Brown convinced Lloyds shareholders should lose 3 Billion Pounds.

On all TV Channels this evening we are informed of the reality of our headline above. Brown must be planning to use the Civil Contingencies Act of November 2004 to force this through ....... after all it gives the PM and aptly named piece of excrement, every power to do exactly as he pleases! David Cameron will of course agree to everything in order not to be like those divisive Americans (who in truth were almost as much divided within their parties as between their parties in the House vote last evening). Which of these charlatans is the worst?

Polls confirm Cameron and Osborne - Woeful in Crisis

This is a quote from Bloomberg, linked here:

====================================

A poll of 100 U.K. politicians, journalists and analysts by the Web site PoliticsHome conducted yesterday found two-thirds agree ``the Conservative response to the economic crisis has been surprisingly weak.'' Another survey by ComRes Ltd. showed the opposition's lead over Brown's Labour Party narrowing.

The Conservatives' lead over Labour narrowed to 12 points from 19 a month ago, ComRes said. Brown was ranked as ``best in a crisis'' by 43 percent of voters, compared with 33 percent for Cameron. ComRes polled 1,017 adults from Sept. 26 to Sept. 28.

===================================== For three long years this blog and its sister 'Teetering Tories' have been trying to ram this point home. Dump them NOW!

Latest Brown/Hitler Video Spoof - House Prices

Thanks to Crown Blogspot, here, for this.

Credit markets, Libor and Bank failures!

Stocks were bad yesterday but apart from lamentable political leadership across the entire Western world it is the Credit disaster that still looks set to be the biggest horror. Read Business Week, here, and Ambrose Evans-Pritchard in the Telegraph from here. If you wish to delude yourself and want a contrary view that the ECB is wonderful and will be the saviour of us all then read this from Forbes.

EU to investigate Bradford and Bingley bail out .

EU to investigate Bradford and Bingley bail out according to CNN, linked here. Why is the Capitalist system now suffering the consequences of widespread corruption? Could it be that national governments in Europe have ceded their regulatory powers to a thoroughly corrupt organisation that has only advanced through lies and deceit, thus corrupting almost all who have any dealings with it. What better construct to carry out an investigation of an outfit failed due to the corruption of Capitalism. Where is Europe's Henry Paulson? Not in the EU that is for sure.

Austria's established parties reap Lisbon betrayal's dividend. Merkel crushed in Bavaria!

The Times, here, has one report of the brilliant Austrian election results which were announced yesterday evening The mainstream parties recorded their lowest share of the vote since the Second World War, with the Social Democrats dropping 7 per cent to 29.7 per cent, while the conservative People’s Party won 25.6 per cent of the vote — a decline of 9 per cent compared with 2006. The first signs of hope that the treacherous leaders of Europe's established party will soon be brutally punished all across the Continent of Europe as they so richly deserve were also visible just across the Austrian border in Bavaria on Sunday. This is from Bloomberg, linked here:

The result is a blow to Merkel, who came to power in 2005 with a single seat majority in the federal parliament with the help of the CSU's 46 lawmakers. She now faces a national election in September 2009 with a weakened political ally just as her main rivals, the Social Democrats, are polling higher after a change of leadership.

``This will cause a shock of seismic proportions in Berlin,'' Paul Nolte, a politics professor at Berlin's Free University, said in an interview. ``Merkel can say goodbye to her dream of the CDU with the CSU getting at least 40 percent in the federal elections. That's over: Suddenly, her prospects next year have started to look much less rosy.''

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Another nail in the coffin of Brown's merged Lloyds/HBOS

The following is from an article in this mornings Daily Telegraph, here, on the brilliant US bailout plan conceived by US Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson which it is hoped will be passed into law today:

Although the US Treasury and Federal Reserve’s rescue fund is designed to help rescue ailing financial companies on Wall Street, Barclays, HSBC and Royal Bank of Scotland are expected to be eligible for the scheme.

Bankers said HBOS and Lloyds will not be able to dump their unwanted assets at the US taxpayer’s door as they have no US operations.

Gordon Brown's enforced marriage of Lloyds/HBOS looks ever more precarious with each passing day!

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Gordon Brown at the UN

The full speech is available from here. This blogs choice of the statement most likely to prove totally incorrect: "In the next two decades our world economy will double in size." Note, no "ifs" no "buts" no hedging but an outright statement in a stand alone sentence with the emphasis on "will". This blog's choice of the most hypocritical statement, probably ever delivered before the UN General Assembly is this: ".... there must be responsibility. No member of senior management should be able to say they did not understand the risks they were running, and walk away from their obligations." Finally the most terrifying aspect of the speech, granting an insight into the warped mind and twisted priorities of the man presently in charge of the fate of Britain during these perilous times, the speech ended with these words: "So let us resolve today to end any irresponsibility, to protect the global public interest by cleaning up the world’s financial system, to reaffirm our commitment to meeting our global responsibilities on trade, poverty and on energy and climate change. And let us act upon this as people, as governments, as nations united.

And let history record - ours was a truly global response to the first truly global crisis".

This from the man in charge of the fate and affairs of Great Britain. The Prime Minister whose principle responsibility is the well-being of the people of the nation of the UK and Northern Ireland. Is any other national democratic leader casting aside the responsibilities of the office granted by their electorate in pursuit of some kind of Karl Marx inspired folly.

Looking at the entire speech is it not clear that Gordon Brown's destruction of the City of London, the UK economy and the social fabric of the nation has not in fact been folly but determinedly deliberate?

Europe's plight as seen from India

An article in the Business Standard of India, while including items already commented upon on this blog, is worth a read as an updated overview of the ongoing catastrophe which today looks likely to at long last finally consume the Bradford and Bingley in Britain (The Times report is here). The Indian comment is linked here and the following is a quote: Informed opinion in India has it, for instance, that those at the centre of the financial world knew a long time back that this was going to develop into a massive crisis, and deliberately underplayed the problem at every stage in the hope of keeping a lid on the issue. So far, the crisis is confined to the US, and one danger (it is said) is that it could spread to Europe.

Indeed, it turns out European banks escaped by a whisker just a week ago, when AIG got nationalised. Had AIG failed, its $300 billion credit insurance to European banks would have been of questionable value, leaving them with the re-capitalisation problem that, in the end, consumed New York’s investment banks. The amazing thing is that most European banks seem to have leveraged their capital even more than New York’s former investment banks. Deutsche Bank’s leverage, for instance, is said to be 50:1 (Morgan Stanley’s was “only” 30:1).

Impossibility of EU renewables target

Read a post on the Telegraph blogs by Ruth Lea, linked here, it concludes: Quite simply, Britain faces an insuperable, physically impossible, task of hitting the 2020 renewables target. But we will be incurring significant costs in even trying to get anywhere near it. And, yes, we will miss the target. And, yes, we will be fined. It is the economics of the madhouse.

Brown's latest blunder heads for the rocks

Lloyds TSB shares fall along with those of HBOS as the merged bank is forecast to have a 420 billion wholesale funding deficit by a Credite Suisse analyst, Jonathan Pierce, quoted in the Guardian, linked here. The combined group's capital deficit is estimated by the same analyst at 10 billion. A quote: "In both nominal and proportionate terms, the combine will have more exposure to UK specialist mortgages, UK credit cards, UK personal loans, and UK commercial property than any other UK bank - all the assets we worry about, aggregating [more than] £200bn or seven times the tangible equity base." As is so now often the case in this growing turmoil, warnings of this likely outcome appeared on this blog first (almost as soon as the merger was announced) see this link.

MEPs run scared of Libertas

The Irish Times reports on attempts to halt any funding for Libertas candidates to run in next June's EU Parliamentary elections, possibly the last hope for any retention of democratic survival in the EU. Read here. Meantime the International Herald Tribune has a report on the Witch Hunt already being mounted by the Parliament's President and his cronies against Declan Ganley and Libertas. Read here. Hopefully there are some in Ireland who will mount similar pressure to discover how much EU cash and influence was brought to bear to try to bring about a Yes vote for the tyranny of the Lisbon Treaty.

Brown's BUST boosts Britain's Mortgage Burden

Gordon Brown's BUST, eleven years in gestation, has now finally become obvious to Britain's brainwashed battalions of blinkered borrowers. The Daily Telegraph this morning, read here, reckons the average mortgage will now cost an extra five hundred pounds a year. The BBC gasping business editor and Brown biographer, Robert Peston, whose verbal delivery should ban him from every broadcast studio in the universe, splutters that on top of the billions being spent by central banks across the globe for a seven day rescue effort, Britain's extra and extreme mortgage difficulties, solely caused by none other than the present PM Gordon Brown, have required an extra input of forty billion pounds for three months by the Bank of England - imagine the shocks ahead for mortgage holders when that taxpayer funded lifeline expires! As one should treat anything reported on the Radio 4 Today programme with the utmost doubt and suspicion I can confirm that the reliable Forbes magazine confirms that fact, link here, quote: In addition, the Bank's long-term repo operations against extended collateral, including mortgage securities, will for a period be held weekly and enlarged. The first such operation will be held on Monday 29 September. It will be an auction for 40 billion pounds, for maturity to Thursday 15 January 2009,' the Bank of England said. The crisis across the Atlantic, where the despicable Brown now lurks, continues with Henry Paulson's rescue package still not agreed and Washington Mutual being seized by regulators and the main part passed to JP Morgan putting the latters stock onto a negative rating. The Dallas News, link, describes this as follows: Washington Mutual is by far the biggest bank failure in history, eclipsing the 1984 failure of Continental Illinois National Bank and Trust in Chicago, an event that presaged the savings and loan crisis. IndyMac Bank, which was seized by regulators in July, was a tenth the size of WaMu.

Ireland's recession to kill Lisbon rerun?

The concluding paragraphs on a report in the Telegraph on Ireland's recession are as follows:

The ECB's super-lax policy caused credit expansion of 30pc a year in Ireland, and pushed household debt levels to 190pc of GDP. The hangover has now begun in earnest.

The deepening recession almost certainly kills any chance of a fresh referendum in coming months on the Lisbon Treaty, which Irish voters have already rejected once. Even diehard officials in Brussels now recognize that no Irish government could win a `revote' in the current economic crisis.

Lloyds marked as "sell" by Deutschebank

The Halifax poison continues to spread, read from the Daily Mail here. The architect of the supposed merger between the two companies is in the USA promising more of Britain's non-existent funds to the third world. Perhaps he should offer them HBOS shares. One report on his present activities is from The Guardian, linked here, it has these gems: The prime minister convened a meeting of leaders - including Spanish prime minister Jose Zapatero, European commission president Jose Barrroso, Australian prime minister Kevin Rudd, Brazilian president Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva and Danish prime minister Anders Fogh Rasmussen - to discuss the global credit crisis at in the Waldorf hotel last night..... The prime minister is fighting for a multi-part package with world leaders, but has no meeting scheduled with senior US Treasury figures as they battle in Washington with Congress to win legislative approval for the $700bn package..... Brown is determined to spend the two days in New York fighting both for more money for the world's poor and a weighty package to sort out the credit crisis. Apparently his dreadful speech to his dimwit party in Manchester before his departure for the US has caused a 7 point bounce in the polls according to YOUGov, maybe Britain's voters deserve bankruptcy?

An ostrich's views delivered to the EU Parliament

Joaquin Almunia, is European Commissioner for Economic and Monetary Policy, never heard of him? No doubt that would be because he must spend his days with his head in the sand. Why somebody has yet to kick his butt heaven alone knows. Click here to read some garbage he presented to the EU Parliament yesterday on the ongoing world monetary meltdown. His conclusion: However, events make clear that internal European action is not sufficient to confront global challenges. We need to reinforce common external action in the Financial Stability Forum, Basel Committee and G7, as well as devote more attention to the future role of the IMF. Looking ahead, we need to think about how we can shape the future of our financial systems and global governance. And the role of EU in this regard is vital. In other words the EU is helpless but must nevertheless look ahead! Classic!

Hans Gert-Poettering, Libertas and Pentagon plots

I have touched upon this already, here is a Bruno Waterfield post of yesterday which covers in great detail the grotesqueness of the accusations.

Is the EU's doomsday moment at hand?

Ambrose Evans-Pritchard of the Daily Telegraph, ever one of the more insightful reporters on the over-bloated EU, has a typically pithy piece this morning linked here, titled:

EU refuses bail-out package despite crisis fears

It was always likely to be the Euro experiment that killed off the undemocratic bureaucratic nightmare that the ever closer union project has steadily become. The death of the EU which might well follow the Euro's demise would be traumatic for Europeans, but the next few days now seem worrying indeed with the stupidity and arrogance of the EU's leaders now likely to bring the world financial system to its knees with widespread disorder and chaos the only likely result. The key to the present problem in my view and mentioned in the linked article, is the fact that the ECB has lent huge sums to its own banks on the basis of bad debt insurance policies from the bankrupt AIG and therefore effectively covered by the US taxpayer. (As I blogged a week ago, here). Refusal by the EU to match the US taxpayers vulnerabilities and the backlash will be immense. Surely it is akin to a declaration of economic warfare? It could be done but after a period of economic slump and high levels of personal distress and protest, suspension of the convertibility of the Euro can be the only likely end result. The EU will then become a siege economy with no freedom of movement for either capital and eventually nor even people beyond its tyrannical borders - the rouble under the USSR should surely be example enough to steer us from that course. The fact that today the EU Parliament, already having re-introduced the EU anthem and the EU flag in spite of the desires of the national framers of the Lisbon Treaty, will today propose controls upon the internet, gives enough clues of the preferred way ahead for those presently at the trough. Ominous signals indeed.

Libor dead? Central Banks Rule? Chaos spreads!

This is from Bloomberg, here:

The one-month London interbank offered rate, or Libor, that banks charge each other for loans in dollars jumped 22 basis points to 3.43 percent, the highest level since January, the British Bankers' Association said today. The corresponding euro and pound rates also rose, and yields on Treasury bills tumbled as investors fled all but the shortest-maturity government debt.

Banks are balking at lending to each other on speculation more institutions will fail following the collapse of Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc. and the U.S. government takeover of American International Group Inc. A $700 billion bank rescue plan from Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson has met resistance from Congressional Democrats and Republicans.

``There's no real term funding markets except for central banks,'' said Meyrick Chapman, a fixed-income strategist in London at UBS AG. ``The Libor is meaningless. It's for unsecured lending and there is no unsecured lending as far as I can see.''

"Ironique" blog 'England Expects silenced by the EU

Read the last post here. These bastards will stop at nothing to impose their evil empire! When will Europeans wake up?

Halifax poison continues to spread

As predicted by this blog last Thursday, here, the marriage of Lloyds and HBOS is likely to be sealed by a kiss of death for Lloyds TSB. The signs on the market are that the pair might not yet make it to the marital bed, the following is from this morning's Independent, here:

Last week's agreed takeover by Lloyds TSB failed to support HBOS, which was trading 17 per cent below the effective offer price of 218p last night. Traders said the ban on shorting could have taken liquidity out of the market and reported jitters that the deal with Lloyds could face problems if the financial turbulence persists.

Mike Trippitt, banking analyst at Oriel Securities, said: "I personally think the Lloyds deal will go through, but the share price is telling us that something is wrong. There are clearly risks remaining in HBOS's balance sheet and that is what the price is saying."

Reports are that Britain's demented premier is leaving Manchester for the USA today, we must hope there will be a regime change in his absence! An interview on Radio 4 this morning once again proved that his BBC underlings are incapable of exposing this charlatan. Adam Boulton of Sky News made a braver attempt, link here (when available) watch now with the Sky News Red Button. The BBC Listen Again feature highlights the problem, link here. Listen to the section on the financial crisis starting at six minutes and fifty seconds into the broadcast particularly a minute later at seven fifty one seconds when the interviewer gives a list of quotes from the IMF in 2003 to the EU Commissioner in 2004 to Mervyn King the following year and Bill White of the Bank of International Settlements all putting the evasive Brown clearly at fault and therefore to blame for Britain's plight. The delusional demented scumbag of a Prime Minister's response " This is completely nonsense", at eight minutes and thirty two seconds into the interview. Why did the interviewer allow him to get away with such a statement to such a clearly carefully prepared question? Why do his fellow scumbags in the Cabinet continue to serve under such an object of untruthfulness.... and why do the British people continue to put up with this mess of a man as their leader?????? More terrible decisions are certain to be on their way. Poor Britain!

Declan Ganley in Poland

I have yet to blog on my recent visit to Poland which left me much impressed with what has managed to still remain a Sovereign Country and thus a major source of hope for those of us trying to repel the growing tyranny of the EU. Interestingly the founder of Libertas was in that country yesterday, now trying to counter the disinformation campaign being mounted which implies the No vote in Ireland was down to the Pentagon. A report in English on the visit is here and the following an excerpt: Jacek Pawlicki: Will Libertas transform itself into a pan-European party that will run in the 2009 Europarl elections? Declan Ganley: That's an interesting idea that we're considering and which we'll probably implement. That's why they're so nervous in Brussels. Such a party would greatly enliven the European debate. What's more, it'd inject more democracy into it. Today, no one debates about Europe in the European elections. Will you conduct a campaign in all 27 member states? That would be best, but it may be difficult for logistic reasons.

And in Poland? Poland is a key country from the point of view of European history and present. I'd like to have someone here. You've been talking to Polish parties, such as the LPR. I've talked to some people, but these are just preliminary, courteous talks. If we decide to do it in Poland, we'll select candidates that Poles opposed to the EU's undemocratic model and the Lisbon treaty will be able to vote for. As well as those who are for a more democratic, stronger Europe that everyone can hold accountable. How will you respond to the allegations one can hear in Brussels about your ties with the CIA and the appeals for you to disclose Libertas's financing sources? This is classic disinformation and a very old-fashioned tactic. I'm not surprised, though, given the past of the person who's saying these things, the leader of the Green group in the European Parliament, Daniel Cohn-Bendit. You mean his anarchistic past? Exactly.

Cowards of Congress and Foreign Central Bankers threaten Paulson's plans

The headline of the online Financial Times this morning, here, reads "Fears emerge over $700 billion rescue", but for the best analysis I have found follow this link to Resource Investor, here, their headline is the "The beginning of the end game" and some of the pithier points are these: "But at the same time the balance sheet of the Federal Reserve has now been loaded with so many assets of dubious value that the Fed itself may soon no longer be solvent; hence the Fed’s request for a recapitalisation by the Treasury. This means that the U.S. Central Bank has lost its independence, since it now survives on a life-line from the U.S. government.".............. "Thus, a formal default of AIG would have exposed European banks’ large gap of regulatory capital, with possibly devastating effects on their ratings and market confidence. Which explains why AIG’s problems had sent shock waves through the share prices of European banks. Thus, the U.S. Treasury has saved, inter alia, the European banking system. However, as AIG is to be liquidated, European banks will have to quickly shore up their regulatory capital.".........(Read my post of last Wednesday on this very point titled "US Taxpayers reprieve the Euro" here.) "The key problem on this side of the Atlantic is that the largest European banks have become not only too big to fail but also too big to be saved. For example, the total liabilities of Deutsche Bank (leverage ratio over 50!) amount to around 2,000 billion euro, (more than Fannie Mai) or over 80 % of the GDP of Germany. This is simply too much for the Bundesbank or even the German state to contemplate, given that the German budget is bound by the rules of the Stability pact and the German government cannot order (unlike the U.S. Treasury) its central bank to issue more currency. The total liabilities of Barclays of around 1,300 billion pounds (leverage ratio over 60!) surpasses Britain’s GDP. Fortis bank, which has been in the news recently, has a leverage ratio of "only" 33, but its liabilities are several times larger than the GDP of its home country (Belgium)."...... I trust these quotes will make the whole item worth reading and concentrate the minds of those who believe there remain any easy answers. The surge in the oil price yesterday evening European time of some $22 per barrel indicated clearly to me that somebody is playing hardball. The costs of the present crisis should best solved with national taxpayers bailing out the banks domiciled in their own nations - if the ECB manages to get all the nations of the EU to salvage the particular banks involved seems to me a very interesting but very much open question. Put more directly will the Banque de France step forward to help save the Bundesbank and will the latter step in to stave off financial meltdown in Spain, Greece or Italy. Britain, with its pound sterling, knows the answer to that latter question as the article in Resource Investor concludes: "The authorities in the UK and Switzerland –- who cannot rely on the ECB – can only pray that no accident happens to the giants they have in their own garden." I have faith in the Swiss, but will Gordon Brown even begin to face reality in his speech today and give warnings about Britain's massive EU contributions following yet another year of the EU accounts being not being signed off by their auditors? And will he merely offer more gimmicks such as free computers and internet time to school kids as trailered by the BBC?

Curing Britain's Property Price Crash.

The Chancellor of the Exchequer, Alistair Darling, in an interview on the Radio 4 Today programme this morning gave no sign that he was ready to confront the UK housing crisis as I feel sure will still be the case in his conference speech later this morning and that of his Puppet Master tomorrow. The steps being undertaken in the USA over the weekend as reported from an EU perspective are fairly well ( although sometimes inaccurately) summarised in this link. Britain, it is generally acknowledged, has the second gravest property price crunch in the world, yet unlike in the USA with the magic Mr Paulson, the UK government, oh so typically, seems to be doing nothing to address it, content with ignorant BBC interviewers throwing out suggestions of bonus caps in the city and windfall taxes for the energy sector while chucking ever more billions of pounds yet further down the drain for added liquidity for the institutions at fault. In my post of yesterday, immediately beneath this posting, I addressed the problem of the householder in negative equity - particularly in my example number 2, of a family with a mortgage in excess of the value of his home but not yet in default - a potential 'walkaway mortgagee' as separate from one in default and given notice of re-possession. In my view it is the potential 'walkaway' who must first be helped. A decision to quit one's home is grave indeed and places that family in a position of effectively turning their back on the system. It is therefore an action that the government must endeavour to discourage even at great cost. (Re-possessions follow from a considered action of the mortgage holder and form a separate problem). Nobody yet knows how far UK property prices will plunge but it is essential to be aware that a fall of 20 per cent from peak levels requires a rising property market of 2 per cent above inflation for a period of twelve years before the original peak value is once again achieved. That is far too long to expect an ordinary mortgage holder to maintain mortgage payments for zero return. Once 'walkaways' begin they will spread like a plague with all kinds of consequences such as cross-squatting which will make counter-measures practically impossible - effectively anarchy could be an end result. Mortgages have always assumed the equity provided by the mortgagee is the first at risk. In this crisis that has to be changed. I suggest that for houses purchased since Gordon Brown, in the words of incoming BoE Governor King, to paraphrase 'moved the Goal Posts and excluded house prices from the CPI' any loss of value on the resale of such houses be directly proportioned between the first mortgage holder and the mortgagee. This is potentially expensive, but less so if it halts further slides in house prices. As the country is effectively bankrupt such a move will need financing and as a further step to somewhat also put the cost of the greed at the door where it lies I would further suggest the exemption of the first home from capital gains tax be withdrawn.

What value maturing mortgages?

A "Professor" whose name I twice missed, but one time member of the Bank of England's Monetary Committee was doing the rounds of the 24 hour TV news channel last week stating that mortgages were worth their face value on maturity. It was clear from the interview with the clearly demented Prime Minister Gordon Brown on Friday on Sky News, that it is this mistaken view that is now driving the British nation into ever deeper bankruptcy. Let me explain. 1) If I am a supposed homeowner with a mortgage of eighty per cent of previous values I have a 20 percent share of that price. If prices fall by 10 percent I still have an equity share of 10 per cent and will therefore continue with my mortgage payments in the expectation of future house price rises and a desire not to lose that 10 per cent stake. 2) If I am a supposed homeowner with a mortgage of ninety per cent of previous values I have a 10 per cent share of that price. If prices fall by 20 per cent I have negative equity of 10 per cent and if prices are forecast to continue to fall I have zero incentive to continue the mortgage payments on a property over-valued by 10 per cent. As prices fall and re-possessions mount there will be a growing stock of unoccupied housing exposed to squatters and/or a tumbling rental market causing more foreclosures in the buy to let sector further exacerbating the problem. Hence the panic in the property industry to hide the true depth of the collapse. A mortgage maturing in 20 odd years at face value with inflation above 5 per cent is worth very little on present day values. A mortgage maturing several years in the future in a high inflation environment with no interest payments being made is on a discounted cash flow basis effectively worthless. The losses must lie with the mortgage lenders who made the loans on their assessments of present and future property prices, they can hardly now expect the borrowers to bear the full brunt of their 'professional' errors, if they do (as seems to be the case at present) then they are likely to be mistaken in my view. That is why the Halifax will now likely end by bringing down Lloyds TSB. Where Britain and Brown (if still in post) go from there is anybodies' guess!

Somebody else has noticed!

"Our political parties are corpses...." is the opening to the Peter Hitchens column in The Mail on Sunday this week, linked here. A taster: The cold, miserable truth is that both our major political parties are corpses, their original purposes long forgotten, their loyal members driven away or sidelined, their traditional voters taken for granted. Every so often, by a mysterious process, one of them is declared electable and the other is declared unelectable. And we, the voters, do as we are told. By whom? For what purpose?

Super-hero Paulson now working with Congress

Reuters has the latest news on the actions of the the one man on the planet who seems to have grasped the underlying nature of the world's economic woes. President Bush has pledged billions for the rescue. The totally unjustified exuberance on the West's stock markets shows the ignorance abounding elsewhere. The debts from the sub-prime mortgage mountain remain, the peonage of the viable working classes looks set to worsen and Brown remains Prime Minister of a nation with a greatly overvalued housing stock and a society with crumbling values and a useless opposition. Reuters report is here.

Henry Paulson - Saviour of the world?

This blog has already this week paid tribute to the US Treasury Secretary in our posting "All Hail Henry Paulson...." linked here. It concluded by a statement that the incoming President should ..."rescue the middle classes of the world's only superpower from the state of Peonage to which they have now apparently been condemned." It appears President Bush and 'Hank?' Paulson are quite rightly not prepared to wait so long according to the headline news this morning of which the Telegraph item linked here, is an example. No such daring plan in the UK with its incompetent and mortally wounded government and advisers such as the dreadful three on Channel 4 News last evening a former SEC head, the EUmazed editor of the FT and The Times economics columnist Anatatole Something (full of crap), all crowned by completely moronic statements from one apparently called Alistair Milne of the Cass Business School (presumably attached to the Sir John Cass college in the city which I once proudly attended) on this morning's Today programme which took the BBC biscuit for wrongheaded analysis and incompetent reporting. All Britain got yesterday was a monstrosity of a bank presumably next in line for assault almost certain itself to collapse when UK property prices fall another twenty odd per cent even with a panic short term short-selling ban in place. Gordon Brown on Sky News this week (see the full interview tonight) showed he has no idea of the depth of the UK property price crisis, stating it was unlike that in Spain and other countries that had over-built. No indeed Britain's problem is far, far deeper the burst bubble resulting from incredible greed, buy to let to massed families of immigrants in conditions which would not even have been tolerated for the urban sprawls thrown up during the industrial revolution. Planning consents had to have gone out of the window which implies corruption almost across the board. Above is a picture of a house in Cambridge, I took it earlier in April this year, count the satellite dishes catching TV signals from Poland and calculate yourself the numbers of families, most with children, this single building must be housing. Disgraceful! That picture for me illustrates most clearly the non- ethics of the Blair/Brown years and the depths of the crisis Britain now faces as its inevitable result.

The Halifax, Bank of Scotland and Lloyds

I am just a bemused onlooker of the growing economic turmoil, but looking at the takeover of HBOS by Lloyds TSB something strikes me as very odd! As it has just been announced that UK mortgage lending in August was at a three year low proving that the UK housing market continues to fall (after all who in their right mind would either enter or stay in the UK property market given any other option) then the Halifax once the largest Building Society must surely be blamed for the destruction of the Bank of Scotland - what then are the chances of it not now doing the same for Lloyds and the remnants of the Trustee Savings Bank? If the problem is mistrust by bankers of one another, absorbtion of one bank by another will surely merely shift the target of others mistrust. After my own lifetime experiences I personally do not trust one single UK bank one inch, but that does not mean I can do without them. Of one thing I am certain, however, as a bank customer bigger has never meant better. If the takeover of Abbey National by Lloyds a while back was halted as not in the public interest how come the takeover of HBOS by Lloyds is justified in the public interest? According to Bloomberg TV this morning, Washington Mutual, suffering a falling market price will be sold piecemeal to up to five other US banks. Surely that should be the route in the UK. When the last bank is absorbed into one giant nationalised blob who will protect the consumer then? The EU? Re-establishing trust in Scotland would surely be best attained by separating the old Bank of Scotland from the Halifax disaster area. Same goes all round, French consumers will surely be best re-assured by knowing the obligations of the Bank of France are being determined in France and in French Francs? Each time a financial institution is taken over, absorbed or merged into another, things get worse and the opportunity for a sound rescue of the viable parts becomes ever more remote! Barclays yesterday bought some of Lehman proving this point! All Lloyds are proposing are redundancies! The 180 Billions more dollars being distributed this morning by Central Banks across the world are on whose behalf and for whom to eventually settle? Final point on this fiasco - the shadow Chancellor of the Exchequer, George Osborne, was interviewed on Channel 4 News last evening and made several statements to the effect that the Government could do as they wished as he agreed with their moves showing at a stroke he, and I believe also his party leader, have no concept whatsoever as to the meaning of parliamentary governance. Last final point - why were the share dealings in HBOS not suspended yesterday, were the politicians or their political parties not somehow, or somewhere not making a killing from their closeness to the negotiations? Doesn't that very question highlight the real issue, who can trust these remote individuals. My first mortgage was from a mutual society that carried the name of the small Midlands town in which it was active. The management lived within that town and would never have dreamed of performing the kind of financial dealings that have today become commonplace - they and their families would have been shamed and ostracised by the community in which they too lived. Smaller is better - dishonesty is best spotted locally! Last, last final point (OK I do know what final means!) when I was a boy I could buy a sweet for a farthing with a robin on the coin. The smallest coin today, the UK one pence piece, is almost ten times the face value of that farthing and the cheapest sweet..... how many farthings is that??????? Banks, politicians, public interest - phoooey!

Funny! Ha ha.

If you cannot see why this headline from the always off-beam FT is so funny, then I will blog why....one year from today:

Potential buyers circle airport jewel

By Kevin Done,Aerospace Correspondent

Published: September 17 2008 19:50 | Last updated: September 17 2008 19:50

Potential buyers of some of BAA’s UK airports have been circling the company for months, but finally they have a target to aim at in the shape of Gatwick airport.

++++++++++++++++++++ A clue: Jewel and UK 2008?????

US Taxpayers reprieve the Euro

The nationalisation of the giant AIG group for $85 billion last evening must surely have come as a huge relief to the European Central Bank. I wonder how long before the insurance costs of covering the worthless liabilities the ECB has accepted over recent months finally come home to roost? One must wonder too how the billions now being poured into the capital markets by the ECB are being allocated amongst the national central banks. At least with the pound sterling we know by whom the billions being lost must eventually be repaid, just as we know where the main blame lies - with Tony Blair and Gordon Brown! Small comfort indeed!

Central Banks pour billions more to markets

Seventy billion more from the ECB and another twenty billion from the BoE as an AIG failure looms following its credit rating downgrade. Link. The World awaits the Wall Street opening with baited breath!

All Hail Henry Paulson, US Treasury Secretary!

In a breathtaking and short press conference yesterday from the White House - and after two consecutive working weekends - the US Treasury Secretary, Henry Paulson, took the first steps in reversing seventy years of deceit and disingenuousness in the US (and hence the West's) financial systems. Link. "I can only play the hand I was dealt" stated Paulson referring to seventy odd years where government backed mortgages were effectively forgotten in the national debt figures. Where too an investment bank with a history of 158 years, Lehman Brothers was allowed to go to the wall rather than be rescued, at the taxpayer's expense, as in the case of Bear Sterns. Credit too to George Bush who as President courageously authorised these moves, shaming his predecessors as well as all recent Fed Chairmen. The priority for the incoming President will now be to rescue the middle classes of the world's only superpower from the state of Peonage to which they have now apparently been condemned.

Political opposition moves to the TV!

As a founder member of the Veritas Party led by former TV personality Robert Kilroy-Silk I naturally viewed the interview by Adam Boulton of TV personality Noel Edmonds on his new programme featured in the News of the World today, here, with some interest. The disdain with which Edmonds dismissed all politicians when particularly asked about David Cameron was particularly impressive, as was his straightforward statement that the UK was reaching capacity as far as immigration was concerned. Even more significant perhaps is the fact that the programme will be aired on Rupert Murdoch's Sky One Channel just as the PR appeared in his best-selling UK Sunday tabloid. Now to add fuel to the potential fire comes the news that Edmonds will be withholding his TV licence fee because of the bullying nature of the BBC anti-avoidance campaign, read here, on which this blog has previously commented. Are the docile and sheep-like British people finally about to realistically protest at their shameful and continuing exploitation?

Brown not Marxist?

The following assertion is in the Daily Telegraph this morning, linked here: "The European project is not, as some people seem to think, fascist; any more than Gordon Brown is, as the same people seem to think, a Marxist." While in the Daily Mail, we have, linked here, the following: David Miliband was subjected to an astonishing four-letter tirade from his Russian counterpart at the height of the Georgia crisis.

The Foreign Secretary received the undiplomatic tongue-lashing over the telephone after expressing the EU's anger with the Kremlin, it was revealed yesterday.

At one point Sergei Lavrov, the colourful Russian foreign minister, became so incensed that he reportedly barked: 'Who the f*** are you to lecture me?'

Mr Lavrov, who is seen as the fearsome face of Russia's new aggressive foreign policy, objected to what he believed was Mr Miliband's condescending tone. He used full-strength industrial language to suggest to the Foreign Secretary that he knew little, if anything, of Russia's history - perhaps unaware that Mr Miliband's grandfather Samuel served in the Red Army and his father Ralph was a leading Marxist theoretician. Mr Sam Leith and the rest of the Daily Telegraph, might do well to spend the weekend wondering why the two sons of such a renowned Marxist now hold such crucial posts in the Gordon Brown REGIME.

French say Ireland will vote again on Lisbon

The most detailed report on the French briefing paper is in the Daily Telegraph, linked here. Remembering that France presently hold the rotating EU Presidency, this report must be taken seriously, but note that it commits to Ireland permanently retaining an EU Commissioner - a total legal impossibility under the Lisbon Treaty as drafted and ratified by so many other countries. The Czech Republic takes over the EU Presidency on 1st January and as I reported yesterday they too have their constitutional difficulties with this democracy destroying monstrosity.

Trying to understand Fannie and Freddie?

An interesting interview, that could make you very angry, is linked here. A quote for the flavour: Nearly all real estate experts are in agreement that for the next year or two, many of today’s homeowners will find themselves locked into where they are now living. Their situation is much like medieval serfs were tied to their land. They can’t sell, because the market price won’t cover the mortgage they owe, and they don’t have the savings to pay the difference.

Czech's must amend their Constitution to ratify Lisbon

It is either an amendment to the Czech Constitution or an exception to the Lisbon Treaty that will be needed for Czech ratification of the democracy destroying Lisbon outrage according to a report from Prague this morning linked here.

Scot's subsidy fully revealed

THE BARNETT FORMULA HAS COST TAXPAYERS £200 BILLION

The TaxPayers' Alliance (TPA) presents a new and comprehensive study of the Barnett Formula, the Government system used to calculate the distribution of public spending between the four countries of the UK, that reveals the staggering cost to taxpayers of the spending gap between England and the three better-funded devolved territories (Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland). The full report can be found here.

In the last week, with the SNP Government in Edinburgh proposing radical tax changes and Gordon Brown pledging an investigation into the financial responsibilities of the Scottish Parliament, the issue of the funding settlement between England and the devolved territories has hit the headlines once again. The TPA's report, written by former Treasury economist Mike Denham, explores the troubled history of that funding settlement, details the burden placed on taxpayers by the Barnett Formula and puts forward the case for an end to the Formula and its replacement with true fiscal decentralisation. The report will be submitted as evidence to the Calman Commission and to the House of Lords committee currently investigating the Barnett Formula.

KEY FINDINGS

• Identifiable public spending per head in England is £7,535 pa (2007-08). But in Scotland it is 22 per cent (£1,644) higher, Wales 14 per cent (£1,042) higher, and Northern Ireland an extraordinary 30 per cent (£2,254) higher.
• Just over the last two decades (since 1985-86), higher spending in the three devolved territories has cost UK taxpayers a cumulative £200 billion (£102 billion in Scotland; £43 billion in Wales; £57 billion in Northern Ireland).
• North Sea Oil has not funded the Scottish spending gap, despite Scottish Nationalist claims to the contrary. In only five of the last 23 years have North Sea Oil receipts exceeded the cost of higher funding paid to Scotland. Even with current high oil prices, the income from the Scottish share of North Sea Oil only just covers the spending gap, and North Sea Oil output is projected to fall by 50 per cent by 2020.

To read the full report, click here.

Mike Denham, a former Treasury economist and author of the report, said:

“The Barnett Formula has a troubled history and has failed to address the extremely unfair situation of English taxpayers heavily subsiding Scotland. Everyone is struggling to make ends meet, and it is long overdue for the Government to lift this burden from taxpayers’ shoulders. English taxpayers want an end to subsidising Scotland, and the Scottish Government wants financial control devolved to Holyrood, so now is the ideal time to consign the Barnett Formula to history.”

Mae, Mac and the fading magic of minus one!

Minus one was a magical invention! Mystical even Majestic and certainly magnificently beneficial. It allowed us to eat three apples when our present yield had been only two. Of course, next harvest, when the twelve we usually anticipated actually arrived only allowed us to eat eleven caused it to be viewed in not such a charitable light. Hence the danger signs! BUT! Where did the possibilities of minus one end? Minus infinity to any rational thinking, common sense person (by definition therefore - not an economist) had to be an impossibility. Yet we have passed in recent years from minus millions to minus hundreds of millions to minus billions to minus hundreds of billions! In September 2008, we have finally set a temporary bar, which according to my blog last February which predicted the nationalization of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac then seemed set at 6 trillion. The US Government and Treasury Department have this weekend finally bit the bullet and decreed that minus 6 trillion (on last February's figures) is an impossibility! Manipulators of the dark arts of economics have always known that minus one is a convenience based on strong governance. Admitting that minus six trillion is the limit will give the world unconsidered problems! If the UK Government was tomorrow minus one at its head - things might improve! BUT Gordon Brown, an Historian as I understand things - does not understand minus one!

Balls blows Marr's cover

Towards the end of this mornings "show" when talking about what Labour must do to win the next election, Balls forgot he was not in Marr's living room and candidly stated something along the lines of - "what you and I must both do..." I assume the transcript due online tomoorow will properly reflect the exact words used and I will put a link with the quote on this blog tomorrow. UPDATE Sorry, I am a bit late posting this it now being saturday, but the quote I had in mind was this:- ED BALLS: And they stuck to their nerve and they stuck to the long-term and they came back and they won. And we can do the same. But we can only do so if we show - and this is really important and it's something which we all have to do, you and me - we have to focus on the choice in British politics between the parties. The whole interview, linked here, in writing makes the point so much clearer, time and again when talking about rescuing Labour from the deep hole in which they now sit the two men both refer to "WE". BBC impartiality, what a sick joke that has become! Some examples: ANDREW MARR: Well you've said... you've admitted we're in a deep hole at the moment, so what do we have to do extra to get out of it?.... ANDREW MARR: But given... given where we are, none of that is going to really turn things around, is it?

CONservatorship- Fannie and Freddie

Only the first three letters speak the truth, the following is from the Telegraph report, linked here: The plan, devised by bankers from Morgan Stanley and agreed to by officials at the US Treasury, will see the pair placed under federal control, a move that could end up costing American taxpayers tens of billions of dollars.

Under the terms of a conservatorship, which is best thought of as a pre-packaged bankruptcy, existing shareholders in both companies will effectively be wiped out, rendering their equity almost worthless, but, importantly, the pair will be able to continue functioning as the government stands behind their debt.

The complex bail-out was presented to executives from Fannie and Freddie on Friday afternoon by senior Treasury officials in Washington D.C.

Treasures from the threads - Number Twenty

After a truly terrible article in the Daily Telegraph today, here, came this: It's so over for this country. When will people wake up? By the time these fascists are thrown out of power, the new boss will be the Fourth Reich, the EU. Incidently, under proposed EU legislation, all blogs will be vetted. Any people with libertarian tendencies opinions not concurrent with their 'point of view', will not be sanctioned to have their own websites or to post on internet forums. George Orwell's nightmare vision is just around the corner and there is NO resistance. The conservative party is a sideshow, a tempting distraction, but they have no policies anyway. I've made my decision. I'm leaving the UK and Europe behind for good. Many others will follow. I wont pay another penny in tax to these fascists that have destroyed my country. Good riddence to bad rubbish. They should be hanged for their crimes against the British people. And the EU? I will never be a citizen in their dystopia, not under any circumstances. Posted by UK Debt Slave on September 5, 2008 2:05 AM Support for this posting came later as follows: @ UK Debt Slave:- "By the time these fascists are thrown out of power, the new boss will be the Fourth Reich, the EU." You are dead right, Debt Slave. It is perhaps difficult for me to leave, as I have a chronic illness, a disability, and I am growing old - but God's mercy! I am doing my utmost to plan my earliest departure! I have reached despair over the quiescent, apathetic, cowardly British people, who will not resist tyranny in the form of the present regime and its EU masters, soon to rule us directly. The British electorate will not save this country from the coming nightmare. I wish above all things to quit Britain, to wash my hands of a People who have become degenerate within the space of only two or three generations, and to have done with a society which is fast acquiring the characteristics of a living nightmare. Posted by Robert Douglas on September 5, 2008 9:28 AM

EU blames Bloggers for Lisbon Treaty's Irish Defeat

One report linked today from the Irish Times may be read here. A draft report of the EU Parliament is here. Bruno Waterfield's blog in the Telegraph on this topic is here. Mr Waterfield claims victory for Bloggers but this war is just opening and we bloggers have few weapons other than our hatred for the growing EU tyranny!

Devalued Political Leaders are the real currency crisis.

Reuters reports on the latest gloom from the OECD, linked here. The true crisis in the latest currency storms which yesterday hit the pound seem to me to best be reflected by the clue contained in the following question: "How many of your worthless and valueless pieces of paper will you exchange for my worthless and valueless piece of paper?" The calibre of the nation's leaders therefore seems critical, pity Britain with Brown and Darling as PM and Chancellor, a completely useless back-up Cabinet Team and TV model fake opposition leaders.

Ireland's Lisbon Crisis

The following is from this morning's Irish Times, linked here:

Prominent anti-Lisbon campaigner Joe Noonan told the school that “attempting or purporting to ratify the Lisbon Treaty by the Oireachtas would be illegitimate and would precipitate a constitutional crisis”.

Holding a second referendum on Lisbon, no matter how many declarations were attached, “would be an unprecedented breach of faith with the citizens of Ireland of a most egregious nature,” Mr Noonan said.

Former senior diplomat Noel Dorr said he did not think a legislative solution was possible, now that the referendum had taken place. “The wording put to the people on the June 12th said, among other things, ‘The State may ratify the Treaty of Lisbon’; the people said no. If they say no and refuse to give permission to ratify, I don’t think the Government could now go ahead and ratify it, or bits of it. So I think that’s out.

“It might have been possible to ratify it without a referendum beforehand, I don’t know. It’s no longer possible once the people, the ultimate repository of sovereignty, have spoken,” Mr Dorr said.