An Irish view of the Euro crisis in 2011 - EU Federalists' dreams fulfilled.

Dan O'Brien, Economics Editor for the Irish Times sets out a wide-ranging view for the economy of his country this morning, linked here. The article concludes with his views on the prospects for the Euro, which I quote below. English readers should pay careful note,  written as it is in their native tongue from a country within the sixteen nation Euro Group:


In 2011 there are, broadly, three possible outcomes for the euro crisis: decisive resolution leading to a restoration of calm; continued crisis with regular flare-ups and concerns about the currency’s future viability heightening, and a breaking apart of the euro.
The first outcome appears the least likely of the three in 2011. The problems are so deep and the record of euro area governments and institutions in dealing with them so poor that it is difficult to envisage a calming of the crisis.
By far the most likely outcome is a continued muddling through, with more ad-hoc measures put in place to deal with the crisis. Those measures will become more radical if the situation deteriorates.
A bailing out of Spain (Portugal’s rescue can be taken as a given) would bring the crisis to a new level. The €750 billion available under the current rescue mechanism, in whose embrace Ireland will be gripped until the end of 2013, would be exhausted.
Italy would then be next in the firing line. Its government is the third most indebted in the world in absolute terms, after the US and Japan. In 2011 alone, it will need to borrow €350 billion, mostly to pay back (or “roll over”) existing debt. If it cannot do so, the extension of the bailout mechanism would be unlikely. More radical steps would be necessary. Even if a massive money-printing programme, of the kind undertaken in the US, were to be given the all-clear by Germany (something that is very unlikely), it would probably not be enough at that point to break the vicious circle.
The choice facing Europe in that eventuality would be to allow the euro (and the European banking system) to collapse or to take a large leap towards further political integration in the form of fiscal union.
Europe may well find itself in 2011 having to choose between a meltdown of apocalyptic proportions and taking a very large step towards European statehood. It is unthinkable that the former would be permitted, so the chances of the latter are not inconsiderable.
Euro federalists may have their hearts’ desire in 2011, but hardly in circumstances for which they would have wished. (Blog editor's added emphasis)

The reaction to such a EU federalist's dreams being realised in Scotland will IMO be quite different to that of those who consider themselves as British/English. Our Prime Minister, who fondly boasts of the Scottish blood flowing thickly through his veins and other similar closet Scottish nationalists will probably delight at the opportunity a federal EU will provide to finally cast aside the remaining ties to England (although, given their very nature they will no doubt fight to the last to retain the unfair subsidies with which English taxpayers have been burdened for decades under the Barnett formula).

In England in view of the EU federalist views of Cameron's coalition partners, resistance to our joining the long-envisioned federal super-state will therefore be made doubly difficult. Yesterday's tell-tale debate on the blog ConservativeHome to nominate the top Liberal Democrat politician for 2010 (where my nomination of David Cameron was twice rejected for publication) must surely alert any remaining opponents of a federal EU super-state within the Conservative Party to now withdraw from that party and properly prepare for the final battle for our nation's independence which quite clearly now lies just around the corner!

A huge burden now falls on the voters of Oldham and Saddleworth when they vote on 13th January. If the consensus appears in two weeks time as a complete rejection of the three main parties, however expressed, then those believing in an independent Britain, re-establishing its strong international links through the Commonwealth and throwing aside the corporatist totalitarianism of a non-democratic EU will perhaps gain the courage to break free from the claustrophobic constraints of the three conspiratorial parties who are the enemies of democracy and individual liberties across the UK while wearing the disguise of " good europeans"

Thatcher's 1980 Cabinet notes brilliantly illustrate the true treacherous natures of those now controlling this Coalition Government.

The rule under which Cabinet papers are only kept secret for thirty years is about to pay huge dividends to those of us who have spent that entire period fighting for the independence and return of democracy for our nation.

Heseltine's return (predictably lauded by The Guardian) is the long coming repayment by the odious David Cameron for his unwarranted bunk-up the political pole in furtherence of the continued infringements of national wealth and independence to the now thankfully fatally crisis struck EU. Some of the choicer comments from Maggie Thatcher are in the 1980 papers on the then Common Market and are reported here, from which I quote the following:

A note of a conversation with the Foreign Secretary, Lord Carrington, in February 1980 states: “She added that she did not think Departments were being tough enough or imaginative enough in arguing the British case.
“The French had struck at the roots of the Treaty in defending their point of view on sheepmeat. We should be prepared to pursue our interests with similar vigour.
“The sort of ideas we should be considering were the imposition of a levy on the imports of French (and German) cars; the sale of oil to Europe at spot prices or subject to a special tax; the reopening of the offset agreement.
“She repeated that she was less interested in the methods by which redress of the budgetary imbalance was achieved than by the fact that it was achieved.”
On Valentine’s Day 1980, a meeting at which the Foreign Secretary and the Chancellor, Geoffrey Howe, considered “North Sea Oil policy at the Community budget” and “possibly Community oil levy or tax”.
Mrs Thatcher denounced the proposals in a note written on a copy of the meeting’s minutes, stating: “That statement would be disastrous for Britain and I am not prepared to make it.
“The idea that we should have to sacrifice our main assets to receive more of our own money back is one that may appeal to the Foreign Office but it does not to me.
“Wouldn’t it have been courteous to say the least to have come to me first?” 

BRITAIN IS BROKEN AND BANKRUPT AS 2011 DAWNS DUE THE TREACHEROUS ACTIVITIES OF THOSE IN GOVERNMENT SINCE MAGGIE THATCHER WAS REMOVED!
What now follows as the new year proceeds is all down to the treasonous actions of recent governments, the individuals responsible should steadily be brought to account. 13th January 2011 in Oldham and Saddleworth should provide a great starting point on such a path!

Broken and Busted Belgium set to hand EU Presidency to Half Hobbled Hungary.

Why, after the events of the past year, the EU is not the butt of comedians' crassest jokes across the world this New Year's eve is a mystery I really cannot understand. Who can understand  a block of supposedly mature countries and only recently still democracies, after the long machinations of getting the Lisbon Treaty passed, then appointing the joke figures of Van Rompuy and Baroness Ashton as its lead PR figures?

As Monsters and Critics points out this morning, linked here, the follies are about to be compounded by the group's rotating Presidency being taken over by Hungary in two days time. A quote from that article:

Van Rompuy chairs all EU summits, while the bloc's foreign policy chief, Catherine Ashton, chairs meetings of foreign ministers. Hungary will therefore be responsible for running other meetings, most importantly those of finance and justice ministers.
But its credibility on both justice and finance are under attack. First, on December 20 the Hungarian parliament backed a law granting a state media control body sweeping new powers to crack down on independent outlets, and stacked it with members of the ruling party....

Then, on December 23, the Fitch agency cut Hungary's rating to one step above junk, arguing that its budget, passed the same day, was more likely to push the country into trouble than pull it out of it.

As if the farce of the past six months were not itself enough to make the EU an obvious nonsense, free speech has now been pre-removed in the nation set to hold  the EU presidency for the next six months! During that earlier period a country, Belgium, itself on the edge of fracture and unable to even form its own government and poised on the verge of bankruptcy supposedly presided over a group of 26 other nation's, the joint currency of 16 of which teetered against the hurricane winds of international incredulity at any prospect of its ongoing longevity! Sustained by the manipulations of a central bank with no authority to act as a lender of last resort Fitch's downgrade of Hungary's credit rating just before Christmas will at least retain the status quo for the ECB who may now continue to work with a rotating EU Presidency whose failure, at least for the present, is clearly even greater than its own.


EurActiv has more on the coming Hungarian farce, linked here.

Bloomberg TV debate on the euro.

There was a very interesting debate on the (non) future for the Euro on the Bloomberg TV European output this morning. Included on the panel was John Redwood MP so some small bits of sanity were for once to be heard.

I will add a link to the broadcast report or the interview if I can find them, but being Bloomberg it will surely be repeated, the programme title to watch out for was 'The Strategic Review'

A good time to re-read Lorna Doone

Cold dark winter evenings provide a brilliant opportunity to re-visit old novels and romances of the past.

As 2010 ends and the increasing uncertainties of the years leading to the centenary of the commencement of the Great War loom, R.D. Blackmore's novel, Lorna Doone,which he denied was historical, came to my mind as an appropriate companion for this year's ending.

Without the failure of the Monmouth Rebellion and the bloodthirsty sentencing of Judge Jeffries would the overthrow of James II in the Glorious Revolution a mere three years later have been possible? How did the unacceptable lawlessness of the West Country described in Blackmore's novel give way and produce over  a very short period such a perfect model of decency, justice and democracy?

Comparing the situation prevailing in the early years of Jan Ridd's story it is possible to identify comparisons with the villains of our own times, less easy to discern from where the remedy might arrive!

PFI facts show Major, Blair and Brown defrauded the nation. Withdraw their obscene pensions!

Some detail of the costs to date for taxpayers under the now clearly fraudulent PFI schemes delivered under the past three Prime Ministers are revealed in the Daily Mail, linked here.

The bankrupt state of the nation demands that these three men at least have their Prime Ministerial pensions removed. In my mind they should also be stripped of all personal assets accrued during the period in which they were in supposedly in public service together with assets resulting from such service ie the proceeds from memoirs or public speaking.  They should be housed in typical social housing in the constituencies they represented and receive only the basic state pension once reaching pensionable age.

Perhaps we would then begin to see some public spirited governance from our present set of political leaders, starting with a referendum on our continued membership, post-Lisbon, of the EU, as has been promised by all three parties

Der Spiegel on the Euro Crisis in English, & PM Cameron.

A German viewpoint from Der Spiegel on the ongoing euro currency disaster is linked here. Some interesting reading for Boxing Day!

Christmas Eve saw France retain its triple A credit rating from S & P, as reported here, but the year ahead looks rocky.

The EU created wreckage in Europe now extends from Greece, through Italy to the Iberian Peninsular and on up to Ireland. Britain itself lies wrecked, ravaged and gutted with its utilities and major companies either in foreign hands or completely disappeared. France has prospered during the last decades as the German juggernaut advances, but I suspect now that they have fulfilled their role as the useful idiot their turn to be gutted is about to arrive.

When will the leaders of the EU's other 25 ex-democracies and former independent nation states begin to act like their French and German counterparts and realise that their primary duty is to the interests of their own citizens?

Comment on the ConservativeHome Blog, here, offers some encouragement that Briain's EU grovelling leader is beginning to be seen for what he is even among his own supporters, a quote:

" It takes a certain type of individual to be able to sack and make an example of a hard-working, loyal Tory minister - for the merest of mistakes - and then, on the other hand, excuse - where there was no justification to excuse - a Coalition partner's Minister in order to appease & preserve the Coalition and keep himself as Prime Minister.
We saw this 'quality' in Cameron when he so blatantly reneged on his EU promises.
I don't think I have ever known any other British politician who could have so shamelessly done what he did. I just don't understand how any person could sink to such depths and still look people in the eye.
Anyway. These two examples tell us something about Cameron, going forward.
We should all watch out. Normal rules of priority, national interest, proper fairness, order & principle will not apply if those values stand between Cameron and what he is seeking to achieve"

Merry Christmas which highlights the stupidity of the EU imposed Celsius temperature scale!

Regular readers of this blog, to whom I wish a very Merry Christmas, will have probably noticed the clocks with local times for Chicago USA and Perth Western Australia, the still democratic locations of our children.

In Perth it is the middle of the afternoon and 38 degrees Celcius, in Chicago the middle of the night and minus 1 degree Celsius. Back in England temperatures have reportedly dipped below minus 18 Celsius in parts overnight.

How much easier it would have been if all three locations had stuck with the Fahrenheit scale as is still used in Chicago where temperatures are reported around freezing point at 32 degrees Fahrenheit. The contrast and commonsense of that scale where most temperatures regularly encountered by man fall between zero and one hundred, present the following situation this Christmas Day:

England      0° F
Chicago    32° F
Perth      100° F

Instead we have this continental nonsense which implies little temperature difference:

England -17.7°C
Chicago    0° C
Perth        38°C

First the EU has trashed such sane measurements of life's experiences, next year will follow the trashing of the world's economies through the mad experiment of their grotesque common currency!

Enough EU- Merry Christmas to my kind and faithful readers - a cheerful tune for sunnier days!

A Radio Four Today programme interview that marks the end of an independent British Foreign Policy!

At 0714 this morning an interview was broadcast setting in stone the abrogation of a British Foreign Policy that has been undertaken by the Coalition Government since assuming the reduced powers of British Government last May. The interview may be heard here.

The British electorate and others with an interest in Britain who are spread across the world and particularly those in the British Commonwealth, should be made aware that this was not a result of actions  by the previous Labour Government nor facilitated as a result of the coalition with the Liberal Democrats although those two parties are equally guilty in the casting aside of centuries of national independence.

Midwives to the European External Action Service were the Conservative Party led by David Cameron with the absolute co-operation of First and more historically important Foreign Secretary William Hague. This fact is made absolutely clear in an article on the authoritative internet website EurActiv, last July, linked here, from which I quote this critical portion:

William Hague's instructions to the European Conservatives and Reformists group in the European Parliament, in which the British Tories sit, were decisive in securing a crucial positive vote on the European External Action Service (EEAS), EurActiv has learned.

The Tories, known for their Eurosceptic views, helped to save Europe's future diplomatic service, Parliament officials said.

Without a decisive call by UK Foreign Minister William Hague to his fellow party members in the European Conservatives and Reformists group (ECR), whose members were elected on an anti-federalist ticket, the EEAS would probably not have got off the ground. (see roll call by Vote Watch)

Now listen to the BBC interview if you have yet to do so. Listen to this unknown, unelected so-called EU Foreign Affairs spokesman Darren Ennis describe attitudes to Belarus which have never been considered or debated by any elected Europan politician. Remeber it was our bullying slippery slime-ball of a Prime Minister David Cameron and his craven two-faced First Minister of State William Hague who brought their country to this degraded and totally unacceptable pass.

Later in the same programme, as if to add insult to injury, the BBC imposed a "Thought for the day" from the German Pope, read here, whose main achievement has been to cover-up thirty years of child abuse from his senior position in the church that has been the enemy of Britain for centuries.

Prospects for the EU in 2011

Open Europe have prepared a briefing paper on the EU in 2011 which may be read in full from here.

I have chosen the following paragraph to quote as it highlights the ever-growing democratic deficit which is finally generating some fully justified concerns across the EU:

Given how fragile the situation in the eurozone is, any more jitters on the markets early in the New Year could force EU leaders to substantially increase the size of the existing bail-out package. This, in turn, is likely to trigger new objections from within member states as taxpayers in the richer countries face ever-higher costs for the mistakes of foreign governments that they cannot vote from office. 

Dare we hope that a complete volte-face is possible, if not almost in sight! I will be raising a champagne glass at midnight on 31st December in the hope that this dreadful project is finally abandoned and a proper democratic substitue along the lines of the Swiss Confederation is at last to be considered in the coming year!

EU offers suzerainty to China in bid to save its stricken currency.

The depths to which the leaders of the EU will sink in their attempts to save the wretched euro currency which they see as the salvation of their anti-democratic project seem to know no bounds. Perhaps it is the very nature of their own secret ambitions for total autocratic control that allows them to turn a blind eye to the realities of the Chinese regime, read here.

An article by Patience Wheatcroft in the Wall Street Journal linked here, paints the picture of the reality of the direction of the EU under its new Punch and Judy leadership made possible through the abhorrent Lisbon Treaty. Who are the Punch and Judy I have in mind? Why of course none other than EU Council President, Herman Van Rompuy and the EU High Representative, Baroness Ashton.  A pair unfit for any public role except perhaps than in a canvas stall on a beach or as bit players of animal parts in a more seasonal pantomime.

More on the EU and China from EU Observer, linked here.

John Bruton calls for emergency EU Council Meeting straight after Xmas!

The well argued article by Ireland's former taoiseach may be read from the Irish Times website, in full, from here. Any interested in returning democracy to Europe are strongly recommended to do so.

Others may well decide to do so after reading these selected quotes:


I always had reservations about the Lisbon process because it lent the good name of the EU to systematic evasion of responsibility in matters where the EU actually had no power to act under the treaties, and thus no responsibility for failures.....

We are facing more than a financial crisis, we are facing a crisis of the welfare state in ageing societies. We are facing a crisis of globalisation, a crisis of nation states and, potentially, even a crisis of the efficacy of European democracy.....


In all the fuss about whether creating a permanent EU bailout fund required a treaty amendment, little note has been taken of the fact that the German courts’ objection to giving the EU more powers was not one of principle, but was based on a concern that the EU as it stands is not democratic enough.

Europeans are looking for leadership. They want a sense that someone is in charge. I believe that the members of the European Council should be recalled in the days immediately after Christmas and before the markets fully get going again in the new year, to work together for a week or more with all the relevant members of the European Commission on a 10-year strategy for political and economic reform to facilitate the economic revival of the entire euro zone.

Gideon's Sum Book - Nought out of Ten!

Why was the figure of seven billion pounds significant last month, figures released yesterday showed the UK deficit for last month as £23.3 billion pounds, truly awful and around seven billion pounds higher than the generally agreed expectations, read here. Seven billion pounds was also the amount that Chancellor Gideon George Osborne loaned to Ireland to help our close neighbours in that sticken country the bankers facing ruin given the doomed state of the euro. Seven billion was also the rough estimate of the increased contibutions Blair gifted the EU for zero return in his doomed attempt to be EU Council President.

So much for the Coalition Government's accomplishments in spending, what about the much talked about, but never seen, cuts? Well on the first shopping day of the New Year VAT will rise by 2.5% estimated on Gideon's slate to bring in £13 billion in a full year, read here. Harriers and HMS Ark Royal are going, presumably to the huge satisfaction of all Liberal Democrats, but little else.

What should have been accomplished by the end of the Coalition's first months in power should have been something along the lines of what I spelt out at the time of the budget in April 2009, linked here, which I repeat in full as it is so basic and obvious it should not need repeating, but with the mind-boggling deficit announced yesterday perhaps its plain common sense will now be seen even by our kindergarten poltical dimwits. (Note some links may no longer work):

+++++
Britain's Debts of Trillions requires ACTION Now!
By the time one strips out the ridiculous optimism of Demented Darling's economic growth projections, add in the IMF identified missing 140 billion pound bank bail out costs and recall that the City of London bears a large part of responsibility for the Global Recession making decent tax revenues from that source unlikely over the coming years any idiot should be able to see that action on public spending is needed TODAY.

The Times has a good budget summary linked here.

Instead of rushing to meet Brown to discuss Daily Allowances for our maggot Members of Parliament (oh what a typical move was that) the Leaders of the two opposition parties should have been demanding early action on the rising debt IMMEDIATELY.

First should come a ceiling on all salaries paid by the taxpayers from 1st May for 2 years at the national average income for the last financial year. This would of course apply across the board, Judges, Civil Servants, Ministers, MP, Doctors the whole kit and caboodle of those who feed off the corpse of a bankrupt state.

Second, as finally voiced in the Chamber of the House of Commons yesterday by John Redwood MP, the Europe Minister should be immediately sent to inform the EU Commission that the raised contributions agreed by Blair, a principal perpetrator of this disaster, can no longer be afforded by the country BUT with the added advice that Great Britain cannot afford to participate in the farce of the June EU elections to the EU Parliament, nor send any MEP to Strasbourg for the next five years at an annual cost of well over one million pounds per head for absolutely zero return.

Third, read my posts from the start of this year, linked here and here.
+++++

Higher payments to the EU help send UK deficit sky-rocketing.

The best report on the horrifying new UK debt figures that I have read is linked here, typically higher contributions all to be wasted by the EU, are reported as part of the problem.

The crisis deepens on every front, can the markets continue to be anaesthetised through the end year holiday season?

EU Consumer confidence tumbles in December.

The flash index fell from  minus 9.4 in November to minus 11.0 this month according to figures just released by the EU, read here.

The Criminal Misgovernance of Britain's three main political parties in May 2010.

The admission by the French Finance Minister, Christine Lagarde last weekend that all the rules of the EU were broken to rescue the euro currency places Britain's political leaders of last May at serious risk of prosecution for dereliction of duty, mis-application of the nation's assets if not simply for plain old-fashioned outright treason.

To refresh your memory of the events of last May I suggest my readers re-visit this blog's archives for that month particularly this post for Sunday 9th May on the emergency Ecofin meeting when I stated the following:

Alistair Darling belongs to a defeated party and should have no authority to attend an ECOFIN meeting charged with reaching a pan-EU agreement as commanded by members of the euro currency group.

David Cameron and Nick Clegg should clarify Darling's status immediately and if possible prevent his departure from the country! 

Prime Minister Cameron stated the following complete lie about that agreement yesterday in Parliament: (as taken from the Downing Street press release linked here):

Second, the issue of liability for any potential bail out of the Eurozone in future.
Britain is not in the Euro. And we are not going to join the Euro.
That is why we should not have any liability for bailing out the Eurozone when the new permanent arrangements come into effect in 2013.
With the current emergency arrangements, established under Article 122, we do.
This was a decision taken by the previous government.
It is a decision we disagreed with at the time. And we are stuck with it for the duration of the emergency mechanism.
But I have been determined to ensure that when the permanent mechanism starts, Britain’s liability should end.

The use of Article 122 was widely known to have been an illegal ruse at the time. The incoming administration led by Cameron, Clegg and Osborne could have refuted Darling's concurrence to such illegality and instituted proceedings to exempt the UK from the disastrous financial consequences.

Can any now doubt that it was a complete dereliction of duty NOT so to do? Indeed can any voter not now perceive that all three main political parties in the UK are complicit in the illegal squandering of the nation's wealth at the behest of the Euro Group member states of the EU of which  assemblage Britain is not even a part?

The position the Coalition Government could have taken was set out in my posting the day before George Osborne's first ECOFIN meeting held on 18th May, linked here. Cameron, Clegg and Osborne chose to act otherwise, therefore they are as complicit as Brown and Darling with all the illegalities and misgovernance that took place and all the outright lies spoken by David Cameron before the mace yesterday in Parliament.

On a lighter note ... the Ivory Coast

The VOA tonight informs us, here, that the EU is considering sanctions against Ivory Coast politicians for ignoring election results (Africa still clings to such old-fashioned, non-EU concepts it appears).

Can it be that their country will be forced to join the Eurozone perhaps?

Silly me! That would of course only be for the benefit of these same politicians and the ruination, destitution and economic bankruptcy of their nation!

The EU has long since sacrificed the right to lecture African nations on democracy, even before this weekend's acknowledgement by Mme Christine Lagarde, France's Finanance Minister, that it had broken all its own rules and the Lisbon Treaty in the vain attempt to save the euro!  Edited 21/12/10 0810 am

Probably the most untruthful statement ever made by any PM in Parliament

The text of whizz-kid, slime-ball Cameron's statement on the latest EU Council meeting is linked here.

Others can Fisk it, word by word, phrase by phrase and sentence by sentence to tally the lies, half-truths and outright distortions that the statement contains, this blog has neither the time let alone the inclination so to do.

It appeared the Foreign Secretary (or should I say First Secretary of State, William Hague) was sufficiently aware of the duplicity of this statement that he wisely absented himself from the Prime Minister's side for a large part of its deliverence, whether or not this will eventually save Hague from sharing the Prime Minister's fate only History, of course, will tell!

French Finance Minister "We violated all the rules" to rescue the euro!

Open Europe has the quote from Mme Christine Lagarde as follows:

In an interview with the WSJ, French Economy Minister Christine Lagarde has said, “We violated all the rules because we wanted to close ranks and really rescue the euro zone.” She said, “The Treaty of Lisbon was very straightforward. No bailing out,” adding that the Greek and Irish rescues, as well as the creation of the bailout fund, were “major transgressions” of the Treaty.

So what is the point of having any Law, let alone Treaties governing the EU and WHAT in the name of everything that should be basic to all our liberties is the use of the EU's bloated Mainstream Media who since last May, day after day, week after week, month after month and crippled country after crippled country have allowed this situation to run on and on, getting ever worse and ever more serious?

This blogger has been blowing himself blue in the face pointing these facts out, but nobody, anywhere does anything about it nor nor does any politician seem in the least bit concerned!

Battling the bankers as a Total Lunar Eclipse clashes with the Winter Solstice

Several of my links from postings on this blog during the past week contained scattered clues as to the nature of the battle now raging between the thuggish international financiers and the politicians in their pay with the personal interests of the Wests' general public. The lackey politicians, whose names are well known and are thus likely to bear the brunt of the coming collapse and chaos, are now beginning to panic with today's planned meeting between Osborne and Cable with some domestic bankers being an amusing side-show.

Names to watch out for as events unfold are of course Osborne and Letwin representing the interests of the Rothschild's in the British Cabinet with Geitner and the Federal Reserve being key on the US side of the Atlantic, although last week J.P. Morgan unusually seemed prepared to openly use their name in a field usually principally headed by Goldman Sachs.

The financiers hope is that matters can be temporarily laid to rest during the Christmas and New Year holidays, today's events on the bond markets will provide a clue as to whether the bankers and their agents have succeeded in this objective, early indications from the Australian markets probably offer them some encouragement so far this morning but Europe remains the critical battleground. If pressure continues in the EU today then the co-incidence of a total lunar eclipse on the winter solstice at dawn of the shortest day tomorrow morning may prove ominous indeed!

English Democrat Candidate for Oldham

For Details and Campaign Progress Click Here.

English Democrats candidate for the Oldham East & Saddleworth By-election

The English Democrats are pleased to announce that Stephen Morris, English Democrats North West Chairman, is our candidate for the Oldham East and Saddleworth By-Election.
Stephen is 44 Years old, married with three children; a daughter who will hopefully start University next year and two boys.
Ten years ago Stephen started working for Metrolink Public Transport in Manchester. Stephen has been a Branch Official for Unite the Union for the past 8yrs, covering people who work within the Transport Sector. He became involved with local politics when he took an active part in the fight against road tolls. They fought and they won.
Stephen’s involvement with local politics led him to join the English Democrats after seeing firsthand what previous governments had been doing with our tax money. Stephen joined the English Democrats because they are the only party who have the same ideals and beliefs he has.
Only the English Democrats look after our interests or try to address the mass discrimination that is occurring within the UK against the people of England.
Stephen says: “We can no longer stand on the sideline while successive governments take billions of pounds from English tax payers and give it to other countries whilst our own services suffer - Our Hospitals, Care for the Elderly, Education and Transport systems have suffered under previous Governments and now massive job losses and cuts in Engish public services under Lib Dems & Tories.
It’s time for the people of England to stand up and demand that our taxes are used to benefit our communities and give the people of England the services they should expect for the amount of money this government takes off us in tax."
HELP STEPHEN TO HELP YOU MAKE A DIFFERENCE.
Valerie Morris
North West Area Secretary
ENGLISH DEMOCRATS
PRO PATRIA ANGLORUM
North West
75 Swinton Crescent
Unsworth
Bury
Lancashire
BL9 8PB

Oldham@EngDem.org

Treasures from the threads - Number fifty-five

To an article on the latest billion pound write-down of Irish debt by Lloyds bank in the Daily Telegraph, linked here, came the following:

bonnifer

Today 11:08 AM

Recommended by
5 people

Yet more evidence of the unforgivable breach of their duties as directors by the then board of Lloyds TSB Bank plc. Formerly one of the highest dividend paying FTSE 100 srocks and a staple of UK pensions this company has failed its shareholders, its employees and its other stakeholders as a result of the egregious behavious of its directors. Surely there is scope for a private prosecution unde section 172 of the Companies Act 2006.

Gordon's crony Sir Victor Blank was asked to buy HBoS to save Gordon having to do so. This would have embarassed Gordon since all of the UK's problems would clearly have stemmed from two scottish banks, two scottish Prime Ministers and two scottish Chancellors of the Exchequer. Sir Victor's American CEO Eric Daniels and the bank's other directors both executive and non executive did not chose to follow their duty to promote the success of the company as required by law, despite the state of HB0S being no secret to any well informed person even at that time. Instead they chose follow Sir Victor into the Valley of Death. Death or Glory may have been an appropriate motto for the 17th Lancers but it has no place in Corporate Governance.

(Edited by author 1 hour ago)

For all this blog has had to say on the Lloyds Bank outrage enter Lloyds Hbos in the blog search bar, or just click on the same words on the label below!

Britain's media mafia hiding the facts for the EU and its Westminster playthings.

It is not often anything approaching the truth is allowed to be broadcast by the BBC, but for one precious minute this morning John Pilger managed to shout out some facts at the end of this typical set-piece propaganda output on Wikileaks. Go to this link and fast forward to seven minutes in, listen to it all if you have the time and inclination.

Downgrade of mortgage backed securities and Walkaways re-visited!

President Sarkozy expressed surprise at Moody's downgrade of Ireland yesterday. He should perhaps of seen this coming, or at least suspected some such bad news was heading his way when JP Morgan suggested a €350 billion gift to the PIG, as I blogged here yesterday.

The Housing Crisis which undermines all the economies of the West could by now have been solved had my suggestion, made way back in September 2008, linked here, been accepted. That posting, one of several around that time, concluded as follows:

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.

Spain's Autonomous Regions to drive nation's bankruptcy!

As with Ireland and Britain's Lloyds Bank yesterday, in Spain as well it is the refusal of central governments to face the realities of the collapsed property markets that is likely to prove the final tipping point that exposes the greed, greed, greed of those running the West's economies, read here.

Here comes the single super-state they always denied was planned!

The report is in EurActiv, here. Nuff said!

BoE buys £10billion of dodgy Euros to aid Ireland!

Not content with lending Ireland the entire savings from next years UK austerity programme the Bank of England has just announced, read here, that it will buy £10 billion highly dodgy and soon potentially virtually worthless (if Irish issued) euros to help liquidity in Ireland.

Cameron again is in full flight from the EU having reportedly agreed to a Treaty re-negotiation, of course without any referendum for the British BUT WORSE without any concessions whatsoever from the dreadful EU! 

FT (£) report from here.

Moral Hazard Go Hang!

There is delightfully fanciful article from the WSJ by Marcus Walker this morning titled "Closer Fiscal Union: A Collective Gurantee"  it is linked here. In it we are invited to view as a whole... "the 16-nation euro zone (is) one of the financially healthier parts of the Western world. The bloc is on course for a budget deficit of just 6.3% of gross domestic product this year, compared with 11.3% in the U.S. and 10.5% in the U.K. The euro zone's total public debts are headed for 84% of GDP this year, compared with 92% in the U.S. and 78% in the U.K."

The problem, as the article admits, is that the sixteen ex-nation currency block does not wish to be viewed as a whole, here is quoted Wolfgang Schauble..."selling the idea to skeptical European publics, whose loyalties remain largely national, will be difficult "

So in true fashion it proposes, as ever, to proceed by deceit and lies:

Some say an indirect route is more viable. 'What the region really needs is a one-off fiscal transfer,' says David Mackie, economist at J.P. Morgan in London.

A one-off transfer of 350 billion euros is then proposed ..... and that merely for Greece, Ireland and Portugal!!!

At least we now know what J.P. Morgan want from us..... their bonus pot must be running low!

Get stuffed, Euro-brutes tell periphary bankrupts!

The Economist's, Charlemagne, comments more gracefully than this posting's headline summarizes!

Enough for this evening, three posts in an hour already flatters this non-event too much!

Deutsche Bank says US Fed is the Euro's support

An incredible report comes from the WSJ, linked here, which coming on top of the entirely feeble statement of the treaty changes just posted in the blog entry immediately beneath this must make a huge crisis tomorrow practically inevitable!

(Update - I read the entire article as it was posted, it is now to be seen by full subscribers only! No matter, think of the strange strength of the Euro against the US Dollar over recent weeks, only an institution with unstoppable printing presses could have supported such a losing prospect to such an extent).

Euro - Fudge reaches new heights!

The EU tonight agreed two new sentences to be added to the EU Treaties, according to Reuters and many other news sources:

The member states whose currency is the euro may establish a stability mechanism to be activated if indispensable to safeguard the stability of the euro as a whole,


The granting of any required financial assistance under the mechanism will be made subject to strict conditionality.

MAY, MAY, MAY...... indeed but however many times you repeat that word, one amongst you might say MAY NOT, MAY NOT,MAY NOT!!!!!!!!!

This is behind-closed-doors nonsense carried to absurdity, treating the people of Europe like pathetic infants or farmyard animals!

Spain's borrowing costs approach the insupportable.

The Guardian reports the results of today's bond sale by Spain as follows:

There was reasonable demand for the 10-year and 15-year bonds, covered 1.7 times and 2.5 times respectively. But the yield for the 10-year gilt rose from 4.615% at the last auction to 5.446%, and on the 15-year bond from 4.541% to 5.953%. 


Almost 6% for 15 years must pretty much say it all for the prospects of a quick Spanish recovery!

Who is John Galt?

Perhaps more importantly today, where is John Galt?

Brussels - EU Crunch Point from 1700 CET today 15th December 2010!

Vicious Greek riots yesterday, one report here, while Irish politicians chickened out of the opportunity to bring to a dead halt the anti-democratic obscenity which Europe's corrupt and weak leaders have allowed the EU to become. That chance now passes to Portugal and Spain who discouragingly continued their doomed battle to pretend they retain functioning economies.

In the Palace of Westminster, backbench MPs of the Conservative portion of Britain's craven coalition (which solely serves the totalitarian EU) according to their insiders blog, ConservativeHome, could mainly merely complain of the organisation that handles their expenses, thus emphasising their own overriding self-interest, on top of which came the news that the National Audit Office will not sign off the House of Commons accounts because of £14 million expense discrepencies. MEPs meanwhile are also off on holiday having finally agreed a grotesque increased EU budget of 2.9% and awarded themselves an extra £100,000 tax free expenses, read here.

So Merry Christmas NOT to all our elected representatives! May the New Year see them all receive their just come-uppance.

What is Britain's attitude to Franco-German Unification?

I blogged yesterday on the announcement that the leaders of France and Germany have effectively agreed to merge, in Britain the response has been total silence!

Since Britain was invaded and occupied by the Romans events taking place in the territories now forming France and Germany have been crucial to the peoples of our islands. Is it not therefore astounding that neither the supposed leaders of our nation nor their political parties nor our national media have not one single word to say on that topic, acknowledgement enough of our total insignificance?

No important foreign policy debate on Europe has taken place on the floor of the Houses of Commons since Maggie Thatcher's No!No!No!, speech of twenty years ago, for which she was removed from office by traitors led by M.Heseltine (in Germany on the evening of the fateful decision) and K.Clarke, the puppets of whom now run the nation on behalf of nameless individuals on the Continent.

Will any MP ask the faux Prime Minister Cameron, at question time in the House today, what Britain's attitude is towards such a merger? I personally doubt it! The main parliamentary event today will be in Dublin in my view, wher according to the Irish Times, here, three independent TDs will allow the EU to limp on into the New Year to all our huge costs!

Can Sarkozy really get the French to joint fiscalization with Germany?

There is a curious report in EurActiv following the Freiburg meeting between France and Germany, linked here, from which I quote the following:

"We have agreed to the convergence of German and French tax policies and I thank the German chancellor for this opening," said French President Nicolas Sarkozy after a meeting with Chancellor Angela Merkel in the southwestern city of Freiburg.

"We are talking about labour law, about tax law, and if we are to improve the coherence of the economic aspects of the euro zone, then we should target these issues step by step and propose solutions," added Merkel.

Has President Sarkozy forgotten the French voters' rejection of more EU in the referendum on the EU Reform Treaty later to become the widely loathed Lisbon Treaty? Have the leaders of the EU completely lost all contact with reality?

Welcome to Cloud Cuckoo Land EU!

RBS Directors breached their 'fiduciary responsibilities' - Wikileaks

The shocking revelation in this morning's Guardian newspaper, read here, that RBS Directors had breached their 'fidiciary duties' is hugely significant to RBS Shareholders and British Taxpayers involving as it does the whole question of the rule of law in Britain. I quote from the article:

Asked about the importance of a fiduciary responsibility, Simon Morris of law firm CMS Cameron McKenna said: "A fiduciary duty is about honesty. Shareholders give directors the power to run a company and a breach of that fiduciary duty is a reflection of a lapse in that honesty. A breach is also likely to be of interest to the FSA if it is an FSA regulated firm."

The fact that the FSA has only last week abandoned its own investigation of RBS, declaring that there was no wrongdoing at that huge bank, must leave the general public with only one conclusion to draw, that the rot in Britain's politics now goes across all three of the main political parties and extends over and up to the very peak of the British establishment. Even before this news, Britain was beginning to appear ungovernable in the face of the treason by the three main parties over the EU, this condoning and cover-up of criminal acts, which have themselves brought the nation to the brink of bankruptcy must surely spur our junior and non-involved MPs into urgent action?

Irish TDs now expected to approve the Bail Out Foreign Bank/Euro Rescue

Considering the arguments against the Irish loans, put forward on John Redwood's blog yesterday, linked here,  the following report in the Irish Times that the Irish Parliament will impose the dreadful and pointless package on their electors seems more than somewhat surprising!

Cowardice I suspect is the motive, nevertheless remember my advice of the past weekend, for sooner rather than later this house of cards will come crashing down, more background here.

London's Mayor demands an apology for all Euro-sceptics! What about Major over Thatcher?

The amusing article with a harsh, strong and hard element of truth is in the Daily Telegraph this morning, linked here. The short piece concludes as follows:

Politics made the euro, and politics can destroy it, especially if electorates start to feel it is a machine for German domination and the destruction of benefits and wages; or if the German electorate feels that it is a machine for fleecing Germany. 

In the meantime, all those snooty Europhile politicians and journalists who sneered at us for our doubts should be forced to crawl in penitence to Dublin Castle, scourging themselves with copies of the Maastricht Treaty. We have been vindicated, and the least they can do is admit it. They know who they are.

In fact, matters are far more serious than the vote-dependent London Mayor dares to proclaim as he is a member of one of the three main British political parties that have wrought this disaster. Those responsible for the destruction of the nation's democracy, as can now be be seen for reasons almost solely connected with the aquisition of unaccountable political power and personal gain from their self-perpetuating obscene perks and subsequent pensions need to be completely stripped of both, if any kind of return to accountable democratic rationality requiring a broad national healing process is to be achieved.

Watch one such smug, self-satisfied, former Conservative Prime Minister (signatory of Maastricht) on TV only yesterday morning, acting for all the world as though he were an ordinary decent human being with no connection to the man who benefitted from replacing MaggieThatcher only 20 years ago when she warned the nation in Parliament of the grave dangers we faced, from here.

Below this is the fighting lady this smarmy low-life, John Major, actually fought against to gain power and his present fat pension and appear on the nation's main BBC TV channel and propaganda outlet for the EU, on a Sunday morning and support a left-leaning ultra pro-EU Coalition Government (which has ceded more power in a few months to the EU than others have done over years):

Preparing for an Irish 'NO' vote!

Next Wednesday the Irish Parliament will vote on the joint EU and IMF financial rescue package.

As few leading economists appear to rate the chances of this programme of cuts restoring prosperity to Ireland, and many are indeed suggesting it as already doomed, it would seem sensible for ordinary folk across the world to prepare for another Irish 'NO' vote.

What can only follow such a vote is an inevitable default by Irish banks on their debts and bonds. Reuters has an interesting comment on the dilemmas for Europe, linked here, and elsewhere lists the exposures of non-Irish banks with Britain at the head of the list being at risk for 140 billion euros.

How can ordinary citizens prepare for the chain reaction of banking defaults that seem likely to follow an Irish 'NO'  vote between now and next Wednesday evening? As many sovereign nations who stepped in to the breach following the Lehman's collapse are now themselves on the brink of bankruptcy available options for governments appear few and far between. I therefore suggest considering taking the following actions.

In countries with their own currencies get together significant quantities of small denomination banknotes. Stock up on essential supplies and secure your valuables as best you can. If by Thursday the credit crunch continues to totter along you have lossed little, but perhaps in the intervening period you may have wished you had taken other steps to protect yourself and your family from possible financial breakdown and potential chaos...... why not put such actions into place over the coming holiday period, for with the West's present leadership the crunch is unlikely to have then been avoided - merely deferred.

If you are living within a country that has adopted the Euro currency then the fallout is likely to be more severe. Check the National Identification Code for the serial numbers of euro notes from this link. You may decide you would wish to speculate on hoarding large denomination euro notes beginning with the letter X which may eventually be replaced by a new Deutsche Mark. Assume that small denomination euro notes may continue to be honoured in their country of issue, so in France obtain significant numbers of notes with U prefixes, Spain Y, Ireland T etc.  Dispose of notes from periphery Eurozone countries where you do not live and/or are unlikely to visit during the coming period of shortages and stringency. Otherwise stock up on essential supplies etc., as if living in a non-eurozone country.

The luck of the Irish to us all!

IMF holds back funds for Ireland.

The IMF which was due to advance the agreed bailout funds to Ireland yesterday have deferred such action until after the vote in the Irish Dail due to take place next week. The report in the Irish Times is linked here.

Democrats across the EU must hope that the package will be defeated as suggested may be likely elsewhere in the linked article. Home re-possessions in the USA are now running at 100,000 per month as reported here, although a two week break will be given by Fannie and Freddie over the Christmas period.

None of the emergency packages being put in place on either side of the Atlantic are designed to help the people most at risk from the disaster that was the initial credit crunch. Funds are all being devoted to prop up the banks for the sole benefit of the existing privileged classes who created this crisis. Joseph Stiglitz describes in the Daily Telegraph this morning the consequences of QE2, here but the bond buying by the ECB and deliberate disregard of the crisis by the EU's leaders will make the coming crash even more excruciating across Europe.

Smashing the Supreme Court Windows.

A video of the smashing of the unconstitutional and unlawful Supreme Court windows can now be enjoyed online. Note the huge Christmas Tree these illegitimate parasites have chosen for themselves in this supposed age of austerity!

Halley's Comet next candidate for a Nobel Peace Prize?

The empty chair at yesterday's Nobel Committee Peace Prize Committee, read here, seemed at least initially better considered than last year's recipient, President Barack Obama, who had barely arrived in office when nominated and managed to achieve nothing further in the way of world peace by the time of the ceremony.

President Obama has since lived down to every lowered expectation an achievement seemingly even recognised by himself when he yesterday appeared to acknowledge that the empty chair itself was a more worthy recipient.

The Nobel Committee will struggle to provide a way to cap these recent absurdities for future awards, may I suggest a regular award to Halley's Comet on each of the 75 years or so that it does not appear as it supposedly always brings misfortune. That will leave the Committee no need to further exercise their feeble brains until 2061 when the Comet is next due to appear and a truly worthy Peace Prize recipient might by then have become more obvious.

France/Germany - Love/Hate from France 24 in English

View today's Talking Points broadcast from France24 as Merkel and Sarkozy meet in Freiburg to further complicate and/or confuse the dreadful mess that is the non-democratic EU of their joint creation.

Click here for a link with the nearly quarter of an hour report.

A simple garden spade against the English Supreme Court - Symbol of EU Oppression

Amongst all the violence and damage, caused mainly by the mindless kettling policy of London's police force, at the tuition fees protest during the vote in Parliament yesterday afternoon (passed by 21 votes thanks to 28 Liberal/Democrats voting directly contrary to their manifesto promises of only seven months ago) this one piece of well thought through action against the windows of the obsecenity that is an English Supreme Court, itself a foul and unconstitutional concept imposed upon us by the EU, at least was successfully and peacefully accomplished and happily recorded

We must hope that the occupants of that building give due thought to the significance of this act and the inherent treachery of their own positions. (For more on this blog on the "Supreme Court" enter those words in this blog's search bar above).

Fitch strips Ireland of its A Credit status

The Irish Independent, linked here, reports the downgrade of Ireland by Fitch to its lowest rating BBB+.

The rescue by the IMF and EU is therefore confirmed as the hopeless and pointless gesture it already seemed, I quote from the newspaper report:

Fitch also warned that the budget cuts might choke the Irish economy, rather than reviving it.

"The scale and pace of the deterioration of public finances and continuing contingent fiscal and macro-financial risks emanating from the banking sector mean that Ireland's sovereign credit profile is no longer consistent with a high investment-grade rating," Fitch said.


The austerity measures, together with "accelerated bank deleveraging, could stall the incipient recovery".

How Germany's Euro economic angst could disturb strategic considerations.

There is a very interesting report on EurActiv, linked here, titled Central European fears and the German 'question mark' which concludes with the following paragraphs:

The lack of guarantees extends beyond the American obsession with the Middle East. Central Europeans are having difficulty finding another Western European power, outside of Sweden, with an ear for their security concerns. They feel they need to counter Russia on their own, with limited backup.

There is always Germany, which Central Europeans should theoretically be able to turn to for support. At least on paper, Berlin is an EU and NATO ally. However, specific to the Central European fears — and a reality that is rarely spoken publicly in Central Europe — is the fact that Germany is becoming unhinged from the Cold War-era institutions.

Russia may be the obvious security threat, but it is Germany's evolving role — and, crucially, its warming relations with Moscow — that troubles Warsaw and other Central European capitals, most precisely because it is unclear which way Berlin is heading. Or, as Araud put it in 2007, Germany may have been 'America's model ally' during the Cold War, but it is quickly becoming a 'question mark'.

The mis-governance in the economic sphere now evident on both sides of the Atlantic will become ever more dangerous when such stunning incompetence is seen to spread to more critical areas of concern!

FT Letter warns Cameron and Clegg of English Tuition Fees Backlash

A letter from Dr Brian Jones, Senior Lecturer at Leeds Business School is published in the FT this morning and may be read from this link. It comes in response to an editorial in that newspaper dated 7th December titled "Clegg accepts the high price of power" linked here. The letter highlights in very moderate terms the absolute outrage of politicians elected in Scotland and Wales voting on the tripling of fees for English students only, ie such fees will not be applicable within their own constituencies!

ALL English Constituency MPS MUST therefore vote against the proposed legislation, to do otherwise would be to spit in the face of democracy!

English Constituency Conservative MPs will be voting for their own political suicides if they support this legislation around tea-time this afternoon. Please make your own MP aware of the consequences for them individually.

I link a post I made on this topic at the beginning of this week titled "  Never since Henry III have Continentals been so entwined in England's governance"   from which I quote this particularly important passage:

David Cameron, who boasts that Scot's bloods flows deep within his veins, must surely have suspect motivations on the tuition fee issue that will be under much discussion this week. Coming on top of the huge discrepancies in taxation and benefits caused by the Barnett Formula, selecting only England's students to be saddled with this levy of up to £9,000 per year, while Cameron's countrymen north of the English/Scotttish border go 'scot free' is clearly unconscionable, especially as not one step has yet been taken by the Coalition Government to undo the many existing inequities.

The West's triple tragedies of 7th December 2010

First - The US President and Congress, having been presented with a demand by their own Deficit Commission for an urgent and vast cut in the US Governmant's cash shortfall, instead agreed on vast new tax reductions and spending increases.

Second - The finance ministers of the 27 former nations who instead now form the European Union, faced with the collapse of the block's joint currency and sovereign default amongst several of its number, met in the Ecofin Council and knowing that to do nothing was not an option - decided to do just that - absolutely nothing.

Third - The tool of oppression and facilitator for the growing tyranny across Europe, the European Union's  European Arrest Warrant, was used to jail a man in London (home of Habeus Corpus) who had been accused of no crime, refused any bail, and supposedly co-incidentally had, in the immediately preceding few days, caused discomfit to practically every government across the so-called free world.

Euro Group Finance Ministers fail to agree any action.

The almost incredible complete agreement to actually do nothing among the finance ministers of the 16 ex-nations using the euro-currency last evening is reported by EurActiv and may be read from here.

Leaks from the full meeting of the 27 EU finance ministers in Ecofin are expected throughout today.

Tralee bypass and Tipperary super casino are latest sticking plasters for the Euro!

The Irish budget which will supposedly allow the bailout for Ireland bandaid for bankers to proceed will likely pass this afternoon thanks to some last minute pork barrel politics as reported in the Irish Independent, linked here.

There is an interesting item in this same areticle regarding the tuition fee fiasco across the Irish Sea, on which topic I have blogged already today, that is contained in the following quote which nicely contrasts the relative degrees of pain actually being applied in England versus Ireland:

Government sources confirmed last night that the increase from €1,500 to €2,000 next year will only apply to the first child in college -- subsequent children in college simultaneously will continue to pay €1,500 a year.

I cannot guage the reactions of England's students whose £9,000 pa will perhaps form part of the 8 billion pounds that Osborne is donating to the Irish portion of the Euro's doomed resuscitation!

David Davis to vote against tuition fees rise in England!

I cannot add much more to the headline to this post other than to provide links, to the Daily Mail and the Daily Telegraph.

Is French bid for De La Rue another sign of Euro's Collapse?

The French bank note printing company has made a bid for its British competitor, make of that what you will!

Germany vetoes increase of EU emergency funding

The Bloomberg TV Channel is reporting that the EU appears to be edging towards the "unthinkable" (Wolfgang Munchau)...... what in my view can only be described as self-destruction.

Never since Henry III have Continentals been so entwined in England's governance!

It was the actions of King John, his father which presented Henry with as many as nine half-sibling Lusignans, whom losing power in Poitevin demanded a slice of the Englisgh cake, therefore blame for that resulting loss of autonomy can hardly be laid at the youthful Henry's door.

Henry III's marriage to Eleanor of Provence, a Savoyard, however, brought the powerful influences of the Dukes of Burgundy to the heart of the English court and these growing strains were further compounded when Spanish influence was added with the marriage of his son and heir to Eleanor of Castile placing huge stresses upon the backs of the English citizenry already reeling from the losses of their possessions in France.

As the euro-currency crisis deepens and the small clique of well-connected and privileged non-entities who have wrested control of the Conservative Party, thanks to the machinations of Michael Howard, from the properly elected Iain Duncan-Smith begin to direct policy and funds to suit their historical family connections (as with George Osborne's award of the entire proceeds from the first year of Britain's planned austerity across the Irish Sea, to support the euro rather than offer any assistance to the duped Irish people) it is surely desirable that the motivations of those involved be questioned.

David Cameron, who boasts that Scot's bloods flows deep within his veins, must surely have suspect motivations on the tuition fee issue that will be under much discussion this week. Coming on top of the huge discrepancies in taxation and benefits caused by the Barnett Formula, selecting only England's students to be saddled with this levy of up to £9,000 per year, while Cameron's countrymen north of the English/Scotttish border go 'scot free' is clearly unconscionable, especially as not one step has yet been taken by the Coalition Government to undo the many existing inequities.

The influence of the EU in our legislative processes, do not forget, is nowadays consistently estimated at around the 75% level.

The EU background of the leader of the Conservative's Coalition partners the LibDems is further cause for concern. Nick Clegg's curious family background coming on top of his status as an EU pensioner already calls into question his true objectives. As Spain now totters on the edge of insolvency his connections through marriage and the growing presence of Spanish banks in British High Streets will require careful monitoring as the next stage of the euro-currency crisis unfolds.

No doubt Cameron and the Scottish Nationalists are feeling remarkably cocky at present as they keep the financial screws firmly in place on the thumbs of the English, they should recall that after Henry III came his son Edward Longshanks, Hammer of the Scots and that such cycles of history are oft repeated down history, eventually  the influence of Castile and the Poitevins on England's history passed. So too, we must trust, will that of the EU!

An interesting week lies ahead!

Shoring up "Shock and Awe"

The new week of crises for the EU has started early this Sunday afternoon with Reuters reporting, here, that the supposedly huge fundings made available last May in the opening stages of the present euro currency meltdown now need urgent replenishment.

Der Spiegel carried a good graphic on the amounts that might soon be needed which may be viewed from this link or here.

While Time Magazine makes much of the Portugal problem in this weekend's edition, read here, the weekend air traffic controllers strike in Spain will no doubt concentrate the market's attention where it should probably be centred when they open across Europe tomorrow morning.

FIFA fibbers are not Britain's biggest betrayers.

There are far worse con men at work on the near Continent ready to destroy and undermine the best intersts of the British people, yet a glance at the mainstream media this Sunday morning from London would leave an impression that football skullduggery is the nation's greatest clear and present danger.

The politicians of the three main parties, united in their anti-constitutional conspiracy to pass the Lisbon Treaty, have destroyed the wealth of the nation and passed its assets, democracy and power of governance to foreigners.

Watching the pathetic video of the Prime Minister in Downing Street on his return from Zurich this week, he clearly had no grasp of the sheer venality with which he was confronted over the award of the 2018 World Cup of football.  Yet daily and weekly he and his pathetic team of overgrown schoolboys are trying to deal with far greater duplicity and hugely more sinister consequences in the various organs of the wealth destroying European Union. Cameron and his team are clearly completely ignorant as to the nature of the threats the nation faces.

Not a comforting thought at all this Sunday, especially when across the Atlantic even more dire economic consequences appear to be looming on the horizon.

What I wrote on EU lies and the banking stress tests last July is here. Until our national leaders and MPs in Parliament recognise such facts no solution will appear to our present economic difficulties. Wet behind the ears milksops cannot cut it!

EU debate on Radio Four Today

The broadcast that took place at 0810 this morning may be heard again from here.

The introduction from the BBC web site was as follows:

0810
The euro remains a "  credible"   currency despite the debt crisis that has required the bail outs of Ireland and Greece according to the European Central Bank's chief Jean-Claude Trichet. David Rennie, political editor of the Economist and Peter Sutherland, former Irish European Commissioner discuss the crisis of confidence in the eurozone.

The first point I would make is that I am amazed that there remains anybody employed by The Economist magazine who has managed to retain such a coherent view on the reality that is the EU.  Of all the degradations that my country of birth has suffered down recent years the complete trashing of The Economist has probably been the one that has affected me most closely and on a weekly basis.

It will be interesting to see how the Irish handle the situation of people who still think and talk as Peter Sutherland does over the coming years! Sutherland has always been one of the most fanatical of EU Federalists and has wrought untold damage on Europe, it is amazing that he can still trot out such garbage as this.

Non-Euro Group Finance Ministers must convene URGENTLY

The Euro Group of Finance Minister regularly gathers in accordance with the Lisbon Treaty, and will no doubt do so again as a matter of great urgency.

In the warped thinking of the adherents to the concepts of the European Union, members of the EU not part of the common currency have no reason to meet, convene, gather or discuss as they are committed by Treaty to disband their currencies and eventually to ALL, even Britain, join the Euro.

In the real world, where the chances of the euro even being in full existence this time next year get slimmer with each passing day, is it not time for the Finance Ministers of the currencies outside the Euro Group to meet and discuss how they will cope with the crisis which will follow the euro's disintegration and how best they can protect their own currencies and their citizen's well-being, if not prosperity, in the aftermath of the ensuing worldwide currency chaos.

It would be possible to argue that as the Euro Group utilise common EU facilities for their gatherings (even though the purposes of their meetings increasingly concentrate on the promotion of the interests of the 16 at the expense of the 11) the Non-Euro Group should similarly be able to call upon the same arrangements, in my view that would be a great mistake. It will not be just countries in the EU who will bear the consequences of the euro's collapse, the whole world will be affected, but Europe will be sure to be under the greatest imperilment. The two largest of the last remaining Democracies in Europe should also therefore be included, here I have in mind  Switzerland and Norway, whose strong currencies if part of any emergency procedures will add considerable weight to whatever may be agreed and eventually put in place.

I am sending a copy of this post to Open Europe and Conservative Home.

Europeans must now grasp this nettle!

"It is extremely important that everything is commensurate to the dimension of the challenges," Trichet told journalists at the European American Press Club in Paris, according to Reuters this Friday morning, linked here.

 Reuters report continues "Trichet said that applied to governments' fiscal policies, structural reform and the "collegial collective action that we might have including through the stabilisation fund."

Trichet also said the main lesson of the crisis was the need to strengthen governance, speaking as Spain renewed calls for closer integration of economic policy.

"From our point of view, the main lesson ... is obviously that it is necessary to reinforce the governance of the euro zone countries and of Europe in general,"  he said.

The question that all citizens of the EU should face up to and confront this weekend is in my view best summarised as - "The Euro OR national democracy and independence".

Opting to continue the fight to preserve the Euro currency requires, more debt, more behind closed door decision making and deceit, ever less democracy, ever more regulation, increasing distrust between neighbouring European countries and potentially far, far worse. 

We Europeans cannot bury our heads in the sand any longer, this crisis affects us all and will continue to do so and also most probably impact our children and grand-children for years. We must make our nationally elected politicians aware of our concerns and fears, they are presently apparently paralysed by knowledge of the true depths of the abyss upon whose edge we are poised or ignorant of the obvious and glaring realities. 

Either Jean-Claude Trichet and his backers are victorious and totalitarianism is returned to Europe or we step back, rationally and calmly disband the Euro currency and the corrupted EU institutions and try to make a fresh start towards open trade and free movement of people. 

No sane nor rational people would construct the EU as it is today, nor invest one single centime nor penny of their own money on a construct as dodgy as the present common currency of the Euro!  National leaders, possibly blinded by fears over the futures of their own national banks, should be forced to confront such plain and obvious realities. 

Football - a truly ugly game

The angst in the English press and media this morning over the failed attempt to host the football world cup in 2018 is truly something to behold. Of main interest to me is what it clearly illustrates about the quality of Britain's present political leadership, thoughts on which you may read on Teetering Tories, linked here.

Football has become such a money besmirched horror story that it ceased to be of any interest to me many decades ago; but I will make one suggestion in the aftermath of the William/Cameron/Beckham fiasco. Why not make all the changes to the rule book of the English Football Association that many have been proposing for years but have been resisted by Fifa?  It seems to me that Fifa have wished to leave their officials with opportunities to change match results, something they may have been able to freely do in the years before present technological innovations.  Other sports, where money is not the god, but rather the joy of the game itself, have accepted such technological developments and have been undoubtedly improved as a result.

Of course England will be excluded for a while from international competition, but I am sure my great-uncle, the first amateur trainer and co-founder of an FA football club in France, would have been the first to argue that kicking the ball around on local playing fields all around the world is the true spirit of English football. How long before other countries' football associations would take up the revised rule book whereby the best teams had equal chances of victory?

Football stinks. I am amazed people pay the money they do to perpetuate such inequitable rottenness - no wonder it attracts crowd violence.

ECB to continue bond purchases

This observer found the ECB press conference entirely unsatisfactory. The bond purchases will continue through the first quarter of next year but whether there would be any upper limit was a question among many that received no answer.

Jean-Claude Trichet was repeatedly (as usual) at pains to boast of having delivered 1.97% inflation to the "federal" citizens of Europe??? over the past twelve years, and spoke of the pride this evinced in him and amongst the MEPs when he had boasted of achiving this feat two days ago.

Left unsaid and undiscussed by the ECB chief was the glaring fact that having inflation brought in just under the prescribed target for the entire existence of the euro does not help nor alleviate the fact that the currency is clearly in its death throes and unlikely to be able to survive, disregarding whatever professions of determination may come from EU Government Heads, EU Commissioners or other EU officials.

At one stage I felt sympathy for this devious man, that came when he correctly asserted that it had not been he who had destroyed the Growth and Stability pact in 2004/2005, yet the very nature of the currency had to require that the pact would soon have to be abandoned given all the other inherent contradictions and Trichet must have been always aware that would quickly be the case.....the end of such feelings of sympathy therefore quickly followed.

More short term cash will now be grabbed by the bankers and market speculators, (whose loss it will eventually prove to be will be a fascinating future question) in three months we will return to an even worse situation if the markets are prepared to grant such a breathing space. As predicted on this blog the words of the ECB Chief have achieved little, activity on the market according to an FT questioner shows more seriousness, but only of the very worst sort, supposed sterilised quantatitive easing by the ECB purchase of EU peripheral country's bonds!

IMF trapped in EU Sovereignty conundrum!

The IMF exists to aid sovereign nations in economic difficulties. EuroGroup member states do not properly meet such criteria, as a consequence the IMF has put itself between a rock and a hard place.

Most IMF bailouts involve a currency devaluation by the distressed nation. Such is not possible with the EuroGroup ex-nations. Ultimately a devaluation of the euro could be achieved by steady degradations of the credit ratings of all the EuroGroup member states, logically terminating in Germany, a process now clearly and steadily underway. Yet Germany has no legal obligation to participate, indeed any such action has effectively already been declared as unconstitutional. So how has the IMF fulfilled its own obligations to its Board Members and fund providers? In a report in the Irish Times this morning, linked here, we have the answer:

In the letters, it is conceded the Government stands ready to implement further austerity measures beyond the €15 billion in the four-year plan, if the stringent quarterly targets set out by the EU-IMF in its three-year programme are not met.

The letter to IMF managing director Dominique Strauss-Kahn, states: “We stand ready to take any corrective actions that may become appropriate for this purpose as circumstances change. As is standard under fund-supported programmes, we will consult with the fund on the adoption of such actions.”

It appears from this that devaluation is not an option that has been ruled out by the IMF in so far as their loan to Ireland is concerned. (Note also the sting in the tail of the linked newspaper report which announces The Government has withheld from publication a side letter agreed with the EU and IMF outlining confidential measures for the banks and tax changes to be included in Tuesday’s budget.

Crunch Day at the European Central Bank.

Trichet calmed the markets somewhat yesterday, as I noted here earlier, by suggesting that something new would be announced at his regular press conference in Frankfurt today. Bluff has always been Trichet's tool of choice but he is running out of scope in which this weapon can be deployed.

The end of the single currency has been unavoidable for some time. The Irish rescue package clearly cannot work. Belgium, Portugal, Spain and others stand in line unable or incapable to wean their electorates from the soft options of the fantasy worlds in which they seem to pass most of their days.

The end or final destination is obvious to all thinking people, the route by which we arrive at that dreadful point might become clearer from gleaning what flexibility the German government is prepared to lend Trichet in his vain cause of clinging to his position, power and perks for as long as he possibly can, even to the extent of crippling future generations of Europeans with unmeetable debts à la Alan Greenspan.

If Europeans accept eventual German economic governance as the price for a brief period of extra excess consumption, the necessary correction will eventually be that much tougher, blamed on the Germans and almost certainly lead to violence and eventual revolt. If Germany agrees to further ECB bond purchases or some form of money printing dressed up as ECB Quantitative Easing then the day of reckoning will be merely only somewhat delayed.

Abandoning the common currency and the present institutions of the EU to allow a fresh start for a free trade area of sovereign states with their own currencies, parliaments and laws is the only sane way forward. Regrettably, I believe, too many corrupt and powerful people have invested their futures in the EU for that sensible proposition to be heard in Frankfurt today.

A report on the ECB meeting today is linked here.

This blog will provide its own appraisal of the press conference later today.

The shame of the Lisbon Treaty One Year Onwards

The destruction of the wealth of the people of the 27 former nations which comprise the EU continues apace one year on from the entering into force of the hated Lisbon Treaty. Democracy has gone, corruption continues unabated and deceit and double-dealing remain the order of the day in the still inaudited EU today with another layer of bloated bureaucrats in the vastly expensive and redundant EEAS.

I can best just repeat the posting from this blog of one year ago, which today rings truer than ever:

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Monday, November 30, 2009

A new era of evil opens tomorrow across Europe.

Tomorrow the non-democratic, almost pan-European Constitution, which ends government by parliamentary consent for 27 once Sovereign and independent nations, enters into force. Every once in a while, all that is worst in mankind seems to gain control within Europe, now , once again, we must face such a moment!

The efforts of this writer, begun in the early nineteen-nineties, when the true direction of this monstrous conspiracy first became clear to him, have all failed.

A new Dark Age opens in Europe from tomorrow. If any glimmer of hope for rescue becomes discernible, I will blog about it here again. Meantime, "Good Luck" to all my readers, especially those now under the control of the European Union!

Labels: Lisbon Treaty

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Did Trichet blink or con the markets once again?

Bloomberg asks the first part of the question in this post's headline, linked here. The second part is my alternative view.

What the markets fail to understand, and what to me also makes the first question pointless, is that the ECB chief has no cards left to play. Only Germany and Germans can take over the debts of the Euro and relaunch it as DM2 with all economic control over the other 26 ex-nations of the EU then falling into German hands. Do those calling for virtually any measures to save the common euro currency really wish this outcome?

The disintegration of the Euro Currency, would however be comparatively simple, though of course not painless, as is discussed in the Analysis linked here. The following is some excerpts with some of the main points:

The disparities between the eurozone economies stretch from budget deficits to economic fundamentals and from current account surplus/deficits to unemployment....

With parts of the union drifting in diverging directions, the future of the bloc is not all that rosy indeed. 

Though for most policy makers the break-up of the currency union has been an unthinkable eventuality, there are more people now talking about the elephant in the room.

Analysts have pointed out that the legal barriers, political aftermaths and the economic repercussions of a break-up, or an opting out of the union, are not insurmountable.