%) voting in favour. The turnout of 84.6% was the highest recorded for an election or referendum in the United Kingdom since the introduction of universal suffrage.

Nicola, you lost by 10%, so ‘shut up’ . Well, she needs to be told.

I think our Theresa may have put the same view more gently in her meeting with Ms Sturgeon than have I, but, hurrah for Theresa!

If this view was valid, the simple fact is that in our “first past the post system” there would not have been a government since 1992. Why? Because, the majority of each winning party has been so small, and based on so small a sample of the population who actually get off their arses to vote that there would have to have been a vote every month for a month of Sundays to sort out “the mess we are in” (I quote the ever more prominent view that provoked this elegant rebuttal.)

Could it be perhaps, that the Remain camp are the ones who have most access to the more populist airwaves and the press rooms?

The lesson for the Westminster bubble and indeed the Edinburgh McBubble is that we the people are more likely to vote when our vote might actually make a difference.

Well, we are still waiting …

economics, philosophy, politics, stupid politicians No Responses »

Aug 212016

…for someone to bring philosophical and visionary leadership to post Brexit Britain. Don’t get me wrong, I am a Britain first, and Englishman second but staunch European third.

As the EU loses its 2nd biggest contributor - the future for Britain looks brighter

As the EU’s 2nd biggest contributor ejects, the future for Britain looks brighter …

Remember the European Enlightenment? Few seem to, yet this was the flowering pinnacle of human philosophical rational thought, started by Confucius, Buddha and Socrates ending with Nietzsche telling us that ‘God is dead. God remains dead. And we have killed him. Yet his shadow still looms. How shall we comfort ourselves, the murderers of all murderers? What was holiest and mightiest of all that the world has yet owned has bled to death under our knives; who will wipe this blood off us? What water is there for us to clean ourselves?’ . In other words, We human’s historic need for god to exist is no longer reasonable, rational or supportable now that we can all read and write and supposedly think for ourselves.

But I digress …

No, it is the irrationality of the EU I rail against and for so many good reasons. The EEC was all about stopping Germany murdering the rest of Europe for the third time in 100 years. The EU construct forgot that and went off on a weird direction (the Maastricht Treaty) of irrational economics (the creation of the Euro) and the creation of a bonkers bureaucracy that beggars belief.

The shallowness of Gove and Boris quitting the scene exemplifies this leadership void which needs to be filled by some adults. It is clear that Gove and Johnson were doing politics for themselves rather than thinking about Britain out of the EU. Pathetic self-indulgent twerps, they never actually thought they might win! They were shocked when they did and then ran for cover as fast as they could.

Perhaps, if BoJo ever grows up he might become the leader that Britain so badly needs but I see no others in sight. Yet, there are many MPs, economists and thinkers who do have the vision required; lets hope these quiet people, who shun power, can garner the support they need to overthrow the old clapped out political regime we currently endure. The Labour party and the Liberal democrats have destroyed themselves and so party politics, as I have said repeatedly here, is dead in the water.

In the meantime we have Theresa May in charge, but again we need to wait while she finishes her walking trip. One is quietly hopeful she may be the “one” but who knows?

The remain camp, many of whom are younger than 45, failed to be aware of the appalling depths to which the “European project” has fallen and seems to have no understanding of what huge inefficient, corrupt, inept bureaucracy the EU is. If any of you Remainers have yet to watch Brexit the movie, please do so. It sums up in one hour what many have been saying for years.

My best example of the young Remainers ignorance and delusion was exemplified by a young, seemingly intelligent woman in a pre-referendum day BBC Question-time audience who complained that neither side of the argument were putting their ideas across very well. But, her main complaint was that she was not being told what to think well enough. Only one member of the panel was brave enough to point out that perhaps she should have educated herself a bit more rather than waiting to be spoon fed. This attitude is sadly typical of the naivety of today’s under 45s who have had little time to think because their strokeable devices need so much attention, that time for personal rumination and research is lost.

“You guys are taking a huge risk” (says the pilot of the EU plane on fire and about to crash, to the sensible British parachuters)

As I said in my last article, many in the Westminster village bubble are still in denial, and here I include most BBC journalists and commentators. The financial markets have knocked sterling for six because of their short-termist, childish greed and globalist narcissism; but, ooh look! The stock market has largely recovered – gosh, who’d have thought! 😉

That the UK has never been a fully an integrated part of the EU seems to be lost on the major market ‘players’ as they allow their fears and ignorance to fuel massive sell-down of stocks regardless of the real positive relevance to UK and/or EU economies.

We have an amazing opportunity to grasp all that is good about small businesses, now incidentally, largely being led by a welcome increase in the number of female entrepreneurs.

We don’t need trade agreements; we need free trade areas, not the restrictive practice contracts that modern trade agreements actually are. Trade agreements are negative and stand against free market economics. Instead they bar businesses from markets where the bigger globalised corporations have ~~bribed~~ supported the leaders of developing countries.

The best exponent of this nauseating human development used to be us, then the USA but is now China.

TTIP thankfully seems to be dying a well deserved death, thanks to the Brexit vote – hurrah!

Up yours Juncker, now we need to think and wait …

economics, politics, stupid politicians 2 Responses »

Jun 262016

… for our politicians to accept the reality of what the British people have told them. This result is quite a shock for them and most will be in denial for some time.

I suspect the best positive way forward is a mixed party coalition executive (government) based around Boris Johnson, Daniel Hannan, Michael Gove and a few of the impressive economists from the campaign group The Economists for Brexit. I know this idea ain’t anywhere near perfect, BUT its a hell of a way better forward than anything else I can think of. What say you lot?

I fail to see any light coming from the ranks of the Liberal or Labour parties.

Our next PM? Daniel Hannan is an MEP who hates what the EU has become, but Hey Ho, the pay is very good 😉

The politicians then need a few advisors like James Dyson (vacuum cleaner man), JCB chairman Lord Bamford and a few others. They are needed to do the negotiations with Brussels as our Eton boys don’t know how to actually get things done. And, for pete’s sake don’t involve Lord Alan Amstrad Sugar (quelle tosser)!

Party politics just ain’t gonna cut it, it is an outdated regime for the administration of the United Kingdom Great Britain. (and, will someone tell that Scottish twitette to shut up?)

We need a far more radical approach than the LIB Lab Con flip flop show that we are all heartily sick of.

From Labour, I heard Caroline Flint, who still admires Blair for Pete’s sake, say “We lost because we did not explain our position well enough …”! The arrogance and ignorance she displayed in that statement is indicative of most party politicians and describes very well what most of we “Leavers” were voting against.

These are radical times, led by the people of Great Britain, let us hope that those who want power will, for once, work for the people.

As for as Jean Claude Juncker telling us to hurry up and start the exit proceedings, someone needs to tell him to “Calm down dear” (I quote one of Camerons more insightful (to us I mean, about him!) comments to a female MP a couple of years ago).

Yes – he really did say that

As long as we have not triggered article 50 of the 1972 Lisbon treaty, we are in control and we need to quietly think and regroup before we start negotiations. One hopes that the truth will dawn soon upon the Remain Westminster bubble but I won’t be holding my breath. We need some fresh thinking from the pool of MPs who have said too little.

The British people have been fed up with the EU and Westminster centric politicians for years and those hitherto quiet back benchers need to make themselves heard above the noise of banality expressed by the main parties’ spokespersons.

We need some statesmanlike vision statements from the Leave campaigners.

The EU now fears for its very existence and needs to be humbled by some straight talking from our next PM.

Who he? BoJo? Gove? Hannan?

Hmm

Hmm indeed.

Acknowledgements: The Reddit leave campaign. A sobering read from our European leaders – 😉

Vote Remain for unstoppable globalisation & democracy’s death

economics, politics, stupid politicians No Responses »

Jun 212016

Today’s Remain campaign sponsors are a financial gambler and a retail expansionist failure.

I speak of George Soros and Terry Leahey leading the “Remain Campaign’s” sound bite bollocks today.

This is what my dog thinks of the remain campaign! Ralph for PM! Hurrah

This is what my dog thinks of the remain campaign! He thinks it is a pile of POO! Ralph for PM! Hurrah

George Soros made billions on betting against the pound on Black Wednesday in 1992, when Britain left the ERM.

The ERM was almost as daft as the invention of the Euro and yes, you guessed it, was also invented by Brussels faceless bureaucrats.

Soros wants to remain because he supports the rich becoming ever richer, i.e. himself.

What Soros does is disastrous for you, me and humanity’s future.

He makes nothing and does nothing but bet on the movement of money.

Do you really want to support this sort of flawed corrupt thinking by remaining in the EU?

As for Leahey, he expanded Tesco too fast, using non-existent money, and very nearly caused the complete collapse of the UK’s most successful food retailer. He was forced out of his job several years ago and Tesco is still trying to recover from his disastrous time in charge.

Vote Remain for loss of sovereignty that we can never recover.

Vote Remain for ever-increasing globalised businesses consuming small business.

Vote Remain for Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World and Globe Corp, the eventual ruler of the world.

Vote Leave for small business, sovereignty and democracy’s last gasp, please!

Vote Leave for ‘Small is Beautiful’.

Yes there will be a short term panic in “the markets” and yes the pound will fall a bit, but it will recover.

Yes it will hasten the inevitable collapse of the Euro, but all that will happen anyway.

Vote Leave for a human scale Great Britain.

The EEC, the EU and why it’s time to leave

economics, politics, stupid politicians 1 Response »

Jun 152016

Ever since I started this blog, some 8 years ago, I have written many posts urging us to leave the EU because of what I discovered in my personal quest to understand why and how the EEC became the EU.

Prophetic is the description I would use, or so I hope, having just re-read them. I’d love to know what you think! 😉

This is my last chance to persuade you to vote leave on the 23rd June.

Do you have 15 minutes to spare? Please read on…

Here we go :

This from 2012:

Blackadder explains the Euro to Baldrick …

Blackadder explains the complexity of the Euro to Baldrick

Baldrick: “What I want to know Sir, is, before there was a Euro there were lots of different types of money that different people used. And now there’s only one type of money that the foreign people use. And what I want to know is, how did we get from one state of affairs to the other state of affairs”
Blackadder: “Do you mean, how did the Euro start?”
Baldrick: “Yes Sir”
Blackadder: “Well, you see Baldrick, back in the 1980s there were many different countries all running their own finances and using different types of money. On one side you had the major economies of France , Belgium , Holland and Germany , and on the other, the weaker nations of Spain, Greece , Ireland , Italy and Portugal . They got together and decided that it would be much easier for everyone if they could all use the same money, have one Central Bank, and belong to one large club where everyone would be happy. This meant that there could never be a situation whereby financial meltdown would lead to social unrest, wars and crises”.
Baldrick: “But this is sort of a crisis, isn’t it Sir?”.
Blackadder: “That’s right Baldrick. You see, there was only one slight flaw with the plan”.
Baldrick: “What was that then, Sir?”
Blackadder: “It was bollocks”.

For a slightly more detailed analysis on why the creation of the Euro was a politically, incompetent cockup of the highest order, please see my final article on the Euro written in December 2011.

Acknowledgements: Unfortunately, I do not know who wrote this <the earliest reference I could find was on the UKIP website date 26th February 2012> but would like to thank them from the heart of my bottom!

This from 2014: Ed Milliband has never really found his way into our hearts since becoming leader of the New / Old / Labour / Lost / Middle party. The labour party faithful just cannot accept that he is simply not leadership material. He sounds odd and looks weird. If that seems unkind, well tough, it’s simply true! Not PC but true.

Our next PM?

Millibean’s latest desperate pronouncement on not supporting an EU referendum just shows how incapable of rational thought he is. He is caught in the party political game and cannot think about what is good for the people of Britain.

The alternative? god help us all!
But see below >>>

This latest media fest on the EU referendum, as usual, discusses none of the real reasons for the UK leaving the sinking ship that is the EU. I repeat now what I said last May because the facts are just the same – the only thing that changes is the damn party politicians!

Nowhere has anyone actually got to grips with the real problems with the EU, just a few of which are these:-

1 – The EU is just too damn big; it is completely unmanageable and is run by bonkers, failed ex-leaders of failed countries (See 10 below)
2 – The EU has forgotten why it was formed in the first place (to stop Germany starting a third world war if you had forgotten or are too young to know)
3 – The EU is incompetent; those in charge are failures in their own countries – farmed out to a slow, but oh so well paid, death in Brussels
4 – The EU bureaucrats are overpaid for doing nothing to benefit the people of Europe
5 – The EU is so inefficient that it makes my teeth hurt
6 – The EU spends most of its time herding cats (people who will never agree on anything)
7 – The EU cannot even balance its books (19 years of audited but inaccurate, qualified final accounts).
8 – The EU is undemocratic; the MEPs have no power and cannot hold the executive to account by design!
9 – The EU wastes so much of our tax money that it’s leaders should be in jail

Boris for PM – Hurray 😉

10 – The EU is run by a failed former Portuguese Prime Minister and a failed Belgian Prime Minister! Well that’s alright then (Belgium has not had a valid government for years & Portugal is as bust as Greece)
11 – Germany has just announced an astonishing proposal for an 20 fold increase in the EU ‘diplomatic budget’ (but see 13 below)
12 – Oh, I almost forgot the Euro; possibly the most stupid ever invention ever conceived by man
13 – Even Van Rompuy & Baroness Ashton realise the game is up are are quitting in 2014
14 – Above all the EU is NOT what “we the people” want, which is the European Economic Community. We voted for the EEC in 1975 but since then the slow, slimy, sickening morphing into the EU has been quietly and completely undemocratically, foisted upon us.

Those in power are quietly allowing currencies to devalue (The £ by a shocking 35% since 2008!) whilst QE (That’s ‘quantitative easing’, not our Lizzie) creates a background slow death of inflation so the banks can stay in power.

Nowhere are these fundamentally important issues being discussed – why not?

This is mass madness on such a scale that words are beginning to fail me …OK not quite ;-)

We the people are being ‘handled’ while those who create the acres of meedja crap and spend the people’s money so incompetently are unchallenged by anyone talking common sense.

Here’s what needs to be done:-

Either the EU needs to be reformed back to the size of the EEC (pre Maastricht)

All those counties outside the Euro-zone should leave and let Germany stew in its own Euro fueled bonfire of failed European federalism.

If we can’t really take Dave, Ed, Nigel or Nick, well, there’s always ….Boris!

Note from the Editor: “No real people were hurt when taking these pictures of our beloved ruling elite.” 😉

This from 2012:

Two facts you may not know about the Maastricht Treaty…

Last December (2011) I said there was no more to say about the ridiculous EU; just lately I have had to say more, mainly after José Manuel Barroso said the EU needs to become a Federation urgently! Baroso former PM of Portugal with a stupefying record of economic incompetence is now in charge of the EU project … words fail me …

If you, like me (a few years ago), didn’t give a damn about Maastricht or even notice it, well, you should; it is nothing short of a criminally incompetent plan to turn member states into a Federal European state run by Germany.

Barroso crying after he learns that the people of France & Holland do not want the EU — President of the EU; José Manuel Barroso, former PM of Portugal (there’s a CV to be proud of) crying after he learns that the people of France & Holland do not want the EU, but never mind, let’s just ignore the voters – as usual – and they did

The Maastricht treaty was the final, in a slimy, devious series, of non-democratic treaties; moves, by Federalists within the appointed EU bureaucracy, to change the EEC, which actually was a jolly good idea into the European Union. We voted YES for the EEC in the 1975 referendum.

We now have, in the EU’s current form, an organisation where the leaders are NOT taken from the elected European MPs – they are appointed by Herman Van Rompuy’s department. If you want to know how that happened then I welcome you to the LaLaland of smoke, mirrors, incompetence, unbelievable inefficiency and corruption of all that is decent about humanity; viz the EU Commissioners.

However, we, the people, never ever voted for this slow morphing of the EEC into the EU; and when, accidentally, the French & Dutch were given a chance to express their opinions in 2005 they said NO – very loudly; and were quietly and sickeningly ignored.

So that's where Gordon went! — The French say Non!

The Irish were supposed to be asked too but this was delayed because they would have said no too; later, when they needed an illegal bailout – they said yes after a slimy YES campaign!

We, in the UK, were not asked and most of us didn’t know that we should care; so there we are – screwed!

The two facts you might not know:-

1) According to the Maastricht Treaty, EU member states are not allowed to finance their public deficits by printing money. That is one reason why the Bank of England has been buying government bonds from financial institutions, not directly from the government. However – the EU states led by England are doing exactly that, but now it is called ‘Quantitative Easing‘. Faced by those weasel words, most of us just turn off and watch X Factor or Strictly instead. Meanwhile our pensions are being raped by the rich because QE is inflation by another name.

Quantitative easing is actually a backdoor process to save the banking system by apparently improving the asset side of Banks’ balance sheets, and it STINKS!

Here is what actually happens:-

The Bank of England prints money electronically – one minute the UK money supply is say £40 trillion quid and the next second it is £41 trillion – magic!

The Bank of England buys government bonds from the banks with the magic money and a public statement is made by Osborne to the effect that banks should now lend more to business.

UK Banks’ balance sheets now look better and have more cash for bonuses HURRAH! Buying government bonds from Pension funds has the effect of reducing the return on bonds this making shares “look” more attractive and somehow overcomes the limitation of the accepted definition of “Printing money” (Pre-war Germany, Zimbabwe etc.)

However, banks still do not loan to businesses because that does not return as much profit as digging holes in 3rd world countries does, which by the way is how Merchant Banks have always made their money. It is a dirty exploitative way of making profit and it STINKS.

‘The Bank of England believes QE is different because it is “printing money” as part of monetary policy – to prevent deflation. It is not printing money to help the government finance its deficit. Also, unlike Zimbabwe, this is a temporary policy: the Bank expects to sell the government bonds back into the market when the economy recovers.’ ( Ed: Oh yeah? We wait with bated breath … ? )

2) According to the Maastricht Treaty, EU member states cannot be bailed out if they cannot finance their own debt requirements. Err, but, they have been, as in Greece, Spain, Ireland and shortly Italy and in November Greece again. This is all simply par for the course for the worthless, disingenuous (aka lying, duplicitous) corrupt EU bureaucrats who invented the completely irrational Euro – simply madness to invent a common currency where no member state can control its own tax system or money supply.

To conclude:-
1) The Euro is a nonsensical construct by any rational examination; it was obviously conceived, as a first step, by those who wanted the United Federation of Europe by the back door.
2) Any member state breaking fiscal rules are simply told off (over a nice lunch) – and never held to account (e.g. Italy, Greece, Portugal never, ever met the 5 criteria for joining the Euro).
3) The so-called Treaties are worthless; because they are not democratic & nobody is ever held to account (i.e. fired!).
4) The EU itself is worthless and irrational; because no-one ever voted for it and its own accounts have failed every audit for the last 19 years!
5) Most European governments are colluding in this desperate measure to save the bankers from financial reality because it is the bankers that keep the status quo.

All three main UK political parties don’t seem to mind, do you?

This from 2015:

EU leaders remain clueless – Greece in denial

At London Conference of 1953, the Greek Minister of Finance signed a treaty agreeing to cancel 50% of Germany’s debt! How times change!

While the idiotic posturing of Jean-Claude Juncker (a banker friendly supporter of globalisation and an expert in tax avoidance for multi-nationals) waits for Greece to agree to ridiculous demands to pay back the banks, who were daft enough to loan a third world economy buckets of cash in the first place, Greece’s Prime Minister (and most of the Greek people) still want to retain the Euro.

Juncker talking out of the rear end of a German elephant

Both sides in the debate, which is scheduled to end this Sunday (but don’t hold your breath) are publicly refusing to accept the inevitable, which is this:

Greece’s debt (almost twice its GDP) has to be reduced by at least 50% and the banksters will have to take their haircut. The longer the banks refuse their haircut, the worse the financial crash will be
Greece needs to cut the public sector back to 15% of the working population rather than the 40% it is today (similar to Northern Ireland…)
Greece must return the retirement age to 65 ish rather than the current ridiculous 61.9
Greek cash based tax avoidance culture is just too different from that of Northern Europe, and the EU’s incompetence in allowing Greece, Italy and Portugal to join is a cock-up which will inevitably lead to the Euro’s demise

Those are the simple economic realities which both sides are cannot face.

Yanis Varoufakis, the Greek finance minister sacked a few days ago (to appease EU bankers) was the only person qualified enough in economics to be worth listening to.

Yanis Varoufakis talking sense — Yanis Varoufakis talking about the EU, so, he had to go! Hehe!

His blog makes perfect sense in debunking the ridiculous Euro and the undemocratic nonsense that is the EU.

The stark realities are that 20% of the population of Greece are below the EU poverty line and levels of unemployment average out at 55%.

Behind all this posturing is, of course, the basic nonsense that is the Euro. William Hague wrote an excellent article in yesterday’s Daily Telegraph which explains what I have been saying here since 2006, i.e. that the Euro is potty, well worth a read ! Pity he didn’t have the balls to say it loud and clear when he had the power to do something about it.

Sad and tragic days ahead for Greece.

What happens next Sunday at the EU summit?

Buggered if I know!

Acknowledgements:

Steve Bell, Guardian cartoonist, for the elephant

Yanis Varoufakis Yanis Varoufakis blog

There are several more articles but if you have not watched Brexit the movie, I urge you to do so. You owe it to your grand children.

Belief is a matter of opinion … discuss

atheism, philosophy, religion, secularism, stupid politicians No Responses »

Jun 102016

A few words of light relief and escape from the nauseating, banal utterances from both sides of the public EU debate.

This piece was written sometime ago by an American contributor to this blog, and for some reason I have not published it before. It is well worth a read.

Thank you perspective.

Belief in some kind of “higher power,” or not, has a relationship to one’s preference in governance.

The Left has the most straightforward belief in a higher power: they ARE the higher power. The Right, who generally believe in some power higher than they, splinter as to what exactly it is.

Belief is a stupid concept that somehow has become a virtue - why in god's name is that?

Belief is a such a stupid concept, but somehow it has become a virtue to many – why in god’s name is that? 😉

The Left considers reality as evidence that there is no higher power – surely a Supreme Being would not have created an inequitable world. We, and the universe, are lucky accidents that occurred by chance. All outcomes would be random, not fair, if it were not for the intervention of Leftist intelligentsia. Lacking a higher power, Man needs the Left to right the wrongs visited upon the unlucky victims of chance.

The Left embraces totalitarian government, where their elites have God-like, absolute, power to enforce what is right on behalf of the benighted masses who look to a non-existent God for salvation. My will be done (for I am just, you ignorant fool).

The Right views reality as evidence that there is a higher power; surely Man who runs his own affairs so poorly could not have created a universe which Man dimly understands. Intelligence beyond their comprehension rules Man and universe, not chance. They pray for God’s guidance to use the limited abilities they have been gifted to conform the world more closely to their limited understanding of the Master’s plan. Man is a servant, an employee, who, although he does possess full knowledge of the corporate entity, can nevertheless receive sustenance in return for performing tasks within his capabilities. There are reasons for inequity among men, just as there reasons why a more productive employee is paid more than a less capable employee. This does not mean that the lesser paid employee is valueless. If his work was of no value, he would not be on the payroll at all.

The Right prefers freedom, because God might have made his will clearer to the other guy – they need to listen to him, just in case or for perspective. Whether he is right or wrong the other guy is still a child of God, and to disrespect one’s fellow is to disrespect one’s creator. Every life is of value, or God would not have enabled it. Thy will be done (God bless you, fellow seeker).

Of course, there are members of the Left who profess belief in God. Theirs is a supportive God, not a higher power. He is a kindly uncle, generous in hopes of receiving love, but not a father who must be obeyed. He is a resource, not a master. A cosmic concierge who finds the difficult-to-obtain on behalf of his clientèle. Whether or not He is supreme is irrelevant because His only desire is to serve believers. They believe in Him because He believes what they believe. It would not be believable that God would not want what the Left wants. He has lent His support to the Left to rule by proxy.

Their counterparts on the Right also profess belief in God, but what they actually believe in is a religion. Their adherence to the religion’s political posture (governance of relationships between people and nature) has bestowed God’s power on the Right to rule by proxy.

Neither group believes in an all-powerful God, because they both believe He needs their help to get rid of gays or the HIV virus or Jews or poverty or whatever. He just can’t get it right without their intervention. It is unacceptable to either pole of zealotry that gays, HIV, Jews and poverty are all part of God’s plan. God can’t do it alone.

Let’s get real. The difference between the Left and the Right is not at all determined by whether God exists. Rather, the belief (or lack thereof) in a higher power is a consequence of other predispositions which have the additional consequence of determining a person’s political predilection. The beliefs are correlated, not causal. The underlying traits for both opinion sets have to do with humility versus arrogance, and acceptance versus denial.

People who are essentially humble can both accept the existence of an intelligence greater than their own exercising control over their lives, and accept that others’ freedom to express contrary opinions can benefit their understanding. “It is what it is” (with or without my judgement).

People who are arrogant believe their failures are caused by bad luck, or being treated unfairly, but are never due to their own inadequacy, as judged by their peers or God. The arrogant, confronted with abundant evidence of their fallibility, are in denial, and feel threatened by both existence of a supreme arbiter and the expression of contrary opinions. Intelligent and rational, both are threats to the arrogant.

The humble are eager to be shown where they are mistaken, so as not to repeat the mistake. The arrogant are intolerant of being shown their mistake, because they are never mistaken.

The “old saws” on this point are abundant. Some of my favourites are:

There is always a mug at the table. If you don’t know who it is, you are the mug.
God gave you two ears and one mouth for a reason.
Just because you have silenced a man does not mean you have converted him.
Pride is a man who goes forth on horseback and comes back on foot.

It is laughable that the Left prides itself on its intelligence (but not because they’re wrong). Conservatives are portrayed as stupid. Intelligence is the capacity to learn. Knowledge is the sum total of what has been learned. I have not seen much of a correlation between the two.

High intelligence is conducive to arrogance. Arrogance is not conducive to learning.

The humble generally seem to know more than the arrogant. They work harder at learning because they have to. The intelligent can fake it. It took Einstein some time before he could wipe himself.

It takes extreme arrogance for any one individual to feel that he has come up

Buddhism is not a religion, it is a method for learning how to think for yourself

with a correct answer which has been missed throughout the course of human history. It does not take much humility to realize that the best answers are the ones that people keep coming back to after being challenged by generations.

What separates the philosophies is the humility to accept responsibility for one’s lack of success rather than faulting the successful person. It is the humility to accept that if the “right” thing to do has never worked it will not work this time around because that idea is probably wrong. It is the humility to accept that if helping another person makes one feel peaceful, and forcing someone else to help the person in need makes one feel resentful, that service is preferable to control. It is the humility to accept that if I can’t get a job for myself, even from the government, I am a poor choice to lead a government that will supply jobs for everyone.

The Left, at its core, is composed of arrogant disbelievers. Their arrogance permits them to seek control of their fellows by force, including violence to people and property, because their narcissism permits is no possibility they are wrong. Even though every Leftist government has failed to deliver the basic necessities of life to most of its populace they have the arrogance to believe that this time, under the new guy, who is very smart, they will get it to work.

The Right is humble enough to insist the Left must have a voice.

America is still the richest country in the world. And soon, Americans will be celebrating their holiday of Thanksgiving. The purpose of the holiday is to pay homage to the aboriginal “Indian” wogs who saved colonists from the then richest country in the world from starvation. The plight of the Brits was that they were on the beach sandwiched in between cornfields and the virgin Western Atlantic, not yet commercially fished. Couldn’t find a bite to eat to save their lives. Thank God for Chief Squanto.

This Thanksgiving, President Obama, arguably the most intelligent American President (not a high hill to climb), certainly the most Leftist, atheist and author of the biggest entitlement program in human history, will feast on the goose-that-laid-the-golden-egg.

PS: For god’s sake vote to leave 😉

Why Obama fears the UK leaving EU, the clue is “queue”

economics, politics, stupid politicians No Responses »

Apr 232016

What a huge disappointment Obama is, I’m sure both to himself and to all those non-white Americans who had so much hope invested in his first term. I too had hoped for a radical change in world politics but the globalised corporate world is bigger than politics and indeed now pays for most party politicians. All those hopes have been defeated by the corrupt corporate mess that US and world politics has become.

promises change but changes promises instead

As most of you may have realised by now, Obama’s speech calling for the UK to stay in the EU (or Ewe as young Hollywood actresses call all distasteful things) was written by our Dave and his speech writers. When he said that the UK would be at the end of the queue for a post Brexit trade agreement with the USA he gave the game away. Americans don’t do queues, Americans have no idea what a queue is, they say line. One of Obama’s aids was seen to wince when the word queue came out of the presidential orifice; it was not in the original script.

The real reason that Obama, and corporate USA fear the UK leaving the EU is that our exit will hasten the inevitable collapse of the Euro by removing the second largest net contributor to the EU.Not only that, the UK & Germany are the only two members of the EU who actually pay attention to the laws that the Luxembourg autocrats produce.

The EU is in a real economic mess. German banks are charging customers to save with them, the immigration crisis is stretching resources to the limits and the required speedy EU response to all these huge issues is impossible to achieve. The banks must be saved at all costs and this flawed thinking is pushing the real cost of the 2007 banking failure on to this and the next generation rather than those who actually caused the problem. Greece is still bust, as is Portugal and Italy and the sooner we are out of this children’s playground disaster area the better.

Our exit will indeed hasten short term economic chaos, but mainly for the EU. This chaos would have happened in time anyway! The EU is financially incompetent, completely undemocratic, inefficient in the extreme and just too damn big to be of any use to its citizens. My last article explored the issue of globalised business and its effects on the small guys, you and me.

Our politicians, Labour and Conservative are not thinking logically, they are thinking party politically. The one thing all politicians do best, is to kick difficult decisions into the long grass so that they will have retired by the time their inaction and crap decision making is spotted by the rest of us.

Let me leave you with a good example of a queue. Pictures below and the richest billionaires in India waiting in line to meet Obama on a recent visit, led of course by the now infamous Mr Tata himself!

Remember him? Tata to Mr Tata, good riddance.

This line is an expensive queue 😉

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