Friday, September 30, 2011

Millennium Blitzkrieg soon available on Kindle

I have just finished the procedures for my novel "Millennium Blitzkrieg" to be available for Kindles from Amazon over the coming days. Other Epub versions will soon also be available and I will post the necessary links on this blog as they become available.

The plotters behind the EU conspiracy, which is daily becoming ever clearer to more and more people, were clear and determined in their actions in the early to mid nineteen-nineties, as my novel makes clear. The battle to stop them actually succeeding is only now about to be properly joined!

I hope that by publishing a digital version of the book, this message will spread throughout the wider public all across the globe. What is happening to the peripheral countries of the Euro Zone is exactly as intended, their economic misery was always the inevitable end result of the Euro currency, as many economists warned. Why then did so many at the top of Europe's former independent nation states allow this to go ahead? My novel provided some suggestions, read it on your kindle or other digital devices from next week!

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Barmy & Bonkers Bloomberg and other such 24 hour financial news TV stations!

I sometimes keep Bloomberg or CNBC TV stations on as background noise as I type out my own vague ramblings, some of which appear on this blog.

Around noon CET today, Bloomberg, really excelled in a surreal report on Morgan Stanley, recounting how that financial institution was now a greater risk than some European Banks according to its CDS ratings, it then explained this as being due to its high exposure to the french banking sector Société Generale and BNP Paribas. It then turned to a studio guest for expert analysis, no less a person than an employee of Société Generale, John Guanera for guidance! Surprise, surprise Mr Guanera quite likes Morgan Stanley, well bless my soul!

Could this interview soon be a candidate for this blog's new feature "Anguished Analysts and Tormented Tipsters"?

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The Plot to form the EU into a socialist superstate.

There is another excellent analysis of the EU and its problems from the web site "Acting Man" this morning, read it from here, today mainly concentrating on the history and political run-up to the disaster that is unfolding on the economic front.


Looking back at the introduction of the euro, we think that the euro such as it is now constituted must be regarded as part of the socialist 'plan B' that has slowly but surely become Europe' plan A' over the decades.

The reason for this conclusion is simply this: it was made crystal clear to the politicians and technocrats at the time of the currency's introduction that it was a severely flawed  concept from an economic point of view. Early critics such as the group of economists and lawyers led by Joachim Starbatty and Karl Albrecht Schachtschneider in Germany laid out in painstaking detail why it would not work, what would eventually go wrong and how it would play out.

They have been proved right: every single one of their predictions has come to pass. They were of course not the only ones criticizing the project. A great many economists warned of the flaws of the euro, and even though many of the critiques were not framed in the manner we would have framed them, they  should have made it unambiguously clear to the eurocracy that the project was doomed from the outset.

They went ahead anyway. Since they went ahead in spite of knowing that the system would eventually suffer a crisis, we must conclude the following: some of them were simply incompetent, while others wanted a crisis to occur on purpose. Their calculation probably was that once a crisis erupted, the next stage in the erection of the socialist super-state could be far more easily implemented. This next stage is the end of subsidiarity, or rather, what little is left of it.

All exactly as this blog has been almost daily maintaining since the blatant conspiracy first become perfectly obvious to this non-economist blogger, after which, when including other fora, such as the Financial Times Forum, Europa Futura Forum etc now runs up to some fifteen odd years of mostly unheard and unread protest and objections!

Please read the entire detailed posting from Pater Tenebrarum, linked above and again from here! I will for the moment content myself with just one further quote:

It would be vastly better if the euro were to simply fall apart.

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Island ex-nation slashes its ships and crews to coalesce into a corrupted Continent

Britain's Conservative Party, while loudly and constantly self-proclaiming its doubts, has since the nineteen-fifties, always been at the forefront of destroying our nation's independence and democracy. So too today, whilst pretending its policy changes are forced upon it by a combination of the debts run-up by the former Labour administration and the policy perogatives of its coalition partners the Liberal Democrats, it takes the axe to the Royal Navy. Meantime furthe submerging itself and excessively financing the ever-growing tyranny that is the EU!

Not only has the RN protected our national independence down the centuries, and by such actions ensured the principles of freedom and democracy could mainly prevail across the European Continent itself. For any who may doubt this I recommend "To Rule the Waves" by Arthur Herman, sub-titled, How the British Navy shaped the modern world - ISBN 9 780060 534257 read Amazon description from here.

The BBC report of the cuts in ships and the redundancy notices being received by their crew members today is linked here.

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Thursday, September 29, 2011

What Greek Haircut will EU banks assume as 3rd Quarter Ends?

An interesting column discussing the valuation of Greek debt for the EU's banks, as the third calendar quarter ends tomorrow, is linked here.

In the case of the two French banks Société Generale and BNP Paribas they assumed the 21% loss level incorporated into the clearly outdated, 21st July, EFSF revamped deal voted through the German Parliament only today!

The following quotes, quite clearly indicates that the last thing in either regulators or accounting authorities minds, at present, is getting accurate accounting data to the investing public, some quotes:

EU regulators, responsible for ensuring investors are not confused, discussed the general issue of bank accounting last week in Poland but no fresh attempt to impose a common line has emerged so far.

The European Securities and Markets Authority (ESMA) and accounting standard setter, the International Accounting Standards Board (IASB) have shifted tack, now focusing on end-of-year results, which have to be fully audited.

This puts pressure on the auditors to ask banks why they are not making full writedowns to reflect market values.

ESMA Chairman Steven Maijoor said consistent valuation was more important for annual reports than for interim results.

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Draining the last drops of blood from Greece - Then What?

Fox News has a report on the latest from Athens as the EU/IMF/ECB heavies return with their latest demands, read here.

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The Troika return to Greece - Civil Servants occupy offices in protest!

Greek Deputy Prime Minister cannot pay austerity taxes

Associated Press carries the news reported in my headline above, linked here.

It is gratifying that somewhere politicians are forced to finally confront the consequences of their own incompetence!

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Bloomberg - 37% of World Investors believe EU will cause "Global economic meltdown"

The majority of German politicians clearly like what they have created in Europe, 523 voted to feebly try to save it with only 85 against and 3 abstentions.

Investors across the globe see things differently, read the detail in this Bloomberg Poll published today, before the German vote.

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German vote on upgraded EFSF result

The new powers (note no new funding is being made available keeping German maximum commitment at €211 Billion from the €440 Billion total fund) were approved in the German Parliament by 523 to 85 with 3 abstentions

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Jean-Claude Juncker's Lies and the Misery of the Euro Zone he heads!

Peter Oborne and an EU Idiot

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Open manoeuvres to sidestep democracy!

There is nothing those within the EU will stop at to maintain their tight control of the subjugated citizens of the 27 former nations now almost totally subjugated under their control. Blatantly in the federalist EurActiv such manoeuvres are openly discussed as in Brussels and Strasbourg they have become so routine they are apparently no longer a matter for any shame. The following paragraphs from an article about today's vote in the Bundestag is a good example of just that, read here:

French officials have been keen not to rock the boat for their German partners by discussing details of fresh proposals to leverage the European Financial Stability Facility (EFSF) ahead of Thursday's vote in the Bundestag.

The German parliament is due to vote on a 21 July agreement to increase the facility's capacity to €440 billion, which has already angered some German lawmakers, particularly on the right of Chancellor Angela Merkel's ruling coalition.

While its approval seems likely with the help of opposition parties, Merkel is lobbying hard to see the legislation passed with the votes of her coalition to send a strong message about its unity.

"Once this result is in, and we hope that it will be a positive result, we are going to make proposals to step up the fight against speculative attacks against the eurozone," Fillon told lawmakers during a question and answer session at the lower house of parliament.

"We have a moral obligation to defend Europe, because Europe is our common future and to defend Europe we have to increase the financial credibility of our country," he said, adding that a bill on France's 2012 budget due to be presented on Wednesday would aim to do that.

Speculation that the eurozone's rescue fund could be beefed up by leveraging it has lifted stocks battered after weeks of concerns that Europe's debt crisis is getting out of control.

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My reply to John Redwood's morning post on German Democracy

German democracy, a crucial topic for all in Europe, for if that fails not even ordinary Germans will have a future say in how 500 million odd europeans will be governed, is the topic of John Redwood's first morning post today, to which I replied as follows:

Your comment is awaiting moderation.
I believe you may have a problem with your intials of the various rescue funds. The EFSF was the original €440 billion fund of the Euro Group. The EFSM was the fund from the EU budget supposedly restricted to €65 billion to which all 27 EU members had to contribute, while the long term facility negotiated and published but not yet ratified will be called the ESM. (Of course in some countries, depending on the language, these initial may all move around or become something even more alien).
After the 21st July meeting of this year the EFSF was agreed to be amended with I believe a 20% voluntary private bank haircut and a provision for the ECB to go further than in the past. This change is slowly going through the 17 European national parliaments and passed tha halfway point yesterday with Finland, albeit laughably still have a parliamentary veto regarding collateral in force (envisioned in the 21st July agreement) most likely to scupper the whole arrangement by precluding the IMF from joining in future advances.
More importantly, on German democracy, as I have quite frequently discussed on my blog, is the ever more obvious fact that the entire EU, given Germany’s economic power, is now dependent on this last remnant of any democracy within the EU. Whoever is put in power in Germany decides the fates of some 500 million Europeans, the Treaties having already been trashed. Today it is likely the amendments to the EFSF will be carried, thanks to the votes of the opposition SPD and the Greens. Watch the leader of the SPD, given present polls he is the putative leader of the EU should Economic Governance of the Euro Zone be allowed to come into force. Nick Clegg, your Coalition partner party leader, is reported by the BBC to be about to urge that course today, following the example set by your own George Osborne.

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Wednesday, September 28, 2011

Nigel Farage MEP responds to Barroso's State of Union speech!

Fragmenation nears! Der Spiegel searches for some truth behind EFSF rumours.

The latest Der Spiegel article seeking to throw some light on what the EFSF is likely to become offers little information, other perhaps than that ahead of tomorrow's Bundestag vote noobody is prepared to say anything useful. Read it here, the following are the concluding paragraphs:

Clarity on the euro zone's plans is not likely to come soon, despite a Wednesday warning from European Central Bank head Jean-Claude Trichet that "now is the time for effective action, implementation, verbal discipline and a stronger team spirit." Several more member states must still approve the EFSF and the process isn't expected to be completed until the second half of October.
And once it is, there are, it would seem, several more questions to be addressed. European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso hinted as much during his state of the union speech on Wednesday morning.
"If we do not move forward with more unification, we will suffer more fragmentation," he said in Brussels. "I think this is going to be a baptism of fire for a whole generation."

Fragmentation, there's that word, used often on this blog to describe what will inevitably be the follow-up to the EU, read here. Do not imagine for one moment that after this monumental failure, countries will quietly and automatically slip back behind their pre-Common Market borders, the mess unleashed is far too severe for that kind of simplicity - fragmenation has always been the risk, it is a pity the federalists would not accept repeated warnings as issued from these pages and elsewhere down the years.

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French austerity - EU rail sacred cows continue, but will their banks?

The detail of the latest French "austerity" budget is available here, from RTE. Work continues apace on the rail line designed to cut mere minutes from the journey time between Bordeaux and Paris near to my home however, one must wonder if there will ever be any highly paid, highly expensed, EU fonctionaires left to use it when completed in several years time?

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The end is nigh for the EU!

A good analysis of the chaos slowly taking over the entire EU is contained on this link, from which comes the following quote, a rare example of cold reality on the day we heard EU Commission President's ludicrous State of the Union speech to the insanely applauding MEPs:

...In other words, things are once again clear as mud in euro-land. You really couldn't make this up. As always happens when the social mood darkens and a major economic contraction accompanied by a secular bear market in stocks is underway, harmony and cooperation are giving way to discord and hostility. Since the current downturn is one of major degree – an attempt to correct the excesses piled up after four decades of an unprecedented global experiment in employing fiat money – we suspect that both the end of the euro and the end of the EU such as it is now constituted are probably not too far away. There may be a final push to try and hold things together, but the writing is clearly on the wall. 

(Ironies Too blog editor's emphasis added!) More madness here, however from Olli Rehn!

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A threat and perhaps a lesson, for present national leaders within the EU!

The following two paragraphs constitute the end of a posting on "Covering Delta" blog, posted last evening after the latest property tax bill was passed in the Greek Parliament. The posting was titled "More austerity, More Taxes, More Strikes ..." it is linked from here:

What upsets me the most as a citizen of Greece, and as someone who loves my country and my people very much, is that our government is totally broken, and there is no hope for leadership on the horizon. With Venizelos now poised to overtake Papandreou as the next leader of PASOK, the prime minister can spend more time abroad, where he feels most comfortable anyway, negotiating more bailouts, privatizations and debt deals with countries that actually have functional governments. Neither he nor Venizelos want to prepare the country for the possibility that they may have to “go it alone,” and this lack of preparation only weakens our negotiating position.
Greece needs leadership more now than at any time in living memory. We are desperate for it, and it is the only thing that can save our country. Rollovers, haircuts, and debt buy-backs are the tools of creditors. If the debtor doesn’t have anyone negotiating on his behalf, then all these “solutions” are rather meaningless. Greece will continue to decay, its economy will continue to collapse, and eventually, it will have to default in a completely disorganized and pernicious way. At that time, I can promise you that the Papandreou family and anyone else who was involved with this or previous governments will not dare set foot on Greek soil for at least a generation.

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Ask Barroso!



There are so many questions that this corrupt, perpetually unaudited institution and its useless group of Presidents, Commissioners and high-living, high pensioned fonctionaires and hangers on, could be asked that I will let my readers  consider their own responses to this absurd video. Remember however, the EU never listens, this is pure PR!

At the end of the day, however, I suppose what I consider the crux of the decadent mess is so simple it will never be put, nor considered let alone given a reply. So I merely post it here, it is this question - "How have so many Europeans sunk so low and travelled so far from everyday decency that they could ever consider working within such a corrupt organisation as the EU has been deliberately steered to become, especially today, when its long term aim of smashing democracy and national parliaments across Europe, partly by the waging of economic warfare against European citizens is so near to fulfilment?"

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My reply to John Redwood's morning post.

Today the Conservative MP makes a well presented case that it is all Greece's fault. It may be read from here, my comment was as follows:

Your comment is awaiting moderation.

A very valid assessment. Now if you go through your posting and substitute Greece and Greek each time it appears with “EU” or “EU Commission” or “EU Council” whichever is most appropriate you will arrive at the true depth of the problem.
Yet your presence in Parliament, supporting the Coalition Government, is one of the factors that underpin the absolutely abhorrent undemocratic entity the EU is becoming. Rightly you point out “A state has the power to demand money of its citizens under pain of imprisonment.” and the EU is obtaining such powers with an armed gendarmerie to enforce them.

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Tuesday, September 27, 2011

FT reports a split is opening over Greece Bailout 2.0

The FT report is here. It appears as many as seven out of the seventeen Euro Group countries are now expecting  demanding bigger haircuts by private sector banks.

A step by step guide for people in Quebec, unfamiliar with the nightmare quality of events within the non-democratic EU, makes for amusing reading for this battle weary commentator, and is linked here.

Some good things flow from even the worst situations, however, and a contributor to The Guardian adds a rare piece of common sense from that journal, stating it is policy not debt that is the problem, linked here.

That's it for silver linings today, more tomorrow! G'night!

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EFSF leverage robs Merkel of her own support.

A test vote ahead of the upcoming decision on the upgraded EFSF deal for the second Greek bailout turned sour for the German Chancellor this evening, read here.

In Greece the vote on the extended property tax was more favourable for trhe Germans, when the Greek Parliament demonstrated its main concern continued to be their own salaries in slavishly following all the EU demands at the expense of the futures and well-being of their citizens.

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Spain's Central Bank offers 80/90% loss coverage in selling CAM

The Wall Street Journal has an interesting item on the Spanish Cajas which seem to have been avoiding the spotlight during recent Itain and ever recurring Greek crisis headlines, read here. A quote:

In an attempt to sell CAM, as the lender is also known, the Bank of Spain is offering sweeping guarantees. According to people close to the central bank, it is offering to cover 80% of losses up to €2.5 billion at CAM and 90% of losses above that level. It is also offering a €2.8 billion credit line: CAM has been bleeding deposits and has to renew €5 billion in short- and long-term funding in 2012, a concern as it becomes more difficult for European banks to borrow.

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Slog reports London Gold Exchange 'permanently' closed

The report may be read from here.

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A Trader's View - Goldman Sachs Rules the World!



After viewing this may I suggest you may wish to read my New Year's posting for 2011, linked here, being the quotes from Atlas Shrugged on the rotten oak tree and doing what is right. Link is here.

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Papandreou in Berlin today for instructions on next phase of oppression for the Greek people!

The Irish Times has a good report on the planned events in Berlin today, largely ignored elsewhere in the print media. No doubt partly due to Dublin being aware that they are treading the same path as the Greeks, albeit somewhat in arrears (no pun intended!)

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Are annual ECB cash handouts the next gimmick to suppress Europe?

An interesting proposal on the Euro crisis is to be found on "Naked Capitalism" by Marshall Auerback, linked here. It would certainly prove attractive to the new left-leaning French Senate I reported on earlier.

The writer also makes an interesting point of Wolfgang Schaulble's reported muttering of “Eppur si muove” (and yet it moves).

H/T Acting Man. One paragraph of their reaction is the following:

The ECB should 'distribute' trillions of euros to national governments, just because it strikes Auerbach as 'technically feasible'? Admittedly, all it takes to create trillions of euros from thin air in a fiat money system are a few strokes on a keyboard, we know that. So we would guess that yes, it is 'technically feasible'. The idea that 'trillions of euros would not add to aggregate demand or inflation, as member nation spending and tax policy are in any case restricted by the Maastricht criteria' is a real knee-slapper. Mr. Auerbach, a second career as a stand-up comedian awaits!

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The Corrupt Shaming of Britain's Conservative Party

Shortly Britain's Conservative Party will gather at their annual conference to debate the furure course for the country. Their party has the highest number of elected MPs  in the British House of Commons.

Party members are to be banned from mentioning the EU, which US President Obama stated last evening, was "scaring the world". Britain's Conservative Party with its LiberalDemocrat partners uses every tool of government to support the EU as it is presently constructed (while avoiding any debate on the EU in Parliament), to the obvious economic detriment of the British people and the British economy, presumably for their personal power seeking purposes or personal enrichment, what other explanation can possibly be drawn?

Some debate on this is continuing in the columns of Conservative Home, however, read here.

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My Comment to John Redwood MP today

Posted September 27, 2011 at 6:36 am | Permalink
Your comment is awaiting moderation.
The Coalition Government has made a grave error in not opening either a full political or criminal inquiry into the dealings with the banks in the latter years of the Labour administration. Suspicions are confirmed by close reading of Alistair Darling’s recent book.
Never mind precedent, or the fear of such a tool being used against themselves at some point in the future (if they act with probity thay will have nothing to fear), the circumstances surrounding RBS/Lloyds HBOS were politically inspired and encouraged and what occurred remains unknown in spite of the £Billions of taxpayers money lost as a result!. If the Government/Public Prosecuting authorites will not act then back bench MPs should.
If Labour are allowed to dodge responsibilty, as they are presently being permitted so to do, it will not just be Lib Dem MPs thrown out in an election held amidst economic meltdown!

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French Senate falls to the Left - Golden Rule Dead - New blow to Euro!

EurActiv covers the detail of the dramatic changes to the French Senate composition which has further grave implications for the euro ever again being considered a sound currency, read here.

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Monday, September 26, 2011

President Obama says EU 'scaring the world'

The Euro Zone crisis is scaring the world, said President Obama in a speech today, read here.

**Welcome to the club, Mr President, the EU has been scaring this blogger witless for years!**

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Leveraging the EFSF could imperil France's Triple A rating!

There has been much speculation today that the next step in the disaster that is the euro crisis will be a route described as leveraging the EFSF, effectively letting rip the money printing presses within the European Central Bank.

S & P last evening New York time, however, have already gone on record as stating this could endanger the triple A credit rating for some countries backing the EFSF, read here.

For more detail on these machinations, please read the linked article from the posting immediately beneath this post.

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Alistair Darling - ever nearer the brink!

The former Chancellor of the Exchequer's book, which I am slowly making my way through, ludicrously titled "Back from the Brink" over which he nearly plunged us and towards which he propelled the country, with ever clearer and more obvious consequences, contains this mind-blowing admission, by Alistair Darling, on page 61 of the hard backed Atlantic Books edition:

Fred Goodwin's office had contacted me a few days earlier and said he'd like to meet up. Although it would mean not having my private secretary with me , I felt entirely relaxed about seeing him alone at home. I was also intrigued. I had seen other CEOs of the banks alone in the past - none of this was abnormal - but I knew that his asking to see me in private could only mean that he was worried about something.

Given all the subsequent events, the earlier description by Alistair Darling in the preceding paragraphs of the inadeqacy of the RBS Board, his own Constituency and family history connections with the Royal Bank of Scotland described by the author, surely there should now be some investigation underway by the Coalition Government of what actually occurred at, and following this extraordinary meeting?

Surely, given the scale of the horrendous losses to Britain's taxpayers as a result of Brown and Darling deciding to save this absolute disaster of a bank, something should be now be being done to bring some guilty parties to account!

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The Central Problem for the Euro Currency

The entire article from which the following quote is taken is well-worth reading, complete with all its choice quotes, from the web pages of Acting Man, linked here. I choose to quote here just this small section, rich in ultimate common sense, the essence of which this blog hads been trying to put across for years, but far less adequately:

This monetary system is the cause of the boom-bust cycle that has now brought forth the crisis. There is simply no way to avoid future crises as long as this monetary system remains in place. It does not matter how many new regulations are foisted on the banks, or how big the EFSF bailout fund's resources become. All these measures are mere band-aids that fail to address the central problem. Mr. Venizelos thus is correct that 'Greece is not the euro area's central problem', but he fails to say out loud what exactly the central problem is, something he has in common with his fellow euro-area politicians and eurocrats.

Why nobody stops to ask how exactly it comes that the euro area's banks are short of capital and teetering on the brink of insolvency remains a mystery. If we were to guess, we would say that the faith in the idea that central planning of money in a fractionally reserved fiat money system is possible in principle has not yet been sufficiently shaken. However, the fact is that it is not possible, regardless of the good intentions of the planners. The very same basic problem that besets central planning in socialist command economies – the calculation problem – in a wider sense also besets central banks. Socialist economies fail because there are no market prices for capital goods, which makes it impossible to sensibly allocate scarce resources and plan production. Central banks fail because they can not 'know' what the social rate of time preference is. They try to create a 'fixed point' (their target interest rate) in a highly dynamic system on the basis of an assessment by a handful of bureaucrats who are allegedly able to judge 'what interest rate the economy needs'. Moreover, as the central bank-led fiat money system enables the fractionally reserved banks to expand credit and deposit money to the fullest extent possible due to minuscule reserve requirements and the central bank's willingness to replace their funding whenever a run on deposits occurs, the economic distortions produced by the expansion of fiduciary media can grow to unprecedented proportions. Let us not forget that every cent of 'money from thin air' leads to exchanges of nothing for something, thereby weakening the economy's pool of real savings. It also creates a misleading picture of how big a pool of savings is actually available, with the inevitable result that capital is malinvested and ultimately consumed. This is therefore the 'central problem', but judging from the debates among the monetary and political elites, it remains completely ignored.

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Timo Soini to run for President of Finland

The leader of what was the True Finns party, (now merely the Finns) has declared over the weekend that he will run in next year's Presidential elections in Finland.

If the EU continues to stumble and falter at its present rate who knows how far this anti-EU Bailout candidate could go, given that at the last attempt he managed only 3.4% of the vote, it will be a good marker for how deeply unpopular the EU has become in Finland! More here.

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Malta registers its desire for collateral in new Greek Bailout

I missed this announcement from the recent ECOFIN meeting in Poland, and am placing it on this blog's pages for the record. Details are here.

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Olli Rehn flounders again!

Reuters has the best summary that I have found on the complete lack of any progress over the weekend on the Euro crisis, linked here. This quote from their report sums it up very well:


A senior European official hinted that kind of firepower was being contemplated.
"We need to find a mechanism where we can turn one euro in the EFSF into five, but there is no decision on how we could do that yet," the official said.
Financial markets signaled some doubts that bolder steps would emerge soon given a lack of details from weekend comments and differences between euro zone leaders.

The Irish Times, uniquely involved in the Euro mess and following it in the English language, also picks Olli Rehn to open their report but significantly gives him very little coverage in the article, read here. Their report indicates that the IMF head Christine Lagarde, see post beneath this is aware that more funds from the IMF could prove poblematic:


IMF managing director Christine Lagarde said it was “ready and it will deliver on any type of resources necessary and available to all members . . . By resources I mean everything that the fund can deliver, from policy advice, from being the trusted adviser and the facilitator, to organising facilities that are needed.”

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More money for wasting by the IMF

John Redwood MP has a comment on the disgraceful amount of wastage being undertaken by the IMF now under the control of the clearly inadequate Mme Christine Lagarde, the dangers of whom this blog repeatedly warned. My comment to his lament was as follows:

Very good points and something should urgently be done. Happily a provision is available. The full Articles of Agreement for the IMF are at:
http://www.imf.org/external/pubs/ft/aa/index.htm#a5s3
A Section 5 notification should be made under the Articles of Agreement of the IMF in respect of any IMF member who is a participant in the EMU:
Section 5. Ineligibility to use the Fund’s general resources
Whenever the Fund is of the opinion that any member is using the general resources of the Fund in a manner contrary to the purposes of the Fund, it shall present to the member a report setting forth the views of the Fund and prescribing a suitable time for reply. After presenting such a report to a member, the Fund may limit the use of its general resources by the member. If no reply to the report is received from the member within the prescribed time, or if the reply received is unsatisfactory, the Fund may continue to limit the member’s use of the general resources of the Fund or may, after giving reasonable notice to the member, declare it ineligible to use the general resources of the Fund.

The Daily Telegraph also has a prominent article on the ongoing scandal at the IMF, linked here. All very gratifying for this blogger in that my early advice of this new demand for funds, made here over the weekend, has gathered such quick support.

The solution lies in the hands of the IMF and will depend, no doubt, on the votes cast, or influence applied, by its members. America will be the key. If the US administration becomes convinced that extending the agony of the euro currency for yet more months and years into the future, (as proposed by Angela Merkel on TV as reported in my first posting of today, immediately beneath this), cannot possibly be in the best interests of the world economy and a rapid economic recovery, then perhaps they will act at the IMF and ban further granting of IMF funds to EU member states unable to devalue due to their membership within the Euro Group!

It is surely clear that the world must NOW impose their chosen solution upon the Euro Group, as they are unable to act on their own, events of the past two years and especially the last few weeks, prove that beyond any shadow of doubt!

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Merkel's muddled mindset.

The German Chancellor went on  TV for an hour yesterday and provided zero coherence on the ever growing crisis within the Euro Zone. The report of the interview from Deutsche Welle is linked here, and the following are my chosen quotes indicating the mess that seems to be the Merkel mind:

allowing Greece to default on its debt could trigger a domino effect within the eurozone that would destroy investor confidence in the currency union....

...she would not rule out the possibility that one could manage "the insolvency of a state just like a bank" once the eurozone implements its permanent bailout fund, the European Stability Mechanism, in 2013.

Clearly the EU will be better placed to fight off further insolvencies once the ESM (in the unlikely event it is ever ratified) is in place, but eighteen months ago Merkel and Sarkozy wrongly thought that a combination of the EFSF and the EFSM would be sufficient to fight off a Greek default, later also believing the same could apply for Ireland, Portugal and the second Greek bailout!

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Sunday, September 25, 2011

Ironies Too, a quote from 29/4/2010

If the Euro currency is to be saved, it will be at the expense of all our freedoms both to choose an individual and independent way of carrying on our own national affairs and to live in freedom under our own laws


The post from which the above quote is taken,titled "German Extremism over Greece", linked here

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IMF lacks the resources to tackle coming crisis!

Bloomberg has the report from the continuing meetings in New York, linked here.

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Treasures from the threads - Number 65 - EU rescue!

Writing on the new EU €1.75 trillion bailout reported in the Sunday Telegraph this morning, linked here, I found this comment most succinctly gets to the basics:



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7 people

What I don't understand is how these people can think they can defy everything that is known about effort and reward, profit and loss and pursuit of ideals without consequences.

If I decided that I wanted to build a swimming pool in my garden, I would have to ascertain whether I could afford the repayments on the loan that I would need. I would have to work out whether those payments would destroy my and my family's existing quality of life and calculate the resulting benefit.

It seems to me that the governments of the west (primarily those of the EU) are so hell-bent on pursuing their dream of statehood, that they are willing to destroy everything in their path to achieve it.

There is a very popular game called Monopoly... In the box is a set finite amount of cash, some of which is held by the bank, and some of which is shared out among the players. You win the game by making good decisions, you lose everything by making bad decisions. These are the simple realities of life that are completely lost on our politicians who produce nothing other than hot air, and expect a free ride off of the backs of everyone else.

Stoffel's comment further down the same thread regarding the same report also captures the essence of the crisis, it is linked from here.

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Von Rompuy's sick joke as EU faces collapse

The supposed senior of several spurious Presidents for which the taxpayers of the EU are compelled to support in luxury, Herman Von Rompuy, the Lisbon Treaty appointed Head of the EU Council, yesterday saw fit to make the following sick tweet as he flitted around New York:

Herman Van Rompuy

With Henry Kissinger. We are exchanging phone numbers.

This as the Head of the US Treasury issued the EU with the following stark and ominous warning:

"The threat of cascading default, bank runs, and catastrophic risk must be taken off the table, as otherwise it will undermine all other efforts, both within Europe and globally. Decisions as to how to conclusively address the region's problems cannot wait until the crisis gets more severe,"  



Kissinger, when he first made his remark that if there were a crisis he would not know who to call for a response from Europe, could never have imagined a near virtual implosion of the world's economy, caused by the EU, while the supposed man in the overall co-ordinating role for the EU was mainly involved in tweeting remarks in Flemish as he jollied around New York.

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Saturday, September 24, 2011

French restrictions on Gold transactions.

Yesterday I linked to a report on The Slog regarding gold, that posting has been corrected to reflect a new French decree issued on 29th July 2011 which states the following:

Article L112-6 of the French legal code – amended by Law n ° 2011-900 of July 29, 2011….art. 51 (V) – states as follows (my emphasis):
‘Toute transaction relative à l’achat au détail de métaux ferreux et non ferreux est effectuée par chèque barré, virement bancaire ou postal ou par carte de paiement , sans que le montant total de cette transaction puisse excéder un plafond fixé par décret. Le non-respect de cette obligation est puni par une contravention de cinquième classe.’

The two posts are linked here and here.

Cascading default, catastrophic risks & bank runs, US lays it out for the EU!

The following quote from Timothy Geithner comes from a reuters report, linked here:

"The threat of cascading default, bank runs, and catastrophic risk must be taken off the table, as otherwise it will undermine all other efforts, both within Europe and globally. Decisions as to how to conclusively address the region's problems cannot wait until the crisis gets more severe," Geithner said.

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Cameron and Coulson, the stain on Downing Street re-visited!

As Parliament resumed one year ago, I wrote a posting, linked here, which began as follow:


Cameron's stain on Downing Street - Andy Coulson!

Any self-respecting Conservative Party voter should look at the output of any typical edition of the scandal sheet that appeared every sunday in Britain between 2003 and 2007 under the title News of the World, as edited by Andy Coulson and ponder what moral compass could be possessed by a Prime Minister who would appoint such a man as Head of Communications at Number 10 Downing Street, the publicly owned property assigned for the use of the nation's presiding political leader.

In the intervening period, while Cameron has consistently ignored the growing crisis within the EU that is now about to finally swamp our nation, admittedly caused by the low-life scumbags of the Labour Party leadership now gathering in Liverpool, I have also returned from time to time to the topic of Andy Coulson, read here, Coulson is again in the headlines of the British press, read here, reminding us that our Prime Minister, at this crucial moment, has thereby rendered himself as unfit for his office!

Further more, as I indicated when writing the following over one year ago, the leadership of the Liberal Democrats are now similarly implicated through their non-action, in the corruption that clearly riddles the British political party system:


Liberal Democrats not wishing to now become tarred by the same brush of sleaze, half-truths and downright untruths which the Downing Street media manipulation machine has become over recent years should quickly re-examine the backgrounds and lack of integrity and judgement that seems to be the rule among the leadership of their coalition partners as Parliament re-convenes after its long break during the past crisis ridden summer.

The LibDems chose not so to do, Britain is thus left without any party of integrity at Westminster as the economies of our Continental Partners, upon whom our politicians have chosen to squander this nation's wealth, face economic collapse! Worse all as constantly predicted on this blog, and others, over many, many years!

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UBS Head Quits

The CEO of the troubled Swiss bank UBS, Oswald Gruebel, has resigned following the alleged losses of $2.3 billion in an alleged insider rogue trader incident.

According to the Reuters report on the sudden resignation, linked here:


The board reconfirmed the bank's "integrated" strategy, combining wealth management, investment bank, asset management and Swiss retail and corporate businesses, but said it wanted to speed up a restructuring of investment banking.
The board said it had asked management to accelerate the implementation of a client-centric strategy for the investment bank "concentrating on advisory, capital >markets, and client flow and solutions businesses."
"In the future, the Investment Bank will be less complex, carry less risk and use less capital to produce reliable returns and contribute more optimally to UBS's overall objectives," Villiger said.

UBS had already said in August it would axe 3,500 more jobs to shave 2 billion Swiss francs off annual costs, with almost half of those cuts coming from the investment bank, which had grown to almost 18,000 staff from 16,500 a year ago.

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Anguished Analysts & Tormented Tipsters N° 1

As the wealth of Europe melts before our eyes and the consequences of the obscene waste and high-living life-styles of those who have deceitfully driven the EU project forward over the past few years, seemingly entirely for their own personal gains in power, prestige and tax limited pensions, grow daily more evident, I felt it would be salutary to expose some of their market based individual facilitators and their employees to exposure, particularly in view of the mass of video footage and other data now available and lying around unremarked on the internet.

I pondered, over night, whether such a series would be overly harsh on the individuals involved, but have cast aside such doubts when considering the damage, lost wealth and misery they have surely caused their victims.

Thus for the first such entry I have chosen a Mr Hoffmann-Becking who on 31st March of this year, upgraded his rating on French banks thereafter appearing on Bloomberg to push that channel's viewers into buying and thus investing in the shares of the three major french banks. I cannot embed the video as, perhaps understably, embedding has been disabled by request, but you may view it from the following link:

http://youtu.be/74GOWTpwdQU

In the period of less than six months since this buy recommendation was made on TV, the stocks of the 3 banks have declined by an average of 37%. A good benchmark to begin this new feature of this blog! What bets on where the losses will lie after one year?

Credit Agricole from €12.01 to €4.22
BNP from €53.23 to €23.06
SG from €47.38 to €15.56
Any readers with candidates for this new blog section may email details to me at my usual address martin.cole on gmail!

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Friday, September 23, 2011

Particles faster than light - Brilliant!

If this posting's headline is true, detail here, then it is probably the best possible news at the end of a rather gloomy week.

If one of Einstein's solid physics theories, that has held throughout the twentieth century and so far well into the twenty-first, is proven to be false, then perhaps another, already the norm in the 21st Century, that the West's politicians have to be telegenic, completely shallow, sometimes corrupt and more often than not, as thick as two short planks, will soon also be broken. Heaven knows we badly need some startling change!

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Demand for Irish Referendum on ESM Treaty

A report in the Irish Times, on the move by independent parliamentarians in Ireland, is linked here. A quote:

A letter, signed by Sinn Féin, Independents and Socialist Party representatives and co-sponsored by the People's Movement group says the treaty that establishes the European Stability Mechanism (ESM) will subordinate Ireland's interests in Europe to those of "the stability of the euro area as a whole".
People's Movement spokesperson Kevin McCorry, said the Treaty commits the State to "irrevocably and unconditionally contribute some €11 billion towards an Eurozone fund from 2013 onwards with the possibility of demands for further sums down the line."
The letter says assistance from the ESM will only be given to countries on the basis of "unspecified" and "potentially unlimited" conditions.

The terms of the unratified ESM Treaty are linked from an earlier post on this blog, linked here, while some extra remarks are here.

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Wondering why gold fell in price yesterday?

Read the latest Crash 2 The Slog exclusive, from here.

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Chris Huhne - selling out Britain to the EU

The Wikipedia profile of Chris Huhne has this to say of his time in the sham known as the European parliament:

During his time in the European Parliament, Huhne was the only Liberal Democrat MEP in a ranking by The Economist of the three most high-profile UK MEPs (the others being Glenys Kinnock and Caroline Lucas). He was a member of the Economic and Monetary Affairs Committee, concerned with economic and financial policy including regulation of the financial sector. He was economic spokesman for the pan-European Liberal group in the European Parliament and was responsible for introducing "sunset clauses" – time limits on powers – into European legislation for the first time; for radically amending Commission proposals on financial services; and for opening up the European Central Bank to greater scrutiny.

More interestingly the truth about the intentions of this man, presently able to saddle the British taxpayers with huge and unnecessary energy costs for decades and generations to come, for the sole benefit of those in control of his EU pension providers, may be read from Tory Aardvark, linked here.

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A day so ghastly even David Cameron noticed!

The Daily Telegraph has a chronological account of yesterday's mainly chilling, but long inevitable, events, linked here.

As it then records in its online main headline, as even repeated on the EU controlled BBC main news Radio 4 bulletin headlines this morning, even David Cameron, whose long list of platitudes at the UN in New York yesterday literally made my flesh creep, actually noticed and in Ottawa that evening  finally personally addressed the now surely terminal EU crisis. Read that from here.

Instead of words, concrete actions are now required by the British Prime Minister. Specific steps to stem the bleeding of ever more precious taxpayer funds to the disaster that is the EU, where the Greek default, long stated as an EU impossibility, must now surely follow by the end of this year at the latest!

Britain is being bled by the EU. This continues because our establishment is riddled with those in its pay, or expectation of EU payments, together with various benefits  and expectations of future employment from that thoroughly corrupt institution. This is particularly true of many among Tory Party coalition partner's members in the upper echelons Liberal Democrat Party. Quite simply, this is surely treason under any basic understanding of what that that term intends! It is also true of the BBC which is in receipt of EU funds and by its reporting facilitates the destitution of the British people who provide most of its funds through the obscene licece fees.

Where in the Conservative or Labour Parties are MPs who will step forward and authoritively state these facts, of which more and more in Britain are beginning to recognise as the absolute truth?

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Thursday, September 22, 2011

Ambrose Evans-Pritchard predicts EU Bank Privatisations

The debate on France24 this evening was interesting, as it gave a platform to one of the most astute of Britain's media reporters on the EU, Ambrose Evans-Pritchard, International Business Editor of the London Daily Telegraph (to whose articles this blog has often linked) a platform on the broadcasting media mostly denied him within the UK.

This blogger, who is now (with its forerunners, including a novel, EU Futura, FT Forums & "Ironies") coming up to fifteen years of making the same case, takes heart from our voice finally being heard at the centre of the EU!

The debate, in which A-EP is, as usual quite frank, on the mess in Europe's banking industry, may be heard from this link.

The democratic deficit which lies at the root of the EU economic problems, may also soon perhaps be considered! It is a pity that it is only by falling governments and widespread poverty and its resulting rioting that such an opportunity now presents itself!

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Mary Ellen Synon on Prof. Markus Kerber!

Nice to see ME Synon back on the Daily Mail Blog, today she writes about a speech by Professor Kerber in Brussels last evening, linked here. Yesterday she discussed the Bundesbank stance vs the ECB, which has already been extensively covere on this blog, but MES is always worth reading so that is also linked from here.

The conclusion to today's posting was as follows:

But Kerber's argument stands -- that the bailouts are against European treaty law and against the German constitution because they endanger the monetary stability of the country. More, the bailouts endanger German sovereignty because they leave the German taxpayer at the mercy of decisions taken by the EU insitutions, instead of by the German government and parliament.
The German people are becoming more and more aware of this truth: that continued German government agreement to bail-outs will leave them with no power, but with an unlimited liability. The Germans will not let this go on.
'The euro experiment is effectively over.' said Kerber. 'Now it must be brought to a close.'

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Prof. Kerber lashes out at ECB and Trichet

Open Europe in its daily press update reports an attack by Professor Markus Kerber on the spendthrift activities of the ECB under the leadership of Jean-Claude Trichet:

Speaking at a New Direction Debate in Brussels, German Professor Markus Kerber, who challenged the eurozone bailouts at the German Constitutional Court said, "it is crystal clear that with his daily buying of government bonds, [ECB President] Jean-Claude Trichet is overstepping his powers,” adding, "the fact that the European Parliament has applauded Trichet shows that it is completely disoriented from its voters, who are weary of the ECB's actions."

Elsewhere in the same report comes the mind-blowing news that from next year banks will be able to unload yet more worthless assets on the already overburdened EU citizenry:

The ECB announced yesterday that it would be easing its collateral requirements by accepting assets, as collateral in exchange for loans, that are not listed on regulated public markets from the start of 2012. This could pave the way for banks to use billions in asset-backed-securities that were previously unsellable, according to CityAM.

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BNP reported to be in equity talks with Qatar

The Slog has the latest on BNP Paribas, linked here. A quote:

The reality is that an hour ago, news that Qatar is in talks with BNP Paribas on taking a stake in the troubled bank was confirmed - and a cash for equity swap would not be on the table if the bank's affairs were hunky-dory. This has echoes of Barclays' dash for capital (in order to avoid a Government bailout) in 2008.

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Autumnal Equinox 2011 - The time to beat Drake's Drum?



Drake’s Drum
Drake he's in his hammock an' a thousand miles away,
(Capten, art tha sleepin' there below?)
Slung atween the round shot in Nombre Dios Bay,
An' dreamin' arl the time O' Plymouth Hoe.
Yarnder lumes the Island, yarnder lie the ships,
Wi' sailor lads a-dancing' heel-an'-toe,
An' the shore-lights flashin', an' the night-tide dashin',
He sees et arl so plainly as he saw et long ago.

Drake he was a Devon man, an' ruled the Devon seas,
(Capten, art tha' sleepin' there below?)
Roving' tho' his death fell, he went wi' heart at ease,
A' dreamin' arl the time o' Plymouth Hoe.
"Take my drum to England, hang et by the shore,
Strike et when your powder's runnin' low;
If the Dons sight Devon, I'll quit the port o' Heaven,
An' drum them up the Channel as we drumm'd them long ago."

Drake he's in his hammock till the great Armadas come,
(Capten, art tha sleepin' there below?)
Slung atween the round shot, listenin' for the drum,
An' dreamin arl the time o' Plymouth Hoe.
Call him on the deep sea, call him up the Sound,
Call him when ye sail to meet the foe;
Where the old trade's plyin' an' the old flag flyin'
They shall find him ware an' wakin', as they found him long ago!


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Wednesday, September 21, 2011

Twitpic of Von Rompuy - posted on Twitter apparently by himself

Look at the title of the link below, click on it or enter as a URL and then reflect...... does twitpic not say it all! But who the heck is Didier?

http://twitpic.com/6oe3qn

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Finns maintain Collateral Demands on Greece, Slovenia collapse poses new threat

Well the prospects for the 21 July nonsensical  revision for the EFSF for a second Greek bailout appear as far from realisation as when I took off for a brief break some two weeks ago. A report from the WSJ on the arrival in the Finnish parliament of the package, due to be voted upon by the end of the month is linked here.

As all 17 Euro Group members must ratify the agreement in their Parliaments, even the Finn's collateral roadblock appears small beer when the collapse of the Slovenian Government looks like imposing stale mate in that country for the remainder of this year. Read more from here.

Latest detail on pension cuts, redundancies and more taxes so far agreed by Greece to obtain the next Bailout 1.0 tranche from the troika may be read from Reuters, linked here.

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BNP Paribas Chairman's Confidence Statement worries me.

Living in France I do my local banking through an account with BNP Paribas. Yesterday's statement by that bank's Chairman, linked here, does not however give me any cosy warm feelings in my tummy.

A banker telling me not to worry is about as consoling as a Central Banker declaring there is no problem with the Euro nor Quantatitive Easing, and about as believable as a politician when seeking votes and pretending he has your best interests at heart, when he and his party have a long track record of doing the exact opposite.

Unhappily there seems nothing I can now do to regain that lost feeling that money is real, all I see argues the opposite, but also offers no sane alternatives to merely plodding on!

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The EU's Economic Warfare - Britain is now the world's most indebted large nation!

A report released by CNBC last evening has some extraordinarily depressing news for the British Isles. At first place in the world league of indebtedness comes Ireland, and with Switzerland in between in second place, Britain then comes in at number three!

Out of the world's 75 largest economies, the United States has the 20th largest as debt-to-GDP ratio, standing at 94.3%, with a gross external debt of $13.454 trillion and an annual GDP $14.26 trillion. In fact, out of the largest 75 economies, this number is just above the worldwide average of 90.8% Western-European and North American countries dominate the upper end of the spectrum, with Switzerland (422%) and the United Kingdom (408%) at the #2 and #3 spots, respectively, and Ireland representing the most drastic debt-to-GDP ratio. According to the most recent World Bank data, Ireland's number stands at a staggering 1,267%.

Britain's debt has been incurred due to misgovernment by its politicians and civil servants, most notably during the previous Labour Administration but much of it continuing under the present Coalition Government.

This morning, a clear example of such waste, was given on the BBC Radio 4 Today programme at 0722 to 0726 local time,(listen here update 0950) when Lord John Prescott attempted to justify the waste of almost half a billion pounds on Fire Control Centres, on the grounds that it was part of the former Government's Regional Policies. Lord Prescott, did not mention the fact that the Regional Policy is carried out under the instructions of the EU from Brussels.

The EU is waging economic warfare against Britain!

Assisting in the deliberate bankruptcy of our country are large numbers of supposed public servants and legislators, receiving or due to receive huge, tax minimised pensions from the EU. I named two such on this blog yesterday. Many others lurk within Britain's upper legislative chamber, the House of Lords, where just before the last Parliamentary recess, most of whom with their pensions and vested interests undeclared, in large numbers they completely neutered the European Union Act, supposedly intended to protect Britain from future assaults against the economic welfare of the people of our nation by the EU.

This blog is not merely anti-EU, which many other fine blogs trying to protect the independence of our country now boldly declare.

Ironies Too believes the EU has been waging economic warfare against Britain for many years, and in that cause it has subverted many of our legislators and public servants, such that we today stand on the verge of utter economic annihilation. Direct rule from the EU must then clearly follow!

We cannot fight such an enemy without first making the intellectual leap towards recognising that we are now fighting a dedicated, devious and pernicious enemy, for our economic lives.

We are beyond the stage of Referendums supplying any answer. A first, possibly really effective weapon, does still lie within our national hands and capabilities, however, that would be to ban from public office or legislative assembly, any individual, now being, or at some future date due to be, in receipt of funds from the EU, with the option of retaining  their posts if they publicly renounce such payments.

An independent country cannot be efficiently governed nor managed if its senior legislators and administrators are paid by those whose interests are other than the best interests of the people of the nation. Such is the case in the British Isles today!

Alternatively the EU could voluntarily withdraw such payments, turn its face against its progress by deceit and lies and abandon its present institutions, while seeking a democratic way ahead, thus also solving its own economic crisis at a stroke!

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Tuesday, September 20, 2011

Housing Crisis remains at root of our ongoing economic disaster!

From time to time this blog returns to the housing disaster which affects almost the entire english speaking world. Our leaders try to ignore it, presumably as they either hope it will go away or convince themselves that inflation will cause it to disappear.

In the past this blog has proposed some suggested cures, but I have now tired of re-posting the various links. A survey from the USA today, however, has such startling facts on the ongoing crisis that I felt it necessary to briefly return to the topic (in spite of all the excitement of the continuing slow-motion collapse of the euro). Here are some of the lowlights:

Only those homeowners under thirty and over fifty are now in the majority in thinking that their home equity will add to their retirement funds.

22.5% of all homeowners with a mortgage are now underwater.

68% reported that if they lost their job they would not be able to continue with their mortgage payments after nine months. Typical unemployment extends to almost 10 months

Americans dumped upon by their own politicians, must now face nothing but almost complete dismay, as European leaders continue to play russian roulette with the world's economy!

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Chris Huhne's EU Pension Dilemma and Energy Treason!

Chris Huhne, Britains Energy Secretary, former MEP, like his party leader Nick Clegg, will lose his EU pension were he to do the unthinkable and put Britain's interests before those of the EU. This is costing the country very dear in in the energy field, as I have been blogging, both here, and soon on Orphans of Liberty since the past weekend.

Try to watch a replay of the Sky News interview with John Redwood MP immediately before the speech, who seems to have been doing some remarkably clear thinking on the topic of Britain's energy disaster over the past few days!

Incredibly Huhne, was sufficiently open about his own agenda, by mentioning the danger to Common Purpose at the conclusion of his conference speech!

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China State Bank halts FX swaps with UBS and big 3 French banks!

CNBC TV  this morning has the startling news contained in this post's headline. Will this wake up the leaders of the Eurozone? Don't bet on it, as news elsewhere reports they are about to send more funds, including thosr from Britain via the IMF and the EFSM to Greece!

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Italian downgrade by S&P rocks the Euro in Asia & Von Rompuy at UN.

Standard and Poor's cut by one notch to A of Italy's sovereign debt rating, is yet one further move on the march towards reality for the EU.

The lunatic buying of Italian debt by the effectively unsupported ECB can be seen to be even more obscenely absurd as a result of this move, all as so clearly spelt out in the interview in Der Spigel, of yesterday, with the head of the Bundesbank, linked here.

In spite of this move and the ongoing, agonising and offensive negotiations with Greece, the appointed head of the corrupt, unaudited and overspending EU entity, the ludicrous and offensive Herman Von Rompuy will insult some 500 million European citizens by presuming to address the General Assembly of the United Nations on their supposed behalf. Sovereign European Nations states should require their Ambassadors to refuse to attend during this address, as a protest against this affront!

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Monday, September 19, 2011

France approaches the end of its tether!

Open Europe daily email press briefing today has this extract from a leading French daily newspaper:

In Le Figaro, French Professor Édouard Tétreau argues, “France has already voted two bailout plans for Greece in two years, coming with a cost of more than €30bn – the equivalent of what is raised from income taxes in France in seven months. Who would agree, in our country, to work seven months to subsidise the lifestyle of people who are unable to pay their own taxes? By subsidising this organised robbery, we are not doing Greece, or Europe, a favour.” He suggests that the time has come to “drop Greece in order to save Europe. Sometimes, one needs to have an arm cut to survive.”

Worse still is the following exposé from Acting Man, linked here, of the French bank's exposure to other EU crisis-riven former nations:

France's biggest banks, which are known to have the biggest direct exposure to Greek government debt in Europe. As a result, Moody's has already downgraded these banks. However, the problems the French banks potentially face go well beyond Greece – as we noted in a recent update, they hold some € 140 billion in Spanish debt and € 400 billion in Italian debt. Overall, the liabilities of the three biggest French banks (Credit Agricole, BNP Paribas and Societe Generale) amount to €4.7 trillion – 250% of France's GDP.

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A reply to a reply from John Redwood MP

A morning post from John Redwood this morning should fill us with some hope, read it here. It drew this comment and reply from Mr Redwood as follows:

Posted September 19, 2011 at 7:11 am | Permalink
The problem for people like yourself who actually are expert in the ways of parliament must be that you know the majority of MPs in the past – especially those in power in an elected dictatorship – are totally in favour of the EU as it is. Nick Clegg, I read, is mad keen to be a Commissioner. Big pay rise, lots more power, return to living in Europe with his Spanish wife, and all that. I would not blame him: I would certainly go for an opportunity like that at his age. Look at Lord and Lady Kinnoch for heaven’s sake! In-laws to the Danish PM!
So do you compromise or do you attack?
Easy for us outsiders to say “Attack!” But you insiders realise it isn’t that easy.
I am sorry to have to say that the attitude of wait and see is beginning to look very much like Appeasement. I am waiting for the invasion of Poland…….

Reply: Eurosceptics have been arguing, proposing amendments, seeking to veto laws and Treaties for years. We are very happy to attack, and often do. To win we need more troops.


Martin Cole Comment awaiting moderation. Indeed to win you need more troops but possibly also better targeted weaponry and a recognition when selecting your ammunition that it is an enemy that you face, not allied troops posing as aggressors in a battlefield exercise. So far we have been firing blanks as we have incorrectly defined our opponents!
On Saturday morning I posted on the damage that the false decisions across the energy field will likely cause for decades ahead, what the foreign owned power utilities in Britain appear to be undertaking will severely damage any chance of our recovering a solid manufacturing base.
http://ironiestoo.blogspot.com/2011/09/is-germany-saddling-its-eu-economic.html

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Troika demands Greece fire 45,000 civil servants for new funds!

The terrible price for saving the electoral skins of Angela Merkel and Nicolas Sarkozy rose another notch last evening as an emergency meeting of the Greek cabinet was informed of the new firings required by the troika of the EU,IMF and ECB as available in The Australian, linked here, from which comes this quote:

As part of discussions with its creditors, Greece agreed in March this year to lay off 80,000 public-sector workers by 2015. But with the consent of the troika, the government has also hired around 25,000 new workers in the past two years to fill shortages in select areas of the public sector.
Now, with Greece unlikely to meet its deficit targets this year, the troika has upped the target for public-sector layoffs to 100,000 – demanding that the government proceed with its promised public-sector cutbacks while rescinding all new hiring made in the past 20 months.

Britain and the rest of the EU be warned! France and Germany jointly imposed the euro currency upon Europe knowing it would fail without fiscal and political union, France and Germany deliberately smashed the Growth and Stability pact which if honoured might have deferred the coming collapse and now France and German will sacrifice the rest of the EU to avoid the default of their national banks!

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Sunday, September 18, 2011

Merkel's party coalition partners lose Berlin representation

The exit poll results confirm the pre-election polls and see the Pirate Party gain local representation at the expense of the Free Democrats, read here.

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Greek PM Papandreou cancels US trip

Bloomberg has the report which confirms that matters for Greece and the Euro could finally be coming to a head. Read also "The 6th and final tranche" regarding the next IMF payment due to Greece, from Covering Delta, linked here. The following is a quote from that comment:

... I still believe that Europe has one more can-kicking exercise in futility left in its playbook. I believe that Europe’s leaders have already decided that they cannot save the eurozone-17, and that their only hope to preserve the euro as a currency is to downsize the EMU membership so as to prevent disorderly exits and market forces from dictating who gets kicked out and how. To do this, they still need more time, and the 6th tranche may give them just enough of it to solidify their preparations.

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Is Germany saddling its EU economic enemies with excess energy costs?

(Later edit - added 0740 GMT 20/9/11, the video I sought, as mentioned in the first paragraph of this posting, was by Volker Beckers of RWEnpower , and is now included at the end of this posting. Many thanks to AK Haart for finding it for me)

There exists a YouTube video which shows a German executive of E.ON addressing a UK audience and confirming that offshore wind energy production costs are some three times those of available alternatives. I will add it at the end of this post when and if I can re-locate it. Meantime consider the incredible figures set out by another E.ON operative in the following video:



The tragic accident this week that took the lives of four Welsh miners also provides food for further thought on energy costs, when considering the frequent broadcast comments that locals had no knowledge of the mining operations underway at the location where the deadly and tragic accident occurred. Yet Britain's coal resources were nationalised for the supposed benefit of the nation many years ago. If coal-mining is again economically viable in Wales, why is it not being undertaken by the successor to the NCB, to ease both the nation's energy costs and unemployment in South Wales.

Further signs of a conspiracy, involving the energy costs for our country, hit me last week, when I saw the huge two page advertisements by the Norwegian State Oil Company, Statoil, extolling the benefits for Britain of Norways neighbouring deposits of natural gas, see more here. Nobody should need to point out such obvious benefits in a sane world, are they necessary because Britain's rulers, now completely contolled from the near continent, wish to deprive our manufacturers of the benefits of competitively priced energy from which we may never recover?

Where does the blame lie for all of this treachery? Dubious decisions and actions that will lumber the nation with excess energy costs for decades ahead are this moment being made by this Coalition Government, thus making any manufacturing recovery nigh on impossible, to the main benefit of the German's and the French, whose energy companies control Britain's energy costs through their economic and possibly political imperatives. No blame can attach to their national leaders and politicians, they are doing their utmost to secure the jobs, futures and livliehoods of their own citizens!

The traitors are those in Britain who have ceded such powers to foreigners, presumably in stupidity or for their own personal advancement or the power gains of the foul and corrupt political parties to which they owe their allegiance.

Britain must seize this moment of crisis within the Eurozone to take back the responsibilities for determining its own future by quitting the EU. Gerhard Schroeder, senior figure of the next German controlling party, the SPD, has already made clear that an EU with no say for Britain, is Germany's planned course, as I posted and linked yesterday on this blog. Those politicians not  NOW seeking an exit from the EU, for the UK, are blind to the future of generations of our citizens yet unborn

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Saturday, September 17, 2011

Germany plans a unilateral eurozone financial transactions tax!

German state broadcaster, Deutsche Welle, has the above startling announcement, surely designed to finally eventually destroy the last remaining prospects for ever returning to prosperity within the euro zone nations or a say in world trade for Europe! Read the full details from here. A quote:

"We plan on setting up a financial transaction tax this fall, if need be only in the eurozone," German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schäuble told the newspaper Bild am Sonntag.

A unilateral financial transactions tax for the eurozone will drive most financial institutions beyond the eurozone's borders. Such a proposal coming from the Finance Minister of the most powerful manufacturing economy within the EU, must surely indicate Germany has opted to proceed without Britain, as suggested earlier by former SPD leader Gerhard Schroeder, as I reported here, and more importantly here!

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Euro Ecofin Ministers defer any meaningful decisions yet again!

Like Cathedral Trustess meeting beneath their steeple which is itself infested with the death watch beetle and rot, yet shirking any commitment to make repairs or take preventative measures, the Ecofin Finance Ministers, will shortly be lucky to find any edifice at all remaining, in which to meet, nor common currency surviving for any further endless discussion.

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Monday, September 12, 2011

German Constitutional Court ruling vetoes further EU Bailouts!

As I blogged when the news of the German Constitutional Court Ruling appearing to validate further bailouts of EU spendthrifts, further consideration of the detailed terms would be required before the exact effects could be predicted. Some comment on that question is now appearing, see this report from Business Insider, linked here.

The following is a brief quote of the unsavory reality for the centralizing federalists now planning to impose economic governance, and therefore zero or negative growth, across the EU portion of the European continent. Wealth creation and economic growth cannot be best attained by totalitarianism:

"any permanent overarching economic mechanism that could right this crisis would require a popular referendum to (more or less) abolish Germany as an individual state altogether."

Only temporary bailouts will be viewed as constitutional in Germany and only then as approved by the parliament. The presently negotiated, but as yet unratified ESM seems therefore unconstitutional!

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Pound up on the Euro, French Bank shares drop by 10%

The ECB, having lost its German Chief Economist on Friday, must be relieved at the moment, as not yet seen as just one more over-committed French bank, as all their shares plunged 10% this morning! Read here.

Even the pound sterling, suffering under the combined mismanagement of both the Conservative and Liberal Democrats, after many years of probably criminal incompetence and mismanagement by the Labour Party, (as confirmed by Alistair Darling MP for all the main beneficiaries in his Edinburgh constituency) rose to exceed 1.17 to the euro.

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The deceits and misconceptions underpinning the EU must GO!

The collapse of the Euro Common Currency, now in progress, is certain to be a traumatic experience for all those involved in the EU project.

If there is to be a way to be found to prevent the consequences of such a currency meltdown, also destroying the few benefits the EU itself has brought to Europe, some painful soul-searching by those who have driven the supposed founders' dream to the brink of this disaster, is obviously the first essential. Detailed descriptions of each mistaken step towards this disaster may be found in the archives of this blog, together with those of its forerunner "Ironies".

The main simple errors, however, do not require hours of tedious reading of reams of papers nor indeed of the mass of digital records nowadays instantaneously available.

The EU has arrived where it is today, on the verge of complete breakdown, because it sought to by-pass democracy, while secretively enriching and ensconcing in power, those at the heart of the project who simultaneously sought to perpetuate such advantages for the sole and exclusive benefit of their chosen heirs.

The well-known dangers of such a Platonic tyranny have been witnessed many times down the centuries, as indeed brilliantly critiqued by Karl Popper in that just past, is it not incredible that almost all of Europe has once again come so close to enabling such a ghastly disaster?

The consequences to now be endured all across the twenty-seven former independent and once sovereign nation states will best be mitigated by rejecting the certain soon to be demanded solution, that the structures of the failed EU are best placed to handle the consequences of such avarice driven incompetence. Nothing, IMO, could be more immediately nor obviously absurd! Strident warnings will be issued (indeed have already begun), that each country now seeking a better way forward could lead to the risk of beggar-my-neighbour selfishness, if not indeed even to potential actual physical warfare.

Tackling the waste inherent across all the pillars of the perpetually unaudited EU by a suspension of national payments to all its Institutions will rapidly alert national politicians that they are once again in control of the fate of their countries, and thereafter  accountable to their own voters while simultaneously depriving those play-actors, across the EU, who have squandered our trillions paid into their undeserved stipends.

Naming the deliberate conspirators and separating them from the stupid starry eyed idealists who truly believed in a European utopia, should begin immediately. I would name among the former, Jean Monnet, whose first identified that moving ahead by lies and deceit would be the best means to achieve whatever it was that lay deep within his innermost soul.

Identifying the misguided objectives which held up non-democracy, and thereby tyranny, as an honourable ideal outcome, and ensuring this grave error is understood across our Continent, seems to me as essential as ensuring our economies are placed back onto sound economic footings with the utmost speed.

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