This is a level of monetary Ignorance quite staggering considering the melt down of 2008. Savings have nothing at all to do with Capital formation in the modern financialised economy . Banks are originators of Credit, this Bank of England research paper explains it very well and a Click on this Professor Richard Werner Link will probably yield a little surprise for this view of political economy
The same can be said for the US’s overall external deficit. Unless the US can boost its savings rate relative to its internal investment needs, it will continue to need foreign capital inflows. And this, in turn, will require it to maintain a trade and current-account imbalance.
Jim O’Neill, a former chairman of Goldman Sachs Asset Management and former Commercial Secretary to the UK Treasury, is Honorary Professor of Economics at Manchester University and former Chairman of the Review on Antimicrobial Resistance.
LONDON – Here’s a reality check for British and American policymakers, and for the many pundits who frequently comment on world trade without understanding its realities: data on Germany’s total exports and imports in 2016 indicate that its largest trading partner is now China. France and the United States have been pushed into second and third place.
This news should not come as a surprise. I have often mused that, by 2020, German companies (and policymakers) might prefer a monetary union with China to one with France, given that German-Chinese trade would likely continue to grow.
Recent data indicate that Germany’s largest trading partner is now China, rather than France. This news should serve as a reality check for protectionist policymakers in the UK and the US, and for the many pundits who frequently comment on world trade without understanding its realities.
Even as such a reactionary speaks, or is read, or watched – as he invades PC discourse – the politically correct can feel their life draining away, can sense the world receding, can perceive the delusional world crumbling, the void yawning.Hence the viciousness, the panicked attack using anything to hand which might work: ad hominem inventions (immediately believed as facts), fantasied motivations, lies of any and every kind and even violence (at second hand – regretted, maybe, but not condemned).
For the PC it is vitally necessary to control discourse, to exclude all hostile communications if possible, immediately to stop them if they break through. There can be no delay – effective dissent must be shouted-down, mocked, vilified, shut-up; the politically correct must switch-off, turn-away, gabble and gossip to drown or silence the hostile discourse; instruct, direct and unleash the mob – then begin again to rebuild the thought prison of PC discourse by their own words, in their own image.
*
The venom of the politically correct is the venom of a person faced by the extinction of those pleasurable distractions upon which they rely utterly to keep themselves going: the ever-expanding choice of favourite food; the anticipated holidays anywhere; the pleasures of seduction without restrictions; the unbounded potential novelties of sex, picking and mixing among an un-endingly growing, whirling and recombining of cultures and ideas; the experimentation with drinks and (maybe) drugs; fantastic hopes for these to be facilitated by world peace, harmony, abolition of poverty, blendings: in sum, the infinite possibilities of the future, and the hope of pleasures so overwhelming and utterly absorbing as to extinguish all concerns concerning meaninglessness or lack of purpose: strong enough to delete self-consciousness.
*
The more extreme, the less realistic, the greater the delusional psychoticism of the PC dream – the greater its fragility and the greater the loathing of anyone who threatens to shatter it.
*
Against such reactionaries anything is permitted – restrained only by the danger of evoking such an extreme of self-disgust, of demoralization, as to shatter the dream oneself.
This is the danger faced by the intellectual elite – that one day they will behave such that they will destroy their own delusions of themselves.
Then there will be nowhere for them to turn.
Nowhere at all.
*
*The irrationality of PC
Logic is extremely dangerous to political correctness, since its basic survival mechanism is one of continual revolution, continual attack, continual ground-shifting.
Logic, by contrast, presupposes an eternal and unchanging standard.
Political correctness hates that kind of thing…
“A very great vision is needed, and the man who has it must follow it as the eagle seeks the deepest blue of the sky.”
– CRAZY HORSE
Andreas Popp resides in Canada, apparently has become a financially independent businessman, traveled to Berlin, Germany to speak at a recently organized, ongoing weekly “Monday National Meeting” on April 21, 2014, then delivered what this writer feels is a truly phenomenal address.
In attempting to describe the address by Mr. Popp, the first thing that comes to mind is that he spoke for over 40 minutes without any notes or a prepared speech. This is interesting because every time an elected representative speaks on the floor of Congress in America, or takes his or her turn asking questions of invited panelists in committee hearings, or a press briefing on a particular issue, that man or woman reads…
This Blog by Toby Russel posits the ruling Elite, Hybridised Oligarchy call it what you will as a Danistocracy borrowed from Popp and Albrecht, http://thdrussell.blogspot.se/2011/12/from-here-to-there.html The medias role as the fourth Estate is brought center stage in this analysis with the Political Theater relegated to a role subservient to or co-mingled with the Main Stream media. This Speech , a rare one from Popp sets out much of what we need to do which could be summed up as Ignore the Bastards and do what you know will do some good. Do not pay attention to the Narcissists it only encourages them.
The speech of Andreas Popp from Wissensmanufaktur/ Plan B on Easter Monday Demonstration 2014 in Berlin with about 6.000 demonstrators is now available in English.
Businessman and author Andreas Popp, together with his friends at Wissensmanufaktur Institute, has developed an alternative “Plan B” for our western economy and society since they realized that the current system does not serve the people, but cannot be “healed” from within.
As of april 2014, German mainstream media continue to ignore the peaceful weekly monday demonstrations in now over 34 German cities – defaming them ludicrously as “new right-wing movement”, whatever this should mean – as well as the efforts and offerings of Wissensmanufaktur and many other activists.
For more ideas on career suicide notes please see my Blog. http://letthemconfectsweeterlies/.blogspot.se
Frameworks of Understanding. ( Mine as it developed.)
I have found since starting to become actively interested in these matters 3 years ago my own view had changed considerably and the signposts to a critical analysis of the current system seem more in evidence now. Whether this is because my own framework of understanding is more developed or because I am now just finding what I am looking for because I have a predisposed bias to finding what I want to find I don’t know I was involved in an online discussion about House prices on the Motley fool web site back in Feb 2009, My thinking has changed hugely and its an interesting read both the Cliff Dárcy article and the discussion that follows. http://www.lovemoney.com/news/property-and-mortgages/house-prices/2325/why-house-prices-will-fall-this-year I am optimistic that peoples openness to hearing alternative views is increasing, I think people sense something is badly up and although the current culture is for quick solutions in a 2 minute sound bite 101 and thats all you need to know Fox News sort of way. But I think we can provide some of that and I thing Satire needs to be directed at the subject and some poking fun in the great tradition of Radical Etchings and Pamphlets. I suspect these days Americans and Brits alike would struggle to get through Thomas Paine’s Common Sense in one sitting but remember that a lot of people would have got through it or introduced to it by group readings and discussions and that sort of thing whilst difficult to re introduce into modern life can be done through social media. I have tried to do it with a few original songs and poems and by writing to people I am in regular contact with and who I care about. The idea of Community approaches is well put by Robert Moore in this two part interview with Sue Supriano on her Steppin out of Babylon series. This series helped me to seek out a lot of information I did not have the tools to search out before as my framework of understanding in many of the areas simply didn’t exist. I posted a link in a Linked in discussion on the Economist, a place I try to provide the other view to the main stream economics and free market exponents some of whom are happy to discuss things and some of who are still pretty shouty, part of what we do does involve kissing a lot of frogs to find our princes though. I have just read this interesting Blog regarding the true nature of democracy and indeed if it has indeed existed anywhere in the past 6000 years. http://harmonization.blogspot.se/
Hi Golem and hello to all the other excellent contributors of comments to this blog, there is a lot of reading to do here with the links which are also posted and I will get through it “one grain of sand at a time”. I was directed here by a comment posted in Sturdy Blog http://sturdyblog.wordpress.com/2011/04/08/to-whom-do-we-owe-this-money-exactly/#comment-610 There are more and more people seeking answers to unasked let alone unanswered questions my comment is directed more to those who like me agree that there absolutely is a very bad problem and it is what Roy Madron calls the Global Monetocracy its a coporate Oligarchy that has hijaked the Agenda in pursuit of its own narrow interests.
My suggestion is to suggest a simple but effective direct action we can all take to force the hand of Governement where we can vote with the economic power we do still have.
All private Business owners and Individuals should Close bank accounts and trasfer all deposits out of the Banks in private hands and open accounts with the sate owned Banks RBS and Llyods and so forth THose banks should then be kept in Public ownership and there should be a return to a credit based Honest Money system If any of the other Private Banks survive without Public Assistance them good for them but more regulation and very strict regulation regarding the usefullness of the funn money merry go round needs to follow.
By forcing the issue this way the actions of politicians would be very accountable how would they be able to repeat the current change in Narrative. Just a quick post and basic idea I’d happily throw all my effort into a joint effort to initiate such a campaign if upon full discussion and reasoning a caucus of opinion felt it was a worthwhile plan.
and welcome. I think a lot of people here including me have been thinking along the same sort of line as you outline. Like you we are keen to explore the feasability of achieving what you outline.
One of the first things I wrote here was a follow up to something I wrote a year or so earlier which was about closing and moving bank accounts. Like you the point then become how to spread the idea.
I suspect GuidoRomero’s comments might also interest you.
It is great to hear from you and to read your thoughts. I hope you will write more and find here like minds to work with.
The Free Market ideology of Friedman and his like became enshrined in international agreement in 1995 when government’s signed the Uruguay round of GATT (the General Agreement on Trade and Tariffs). In most countries the agreement was signed without any public debate or even awareness of what was being signed and decided. In the UK there was virtually no parliamentary debate. And yet this agreement created the World Trade Organization as a power above Nations and set the principles of Free Trade on a par with the idea of Justice – in that, like Justice, nations were held to be subservient to the ideals and regulations of Free Trade.
With the advent of Gloablization with its fundamentalist insistance upon open markets and free access for capital without restraints, there were suddenly no regulations to bind the Financial Class , no taxes they could not avoid and no political process they could not buy. It was a freedom from any notion of obligation, care or concern for anybody but themselves. It was a perversion of the very word freedom. They could vote wherever they chose, buy citizenship wherever they felt like it and pay only those taxes they found convenient and have no loyalty anyone or anywhere. They were ‘free’.
I put ‘Free’ in quotes because talking of trade in terms of it being ‘Free’ makes it sound like it’s a heart warming tale of oppressed trade that has escaped from tyranny; from the tyranny of centrally planned, protectionist, ‘reds under the bed’ to the freedom of the ‘free’ market. Hurrah! Except its not that kind of freedom at all. It’s freedom in the sense of free from regulation and moral care. Which, when you’ve just had a several trillion dollar melt down as a result of capital that had ‘freed’ itself from regulation.doesn’t sound nearly so Red,White and Blue.
The Free Market ideology of Friedman and his like became enshrined in international agreement in 1995 when government’s signed the Uruguay round of GATT (the General Agreement on Trade and Tariffs). In most countries the agreement was signed without any public debate or even awareness of what was being signed and decided. In the UK there was virtually no parliamentary debate. And yet this agreement created the World Trade Organization as a power above Nations and set the principles of Free Trade on a par with the idea of Justice – in that, like Justice, nations were held to be subservient to the ideals and regulations of Free Trade.
With the advent of Gloablization with its fundamentalist insistance upon open markets and free access for capital without restraints, there were suddenly no regulations to bind the Financial Class , no taxes they could not avoid and no political process they could not buy. It was a freedom from any notion of obligation, care or concern for anybody but themselves. It was a perversion of the very word freedom. They could vote wherever they chose, buy citizenship wherever they felt like it and pay only those taxes they found convenient and have no loyalty anyone or anywhere. They were ‘free’.
I put ‘Free’ in quotes because talking of trade in terms of it being ‘Free’ makes it sound like it’s a heart warming tale of oppressed trade that has escaped from tyranny; from the tyranny of centrally planned, protectionist, ‘reds under the bed’ to the freedom of the ‘free’ market. Hurrah! Except its not that kind of freedom at all. It’s freedom in the sense of free from regulation and moral care. Which, when you’ve just had a several trillion dollar melt down as a result of capital that had ‘freed’ itself from regulation.doesn’t sound nearly so Red,White and Blue. We all knew at the time, whether we approved of it or not, that the free Market ideology was founded on a fundamentalist’s faith in ‘self’ or ‘light touch’ regulation, open markets and globalization. What we did not realize was that there was, it now turns out, a clause buried down in the small print, which said that in case of an extreme financial crisis, there was to be a complete transfer of private debts to the public purse so that those who had caused the crisis and were now in danger of being goaled for fraud or declared bankrupt would instead be guaranteed immunity from any loss or prosecution.
Today those who got us in to this catastrophe remain in their positions of power and wealth, so they can now dictate the policies for getting us out. There was a moment when it looked like maybe the towers of wealth and power were teetering. But they did not fall. Neither the bankers nor our political class have felt it necessary to learn a thing and are in fact intent on re-building essentially the same system, based on the same failed ideology, that caused the crisis in the first place.
We are at war. In America, Jamie Dimon the CEO of the mighty, JP Morgan Chase, threatened US regulators that if they tried to tighten regulations they would put US banks at a disadvantage relative to Europe’s banks. While in Europe Douglas Flint, Chairman of HSBC, was making a parallel attack on UK regulators. HSBC, he said, worried “a lot” that any new regulation would mean UK banking would lose business. And UBS, the giant Swiss bank weighted in on the regulatory restraints being applied to bonuses, at Barclays in particular , “
“Concern over ‘too big to fail’ dominates the UK regulatory agenda but rather than Barclays being too big, it may well be that the UK is too small,” said UBS.
There is a growing confidence and cold arrogance re-asserting itself in the towers of finance. A House of Lord investigation into the role and conduct of Auditors and Accountants in the Financial Crisis found they had completely failed in their duty. At the centre of their investigation and report is the fact, which the accountancy firms do not deny, that, they gave banks who were essentially insolvent and collapsing, a clean bill of health as going concerns several times in the run up to their eventual collapse. How could this possibly be? The Accountants simply said, when they evaluated the bank’s health, they considered the likelihood of government bail outs and when they realized the government would pour public money in to cover all the bad debts, this meant the banks would be fine. Thus they signed off that the banks were ‘going concerns’. But this isn’t the astonishing part. The astonishing part is that the big Accountancy firms involved, PriceWaterhouseCoopers (PwC) etc cannot see the problem. The Lords said in their report that the Accountants had ‘failed in their moral duty’. To which the accountants said, ‘Our whaty what?’
PwC senior partner Ian Powell said: “I am surprised by the committee’s claim that there was a ‘dereliction of duty’ given their stated view that auditors fulfilled their legal duties.”
While in an article on the Lord’s report in Accountancy Age magazine, Head of the Institute of Chartered Accountants in England and Wales (ICAEW), Mr Michael Izza simply said,
“We do not accept that auditors contributed to the severity of the financial crisis.”
“We do not accept…” That tells you were the power and the arrogance lies. We have two worlds at war. One in which there are moral concerns and duties and reponsabilities. The one in which you and I live. And then there is the world of the financial class in which there is no moral code, there is only the letter of the law, which is no more than a box to be ticked as you ignore its intent and take whatever you want. The Global Financial class and the system in which their power and wealth is vested, is at war with ordinary people. No less a person than Warren Buffett was clear that indeed there is a war,
“there’s class warfare, all right. But it’s my class, the rich class, that’s making war, and we’re winning.”
Surely it is time to reconsider the claims of Free Trade and Globalization?
That agreement was nothing less than a declaration of soveriegnty by the international business elite, and an abdication of same, and acceptence of subservience by the ‘elite’ political class, who’s task now became to deliver the compliance of their respective nations, with a clause denying the right to ever withdraw from WTO jurisdiction. For this compliant politicians live in expectation of ‘jobs’ like TBlairs.
As you say, it’s a war but a war like know other. In a conventional war there is a clear cut us against a common enemy, at least that is the way it is presented by the propaganda ministry, all the better to ensure we continue to suffer the privations of a war footing.
The problem with this war is that it is as though ‘our’ politicians and mainstream media are a fifth column undermining us from within. Where we need a Churchill we are lumbered with a Chamberlain – loads of ’em.
Seems to me that regulators should have a similar constitution as the Debt Commission mentioned earlier, but that would be far to real and sensible wouldnt it!
“…had ‘failed in their moral duty’. To which the accountants said, ‘Our whaty what?’ “
I’ve been banging on about the WTO and GATS for years but have been met with total incomprehension. All the governments of the last 25y have been working on the agenda of stealth privatisation without any public consultation or mandate. The coalition government in the UK is simply a more ramped up version of New Labour’s programme and presumably one of the reasons for their haste is to get as much in place to protect big business the banks and the super rich like themselves before the next financial crash.
As you say this is war… class war … the problem is one side is fed a diet of sport and celebrity and they are only just beginning to notice…. and there is no Lenin to galvanise them.
Golem – If we simply gave you £10 Million would you just quit this futile endeavor and roll this web-site up once and for all? You’re giving the natives too much information – dammit. Isn’t having Dmitry Orlov running around enough?!?
All you need to do is help me spam the world with propaganda videos. The first and possibly the best thanks to all the people that turned up and made my day is What You Gonna Do?
It’s my first ever attempt at making a music video so be forgiving but I’m sure you’ll like it. But ZBDS need the G squad to tell everyone they know about it and their nans and sisters and neighbours and neighbours neighbours. And their nans and their nans neighbours. If you go on a forum post the link or register somewhere and post the link. Phone up talk radio and mention the video. Go streaking with the link address on your bum. Whatever, however just get it done, no excuses, if, buts, coulda, woulda, shoulda. None of that stuff anymore. That was the past. Today is the day when the Zombie Bank Death Squad wakes up from slumber because the thing is, You are the Zombie Bank Death Squad. We are the Zombie Bank Death Sqaud.
Just keep saying it, promoting it and ZBDS will become common knowledge. I’ll say it again, Zombie Bank Death Squad will become commom knowledge. Four words with so much meaning.
All the songs are free to download, profit is not the aim. Although if I got famous promoting ZBDS is that bad? Who do you want, Cheryl Cole or Zombie Bank Death Squad on the radio?
Exactly, Cheryl Cole anyday, although I look that good with waxed legs and fake hair too, if not better. What was the link again?
Golem, you wrote: “What we did not realize was that there was, it now turns out, a clause buried down in the small print, which said that in case of an extreme financial crisis, there was to be a complete transfer of private debts to the public purse …”.
I have tried to find that clause in the extensive documentation on the WTO site without success. Could you help me out?
It was in invisible ink AND you need special security clearance to be allowed to know on what page it’s hidden. But it must be there since because they wouldn’t do anything illegal would they?
Gross, who runs a $252.2bn bond fund has completely sold out of his US treasury holdings in favour of cash because he believes they have little value in the context of the $75 trillion debt burden. It is the first time since early 2008 Gross has cut all exposure to US government-related debt.
“And then there is the world of the financial class in which there is no moral code, there is only the letter of the law, which is no more than a box to be ticked as you ignore its intent and take whatever you want”
Excellent line from a superb article. I got this feeling when talking to a lawyer about the injustices of Peter Green’s tax evasion, at this time of punitive cuts on public services, and his response was that “it’s legal so what’s the problem?”
Golem, you are probably right. There is so much WTO paper that just about every possible scam is legally covered. No doubt their lawyers have a clause covering every dirty trick.
As for today’s news, I am extremely disappointed that the new Fine Gael Irish government has followed the Fianna Fail traitor’s path – Kenny accused Cowan of economic treason then turns around and does exactly the same thing.
Hiring this guy Larry Fink (L.A. version of Finkenstein) and his Blackrock company (the Blackwater of finance) for tens of millions of Euro’s to come in and do a “stress test” on the Irish banks is like hiring the biggest burglar in the world to install your home security system.
Fink invented “securitization” in America for crissake! He has gone on to control most of the funds around the world that came to rely on his “securitization” racket. He IS the so-called bond market!
I don’t know if the Irish media or the Irish Cabinet know who he is but I suspect they do and are simply bending over and taking it you know where.
They must know that the Irish bank “loans” they are bailing out were not legitimate loans in the first place but massive amounts of cash funneled to Fink’s securitized bond customers disguised as developer loans. And he is the one doing a “stress test” on the banks he stressed? This is unreal!
I am amazed that the Irish have no investigative reporters looking at these spurious “loans”.
The truth is that they were made to foreign developers and were never backed by any real asset. The trouble with “securitization” is that you don’t have to have any asset to secure. You can merely invent one. I have exposed dozens of such instances here in California both in the public and private sectors.
Unfortunately Michael Noonan, the Irish Finance Minister, hasn’t got a clue about who or what he is dealing with. He is just a nice soft-spoken Irishman. And neither do the Irish media, it would appear. They live in a gated community of parochial Dublin intellectual gentility.
The truth staring them in the face, if they would dare peer outside the safety of their journalistic cocoon, is that the Irish banks could never have lent 150 billion Euros to Irish developers if they had concreted over the entire country. This money was funded to international Blackrock-style investors disguised as developers on projects that did not exist.
Will some Irish reporter PLEASE go photograph and document these so-called commercial development projects across Europe instead of filling pages with fatuous “reports” without ever leaving their desks? If they do I am sure they will find exactly the same as I found here in California – that the banks made loans to phony projects, securitized them, then got the taxpayer to bail them out. That is the role of the media not to live press release to press release, interview to interview, without ever checking out the facts on the ground.
So Golem, while the WTO may have secured government bailouts as part of their GATT agreements, nobody can legally defend the funding of phony development projects if only the lazy media would take the time to fully investigate them.
“Excellent line from a superb article. I got this feeling when talking to a lawyer about the injustices of Peter Green’s tax evasion, at this time of punitive cuts on public services, and his response was that “it’s legal so what’s the problem?” “
This is what it comes down to – the rule of law is the only effective way of punishing wrongdoers.
It’s clear that the regulations are devised for the benefit of the banks. And even when the proclaimed laws are breached, there is no investigation, no prosecution, no punishment.
And yet the entire structure is there on the statute books. So much for the rule of law.
This is a political problem. No idea how to solve it when we keep electing crooks.
I’d love to hear more of what you found on the ground in California. I am sure many people here, the European readers as well as the American, would love to hear some of the expamples of fake projects. I know we talked about this before. Drop me an me an email if you want to.
It describes how a San Diego developer bought and “developed” an existing 42 unit apartment building into 42 condominium units, “sold” each of the individual 42 units to bogus owner-occupier buyers. The scam was to generate 42 owner-occupied loans the proceeds of which all went to the “developer”. There were many such fake condominium development projects in California.
I suspect that the international securitization mafia found many ways of “developing” existing European commercial and residential peoperties into munltiple ownerships the same way they did in America. The beauty of this kind of scam is that you don’t have to crack open a can of paint let alone put a shovel in the ground. It is all done by lawyers juggling ownerships around. The end game was to generate loans the proceeds of which go to developers who develeloped nothing but phony loans.
I fear that the vast majority of people will always remain completely oblivious to these arguments.
At work the other day a discussion started about the ‘Anti-cuts’ demonstrations and riots in London last weekend. I suggested that the cuts in question were partly necessary so that the bankers could be paid their bonuses. I was surprised to find that everyone else in the room was strongly of the opinion that the UK stands to make a huge profit from the banks it bailed out, and that if a banker can be shown to earn his employers millions of pounds in profits each year, then he damn well deserves every penny he gets.
The Agenda for one world government continues. “Free trade” is part of it. The idea is that the whole world deserves to participate in the wealth of the world. Bad news for rentiers, world wide! They multiply in multiple jurisdictions.
This is also bad news for the west or developed world. Their share will decline. NWO? Maybe….
Dusty Surface A Ph.D no longer means much! The OWO promised him(?) a glittering career with glamorous lifestyle! He hopes that will eventuate…. Not likely! Magical, not logical thinking.
I agree – it’s bad news for most of us in the west or developed world. If one day everyone in the world had similar costs of living then free trade could work well for the workers, until then it’s win-win for the bosses. I find myself now competing with people all over the world, who will work for much less or a fraction of my rate. Take a look at some of the rates on this website, it makes me want to change career (I do design/ web): http://www.freelancer.co.uk
Dusty that was a cheap shot they hit you with there bro, future profits. If we the people put their debt on our credit card why can’t they now get their own credit card and clear our debt so the actual people of this island can have public services, after all with all these future profits they’ll be able to clear the balance in no time seeing as they are so clever at robbing.. sorry, making money and all that.
Thanks to the people that watched the video, I hope you liked it as much as I enjoyed making it. The urban indian will return….
I had to get the domain name ZombieBankDeathSquad.com I need one of those voice over dudes with the deep husky voice
dustysurface, I think it’s all to do with herd mentality, I would imagine there were plenty of PHDs in 1930’s Germany who thought Hitler was a safe bet.
While looking for places to spam my video I came across the conservatives website.
The home page reads:
Helping Incapacity claimants back to work
H Baldwin says in her blog
The structural deficit will return to balance over this Parliament, which means that the country’s debt will at least stop getting bigger by 2015.
I am also keen to see the Government resolve the problems with our banks. Japan suffered for many years because it failed to reform its banks, so the sooner we end the state’s ownership of so much of the banking sector, the better it will be for the health of the economy.
I was pleased to see relief for motorists who should already be benefitting from a one penny saving on a litre of fuel and an end to the threat of the five penny hike this month that was planned by the last Labour Government. It’s an oft used phrase, but it is true. Every little helps.
I wrote
Labour left us with a gross amount of debt thanks to their irresponsible handling of the country. The coalition have to work hard to bring the finances back into order. If we have to tighten our belts for a few years it is worth it, they are trying their best.
I made a video charting the rise of David and the fall of reckless labour here
No worries Hawkeye – though I did think you might be the actor Sam West for a minute when he walked in.
You didn’t miss much really, though the turnout was encouraging. Discussion was mostly on the topic of a Robin Hood Tax, why we should have one and how to campaign effectively for it. Tax expert Richard Murphy was very good as usual.
I failed to take my chance to speak. I really need to learn to man-up in these situations.
A banker, politician, a daily mail reader & a benefit claimant are all sitting round a table on which there is a tray of 10 biscuits. The banker quickly grabs 9 & passes 2 to the politician, who then leans over & whispers in the daily mail readers ear, ” Careful that scrounger wants your biscuit “
I’m finding the UK’s government resistance to clamping down on exploitative loan companies, especially the very small short term loans (and monthly repayment stores) a case and point example of why a free market doesn’t work. 1600% or more apr loans (they get allot lot higher), cases of people taking a £50 loan, them having some issues with repayment, and a decade down the line finding them selfs in hundreds of thousands of pounds worth of dept.
The free market will only work either if everyone always reads and understands every piece of small print ever or if you morally think that every person ever duped, by any level of marketing trick or bit of small print, deserves what they get for not being careful enough. Once you add in the fact that those most vulnerable to being duped are the most desperate, you can see how this moral equation doesn’t equate.
That meant that, when Griffiths hit the shot, Raymond Whyte had to make his way as quickly as possible towards the goal and was running at full pelt when the ball came crashing down off the bar.
Is it just me or are we running to stand still or are these circles we are running in?
My Journey looking into this Gloablisation and Financial criminality has been guided by a Lighthouse of truth and decency Golem XIV, whose author David Malone I now count as a freind.
Some notes I made regarding a pårogramme made by Davids father Adrian Malone.
The Age of Uncertainty.
The Questions.
Ralf Darendorf.
UK economic performance and income lower in UK than in Germany. ( West Germany ) 1977
Shirley Williams.
Narrwoing down of competitive markets, we do not have them. Power of Companies and Trade unions. Structure of Democracy? Beyong that imaginable by Karl Marx. Mixed Economy
State Monopoly Capitaliism.
Abrimov
Heath.
Rather have consumer goods, rather than military power.
Abrimov, first choice peace ( Not to have war. 20 million lost.
Jack Jones. 40,000 jobs in NI would bring peace tomorrow, lack of jobs radicalisation?
Hans Selye
Race horse max stress
Shlessinger,
Agree Darrendorf, artifical cohesion through quasi religion.
Darendorf,
End of industrialised progress end in itself. More to life than more of the same thing.. more leisure and city dwellers out to country. Improvement of Work situation.
Shlessinger
Calvinism shaped society work ethic. Darendorf,
abandon Calvinsim adopt hedonism.
Before I met David , I introduced myself in the first Comment on his blog above I had already watched this Film.
Here we are again.
Here we are again.
Most intellectual progress and comprehension of complexphenomena cease once the mind deludes itself intobelieving it has uncovered a Holy Grail or an eternal truth.Any meaningful analysis of reality must consider all suchso-called truths as merely tentative expedients.-Wilson Bryan Key, Subliminal Seduction
Back to 2009, And this Motely fool in another country and another life?
A year later a year older and perhape a little wiser. http://www.positivemoney.org.uk is a good place to start in seeing why the banks are the parties who have the lions share of responsibility for the mess we are all in and how bizarrely they have benefited the most at the expense of the rest of us. Are any other parties to this discussion in a similar position of a rather different viewpoint.
Just re visited this after a very long couple of years and placed this observation in a blog I am writing. Just re read this whole debate from January 2009 on House prices. It’s strange even though I now believe the Banking System has to be reformed root and branch and the intervening 2 years or so has brought to light a hell of a lot of stuff about liquidity ratios at Banks going berserk I wonder How positions on this discussion would now change? My philosophical outlook has changed markedly and my world view is certainly one that, yes, as an earlier poster in this discussion pointed out , “perhaps my own timing and decisions were more due to luck than Judgement”. I would have to agree with those sentiments absolutely , perhaps for different reasons than the comment might have been implying, but I see the observation as very wise non the less. It also reminds me of where I first came across the Elephant tale. I would be interested to know if anyone did buy after reading this article and how it worked out. I currently writing an a pamphlet suggesting reform to the valuation of property by Mortgagees in possession to take account of Economic replacement costs as I believe the potential for a devastating Crash is a very real and present danger There is a very strong undercurrent in the geo political/economic out look that requires a paradigm shift in thought and deed. Anyway hello to anyone who contributed to this discussion would be great to have a re unioun discussion so to speak and reflect on what we were thinking back then and what we think now , that would be a very useful thing I think. http://en.gravatar.com/rogerglewis
Here we go again. Statistics Speculation Percentages Multiples Inflation Cuts 100% 5% 10% deals no deals Why not say how longs a peice of string cos its all spin !
John Godfrey Saxe’s ( 1816-1887) version of the famous Indian legend, It was six men of Indostan To learning much inclined, Who went to see the Elephant (Though all of them were blind), That each by observation Might satisfy his mind. The First approach’d the Elephant, And happening to fall Against his broad and sturdy side, At once began to bawl: “God bless me! but the Elephant Is very like a wall!” The Second, feeling of the tusk, Cried, -“Ho! what have we here So very round and smooth and sharp? To me ’tis mighty clear This wonder of an Elephant Is very like a spear!” The Third approached the animal, And happening to take The squirming trunk within his hands, Thus boldly up and spake: “I see,” quoth he, “the Elephant Is very like a snake!” The Fourth reached out his eager hand, And felt about the knee. “What most this wondrous beast is like Is mighty plain,” quoth he, “‘Tis clear enough the Elephant Is very like a tree!” The Fifth, who chanced to touch the ear, Said: “E’en the blindest man Can tell what this resembles most; Deny the fact who can, This marvel of an Elephant Is very like a fan!” The Sixth no sooner had begun About the beast to grope, Then, seizing on the swinging tail That fell within his scope, “I see,” quoth he, “the Elephant Is very like a rope!” And so these men of Indostan Disputed loud and long, Each in his own opinion Exceeding stiff and strong, Though each was partly in the right, And all were in the wrong! MORAL. So oft in theologic wars, The disputants, I ween, Rail on in utter ignorance Of what each other mean, And prate about an Elephant Not one of them has seen!
Stevie Smith – Not Waving But Drowning Nobody heard him, the dead man, But still he lay moaning: I was much further out than you thought And not waving but drowning. Poor chap, he always loved larking And now he’s dead It must have been too cold for him his heart gave way, They said. Oh, no no no, it was too cold always (Still the dead one lay moaning) I was much too far out all my life And not waving but drowning.
Hi Old but hopeful, Do you remember this one, it’s never far from my thoughts these days. Also Stevie Smiths not waving but drowning tells us alot about perceptions. Max Ehrmann Desiderata Go placidly amid the noise and haste, and remember what peace there may be in silence. As far as possible without surrender be on good terms with all persons. Speak your truth quietly and clearly; and listen to others, even the dull and the ignorant; they too have their story. Avoid loud and aggressive persons, they are vexations to the spirit. If you compare yourself with others, you may become vain and bitter; for always there will be greater and lesser persons than yourself. Enjoy your achievements as well as your plans. Keep interested in your own career, however humble; it is a real possession in the changing fortunes of time. Exercise caution in your business affairs; for the world is full of trickery. But let this not blind you to what virtue there is; many persons strive for high ideals; and everywhere life is full of heroism. Be yourself. Especially, do not feign affection. Neither be cynical about love; for in the face of all aridity and disenchantment it is as perennial as the grass. Take kindly the counsel of the years, gracefully surrendering the things of youth. Nurture strength of spirit to shield you in sudden misfortune. But do not distress yourself with dark imaginings. Many fears are born of fatigue and loneliness. Beyond a wholesome discipline, be gentle with yourself. You are a child of the universe, no less than the trees and the stars; you have a right to be here. And whether or not it is clear to you, no doubt the universe is unfolding as it should. Therefore be at peace with God, whatever you conceive Him to be, and whatever your labors and aspirations, in the noisy confusion of life keep peace with your soul. With all its sham, drudgery, and broken dreams, it is still a beautiful world. Be cheerful. Strive to be happy. Max Ehrmann, Desiderata, Copyright 1952.
Hi everyone thanks for a most interesting debate. Special thanks for all the links to statistics, that’s great for me. I hope no-one will take offence if I say that it all reminds me of a poem from my schooldays “The Blind Men and The Elephant” 5 blind men decide to feel an elephant, because they can’t see it, to get an idea of what it looks like. One feels the leg, and says an elephant is like a tree, one feels the tail, and says, no, it’s like a snake, one feels the trunk, I forget what he said, and so on. They debate about which of them is right and the poet concludes “and all of them were partly right and all of them were wrong!” This is a crazy, crazy market, which means that whatever happens will be crazy, and speaking of carziness how about this? MSN’s property news headlines 2 days ago, gave some reputable survey, I’ve forgotten which one, that said prices had fallen 1% in January. In today’s headlines, Halifax says prices have risen 1.9%. Howzaat! And what’s reaaally interesting to me, is that in this debate, despite the many intelligent, informed, and perceptive points made, no-one considered that “spin” even worth mentioning…
Two years of a Flat market (Stagnant) is probably about right DAQ80. I don’t think that should put Drayal off buying at this stage personally, in fact it’s a good time to buy as there should be less cowboys about and their unpleasant practices. Clearly the first trick is to source a sensible mortgage deal, easier said than done right now, but that will change.
Hello Roger, I meant before the end of 2010. 2 more years of stagnant or falling house prices sounds fairly reasonable – predicting much beyond there is fairly pointless because we don’t have any idea about what might happen to trade flows, potential revolutions in productivity, migration and the attitude and regulation of markets.
Hi Daq80, by this decade do you mean 2010-20 or 2009-10, Prices may not explode any time between 2010 and 2020 but even at 5% compound growth they will be 70% higher in 2020 than in 2010, that isn’t a forecast but an observation, a what if proposition if you like. The ability of the world to produce real things in real economies is a potential that will be utilised, in due course and probably sooner rather than later. Because some borrowing and lending has been done imprudently does not mean that all borrowing and lending is imprudent for ever more. It is also true that all borrowing and lending that took place when the sillyness was happening was not exclusively on an imprudent basis. Once the correction sorts the Wheat from the Chaff there will still be plenty of wheat left, the economic potential of all markets is arguably still the same now as it was before the crash. I can’t be bothered to do the maths but I’m sure that if someone can be bothered to add it all up they will find that there is as much matter after the explosion as before, and the economy will be a little easier to put back together, than a bunch of sub atomic particles.
Drayal, there isn’t going to be an explosion in house prices any time this decade. The £500bn is actually also not a real figures – the government isn’t going to borrow that amount, it’s merely said that it will stand behind that amount of debts which have already been created to secure the financial system. In reality the government will only have to stump up a tiny fraction of that amount as there is a £500bn of assets in theory matches up to those debts. The government has guaranteed the shortfall between the assets and debts in effect, and only once the difference exceeds what banks and other lenders already have in capital. However, what will happen and is already happening is that the companies which created those debts in the first place through commercial lending, personal loans, trade credit and finally and most importantly mortgage lending are doing their utmost to deleverage – in other words to cancel and reduce as much of that huge amount as quickly as they reasonably can. This huge sucking of money out of the system is causing a scarcity of credit that the government is not going to be able to fill – and nor is anyone else.
I’m with Last Chip all the way on that. Houses are for the long term and with a long term view if I were you I would find the best house you can afford at the best price you can negotiate now Draval. Make sure you can afford the payments when interest rates go back up again, in a few years time with a good margin for error, and you should be alright. DIfferent areas have different levels of price fall but do remember not to believe that the prices in Estate Agents windows or in property listing are what is being paid. On Primelocation.com there is a feature showing what prices have actually sold for as they have to be registered at the Land Registry for Payment of Stamp duty, zoopla has a similar feature. Don’t be in a hurry or be pressured into making a higher bid if someone else is interested there is always another property even in the periods of boom. Stick to your guns and pay the price you feel is fair for that property. Don’t stand for any nonsense from the Agents, insist on seeing what you want to see have a list of questions for the things that are important to you and satisfy yourself that all your own boxes are ticked.Before you start looking see what Mortgage is best suited to you and get an offer in principal, you have an even stronger position in doing that.’ WE are all cash buyers if we have the finance arranged’. As a buyer now you have a strong bargaining position and your experience of buying a property now should mean that you get a higher degree of service and have less hassle with the professionals not doing their job properly for you. Remember you’re the Boss in a buyers market, be fair but firm and enjoy knowing that you will have a wider and better selection over a longer period of time in which to make the right decision without all the Hype going on. Good Luck
For what it’s worth (not a lot!), I don’t think there is [i]any[/i] possibility of a hose price explosion. The real debate is whether prices will fall some more (and if so, by how much), or whether we’re likely to see a fairly flat market in the near future. As I stated above, my own personal view, is it will trend down a little more this year and then remain flat for about another 18-24 months, but it [i]is[/i] only my opinion. My crystal ball is no better than anyone else’s!
And Draval add to the fact they are thinking of printing money “quantive easing” does this devalue the cash in the bank ? I don’t know. Uncharted waters, but as i have been saying for some time which Cliff D’arcy ignores becaue he wants prices to fall (as he’s renting since 2003 or 05 and has admitted he wants to buy), this is why he publishes these articles all in the same vein). Personally over time a house is a house, it’s tangible and is desirable as an investment and as somewhere to live. It;s the most important asset anywhere(except perhaps gold). I am needing to sell this year(if i can) and i do worry that the bounce will create a bigger property boom than the previous for all the reasons you outline.
I am so confused and wondered what EVERYONE’S thoughts are since the announcement of the new 500Billion bail out and the raising of billions of bonds to release capital into the mortgage markets. I cannot believe that this is happening, isn’t it because of mortgage bonds that we are all in this dire predicament? I was reading an article by the head of the new bank of england (I think), written today I believe, and he said that long term we need desperately to get away from borrowing and start saving. House prices were just beginning to show some signs of falling , I thought we had all begun to realise that perhaps borrowing vast sums of money that we can’t afford was not such a good idea, I keep reading that 70000 people will lose their houses this year, yet the government are raising IOU bonds to kick start the housing market so house prices go up and people will attempt to buy on low interest rates but what then? What happens when interest rates go up ? I am just a simple housewife, I was forced to move last year lost money on my home but still have capital I want to buy again and thought house prices were falling and I would just wait until what I would prefer to live in became affordable. If the government had not announced that it was now going to raise bonds and kick start the housing market because people spend lots of money when they move and they need us to spend money, I would have held out until the summer knowing that when I started to look there might be something I could afford. Now I am worried that house prices are going to start going up as we are already being told that interest at Estate Agents increased in January and in my area house prices really have not come down, certainly not 15+ % So in the light of the new government bail out does this article still ring true or are we about to witness an EXPLOSION in house prices as everyone rushes out to buy believing that house prices will go up . Any advice would be GREAT, I feel so overwhelmed by all of this
Hi Pond, Yes I think that The New labour experiment has had it’s shortcomings they haven’t the monopoly on economic incompetence by any stretch. Although the independence of the Bank of England from the treasury was in my view Gordon Browns Master Stroke as we say in Bristol Fair Play. It is fair to say that they have been caught napping on their watch as has been Mervyn King and Eddie George before. I am optimistic in that I do not believe that our economy, represented by the wealth of talent that there is in British Industry including banking, has ever had more potential to emerge from all of this stronger. We are a more entrepreneurial culture now since the economic revolution of Margaret Thatcher and Geoffrey Howe in the early eighties, the first and second Thatcher terms. Home ownership of course blossomed from there and has a large impetus in motivating people to wealth creation. The seventies was a whole lot bleaker than now, in the states too. I am not in denial but can see that there are solutions to a lot of these problems I don’t think anyone should be throwing themselves off any tall buildings just yet, quite the opposite they should be building them In 3-4 years time when they’re built the demand will be there. Roger
Pond, I think a better way of looking at your view is not to say supply and demand are irrelevant, but to think of supply and demand in their economic meaning – not simply whether people want a house or not. In economic terms, demand is not a constant, but expresses willingness to buy at different supply (or price) levels. In the case of housing, demand was only high at the stratospheric price levels we saw 12-18 months ago because of the easy and cheap availability of credit with no or minimal collateral. This is why countries such as Spain which have seen a construction boom have also seen rapidly rising prices in line with the UK. In actual fact this explanation – debt finance – is roughly what you point out, but the explanation for the sudden drop in prices and the likely continuation of that trend is in fact entirely to do with supply and demand in all their guises.
Roger, I agree and it is healthy to debate these topics. I think the one thing that that we all see eye to eye about is that the current government are a bunch of muppets who have destroyed our once sound economy and banking system!! 🙂
Hi Pond, I really don’t agree with you but still want to be your friend it would never be a boring night out with you and would be fun to paint in the gaps between the dots of each others points of view. I’m with Matchmade whole heartedly on this one I don’t think either of us approves of a lot of what has passed as the current governments housing policy. Hips, brownfield development, inertia to tackling an outmoded and frankly broken planning system, stealth taxes aplenty. The basic premise of investment in anything is you gotta be in it to win it, the minefield is there to be negotiated , to be honest this is much more fun than shooting fish in a barrel. WIth best Wishes Roger
Matchmade. Not sure you are getting the bigger picture here. Let me try to explain……. The price of houses are purely and simply based on the amount of money that is chasing them. Supply and demand, in the context of the UK market are irrelevant. That is evidenced by: • Countries with a huge oversupply of house (US, Spain etc) still seeing massive house price inflation • Countries that had a huge increase in property prices not seeing a corresponding spike in rental prices (UK, Ireland etc etc). If there was REALLY competition for places to live, rental prices would be chased up (see Australia as an example). Much of the money in the UK/World financial system has been created in the last few years. It has been ‘created’ as debt. That is how banks ‘make’ new money. That money will only exist in reality once it has been paid back to the banks by the people who borrowed it. However, the problem is, the money cannot be paid back. The people who borrowed it cannot afford it. Be they subprime borrowers defaulting on their mortgages, or LyondellBassell owning Oligarchs owing £2.5BN, the effect is the same. The banks have to write off this ‘money’ they created. This means, that in effect, you could almost argue that there are two types of money floating around the economy. 1) Real money, backed by real assets that can be claimed in the event of default 2) Funny money, that was magically created by banks, that was secured against dodgy assets or dodgy insurance, and which will disappear as fast as it was created. So, say a house was worth £100K in 1999 and £300K in 2007. That is a rise of £200K. The problem is, probably £150K of the ‘rise’ was driven by the availability of loose credit (i.e the funny money detailed above). When this loose credit is written off by the banks, and removed from the economy the price of the house will revert to a level that is sustainable with the amount of money that remains in the economy. Now, bear in mind that the UK banks borrowed £6 Billion from overseas banks in 2000 to fund this lending binge. In 2007, they borrowed £737 Billion. This should give you an idea of the amount of money that needs to be ‘removed’ from the UK economy. This will have a devastating impact on all asset prices – stocks, bonds, commodities etc. Unfortunately, a disproportionately large amount of cash is tied up in property. So property will be hurt worse than most. Commercial property prices have dropped by approaching 30% and are not stopping. Most commentators are expecting drops of 50%+. The same will happen to house prices. However, it will be a slower, more drawn out process as Estate Agents need to persuade each and every seller that the ‘Equity’ in the house does not really exist and was actually and illusionary figure based on huge amounts of ‘funny money’ that never existed in the first place……
Pond321 – the reason there is a shortage of affordable housing is that: a) prices have been pushed up by an easy supply of credit, a lack of new supply, and a tax system that encourges people to put most of their money into housing rather than other forms of investment. b) the cost of building a new house is, frankly, enormous compared to most people’s salaries, especially when developers have to give away 1/3 of their houses as “affordable homes” which are rented out or sold as bribes to the Government’s favoured constituencies. Until the Government starts subsidising housebuilding as they did in the 1950s, we will never get cheap new housing at substantial volumes. All this talk about houses “inevitably” falling to some arbitrary multiple of average salaries is just ridiculous. It ignores supply and demand, the cost of building a new home at a largely fixed quality level on a limited supply of land, increasing wealth in the economy which is inherited and used to top up young people’s deposits, and a tax system which says that all capital gains on one’s principal home is tax-free, which makes it a no-brainer to put most of one’s money into housing. House prices are falling rapidly as we are in a recession and everyone’s terrified of losing money and it’s very hard to get a mortgage. Trading volumes are very thin, so prices inevitably fall as many of the few properties on the market are poor quality distress sales, and the majority of sellers and buyers are sitting tight. I agree that houses prices will probably stabilise around the end of 2009 and then do nothing for 3-5 years. The new house market will remain bombed out, with almost no houses being built, because the cost to build a home has simply become more than people are prepared to pay. For this I blame greedy landowners, who expect ridiculous prices for their land, and the Government, for imposing a ludicrously complicated planning system, incredibly expensive taxes (Section 106, affordable homes, as well as VAT, corporation tax and so on) and unachievable and expensive zero-carbon rules on new homes, even though the vast proportion of energy is lost by inefficient existing homes. Developers and builders are as usual stuck in the middle dealing with everyone else’s agendas.
Hi Pond, I appreciate that you have a genuine concern that things have got really bad and will continue to get worse. I also appreciate that your own calculations seem to be that you are better of renting. It may well be that you have a good system for investing/saving with a portfolio spread across a range of asset classes, pension provision and all the stuff we all know are good to do. The current Bust has not been with us for a matter of Months it has been fomenting for at least 18-months. The madness of crowds examples given above in the thread apply both ways to booms and to busts. What we are likely to see now is a period of a few years with everything bumping along the bottom, life does go on and there is a level of economic activity that will always take place . The broken Banking system will get fixed, essentially oil will be put back in the engine and the NItrous oxide conversion/turbo charger will be removed, and yes should never have been fitted in the first place. You will make your own decisions I am sure but do have a look at housing demand/supply in more detail if it isn’t addressed then the bubbles in the property market will come and go and be more dramatic in future. My Grandfather would never take out a mortgage and was very against any of his seven children taking out mortgages to buy property, his strong dislike of Mortgages were founded in his experiences as a coal miner in South Wales in the 1930’s. None of his seven children all of who are now retired themselves followed his advice and none of them has ever been re-possessed, or regrets having bought their homes My own parents sold a house in 1972 to move abroad with work and found it very difficult to buy in 1977 when we all returned to the Uk, the next time we were abroad for dads work they rented their house out.In 1977 they bought and found it a very tight squeeze. They have no mortgage now and have the ability to do equity release should they need some extra cash, they would not be as secure had they not made that decision in 1977, my parents are pensioners on an indexed link pension and of course not havig rent to pay is a very great saving at their time of life. We could trade stories all day of winners and losers in the housing market but I would bet you a pound to a penny all day long that a higher percentage of buyers of property this year will be in the winners column at their retirement than in the losers column. A point on renting as opposed to buying and surviving 3 months without a job, landlords are more likely to evict a tenant with greater ease than a Mortgagee for non payment of rent/mortgage payments.IF you are investing over the longer term say you are 30 and plan to retire at 55 you need to make your comparison over a 25 year period If there is a period with a starting point and a finish period with an intervening 25 years where renters would have ended up better off than Buyers I would be interested to see it . The good thing though about being a long term home owner is that your rent is added to your savings effectively. If you are investing the equivalent amount you will be working a lot harder than if you seek out and buy the best property each time you move, of course staying put is more efficient from a taxation point of view ( the dreaded Stamp Duty) There’s no desperate rush so I wouldn’t be worrying particularly if I were you my main concern would be that I would be giving money to a land lord that I could effectively be giving to my self, home ownership is a great form of saving especially if as most of us do and we trade down on our retirement, this is an often overlooked benefit.
Roger, I can certainly relate to some of the points you have made. As a potential First Time Buyer myself, I am one of the people that need to be ‘persuaded’ to buy. This is how my thinking goes: – When to buy. In simplistic terms, for every £1 I borrow via a mortgage, I will have to pay two back. At the moment, I can get a house that was valued at £300K the peak of the market for about £260K. I am fairly confident that that I will, at some point in the not too distant future, get that same house for about £200K. Thus, I will ‘save’ £60K upfront, which relates to £120K over the duration of the mortgage. I would be mad to commit to spending £120K extra to buy a house now as opposed to, say, 18 months time. – Renting vs buying. For the last 5 years, I have rented a flat. The monthly rent on the flat is LESS that the monthly payments would be on an interest only mortgage for the same flat. The landlord also pays my service charge and water rates. I have no responsibility for fixing anything in the flat when it goes wrong, or any of the wear and tear, or payments towards things such as replacing the communal widows or fixing the lift when it malfunctions. The people who bought my flat paid about £135K for it in 2003. They then spent several thousand gutting it and doing it up. The value of flats in this block rose to about £180K in 2007. The last one sold a few of months ago and was put on the market at £162K. It sold after a couple of months, but it would surprise me if it went for the full asking price. It would seem, in a few months, that the value of the flat that I rent will be less than my landlord paid in 2003. So if my rent is cheaper than a mortgage, and I get no capital appreciation, what is the point in buying? – Debt. I am lucky enough to work for one of the most successful companies in the world. The company I work for is sitting on a cash pile of well over $20 billion and has no debt. Even so, a round of redundancies is widely rumoured to be announced this week. This is expected to be between 10% and 20% of the workforce. Most of the people I work with are in their mid twenties to mid thirties. They all earn well above the average salary, they are probably in to the top 5% to 10% for their peer group. They all have nice cars and nice houses. And they all, without exception, could not survive three months without pay. They are mortgaged to the hilt. They have credit card debt. They have car loans. They have student loans. I do not think you understand the sheer scale of debt that exists within this country. The moment anyone of these people lose their job, or their partner loses their job, they become another repossession statistic. This is what will drive house prices down for years to come. People like my friends, losing the fight to keep their house. – Lack of housing availability. The government says that we will need 3 million new houses by 2010. This figure is oft quoted by estate agents and the like. The problem is, I do not believe this figure. There has never been a shortage of houses for sale or rent. In fact, rental prices have DECLINED over the last few years. There was a shortage of houses that people could AFFORD. But this is very different to an actual shortage of houses to live in (as in Australia for example). – Finally, house prices rose for over ten years in a row. They rose over 300%. They have been dropping back for about 1 year and have dropped 20%. I would be interested to hear about any house prices crashes that have occurred historically where the bubble lasted 10+ years and the bust lasted a matter of months.
For some reason my last post has posted itself twice I apologise for the cock up unfortunately I don’t know how to fix it. Thank you for the recommended reading Cunning Cliff, I will look out those titles on my next trip to Borders. Are you saying that basically the world economy is so broken it will never be fixed? at least not any time soon. I admit to being an optomist but was certain of a crash from 2005 onwards it has been worse than I ever imagined and whilst there is a degree of wishful thinking in being optomisitc for the future I do feel the british economy is in better shape than 1982 and 1992 and that as a more enterprising culture if Government sticks to the social stuff and deals with the crooks then the end of the world is not what we are experiencing. The Japanese experiences in the ‘lost decade’ have a lot to do with the very large cultural differences which are reflected in the government of Japan. What happened there is not automatically going to happen here for many reasons. I know you have a difficult job and that your Job is not to please your readers but to inform them of how you see it, and call it how you see it. I am interested to hear why you feel that the supply side of the property equation in the UK is so insignificant as not to merit a mention in your article?
Thanks to everyone who commented on my article. As always, the topic of property prices polarises my audience into two diametrically opposed camps! ;0) To those who doubt my belief that house prices still have a fair way to fall, I recommend reading these five books: 1) “A Demon of Our Own Design: Markets, Hedge Funds, and the Perils of Financial Innovation” by Dr Richard Bookstaber http://www.amazon.co.uk/Demon-Our-Own-Design-Innovation/dp/0471227277 * After reading a pre-publication copy of “Demon”, I sold the vast majority of my shares in banks and insurers in the spring of 2007. I owe Dr Bookstaber a large drink for correctly predicting the credit crunch and the ensuing financial and asset-price collapse! 2) “Devil Take the Hindmost: A History of Financial Speculation” by Edward Chancellor http://www.amazon.co.uk/Devil-Take-Hindmost-Financial-Speculation/dp/0452281806 * “Hindmost” is perhaps the best book ever written on asset bubbles and busts. Indeed, it correctly predicted the post-dotcom collapse. 3) “Against the Gods: The Remarkable Story of Risk” by Peter L Bernstein http://www.amazon.co.uk/Against-Gods-Remarkable-Story-Risk/dp/0471295639 * A superb guide to a greater understanding of risk and reward. 4) “Fantasy Island” by Larry Elliott and Dan Atkinson http://www.amazon.co.uk/Fantasy-Island-Larry-Elliott/dp/1845296052 * Some home truths about the awful state that the UK is in today. I reviewed this book here: http://www.fool.co.uk/news/your-money/2007/12/21/were-all-living-on-fantasy-island.aspx 5) “The Gods That Failed: How Blind Faith in Markets Has Cost Us Our Future” by Larry Elliott and Dan Atkinson http://www.amazon.co.uk/Gods-That-Failed-Markets-Future/dp/1847920306 * More analysis of the mess we’re in from the authors of 4). Enjoy! :0) Cliff (Fool freelancer and shareholder)
Pond321. Of course I understand all of the points you make and I do not disagree with you, where I think we disagree is whether or not all of this carnage should discourage a first time buyer from Buying their own property now. It is true that First Time buyers are very important to the efficient functioning of the Housing market, and I hope that increasing numbers of them will start to come up for air and see that the future still exists and is a good place to be headed. Housing is a human necessity whether we rent a room from our parents or a local authority apartment or choose to be a homeowner is a decision we all face. Renting is expensive in relation to Buying at present if you can finance a property purchase in this very poor lending market my question is why wouldn’t you? Those that disagree with this proposition base their view on a notion that they could pay less for the same thing in another 6 months , year or some other timescale.or perhaps have an objection to private property from a philosophical/political viewpoint. Supertyke26 sums up the situation in saying that the desirable properties which are available are still sought out by long term investors/homeowners , these homes are just not coming on the market any more, the vast majority of homeowners do have a choice as to whether or not to sell their property most will sit tight and ride out the storm. The housing market consists of many tiers the sub prime problem in the US is very different to the UK market there is simply more property over there and whole neighborhoods are being destroyed by foreclosures on Properties which are Sub-prime, not just the financial status of the potential borrowers are sub prime the properties themselves are perhaps worthless.( is there such a thing as a worthless property in the UK? ) some derelict properties have a cost of re-furbishment that is more than the final value when restored, such properties are essentially worthless in the sense that their residual value would be a negative number)This is not common in the UK on homes that have been mortgaged even recently. Even in the states where the self destruct button appears to have been pressed it is not to late to have calmer heads prevail. I think there is an element of talking at crossed purposes on this one, not all sub-prime properties are worthless is probably more true that all sub-prime mortgages are secured on worthless properties. My view is that First time buyers should not be deterred to committing to home ownership to satisfy their future housing needs, you have to live somewhere anyway , renting is relatively expensive and the market has had a correction, its probably safer now than it was in 2006 ( hindsight is a wonderful thing). In the current climate where even desirable properties are difficult to sell in some cases I would advise any first time buyer to get on and buy such a property. Investors who are looking at property from another perspective and weighing it against other opportunities have a different set of things to consider, I think it would be foolish if an investor holds property at the moment in addition to their own home to sell all of that property including their own home to take flight from their depreciating asset. Where a market develops that the price of property falls below the cost of replacement even excluding land value, a point made by Matchmade, you pretty soon start expecting invites to the mad hatters tea party. In a market that needs 3 million new homes to be built by 2020, to meet housing demand, where there is a fundamental shortage of supply over the short term, property is a good store of value, hedge against inflation, a good means of saving. It’s easy to lose your shirt in property, I am not encouraging anyone to go silly I have watched with incredulity the craziness in the so called property hots spots in London and the south east and the north West of the Uk and in South Wales, of course these bubbles are unsustainable of course some people have been incredibly stupid but the end of the world still isn’t nigh. It is a sensible choice although a serious comitment to take on ownership of your own home. If prices were to fall over 25% in 2009 following the 30% falls in 2008 buying now would have got you off to a pretty shaky start, there are however Bounces in markets following over corrections brought about from market excesses. Of course things have been really bad, a lot of the so called new bad news is all just obvious fall out from the bad news we already know about, in the run up to Northern Rocks nationalisation and the collapse of Lehmans there was a kind of Phony war when nothing happened because no one knew who was the elephant in the room all of these things are important and serious of course they are. My view is that most ( the Majority of the bad stuff ) is already priced into the markets and write downs rarely turn into total losses. Calmer heads usually prevail, the bears enjoy their glory at the inevitable slump at the end of each cycle not many multiple choice exams have (a) as the only correct answer for all the questions although if you answer (a) to all questions to a multiple choice exam you’ll probably get at least one if not a few more answers correct. I am sticking to my guns any first time buyer that asks me if they should buy now I would say yes its a great time to buy if you can get your finance if you are careful to pay the right price for you and if you are happy to take a long term view. In the long run we are indeed all dead but by the time your time is up if say your 25 now and plan on retiring at 65 in the 40 intervening years you will see between 5 and 8 cycles in the property market but by the time the next peak comes around buying at todays prices its my bet you’ll be ahead of the game, its only a guess there are no guarantees, it may be that you could wait 12 months and be better off to the tune of 25% although I very much doubt it, Turkeys after all don’t vote for christmas. The turkeys being the banks in this particular case will eventually realise that they have to consider the longer term too and act accordingly, this realisation will occur sometime this year meanwhile a lot of people will be eyeing the markets with increasing relish.
My friend who is an Estate Agent says that the market is much worse than thats being reported. She says that there is demand but its people chancing their arm by making stupid offers or time wasters just nosey. The agents are told to try to hype up the market or lose their jobs. Their clients will not drop their house prices even though the price is out of date by months. No Estate Agent believes that the market will pick up until next year at least.
RogerGLewis A few points. Firstly, I find your ‘everyone thought the world was flat’ analogy amusing. To me, it seems like you are arguing the world is flat (i.e things will revert to how they have always been and there is no need to consider any change from historical precedent).. Your point around the banks failing twice since the seventies reflects this. The UK banks have been bankrupt a couple of times since the seventies. This is very different to the global banking system failing, which is the current risk. Secondly, you do not seem to understand that the impact that Mortgage/Credit Backed Securities have had on the market. They have allowed trillions of dollars of money to be created out of thin air. These trillions of dollars will be destroyed as banks write down the value of the securities. The prices of assets (like houses) will drop substantially as there is no longer this wall of ‘loose’ credit chasing them. Property, as you correctly state, is illiquid. It will take years and years for these falls to complete. Thirdly, look at Japan. Property prices have been trending down for 15 years there. The same could easily happen here – and our banks ar certainly in more of a mess as we do not have the savings that the Japanese had when their financial system went belly up……
Mr Buffets sayings are many, his biography, Snowball is what I am currently reading. It is disappointing that it seems personal attacks on this forum are equated by some with somehow addressing and countering the opinions posted by others.I think you’ll find stain tune rider that the cautious thing is a Buffetism borrowed from his mentor Mr Graham, an investment guru that spurned a group of investors referred to extensively as the Grahamites. In that biography on which Warren Buffet himself cooperated, the sentiments as repeated by me, not as a direct quote were accurate, I won’t find a page reference but do recommend it to all as a good read, I see from googling the term (Warren Buffet, when the greedy get cautious.)that Mr Buffet has used this term in several forms and probably many times over the years, including again recently it seems, I sourced it from the biography. Remaining in the subject, sure I agree that if you already have your own property and are seeking other investments some with very low risk, or even shorter term higher risk higher return investments, will be more attractive to you. If you want to put your money under a mattress good luck to you I’m not going to tell you not to. My final word on this subject is this. It’s a free county do what you want to do,but remember in the 15th century some people thought the world was flat and maps had areas marked ”Here there be monsters’. I felt MR Darcy’s article was very one sided in fact I still do, these days I’ll stick to my Satellite Navigation I’m not into getting my info from outdated maps, least of all those touting monsters. Be careful out there, but don’t be cowed by the sooth sayers and merchants of doom.
Staintunerider: yours must be a lonely place, wherever it may be! You seem to be the only person who knows his ass from his elbow; you’re presumably the only person living on the planet wherever you live; and you can’t quote accurately either. A reputable Wall Street site claims that Mr Buffet’s remark was: “Be fearful when others are greedy and greedy only when others are fearful.” Would you do us all a favour and give us a break from your ill-considered and ignorant views, and from your unnecessarily impertinent remarks on other posters’ views? Disagree with the rest of us by all means but “please keep your comments polite and on topic”, even at 1:54AM.
RogerGLewis, it goes to show what you know ! Buffet said when others are scared get greedy and when they are greedy get scared. The fact you got this simple fact wrong means you don;t know your butt from your elbow. Anything else you add is redundant !
DAQ80: thanks for your support. A point about banks: you imply that they have some discretion over their capital accounts. Not really: the Basel II accords [are supposed to ;)] regulate them. No point in addressing them here, but for banks to command decent agency ratings (FWTW), they’re better off if they comply with the accords. Staintunerider: your point about UK income distribution and the housing market is well taken. Rock solid data for 2006/2007 is available here: http://www.statistics.gov.uk/cci/nugget.asp?id=334. In short, average UK household “final income” — that is, after tax and benefits — was about £28K (graph accuracy). For the top one fifth of households, the figure is about £52K; for the bottom one-fifth about £15K. In future, if final household income is earned by two or more members, banks and BS will only base mortgages on a percentage of the total — 80%? The risk that one or more members lose their jobs, even temporarily, is too great. The scary thing is that, even for the average household earning a final income of £52K, the maximum average mortgage will be about £185,000. At 6% over 25 years, monthly repayments are £1,190. I happily leave you to work out what the average house price is likely to be for this segment of the household population. My guesstimate? About £300,000. As for the first quintile, maximum mortgage about £50,000: average house price about £65,000!
RogerGLewis, This might not have much to do with the thread, but I’d your comments much easier to read if you followed the conventions of the language you’re writing in and didn’t randomly capitalise words. It’s so annoying it deflects from your intended message completely. Back to the thread – Cliff called the market a little early, but his judgement about what was imminent has been absolutely spot on. I’m not about to soliloquise here – life’s too short, but to knock the bloke because he’s a ‘renter’ is downright bizarre. Perhaps a more reasonable target would be to knock those who seek to invoke envy in others by displaying things they can’t afford with no reasonable likelihood of paying for them. Where’s the dividing line between reckless (or feckless) debt and theft?
The reason that property prices are falling besides the banks lending restrictions (as they try to repair their balance sheets and restrict their credit to avoid further write off by asking for higher deposits) is that many people particularly the first time buyer and the investment buyer like myself are staying out of the market. All the properties I have bought for investment since the early 90’s have been with cash as I have no need of a mortgage.I got out of investment property by may 2007 as I saw th market overcooking in the same way as it has done in the past.The ratios were all far too high and the lending terms outrageous(125% mortgages) Most of my cash is now locked nicely away for a couple of years or longer ( up to 2013) at a rate averaging 6.5% so why would I want to risk buying say a property at the moment say for £200k which might be at least 15-20% lower at the end of 2009. I would then have lost about 40k offset maybe by rental of 10k before tax making a loss on capital this year of 30k and reducing my 200k to 170k. On the other hand my £200k has moved up to 213k before tax without any of the hassle of the rental market. Until the market looks tempting enough many investors like me will stay out, further aggravating the situation as will first time buyers who if they have any sense will sit it out and rent and save a bigger deposit while they rent thus securing a better mortgage deal when the market looks tempting again probably in late 2010 at the earliest. regards malc
The long term trend for house prices in the UK particularly even on a 50 year mean curve is actually not so bad after all for most of us our houses are firstly a place to live in. of course I recognize the incredible times in which we are currently living and have experienced for the past 18 months. IF one falls of a cliff then the ground will sooner or later be reached, I think that impact has happened, multiple discounting of basically the same disastrous decisions banks have made in the past 5 years is not the way forward, double counting of anything has always been poor maths to my way of thinking. I remember Nigel Lawson de-crying the teenaged scribblers, a lot of said scribbling has proliferated of late. On house prices there are bargains to be had wise investment advice is that if you can buy within 10% of the bottom of a market and sell within 10% of the top you are doing pretty well. Frankly we are a long way from the next top and it is a fair bet that we are not 10% either way from the Bottom, property should always be a long term Buy due to its illiquidity, on a 25 year view I can’t see why anyone would not want to buy now, If I were a first time buyer I would be buying, get the best bargain on the best there is out there that you can afford. Buying as several people have pointed out is now substantially cheaper than renting at the level of rates prevalent today. As for the whole armageddon stuff sure there is some extraordinarily strange stuff happening but the banks have been bust at least twice since the seventies. I don’t think that the ability of our economy is less now to recover from this I think it is actually better. Last year Oil prices and inflation were the great worries, this year we are to believe we should be preparing for deflation of a wiemarian scale. We live in a Land of opportunity in an age of great potential. Personally I am starting a number of new business ventures this year precisely to capitalize upon the stodgy thinking that will be slowing down potential competitors who are adjusting to the new realities in the market. Yes there were ridiculous excesses from 2005-2008, yes there have been some lamentable cock ups and even frauds but the world keeps spinning , the sun rising and setting and the world essentially is still here or was last time i looked. There are always opportunities at times like these, I am arguing that Property is one of them.
RogerGLewis “I shorted Canary Wharf in 2003 as well in a very lucky trade that doubled the 7 figure sum that I foolishly trusted to my legendary Luck. Maybe I’ll get lucky again this time.” Perhaps, but it does not sound very likely. Do you not understand that we are experiencing a financial whirlwind the likes of which we have never seen before? This week: – Thousands of UK Job losses were announced every day . Some days topped 10,000. – Anglo Irish Bank was nationalised – Citigroup has announced it will need to split in two to survive – Bank of America needed another $20Billion + Gov’t bailout to survive. – Yet more British retailers entered administration – The Telegraph announces that the UK is to set up a £200 BILLION bad bank All of the above happened in the last 5 days. I know the most dangerous words in economics are ‘it is different this time’. However, there are not normal times. The world financial system is on its knee’s. Wealth is being destroyed a rate never experienced before. And it is only just beginning. The effect of millions of people becoming unemployed and hundreds of thousands of house being reposed have not impacted on the UK financial system yet. All of our woes to date have been caused by speculation on US debt. When losses from UK loans hit the system – the question will not be ‘is it a good to buy?’, the question will be ‘will the UK financial system survive?’. I hope for deflation, but fear financial collapse. So now is not a good time to be buying a house…..
I think I’d have to be on guy’s side on this argument. Banks are actively restricting credit because they’re overexposed. It is absolutely imperative that they reduce the size of their balance sheet in everything from consumer loans, mortgages and commercial debt. As was mentioned, people are talking about maintaining 15% capital ratios, which is a significant margin above what has recently been held and means banks won’t be able to risk increasing their exposure to housing in particular. The next year is going to see further falls I reckon, plus a big shake up on the high street. Not pretty but very likely. It’s going to be a case of save hard for the worst and hope that by the end of this year there are some signs of the economy picking up.
RogerGLewis: we can agree on a lot. I doubt if “worst” is a helpful adjective for recessions. What is different about this one, in my own living memory, is the virtual collapse of the banking system in the UK and USA, among several other countries. For about 20 years the banks have based their lending policies on a similar set of “Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds” to that of house buyers. To pursue those risky policies the banks borrowed long from the wholesale market and loaned to customers who had no hope of repaying the loans on property that didn’t have the intrinsic value of the price they paid for it. Property prices, especially in the commercial property sector — in many UK high streets half the properties may be vacant in a year’s time! — are collapsing, so the long lenders want to be repaid, destroying the banks’ capital base. In addition, it is estimated that £70 billion of corporate debt must be refinanced in 2009, some of which is highly speculative owing to the much increased risk of business failure. I don’t know whether all this is doom and gloom, or even a recession. Frankly, I don’t really care what we call it. What I’m fairly sure of is this: as Mr Greenspan famously remarked, in living memory, in a century, no one has been even close to the situation we now face. No one really knows how to address the issues. And no one can know how they will finally play out. But: the combination of a tulip-style property market and reckless banking policies will not be repeated for a very long time. Real house prices will revert to the long-term (50 years or more) mean and increase, as you imply, in line with real earnings. For some idea of the trajectory of real house prices, please try this: http://www.nationwide.co.uk/hpi/historical.htm
I am glad you got out in 2003. However, given your comments around supply and demand, that sounds like luck rather than judgement. I shorted Canary Wharf in 2003 as well in a very lucky trade that doubled the 7 figure sum that I foolishly trusted to my legendary Luck. Maybe I’ll get lucky again this time.
This is article is spot on. I disagree with the comment above, which says that you will not get a better chance in 25 years. If you go back to 1984( 25years ago) the house price to wage ratio was 3.36 it is now around 5.8 that means that anybody who expects to get the same returns in 25 years time will need the ratio to be nearly 10 in 2034. The peak of 2007 ,which the ratio was around 7, broke the banks. What would a ratio of 10 do? . House prices will drop a lot more and its the people who are buying today, and in the last 5 years who will pay the price sadly for life. I was pleased to see such a wide range of opinions on My Darcy’s article flourish. I am happy to have stuck my neck out so to speak. I fully understand the degree of pessimism and disappointment which one sided analysis plays on. I too am a very strong critic of the TV property is a one way bet culture. I prefer to examine the facts and not to spin. The wage House price ratio is only one measure of House price affordability indeed back in the early 90’s it was a great signpost to the great value offered in places such as London Docklands, we have been in a period of over 9 years of relatively stable and historically low rates. You will remember interest rates in high double figures in the early 90’s as well as I do I am sure. WIth Base rates at 1.5% the wage House price ratio needs to be looked at in a different light to compare early 1990’s to today the amount of disposable income spent on Housing costs is less today than it was then, this is only one factor the analysis on one ratio alone should not inform anyones decision to invest look at the cost in comparison to your income and do a sensitivity analysis to see how affordable the mortgage would be at a higher rate one could realistically expect to see, I would personally be very surprised that if over the next cycle Rates peak at over 8%, and will probably peak at much less than that. I disagree that we are entering the worst Recession in living memory. I think we have been in recession since the second half of 2007, if you want to just take the 2 quarters of negative growth definition fine but it really does not do justice to the complex way in which Markets and economies really work. Warren Buffet has it right when he says ‘ when the greedy get greedy get cautious and when the greedy get cautious get greedy’ that time is now. I am not spinning I don’t have any particular axe to grind I just prefer to see both sides of any particular argument and this article I think missed a big chunk of analysis which should if considered dilute the conclusions from Armageddon to mere doom and gloom. Personally I am happier investing into this much chastened market and I am secure in the knowledge that the fundamentals will return to equilibrium as the natural cause of things and indeed already are.
If you have to buy now, cos you need somewhere to live its good for a few reasons. Prices are already low, further room for lowering offers (i.e. a valuation just done on a property we offered for in Nov has come in lower still hence a further 18K saving negotiated), cash is safer in property (yes we did have savings in Icelands bank which we ‘lost’ for a while). Property bought now may go down 11% this year but my cash would probably buy less in a year if I saved it at current rubbish rates. There may be reduced production and higher prices in a years time. Property will go up again eventually, more than my cash will.
Guykguard, to repeat if this happens the banks will get clobbered worse than subprime. If property goes where you suggest, up to a third of Uk property will be mortgaged for double their worth. The banks are dumb enough to create this situation in which they would actually end up the losers, because it would be better to go bankrupt and then be scott free in 5 years than try and deal with it. I don;t think you understand how many people earn well over 50k these days and they are still bottom feeders. If property went where you suggest a 50k earner could easily buy a 2 bed terraced house in the South East priced at 90k in 1999. For those who mention the average wage at 25k, well even 2 of these in a household can do it. No I don’t want prices to rise to 2007 levels although one day they will but that’ll be inflation and other economic factors. Fairvalue is where they should be and we don’t agree on what that is, Personally i think it’s here or 15percent down at most as a range. You simply can’t compare tulips and the gold rush as having all the same fundamentals as the property market, they are not the same, just because greed was a factor doesn’t make many other factors the same for all. You cannot c
Staintunerider: whooah, take it easy! I don’t intend to ruffle your feathers. On the other hand, no amount of personal remarks or wondering who I may be will make any difference to the bald facts or to the lessons of economic history and economic theory. Forty years may seem a long time to you and me, but in economic history it’s not time. In terms of economic theory, the reversion to the mean plays an important part. To see both history and theory played out in the realm of real UK property prices, please go here: http://www.nationwide.co.uk/hpi/historical.htm It is your fervent hope that prices will revert to their levels in 2006/2007. I’m on your side in this but history is against you: in the next 10-20 years real prices are far more likely, owing to the inescapable tendency of the reversion to the mean, to fall below the trend line, much as they did from about 1990 to 2002, when the rate of inflation was falling and relatively low. It’s easy to see that they’ve been heading south for two years, much as they did in 1979-1981 and 1989-1990, when there were no banking crises to arrest the flow of mortgage finance. One obvious impetus for the expected reversion to the mean is the banking crisis. Today, Barclays shares tanked 24% in 20 minutes; Anglo-Irish was nationalised; Citigroup and BOA are on the ropes. Why? Because the discounted future market value of the assets, including some dodgy derivatives that keep on surfacing, that still back their loan books are not worth anything like what the lenders and the borrowers thought they were worth. Much economic theory plays out at the margin: an analogy of the margin rule is the droplet that breaks the surface tension of the full glass of water, pouring water all over the place. Hence how the banking crisis was so sudden and so drastic: and the “glass” that overflowed so suddenly is still overflowing. And there’s no quick way of putting it back! Banks don’t “have to” do anything: like the rest of us, they can choose, happily. For the foreseeable future they will choose creditworthy customers over NINJNAs; depositors who prefer security for their savings over fancy returns; and rebuilding their obligatory Tier 1 and Tier 2 capital bases over dodgy derivatives, mainly by some massive cost cutting. (Those branch networks are doomed: what a crazily expensive way of raking in modest deposits, cashing cheques and dealing with other trivia!) I quite understand that the D’Arcy/guykguard motion, that house prices will continue falling for the foreseaable future, is dead scary! It can never be popular with property owners, which gives me personally no pleasure. But, the future will show that the behaviour of UK real house prices over the next ten years was no different from the prices of Dutch tulips; the gold rushes; the dot.com bubble; oil prices in 2008; and every other irrational aberration of the elementary rules of economic theory. The motion can be carried without even a show of hands!
Actually, I don’t think Mr.Lewis is a million miles away from reality. There is not only the supply issue to consider, but one which everyone ignores, the demographic issue. The vast majority of people that are coping with their mortgages will stay put. Perhaps a couple of years ago, they may have considered [i]trading up[/i], but now they’ll simply stay where they are. This takes a huge chunk of real estate out of the equation. Further, there is a massive section of property owned outright by the baby boomer generation, who are content to stay where they are and have never had any intention of moving. The headline decreases seen in the media, will simply relate to distressed sales, from those unfortunate enough to get thrown on the scrapheap, but in reality, only represent a very small proportion of overall property stocks. Where I would quibble with Mr. Lewis’s analysis is, I think (but don’t know for sure), that property will trend down a little more this year, (maybe another 10-12%), but not as much as most commentators suggest and I suspect the market will remain substantially flat for another 18-24 months thereafter. So perhaps a three year freeze on prices. By then, given a gradually recovering economy (albeit up to the hilt in public debt), will balance the flat prices seen over the period. In other words, the economy will catch up with prices, rather than, prices reducing to match the economy. Therefore, I don’t believe there is any reason to rush out and buy a property right now. Equally, I do not believe (for the reasons stated), there will be huge further falls. There will [i]appear[/i] to be, but it’s almost an illusion on a very limited amount of housing stock and statistical analysis is based on actual sales. To take that to its extreme, if only one property were sold this year and it sold for 40% less than last year, the media would state a 40% drop in house prices, but that hardly represents reality! Finally, for those of us not intending to buy or sell, it is completely irrelevant anyway, other than making the individual [i]feel[/i] richer or poorer. In fact, it could actually benefit a few, who were right on the edge of inheritance tax.
The past 10 days or so I have been contemplating my last context piece to Give my own filter to apply to the final part of my Novel The Conquest of Dough.
I am leaning to the notion of another Epic Poem dealing with the characters and issues in the current political maelstrom.
I have allighted upon that idea, I think Usury Hells Fuel and Bourgopise resolution could do with a completion of the trilogy. Usury , Political Economy Bourgoisee the human Geography of power structure and this Globalisation piece.
This blog has been a catharsis a sounding board and real time scribble pad, and this post is merely a passing trifle in what I consider to be my Creative process.
The Russian government, especially the Central Bank, has largely managed to preserve financial stability, a brief outbreak of panic in December 2014 notwithstanding. To offset the loss of access to Western financial markets, the Central Bank has relied on a new instrument—foreign currency repurchase agreements. In effect, the Central Bank has lent dollars to Russian banks that essentially posted their own dollar loans to Russian companies as collateral—and in turn used the dollars to repay their external debt. This has allowed Russia to stave off a run on the ruble as well as major defaults on Russian corporates’ dollar-denominated debt.
The government, for its part, looked into the issue of recapitalizing systemically important banks. This is a critical issue, as isolation is especially costly for the banking system. It is very likely that Russian banks—aside from Sberbank, which is run by Gref—will suffer losses in 2015. The Deposit Insurance Agency has already exhausted its funds and has asked the Central Bank for help.
While government support is indeed needed, the government itself lacks extra funds. Though the 2016 budget draft foresees cutting spending by 8 percent in real terms, it still includes a budget deficit equivalent to 3 percent of GDP.2 That is why the government has chosen to recapitalize the banks with government bonds rather than cash. Doing so solves the problem for the time being, but it increases major risks in the long run. Essentially, it threatens a vicious circle of sovereign debt and bank default. If banks hold sovereign bonds, then the sovereign debt crisis will hit their capital—and to recapitalize banks, the sovereign budget will need to issue new debt. The eurozone faced this problem in recent years and tried hard to break out of this cycle by creating a banking union. It is ironic that Russia is brazenly refusing to learn from the EU’s mistakes and may walk directly into this trap.
There is one direction in which Mr Streit’s proposals are open to improvement. Let us turn to another in which he does not seem to have realised all the implications of his proposal. This great Union is to have a union money and a union customs-free economy. What follows upon that? More I think than he realises.
There is one aspect of money to which the majority of those that discuss it seem to be incurably blind. You cannot have a theory of money or any plan about money by itself in the air. Money is not a thing in itself; it is a working part of an economic system. Money varies in its nature with the laws and ideas of property in a community. As a community moves towards collectivism and communism, for example, money simplifies out. Money is a necessary in a communism as it is in any other system, but its function therein is at its simplest. Payment in kind to the worker gives him no freedom of choice among the goods the community produces. Money does. Money becomes the incentive that “works the worker” and nothing more. Ed. NB
But directly you allow individuals not only to obtain goods for consumption, but also to obtain credit to produce material for types of production outside the staple productions of the state, the question of credit and debt arises and money becomes more complicated. With every liberation of this or that product or service from collective control to business or experimental exploitation, the play of the money system enlarges and the laws regulating what you may take for it, the company laws, bankruptcy laws and so forth increase. In any highly developed collective system the administration will certainly have to give credits for hopeful experimental enterprises. When the system is not collectivism, monetary operations for gain are bound to creep in and become more and more complicated. Where most of the substantial side of life is entrusted to uncoordinated private enterprise, the intricacy of the money apparatus increases enormously. Monetary manipulation becomes a greater and greater factor in the competitive struggle, not only between individuals and firms, but between states. As Mr Streit himself shows, in an excellent discussion of the abandonment of the gold standard, inflation and deflation become devices in international competition. Money becomes strategic, just as pipe lines and railways can become strategic.
This being so it is plain that for the Federal Union a common money means an identical economic life throughout the Union. And this too is implied also in Mr Streit’s “customs-free” economy. It is impossible to have a common money when a dollar or a pound, or whatever it is, can buy this, that or the other advantage in one state and is debarred from anything but bare purchases for consumption in another. So that this Federal Union is bound to be a uniform economic system. There can be only very slight variations in the control of economic life.
A dozen years ago anyone who had foretold the political line-up of today would have been looked on as a lunatic. And yet the truth is that the present situation — not in detail, of course, but in its main outlines — ought to have been predictable even in the golden age before Hitler. Something like it was bound to happen as soon as British security was seriously threatened.
The unspoken clause is always ‘not counting niggers’. For how can we make a ‘firm stand’ against Hitler if we are simultaneously weakening ourselves at home? In other words, how can we ‘fight Fascism’ except by bolstering up a far vaster injustice?
For of course it is vaster. What we always forget is that the overwhelming bulk of the British proletariat does not live in Britain, but in Asia and Africa. It is not in Hitler’s power, for instance, to make a penny an hour a normal industrial wage; it is perfectly normal in India, and we are at great pains to keep it so. One gets some idea of the real relationship of England and India when one reflects that the per capita annual income in England is something over £80, and in India about £7. It is quite common for an Indian coolie’s leg to be thinner than the average Englishman’s arm. And there is nothing racial in this, for well-fed members of the same races are of normal physique; it is due to simple starvation. This is the system which we all live on and which we denounce when there seems to be no danger of its being altered. Of late, however, it has become the first duty of a ‘good anti-Fascist’ to lie about it and help to keep it in being.
Now here I have nothing to suggest about America. I have never, for example, tried to work out the consequences of the absence of executive ministers from the legislature. I am inclined to think that is one of the weak points in the Constitution and that the English usage which exposes the minister to question time in the House and makes him a prime mover in legislation affecting his department, is a less complicated and therefore more democratic arrangement than the American one. And the powers and functions of the President and the Senate are so different from the consolidated powers of Cabinet and Prime Minister, that even when an Englishman has industriously “mugged up” the constitutional points, he is still almost as much at a loss to get the living reality as he would be if he were shown the score of an opera before hearing it played or the blue prints of a machine he had never seen in action. Very few Europeans understand the history of Woodrow Wilson, the Senate and his League of Nations. They think that “America”, which they imagine as a large single individual, planted the latter institution upon Europe and then deliberately shuffled out of her responsibility for it, and they will never think otherwise. And they think that “America” kept out of the war to the very limit of decency, overcharged us for munitions that contributed to the common victory, and made a grievance because the consequent debt was not discharged. They talk like that while Americans talk as if no English were killed between 1914 and 1918 (we had 800,000 dead) until the noble American conscripts came forward to die for them (to the tune of about 50,000). Savour for example even the title of Quincy Howe’s England expects every American to do his Duty. It’s the meanest of titles, but many Americans seem to like it.
On my desk as I write is a pamphlet by a Mr Robert Randall, nicely cyclostyled and got up. Which urges a common attack on the United States as a solution of the problem of Europe. No countries will ever feel united unless they have a common enemy, and the natural common enemy for Europe, it is declared, is the United States. So to bring about the United States of Europe we are to begin by denouncing the Monroe doctrine. I believe in the honesty and good intentions of Mr Robert Randall; he is, I am sure, no more in the pay of Germany, direct or indirect, than Mr Quincy Howe or Mr Harry Elmer Barnes; but could the most brilliant of Nazi war propagandists devise a more effective estranging suggestion?
But I wander from my topic. I do not know how sane men in America are going to set about relaxing the stranglehold of the Constitution, get control of their own country out of the hands of those lumpish, solemnly cunning politicians with their great strong jowls developed by chewing-gum and orotund speaking, whose photographs add a real element of frightfulness to the pages of Time, how they are going to abolish the spoils system, discover, and educate to expand a competent civil service able to redeem the hampered promises of the New Deal and pull America into line with the reconstruction of the rest of the world. But I perceive that in politics and indeed in most things, the underlying humour and sanity of Americans are apt to find a way round and do the impossible, and I have as little doubt they will manage it somehow as I have when I see a street performer on his little chair and carpet, all tied up with chains, waiting until there are sufficient pennies in the hat to justify exertion.
Real brothers can curse each other and keep friends. Someday Britannia will give Columbia a piece of her mind, and that may clear the air. Said an exasperated Englishman to me a day or so ago: “I pray to God they keep out of the end of this war anyhow. We shall never hear the last of it if they don’t….”
At present we see one public service after another in a mess through the incompetent handling of some party hack and the unseen activities of interested parties. People are asking already why Sir Arthur Salter is not in control of Allied Shipping again, Sir John Orr directing our food supply with perhaps Sir Fredrick Keeble to help him, Sir Robert Vansittart in the Foreign Office. We want to know the individuals responsible for the incapacity of our Intelligence and Propaganda Ministries, so that we may induce them to quit public life. It would be quite easy now to excite a number of anxious people with a cry for “Competence not Party”.
They are expropriated by profit-control and taxation alike, and at the same time they suffer in purchasing power by the acceleration of that process of monetary inflation which is the unavoidable readjustment, the petition in bankruptcy, of a community that has overspent.
See Money passage above. Ed. NB
And if we, the virtuous democracies, are not fighting for these common human rights, then what in the name of the nobility and gentry, the Crown and the Established Church, the City, The Times and the Army and Navy Club, are we common British peoples fighting for?
XI. — INTERNATIONAL POLITICS
There is this idea of federalism upon which I have already submitted a criticism in chapter seven. As I have shown there, the Streit proposals will either take you further or land you nowhere. Let us assume that we can strengthen his proposals to the extent of making a socialistic economic consortium and adhesion to that Declaration of Rights, primary conditions for any federal union; then it becomes a matter of mood and occasion with what communities the federal association may be begun. We can even encourage feeble federal experiments which do not venture even so far as that along the path to sanity, in the certainty that either they will fade out again or else that they will become liberal realities of the type to which the whole world must ultimately conform. Behind any such half-hearted tentatives an educational propaganda can be active and effective.
The present writer cherishes the idea that the realisation of a common purpose and a common cultural inheritance may spread throughout all the English-speaking communities, and there can be no harm in efforts to give this concrete expression. He believes the dissociation of the British Empire may inaugurate this great synthesis. At the same time there are factors making for some closer association of the United States of America with what are called the Oslo powers. There is no reason why one of these associations should stand in the way of the other. Some countries such as Canada rest already under what is practically a double guarantee; she has the security of the Monroe Doctrine and the protection of the British fleet.
A Germany of eighty million people which has been brought to acquiesce in the Declaration of the Rights of Man and which is already highly collectivised, may come much earlier to a completely liberal socialist regime than Great Britain or France.
A lingering fear of German military aggression may not be altogether bad for the minor states of South-Eastern Europe and Asia Minor, by breaking down their excessive nationalism and inducing them to work together. The policy of the sane man should be to welcome every possible experiment in international understandings duplicate and overlap one another, so much the better. He has to watch the activities of his own Foreign Office with incessant jealousy, for signs of that Machiavellian spirit which foments division among foreign governments and peoples and schemes perpetually to frustrate the progressive movement in human affairs by converting it into a swaying indecisive balance of power.
Some years ago four or five books written by Mrs. Nesta Webster attracted considerable attention. She is a very competent writer and so sound a Christian, of a faith so uncritical, that she is quite unable to understand that many honest people find a vast amount of Christian doctrine impossible. How impossible, I have sought to show in §§ 13 and 14. To her there is nothing good except in Christianity, and this is so obvious to her that any objection to the faith seems necessarily part of some diabolically hatched conspiracy. She has set herself with the greatest industry to trace and link together the long-drawn succession of Cabalists, Gnostics, Manichaeans, the Old Man of the Mountains, Knight Templars, Satanists, Rosicrucians, Illuminati, Freemasons, Rousseau, Voltaire, Cagliostro, Madame Blavatsky, Mrs. Besant, Trade Unions, Anarchists, Socialists, Theosophists, Communists, Those Bolsheviks, a frightful horde all plotting and getting hold of power and handing it on and doing down Christianity and the Christian life. Her books are written with-conviction enough to make one look under the bed at nights. She has never quite committed herself to those famous forged Protocols Of The Elders Of Zionwhich were published as the articles of association so to speak of that world conspiracy, but she stoutly maintains that though that book may not be genuine, it nevertheless shows the sort of thing of which the Jews are capable. Her book Secret Societies And Subversive Movementsconcludes: “For behind the concrete forces of revolution—whether Pan-German, Judaic or Illuminist—beyond that invisible secret circle which perhaps directs them all, is there not yet another force, still more potent, that must be taken into account? In looking back over the centuries at the dark episodes that have marked the history of the human race from its earliest origins—strange and horrible cults, waves of witchcraft, blasphemies and desecrations—how is it possible to ignore the existence of an Occult Power at work in the world? Individuals, sects, or races fired with the desire of world domination, have provided the fighting forces of destruction, but behind them are the veritable powers of darkness in eternal conflict with the powers of light.”
§23. — THREE FACTORS IN EVERYONE
WE have now exposed, in stripped outline, the primary factors in world affairs at the present time. In all these matters I have written with the complete freedom of a biologically trained and uncontrolled observer. Sir Arthur Salter, for example, in his Security. Can We Retrieve It? (1939), writes with all the discretions and reserves of a responsible politician who has to think and speak within the conventions that I, in my entire irresponsibility, can repudiate and kick aside. His thoughts are capped and gowned and mine are stark. He has an air of scarcely recognizing the realities I assemble. Nevertheless, his intelligence and integrity are manifestly forcing him towards a conception of public policy and the human future essentially the same as those I have stated concisely and brutally here.*
Note 23A. Sir Arthur’s Epilogue begins: “Shall we never pluck the best from fate and find the Golden Mean? Must we ever choose freedom without order, or order without freedom? Must justice and mercy bring always weakness in their train, and strength bring tyranny? “Shall Peace be never made between equals, but imposed always by victor upon vanquished? Must every peace treaty sow the seeds of future war? Shall the strong never be magnanimous and the weak never secure justice? Must success always sap the will, and the humiliation of defeat incite only to revenge? Shall wars with changing victors be for ever the dire fate of men? “We, the free democracies of the world, have the virtues bred and nursed in the pursuits of peace. That is not enough. We need also the sterner virtues—fortitude, daemonic energy, the will to act—and to act together.” (p. 385.) “…willing cooperation and the endurance which is only possible to an instructed people who understand the purpose of their effort and approve it.” (p. 384.) Sir Arthur Salter, Security. Can We Retrieve It? (1939).
The Week That Was July 17, 2004
1. New on the Web: THE GLOBAL WARMING SCARE IS DYING. Two papers published in the peer-reviewed scientific journal Geophysical Research Letters suggest that the climate has not warmed appreciably in the past quarter-century and that current climate models cannot adequately simulate atmospheric processes. These results contradict two of the three major conclusions of the IPCC that have been advanced as evidence for a human influence on climate warming.. [The third conclusion, i.e., that the 20th century is the warmest in the past 1000 years, has been traced to the mangling of the underlying data.]
2. HOCKEYSTICK DATA WERE MANGLED: CORRECTION IN NATURE
3. Meanwhile, an AAAS CONFERENCE PROMOTES GLOBAL WARMING SCARES. According to a report by the CO2 & Climate team, “never before has a group that purports to represent the purest ideals of scientific discourse put together such a biased look at the issue.”
4. CLIMATE CHANGE PRIESTHOOD DESPERATELY SEARCHING FOR ‘DREAD FACTOR’
5. DEMOCRATIC PARTY PLATFORM IGNORES KYOTO PROTOCOL – for good reason
6. SHOWDOWN IN MOSCOW: RUSSIAN ACADEMY OF SCIENCES VS. BRITISH SCIENCE ADVISER SIR DAVID KING: Several reports and SEPP Comments
7. SIR DAVID’S APOCALYPTIC VISIONS: A Water World
8. And finally, A TRUE WORD FROM THE IPCC REPORT (not from the Summary) ************************************************************************************************************************************************
6. Illarionov Calls Kyoto Protocol Undeclared War on Russia
MOSCOW. July 8 (Interfax) – Russian presidential economic advisor Andrei Illarionov called the Kyoto Protocol an “undeclared war against Russia” at a Moscow press conference.
“The Kyoto Protocol is an undeclared war against Russia from all sides – the left, the right, from liberals, conservatives and businesses. It uses absolutely all means and its main prize is the ratification by Russian authorities of the Kyoto Protocol, which would mean a complete capitulation to a dangerous ideology imposed via international diplomacy,” Illarionov said.
“The nature and content of the Kyoto Protocol is one of the largest, if not the largest, escapade of all times and nations,” Illarionov said. “Not one of the claims contained in the Kyoto Protocol and the “scientific” theory on which they are based have been confirmed by real facts. Extreme natural occurrences are not becoming more frequent, and there has been no increase in infectious diseases either,” he said.
Supporters of Russia’s ratification of the Kyoto Protocol demonstrate an “approach to Russia similar to that of a ‘banana republic,’ a country, which, if it hasn’t already become a colony, will soon do so, if the document is ratified,” Illarionov said. “If this decision is approved, it won’t be on the basis of a substantial analysis, and not for substantial reasons, but for other reasons. We can’t completely rule this out,” Illarionov said on the possibility of Russia approving this decision.
=
Illarionov Attacks Britain, Vows to Bury Kyoto By Simon Ostrovsky Staff Writer, MOSCOW TIMES, July 12, 2004.
President Vladimir Putin’s personal adviser on all things economic last week accused British Prime Minister Tony Blair’s government of declaring “all-out and total war on Russia” and using “bribes, blackmail and murder threats” to force it to ratify the Kyoto Protocol.
In a six-hour diatribe, Andrei Illarionov accused visiting Blair adviser Sir David King, the British government’s top scientist, of trying, through pressure from Blair’s office and through Foreign Secretary Jack Straw personally, to hijack a two-day conference on the global environmental treaty at the Russian Academy of Sciences.
“During the past year [the British] have used bribes, blackmail and murder threats to put pressure on Russia, which shows how desperate their case is,” Illarionov said without elaborating. “This has not been in the press, but it had to come out after Sir David King’s behavior at the conference,” he said.
King filibustered the conference for four hours in an effort to block opponents of the protocol from presenting their findings, Illarionov said.
Illarionov, an outspoken and respected liberal economist, has often clashed with government officials on a variety of reform issues — including the Kyoto Protocol, which will die if Russia does not ratify it. It is not clear how much sway Illarionov has with Putin, a fellow St. Petersburger.
Putin appeared to back the protocol earlier this year in exchange for the European Union supporting Russia’s bid to join the World Trade Organization. But late Thursday, when asked by a Japanese journalist whether his fierce opposition to Kyoto reflected the Kremlin’s position, Illarionov said Putin had never said he backs the treaty. “Putin didn’t say he supports the Kyoto Protocol, he said he supports the Kyoto process,” Illarionov said. He did not elaborate.
After signing a trade deal with the EU in May, Putin said Brussels had met Russia “halfway” on WTO, which “cannot but affect positively our position on the Kyoto Protocol.” But he also stressed that Russia “did not package the issues of WTO and the Kyoto Protocol.” “I cannot say how things will be 100 percent, because ratification is not an issue for the president but for parliament,” Putin said at the time.
Illarionov accused Britain and other “imperialist” rich nations of using Kyoto to keep poor nations from developing. Britain denied the charge. “Global warming is an issue of concern for all citizens of the world and we need to tackle it,” British Embassy spokesman Richard Turner said.
Peter Cox, head of the British Meteorological Office’s climate, chemistry and ecosystems department, said last week’s conference was a publicity stunt by Illarionov, who brought in well-known skeptics to discredit the findings of the International Panel on Climate Control, the basis for Kyoto, Cox said. “The meeting was set up to challenge the IPCC line,” he said. “Illarionov hijacked the meeting by inviting people who were outside the IPCC process and who were bitter about that.”
Cox said the conference was “like no other” he had ever attended and said he felt very sorry for the Russian scientists that were used as a “rubber stamp for Illarionov’s agenda.” The [Russian] Academy issued a statement after the conference saying that it found “no scientific basis” for the Kyoto Protocol, and that a warmer Earth is actually positive for Russia.
The stated aim of the 1997 Protocol is to roll back global carbon dioxide emissions — which many scientists say cause global warming — to 1990 levels. Many poor countries have argued that the agreement puts a disproportionate amount of pressure on their carbon-intensive, manufacturing-based economies. Illarionov, however, has also opted to attack the very scientific principles on which IPCC bases its argument for implementing the treaty.
Illarionov argued that the real reason every rich nation but America, the world’s biggest polluter, backs the Protocol is because they want control of emissions quotas, something he said will give developed nations unprecedented control of poor countries’ economies.
“Europe has seen the effects of the national-socialist ideology and the Marxist ideology. The imperialist philosophy behind Kyoto is nothing short of these in its scale,” he said. “This is war. But our cause is just and we will prevail.”
Hot Controversy Over Climate Meeting by MARTIN ENSERINK Science, 13 July 2004
A political hurricane blew through an international scientific meeting on climate change held in Moscow last week, sparking a major row between top advisers to the British and Russian governments. U.K. scientists complained that the meeting had been “hijacked” by opponents of the Kyoto Protocol, while Russian officials accused the British delegation, led by Chief Scientific Adviser David King, of trying to suppress dissenting views.
Russia’s Andrey Illarionov says Kyoto would trigger “undeclared war.”
Russia holds the key to the Kyoto climate treaty, which enters into force only if adopted by countries that together are responsible for at least 55% of the world’s carbon dioxide output. In May, President Vladimir Putin hinted that he might ratify the treaty in exchange for the European Union’s support of Russian membership in the World Trade Organization. That came shortly after the Russian Academy of Sciences (RAS) produced a report criticizing the Protocol, saying it lacks scientific validity and would not be effective.
British climate experts expected the meeting, organized by RAS, to be a forum to discuss global warming and the Kyoto treaty with RAS members. On the eve of their departure for Moscow, however, the U.K. group learned about the addition of several well-known “skeptics” in the climate change debate. The list included Stockholm University’s Nils-Axel Mo”rner, who has cast doubts on claims of rising sea levels, British climate maverick Piers Corbyn, and the Pasteur Institute’s Paul Reiter, who disputes predictions that infectious diseases will explode as temperatures rise.
The new program was “unacceptable” to King, says Peter Cox of the U.K.’s Hadley Centre for Climate Prediction and Research in Exeter. “We knew that we would not get to the scientific issues if we went down every rabbit hole of skepticism.” In fact, the opening session was delayed while King and RAS President Yuri Osipov attempted to negotiate an alternative agenda. King also asked British foreign secretary Jack Straw to intervene, several participants say.
“It’s very sad, but the Russian Academy seems to have been taken over” by Andrey Illarionov, a top adviser to President Putin and a vocal opponent of the Kyoto treaty, says John Houghton, another participant.
At a press conference after the meeting, Illarionov called the treaty an “undeclared war against Russia,” based on a “totalitarian ideology.” But he denies having a hand in the agenda and says he was “shocked” by British attempts at “censorship.” ==============================================================
Global Warming British climatologists spark a fierce debate at the Russian Academy of Sciences
Climate change symposium in Moscow plagued by “totalitarian ideology”
This week’s issue of the international journal Science reports a bizarre event that took place recently in Moscow. A serious confrontation arose between a small group of British scientists and their Russian hosts during a symposium on Climate Change and the Kyoto Protocol, which had been organized by the prestigious Russian Academy of Science. The clash was more than a minor diplomatic incident because it revealed a form of intellectual bullying that is beginning to dominate the scientific community on the question of climate change.
Since its rejection by the United States in 2001, the fate of the Kyoto Protocol has lain in the hands of the Russians. This is because the treaty can only enter into force if it is ratified by countries that, as a group, are responsible for at least 55% of the world’s output of carbon dioxide. Because Russia emits 17% of this output (the United States emits 25%), it is being wooed from all quarters. The Europeans dearly want them to sign whereas the United States are strongly against the idea. Faced with this situation, Vladimir Putin has raised the bidding by ordering Russian climatologists to study the question in detail.
Months ago, the Academicians had posed a long list of searching questions to clarify the widely publicized viewpoints of the Intergovernmental Panel of Climate Change (IPCC), but they have never received a word of reply. That was the initial affront. In May, the Russians published a report that was fairly critical of the Kyoto Protocol, judging it unfair to developing countries. This verdict was close to that of Andreï Illarionov, principal economic adviser to President Putin, who believes the Protocol could ruin the Russian economy. It was in this context that the Academicians, who include several of the world’s leading climate scientists, had arranged the Moscow symposium.
The second affront came from the British scientists, who refused to accept the Russian programme. In particular, they adamantly rejected the presence of several international experts whom the Russians had chosen to invite. Motive: these experts have been denouncing the “IPCC dogma” for many years. The British referred to them as “climate skeptics”. Notable among these were Richard Lindzen, Professor of Meteorology at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT); British specialist in mosquito-borne diseases, Paul Reiter, currently Professor at the Pasteur Institute, Paris; Swedish Professor Nils-Axel Mörner, specialist in sea-level science; Madhav Khandekar, Canadian specialist in severe weather, and Australian climatologist William Kininmonth, ex-Director of the Australian National Climate Centre. These names are not well-known to the general public, but are regarded as infamous in the eyes of climatologists who support the IPCC.
The third affront came from the President of the British delegation, Sir David King, who remained absent for much of the meeting, following his unsuccessful efforts to eliminate the “skeptics”.
In a later interview, Paul Reiter stated: “The simple truth is that we are not extremists”. A scientist of international stature, he dismissed as fantasy the catastrophic scenarios promoted by the IPCC in which global warming will cause malaria to move into temperate regions. “Poverty, not climate, is the dominant factor in the distribution of malaria” he asserted. “When I asked whether any of the Russian Academicians at the symposium had had malaria, nearly all raised their hands. Several had contracted the disease in Siberia”!
At a Moscow press conference after the symposium, Andreï Illarionov denounced the “totalitarian ideology” of the British climatologists who support the IPCC, giving his support to the “dissident scientists”, victims of ostracism by “official science”. Truly an irony of history.
Translated from Le Figaro, Friday July 16, 2004, page 9 ============================================================
Remarks By Russian Presidential Economic Adviser Andrei Illarionov at the July 8th Press Conference held in Moscow on the subjects of global warming and Kyoto. Because S. 139, the McCain-Lieberman bill, is seen by many as “Kyoto Light” and is driven by the same interests and “science”, one can likely assume Illarionov views it in the same light. One would not likely see this reported in the main US press.
Below are some highlights. Probably most remarkable is the Russian view of the ideology underlying the UN Kyoto Protocol:
“That ideological base can be juxtaposed and compared, as Professor Reiter has done just now, with man-hating totalitarian ideology with which we had the bad fortune to deal during the 20th century, such as National Socialism, Marxism, Eugenics, Lysenkoism and so on. All methods of distorting information existing in the world have been committed to prove the alleged validity of these theories. Misinformation, falsification, fabrication, mythology, propaganda. Because what is offered cannot be qualified in any other way than myth, nonsense and absurdity.” =============================================================
SEPP Comment: The Russian Academy of Sciences (RAS) is the only one to take a realistic position on the science underlying the Kyoto Protocol. By contrast, the Royal Society (UK) has led in imagining climate disasters and has attempted to get other national academies to join. [The US National Academy has declined to participate.]
All is not lost in Britain. The Royal Academy of Engineering has maintained a sane and levelheaded position on climate change and energy policy. It seems ironic that the RAS — and Russia – may yet save Europe from economic ruin by refusing to ratify Kyoto and thus making the Protocol inoperative. **********************************************************************
Andrey Nikolayevich Illarionov (Russian: Андре́й Никола́евич Илларио́нов, born 16 September 1961) is a Russian economist and former economic policy advisor to the President of Russia, Vladimir Putin. He works as a senior fellow in the Center for Global Liberty and Prosperity at the Cato Institute in Washington, DC.
Illarionov was born on 16 September 1961, in Sestroretsk, a municipal town of Saint Petersburg. At seventeen he started working at a communications office (telephone and postal services) in the town of Sestroretsk. He then went on to study economics at the Leningrad State University, graduating in 1983, and receiving a Ph.D. in economics in 1987.
From 1983 to 1984, and again from 1988 to 1990 Illarionov taught for the International Economic Relations Department of Leningrad State University. From 1990 to 1992 he was senior researcher at the Regional Economic Research Department of the Saint Petersburg State University of Economics and Finance. From 1992 he became part-time economic adviser to the Russian Deputy Prime Minister and Acting Prime Minister Yegor Gaidar and (until 1993) the first deputy head of the Economic Reform Centre of the Russian Government. From 1993 to 1994 Illarionov was the head of the Analysis and Planning Group of the Chairman of the Council of Ministers and the Government of Russia, Viktor Chernomyrdin, after which he went on to become the vice-president of the Leontyev International Social and Economic Research Centre, and director of the Moscow division. He has created the Institute for Economic Analysis and was its director from 1994 to 2000. Illarionov had called for a sharp devaluation of the Russian ruble before the August 1998 financial meltdown to prevent it.[1]
On 12 April 2000, Illarionov assumed the office of Vladimir Putin‘s senior economic adviser within the Russian presidential administration and in May 2000 he became the personal representative of the Russian president (sherpa) in the G8. He played an important role in introducing the low 13% flat income tax in Russia,[1] in repaying the Russian foreign debt, in creation the petroleum revenues-based Stabilization Fund of the Russian Federation and in bringing Russia’s full-fledged membership in the political G8.
On 3 January 2005 Illarionov resigned from his position as presidential representative to the G8.[2] On 21 December 2005, Illarionov declared “This year Russia has become a different country. It is no longer a democratic country. It is no longer a free country”. The Washington Post reported that he had cited a recent report by the U.S.-based and government sponsored Freedom House.[3] On 27 December 2005, Illarionov offered his resignation in protest against the government course, saying that Russia was no longer politically free, but ran by an authoritarian elite. “It is one thing to work in a country that is partly free. It is another thing when the political system has changed, and the country has stopped being free and democratic,” he said.[4] He also claimed that he had no more ability to influence the government’s course and that Kremlin put limits on him expressing his point of view. Illarionov was openly critical to such elements of the Russian economic policy as the Yukos affair, increasing influence of government officials on large companies such as Gazprom and Rosneft, and at last the Russia-Ukraine gas dispute and the energy policy of Russia in general.[1] Illarionov has also been a proponent of secession of Chechnya.[5]
In October 2006, Illarionov was appointed senior researcher of the Center for Global Liberty and Prosperity of the US libertarian think tank Cato Institute in Washington, DC.[6] In this position, he has lamented “[Russia’s] new corporate state in which state-owned enterprises are governed by personal interests and private corporations have become subject to arbitrary intervention to serve state interests”[7] as well as “new ways in which political, economic and civil liberties are being eliminated.”[8]
Illarionov is one of the 34 first signatories of the online anti-Putin manifesto “Putin must go“, published on 10 March 2010.
As a well known opponent to Vladimir Putin and his policies, he criticized former Czech president Václav Klaus‘ view that the EU and the USA did more to escalate conflict in the Ukraine than did Vladimir Putin. Illarionov was able to end the cooperation between Klaus and the Cato Institute.[9]
Illarionov has questioned the official Russian version of the Russian-Georgian war over Georgia’s breakaway South Ossetia and Abkhazia. He has suggested that the war was premeditated by the Russian leadership which had introduced its military into South Ossetia and escalated the situation to provoke the Georgian side.[10]
Illarionov has also stated that Moscow’s bellicose rhetoric scared away investors and was in part responsible for the 2008 Russian financial crisis. He has heavily criticized both Western and Russian government plans to ease the credit crunch, saying they amounted to a public bailout of bad decisions made by the private sector.[11]
On 4 February 2014, before the Russian intervention in Crimea, Illarionov predicted that Vladimir Putin was going to implement a military operation to effectively establish political control over Ukraine.[12]
In late March 2014, following the Ukrainian revolution, Crimean crisis, the Crimean referendum, and the annexation of Crimea by Russia, speaking to Svenska Dagbladet, Illarionov suggested that Vladimir Putin would seek to incorporate Finland into the Russian Federation by arguing that the granting of independence to Finland in 1917 was an act of treason against national interests: “It is not on Putin’s agenda today or tomorrow. But if Putin is not stopped, the issue will be brought sooner or later. Putin has said several times that the Bolsheviks and Communists made big mistakes. He could well say that the Bolsheviks in 1917 committed treason against Russian national interests by granting Finland’s independence”.[13] Illarionov also stated that in addition to Finland, there were “other territories where Putin claims to have ownership, namely parts of Georgia, Ukraine, Belarus, and the Baltic states“.[13]
On 9 June, he predicted that the beginning of the ceasefire and negotiations between the newly elected Ukrainian president Poroshenko and self-proclaimed authorities of break-away republics at the East of Ukraine would ultimately result in a Russian attempt at occupation or political control over the entire Ukraine[14]
As a well known opponent to Vladimir Putin and his policies, he criticized former Czech president Václav Klaus‘ view that the EU and the USA did more to escalate conflict in the Ukraine than did Vladimir Putin. Illarionov was able to end the cooperation between Klaus and the Cato Institute.[9]
Klaus was the principal co-founder of the Civic Democratic Party, a Czech Eurosceptic political party.[2][3] His presidency was marked by numerous controversies over his strong views on a number of issues, from global warming denial to euroscepticism,[4] and a wide-ranging amnesty declared in his last months of office, triggering his indictment by the Czech Senate on charges of high treason.
After his presidency ended in 2013, Klaus was named a Distinguished Senior Fellow at the Cato Institute.[5] His appointment was terminated in September 2014, due to his views on the Ukrainian crisis, his hostility to homosexuality, and support of European far right parties.[6]
This article needs to be updated. Please update this section to reflect recent events or newly available information. (October 2012)
Klaus’ euroscepticism and possibly also his scepticism about impacts of human activities on climate change are the cornerstones of his policy as President. He claimed that accession to the Union represented a significant reduction of Czech sovereignty and he chose not to give any recommendation before the 2003 accession referendum (77% voted yes).[citation needed]
Klaus’ eurosceptic activism has manifested itself in his articles and numerous speeches, in which he warned against the gradual loss of sovereignty in favour of the EU. He promoted the publication of a work by the Irish Eurosceptic Anthony Coughlan. In 2005 Klaus called for the EU to be “scrapped” and replaced by a free trade area to be called the “Organisation of European States.” He also attacked the EU as an institution which undermines freedom, calling the EU “as big a threat to freedom as the Soviet Union was”.[citation needed]
Also in 2005 he remarked to a group of visiting U.S. politicians that the EU was a “failed and bankrupt entity.”[citation needed]
Václav Klaus with Boris Tadić during his state visit to Serbia in 2008.
In November 2008 during his stay in Ireland after a state visit, Klaus held a joint press conference with Declan Ganley, head of Libertas, which at that time successfully campaigned for a “no” vote in the referendum on the Lisbon Treaty. Members of Irish government called this “an inappropriate intervention”, “unusual and disappointing”.[15]
On 5 December 2008, members of the Conference of Presidents of the European Parliament visited the Czech Republic prior to the start of the Czech presidency of the European Union. They were invited by Václav Klaus to meet him at Prague Castle. Daniel Cohn-Bendit, chairman of Green Group, brought a European flag and presented it to Klaus.[16] Cohn-Bendit also said that he “did not care about Klaus’ opinions on the Lisbon Treaty, that Klaus would simply have to sign it”. This was negatively commented in the Czech Republic as an undue interference in Czech affairs. Co-president of the Independence/Democracy parliamentary group, Nigel Farage, compared Cohn-Bendit’s actions to a “German official from seventy years ago or a Soviet official from twenty years ago.[17]
Further, then Irish MEPBrian Crowley told Klaus that the Irish people wanted ratification of the Treaty of Lisbon and were “insulted” by Klaus’ association with Declan Ganley and Libertas. Klaus responded that “the biggest insult to the Irish people is not to accept the results of the Irish referendum“.[18] Crowley replied, “You will not tell me what the Irish think. As an Irishman, I know it best.”[18] In the UK the confrontative atmosphere of this meeting was criticized by some of the media: “This bizarre confrontation … confirms the inability of the Euro-elite to accept that anyone holds views different from their own.”[16]
On 19 February 2009, Klaus made a speech to the European Parliament where he criticized the European Union’s lack of democracy, continuing integration and economic policies:
The present decision-making system of the European Union is different from a classic parliamentary democracy, tested and proven by history. In a normal parliamentary system, part of the MPs support the government and part support the opposition. In the European Parliament, this arrangement has been missing. Here, only one single alternative is being promoted, and those who dare think about a different option are labelled as enemies of European integration… There is also a great distance (not only in a geographical sense) between citizens and Union representatives, which is much greater than is the case inside the member countries. This distance is often described as the democratic deficit, the loss of democratic accountability, the decision-making of the unelected – but selected – ones, as bureaucratisation of decision-making etc. The proposals to change the current state of affairs – included in the rejected European Constitution or in the not much different Lisbon Treaty – would make this defect even worse. Since there is no European demos – and no European nation – this defect cannot be solved by strengthening the role of the European Parliament, either.[19][20]
After this point was made, a number of MEPs walked out of the chamber.[21][22] Klaus continued to state:
I fear that the attempts to speed up and deepen integration and to move decisions about the lives of the citizens of the member countries up to the European level can have effects that will endanger all the positive things achieved in Europe in the last half a century… Let us not allow a situation where the citizens of member countries would live their lives with a resigned feeling that the EU project is not their own; that it is developing differently than they would wish, that they are only forced to accept it. We would very easily and very soon slip back to the times that we hoped belonged to history… We must say openly that the present economic system of the EU is a system of a suppressed market, a system of a permanently strengthening centrally controlled economy. Although history has more than clearly proven that this is a dead end, we find ourselves walking the same path once again.[19][20]
This article needs to be updated. Please update this section to reflect recent events or newly available information. (October 2012)
Klaus is a long-term opponent of centrally implemented economic policies in the EU and of the euro as common currency of the eurozone countries. During the observance of the 10th anniversary of the euro in 2008 he expressed his beliefs in a Financial Times article:
If Europe does not wake up, it will face hard times. A common monetary policy will not help. Member countries already react differently to the appreciation of the euro against the dollar, the rising cost of energy, food or raw materials, and Asian competition. . . . In practice, the existence of euro has shown that forcing an economically disparate Europe into a homogeneous entity through a political decision is political engineering par excellence, far from beneficial for all countries concerned.[23]
Klaus long refused to sign the Treaty of Lisbon, being the last head of state in the EU to provide a signature. Other European leaders ignored his reluctance, making it clear that they would not consent to be “held hostage” by the Czech President.[24] Czech Prime Minister of that time Jan Fischer, however, was confident that Klaus would eventually sign the Lisbon treaty, saying: “There is no reason for anxiety in Europe. The question is not Yes or No, it is only when.”[25]
As early as in November 2008 Klaus said in an interview with the Czech Television:
I can only repeat aloud one of my verdicts. If indeed all agree that the Lisbon Treaty is a ‘golden nut’ for Europe that must be, and that there is only one single person who would block it, and that person is the Czech president, so this is what I will not do. This is all.[26]
Václav Klaus signed Lisbon treaty on 3 November 2009, with protest against decision of Constitutional court of Czech republic.[27] However he never signed addition to Lisbon Treaty, the European Financial Stability Facility (EFSF). So did his follower in the president office, Miloš Zeman.[28]
On some issues like energy policy, Klaus has sought cooperation with Russia.[8][29]
In the 1990s, Klaus promoted renewed oil and gas agreements between the Czech Republic and Russia. He was at that time, for economic reasons,[citation needed] reluctant to seek other energy sources.[29] He was rather negative towards the construction of a pipeline between the Czech Republic and Germany. According to former Czech secret service directors, he was allegedly warned by the secret service of Russian organized crime spreading in the Czech economy. In one scheme, oil was imported to the Czech Republic as heating oil and re-sold as diesel, which created huge profits for Russian entrepreneur Semion Mogilevich.[8]
Later, Klaus was characterized by The Economist as one of Russian PresidentVladimir Putin‘s “warmest admirers abroad”.[30] Furthermore, Klaus obtained the 2007 Pushkin Medal for the promotion of Russian culture from President Putin. It was suggested that this was due to his use of Russian language in conversations with Putin and Russian diplomats.[31][32][33] According to Klaus, as far as Russia is concerned there have been “challenges and successes, tremendous successes”.[34]
Otherwise, in a May 2009 interview[35] for Lidové noviny, Klaus said Russia was not a threat but still a big, strong and ambitious country, of which the Czech authorities should beware more than the likes of Estonia and Lithuania should.[36]
Klaus criticised NATO bombings of Yugoslavia during the Kosovo crisis.[29] Afterwards, he voiced many times his disagreement with the unilateral Kosovo declaration of independence. During his visit to Slovakia in March 2008, a country that together with Spain, Romania, Greece and Cyprus has not recognized the independence of Kosovo, Klaus categorically rejected the argument that Kosovo was a special case. He stated that a precedent was set, as those who have recognized Kosovo opened a Pandora’s box in Europe. According to Klaus this could lead to disastrous consequences, and he compared the situation of Serbia to the 1938 Munich treaty.[37][38] When Serbia recalled its ambassador in protest of the Czech government’s recognition of Kosovo, the Serbian ambassador was invited to the Prague Castle for a friendly farewell.[39] During his visit to Serbia in January 2011, Klaus stated that as long as he was President the Czech Republic would not appoint an ambassador to Kosovo.[40]
The Czech Presidential election of 2008 differed from past ones in that the voting was on the record, rather than by secret ballot. This was a precondition demanded by several Czech political parties after the last experience, but long opposed by Klaus’ Civic Democratic Party[41] which had strengthened since 2003, already had the safe majority in the Senate even by itself and needed only to secure a few votes in the House for the third round.
Klaus’ opponent was the former émigré, naturalized United States citizen and University of Michigan economics professor Jan Švejnar.[42] He was nominated by the Green Party as a pro-EU moderate candidate. He gained the support of the leading opposition Social Democratic Party, a small number of deputies and senators of the KDU-ČSL and some independent Senators. The first ballot on 8–9 February 2008 resulted in no winner. Švejnar won the Chamber of Deputies, but Klaus led in the assembly as a whole and barely failed to achieve the requisite majority.[41]
The second ballot on 15 February 2008 brought a new candidate MEPJana Bobošíková, nominated by the Communist Party of Bohemia and Moravia. However, not drawing any wider support, she withdrew her candidacy before the election itself.[42] The first and second rounds ended similarly to the previous weekend. However, Klaus consistently had 141 votes. Thus in the third round, where the only goal is to achieve a majority of all legislators present from both houses, Klaus won by the smallest possible margin.[clarification needed] Švejnar received 111 votes, the 29 Communists voting for neither.[43]
Klaus’s first term as President concluded on 7 March 2008; he took oath for the second term on the same day so as not to create a president-less interregnum since the Parliament could not otherwise come to a joint session before the following Tuesday. Thus, he lost the day of overlap and his second term had to end on 6 March 2013.
On 1 January 2013, using his constitutional rights, Klaus announced an amnesty to mark the 20th anniversary of the Czech Republic’s independence. The amnesty took effect on 2 January and released all prisoners sentenced to one year or less whose sentences had not been served, and all prisoners over 75 years of age sentenced to ten years or less whose sentences had not been served, as well as cancelling all court proceedings which had been ongoing for longer than eight years.[44] As of 11 January 6318 prisoners have been released due to the amnesty; others may yet be released depending on the outcome of court appeals.[45]
The large extent of this amnesty has been widely criticized in the Czech Republic, with the opposition demanding a vote of no confidence to be held against Prime Minister Petr Nečas, who countersigned it.[46] Meanwhile, a comparison was drawn with similar actions by Klaus’s predecessor, Václav Havel, who dispensed three amnesties while Czechoslovak and later Czech president (1989–2003). Havel’s first amnesty of January 1990 was the largest post-war one. Some 23,000 people, or two thirds of then 31,000 prisoners in then 15 million Czechoslovakia, were released from prison on the grounds that they had been convicted by a communist court system.[44]
The amnesty sparked a public petition to persuade the Senate of the Czech Republic to charge President Klaus with high treason[47] before the Constitutional court, effectively impeaching him.[48] As of the beginning of February 2013, the petition was signed by more than 64,000 people. During the first 24 hours after its launch, it accumulated 24,500 signatures.[49] On 4 March 2013, the Senate voted to charge Klaus with high treason, based on five cases in which he was alleged to have violated the constitution, including the amnesty, his refusal to sign the European stability mechanism and his alleged procrastination in nominating judges to the Constitutional Court. The following day, on 5 March, the Constitutional Court rejected a previous motion by a smaller group of senators to cancel the New Year amnesty. Thus, the issue of the amnesty from the constitutional suit is already legally refuted.[50] In view of the fact that the only sanction for treason committed by the Czech head of state is the loss of office, the court’s verdict will be a mere formality.[51] A guilty verdict would make Klaus ineligible for a third term of office in 2018.[52] Klaus himself has called the move an attempt by his political opponents to tarnish his presidency.
Criticism of the scientific consensus on climate change[edit]
Václav Klaus 2009
Klaus is a strong critic of the scientific consensus that global warming is anthropogenic. He has also called the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change a group of politicized scientists with one-sided opinions and one-sided assignments. He has said that some other top-level politicians do not expose their doubts about global warming being anthropogenic because “a whip of political correctness strangles their voices.”[53]
In addition he says, “Environmentalism should belong in the social sciences” along with other “isms” such as communism, feminism, and liberalism. Klaus said that “environmentalism is a religion” and, answering questions of U.S. Congressmen, a “modern counterpart of communism” that seeks to change peoples’ habits and economic systems.[54]
In a June 2007 Financial Times article, Klaus called ambitious environmentalism “the biggest threat to freedom, democracy, market economy and prosperity“. He hinted at present political and scientific debates on environment issues as a design to suppress freedom and democracy, and asked the readers to oppose the term “scientific consensus“, adding that “it is always achieved only by a loud minority, never by a silent majority”.[55] In an online Q&A session following the article he wrote “Environmentalism, not preservation of nature (and of environment), is a leftist ideology… Environmentalism is indeed a vehicle for bringing us socialist government at the global level. Again, my life in communism has made me oversensitive in this respect.”[56] He reiterated these statements at a showing of Martin Durkin‘s The Great Global Warming Swindle organised by his think tank CEP in June 2007.[57]
In November 2007 BBC World‘s Hardtalk Klaus called the interviewer “absolutely arrogant” for claiming that a scientific consensus embracing the bulk of the world had been reached on climate change. He added that he was “absolutely certain” that in 30 years people would look back and express their thanks to him for his stands.[58]
At a September 2007 United Nations Climate Change Conference, Klaus spoke of his disbelief in global warming, calling for a second IPCC to be set up to produce competing reports, and for countries to be left alone to set their priorities and prepare their own plans for the problem.[59]
In 2007, Klaus published a book titled Modrá, nikoli zelená planeta (literally “Blue planet – not green”). The book has been translated from the Czech into various languages.[60] The title in English, which is not a direct translation, is “Blue Planet in Green Shackles”. It claims that “The theory of global warming and the hypothesis on its causes, which has spread around massively nowadays, may be a bad theory, it may also be a valueless theory, but in any case it is a very dangerous theory.”
At the September 2009 UN Climate Change Conference, Klaus again voiced his disapproval, calling the gathering “propagandistic” and “undignified.”[61]
On 26 July 2011 at the National Press Club Address, Klaus pronounced himself again against global warming calling it “a communist conspiracy“.[62]
On 21 May 2012 Klaus addressed the climate sceptic Heartland Institute’s Seventh International Conference on Climate Change (ICCC-7).[63]
Special interests and lobbying by non-country interested parties[edit]
There are numerous special interest groups, organizations, corporations who have public and private positions on the multifaceted topic of global warming. The following is a partial list of the types of special interest parties that have demonstrated an interest in the politics of global warming:
Financial Institutions: Financial institutions generally support restrictive policies regarding global warming, particularly the implementation of carbon trading schemes and the creation of market mechanisms that associate a price with carbon. These new markets would require trading infrastructures which banking institutions are well positioned to provide. Financial institutions would also be positioned well to invest, trade and develop various financial instruments that they could profit from through speculative positions on carbon prices and the use of brokerage and other financial functions like insurance and derivative instruments.[23]
Environmental groups: Environmental groups generally take ideological positions on global warming and favor strict restrictions on carbon dioxide emissions. Environmental groups, as activists, engage in raising awareness and attracting investment into the advocacy movement to further raise awareness.[24]
Fossil fuel companies: Traditional fossil fuel corporations could benefit or lose from stricter global warming regulations. A reduction in the use of fossil fuels could negatively impact fossil fuel corporations.[25][26] However, the fact that fossil fuel companies are a large source of energy, are also the primary source of carbon dioxide, and are engaged in energy trading might mean that their participation in trading schemes and other such mechanisms might give them a unique advantage and makes it unclear whether traditional fossil fuel companies would all and always be against stricter global warming policies. As an example, Enron, a traditional gas pipeline company with a large trading desk heavily lobbied the government for the EPA to regulate CO2: they thought that they would dominate the energy industry if they could be at the center of energy trading.[27]
Alternative energy companies: alternative energy companies like wind and solar generally support stricter global warming policies. They would expect their share of the energy market to expand as fossil fuels are made more expensive through trading schemes or taxes.[28]
Nuclear energy companies: nuclear energy companies could see a renaissance in a world where fossil fuels are taxed directly or through a carbon trading mechanism. For this reason, it is likely that nuclear energy companies would likely support stricter global warming policies.[29]
Traditional retailers and marketers: traditional retailers, marketers, and the general corporations respond by adopting policies that resonate with their customers. If “being green” helps a general corporation, then they could undertake modest programs to please and better align with their customers. However, since the general corporation does not make a profit from their particular position, it is unlikely that they would strongly lobby either for or against a stricter global warming policy position.[30]
Governments: On the Australian Sunday morning political discussion show The Bolt Report, Richard Lindzen said in a 2011 interview that governments might use global warming as a rationale for additional taxes.[31]
The various interested parties sometimes align with one another to reinforce their message. Sometimes industries will fund specialty nonprofit organizations to raise awareness and lobby on their behest.[32][33] The combinations and tactics that the various interested parties use are nuanced and sometimes unlimited in the variety of their approaches to promote their positions onto the general public.
Selective historical timeline of significant climate change political events[edit]
1969, on Initiative of US President Richard Nixon, NATO tried to establish a third civil column and planned to establish itself as a hub of research and initiatives in the civil region, especially on environmental topics.[52]Daniel Patrick Moynihan, Nixons NATO delegate for the topic[52] named acid rain and the greenhouse effect as suitable international challenges to be dealt by NATO. NATO had suitable expertise in the field, experience with international research coordination and a direct access to governments.[52] After an enthusiastic start on authority level, the German government reacted skeptically.[52] The initiative was seen as an American attempt[52] to regain international terrain after the lost Vietnam War. The topics and the internal coordination and preparation effort however gained momentum in civil conferences and institutions in Germany and beyond during the Brandt government.[52]
1987: Montreal Protocol on restricting ozone layer-damaging CFCs demonstrates the possibility of coordinated international action on global environmental issues.
July 2005: 31st G8 summit has climate change on the agenda, but makes relatively little concrete progress
November/December 2005: United Nations Climate Change Conference; the first meeting of the Parties of the Kyoto Protocol, alongside the 11th Conference of the Parties (COP11), to plan further measures for 2008–2012 and beyond.
30 October 2006: The Stern Review is published. It is the first comprehensive contribution to the global warming debate by an economist and its conclusions lead to the promise of urgent action by the UK government to further curb Europe’s CO2 emissions and engage other countries to do so. It discusses the consequences of climate change, mitigation measures to prevent it, possible adaptation measures to deal with its consequences, and prospects for international cooperation.
12 December 2015: World leaders meet in Paris, France for the 21st Conference of the Parties of the UNFCCC. One hundred eighty seven countries eventually signed on to the Paris Agreement. As of September 2016, 187 UNFCCC members have signed the treaty, 60 of which have ratified it. The agreement will only enter into force provided that 55 countries that produce at least 55% of the world’s greenhouse gas emissions ratify, accept, approve or accede to the agreement; although the minimum number of ratifications has been reached, the ratifying states do not produce the requisite percentage of greenhouse gases for the agreement to enter into force.
“Everyone is entitled to his own opinion, but not to his own facts.” – quoted in Robert Sobel‘s review of Past Imperfect: History According to the Movies, edited by Mark C. Carnes
Sir David King: IPCC runs against the spirit of science
The science of climate change appears to be under siege.
Following leaked emails from the University of East Anglia and evidence for sloppy referencing in the IPCC’s 2007 report, the work of thousands of remarkable scientists is now being questioned, not just by the public but also by other members of the scientific community. To understand the implications, it helps to consider how this parlous situation has arisen.
By Professor David King, former Government chief scientist
A highly sophisticated hacking operation that led to the leaking of hundreds of emails from the Climatic Research Unit in East Anglia was probably carried out by a foreign intelligence agency, according to the Government’s former chief scientist. Sir David King, who was Tony Blair’s chief scientific adviser for seven years until 2007, said that the hacking and selective leaking of the unit’s emails, going back 13 years, bore all the hallmarks of a co-ordinated intelligence operation – especially given their release just before the Copenhagen climate conference in December.
“I don’t think that it’s a coincidence that the stealing of the emails from the individuals involved in East Anglia was put out for publication one month before Copenhagen. That wasn’t a coincidence,” Sir David said. “The emails date back to 1996, so someone was collecting the data over many years. It looks like possibly the work of an intelligence service. What it was was a very well co-ordinated part of a campaign. It was a difficult piece of work to get that done.
“I’ve no inside knowledge except for the fact that I did work with our [intelligence] agencies, and the American agencies, that I have some experience,” he added.
Cyber crime: The 21st century threat
*Espionage once conjured images of lonely spooks on foreign assignations during the height of the Cold War. Not any longer. The rise of capitalism, a free-market economy and an interconnected digital world have changed those terms of engagement.
Last week Hillary Clinton issued a warning to China and Russia to tighten up their internet security amid a growing threat of international cyber crime. “We cannot afford in today’s interconnected world to have too many instances … where companies’ accounts can be hacked into,” she said. It came after Google threatened to end its operations in China following what it described as a “sophisticated and targeted” cyberattack on Google, Adobe and 20 other US companies.
More recently MI5 has accused China of setting up so-called “honeytraps” with a view to obtaining sensitive commercial secrets from top UK companies. According to The Sunday Times, promotional gifts handed out at business trade shows included cameras and memory sticks have allegedly been found to contain bugs that provide the Chinese with remote access to users’ computers.
I have never believed that there is a secret United Nations plot to take over the US. I have never seen black helicopters hovering in the sky above Montana. But, for the first time in my life, I think the formation of some sort of world government is plausible.
FT.COM
by: Gideon Rachman
A “world government” would involve much more than co-operation between nations. It would be an entity with state-like characteristics, backed by a body of laws. The European Union has already set up a continental government for 27 countries, which could be a model. The EU has a supreme court, a currency, thousands of pages of law, a large civil service and the ability to deploy military force.
So could the European model go global? There are three reasons for thinking that it might. First, it is increasingly clear that the most difficult issues facing national governments are international in nature: there is global warming, a global financial crisis and a “global war on terror”. Second, : “For the first time in human history, world government of some sort is now possible.” Mr But – the third point – a change in the political atmosphere suggests that “global governance” could come much sooner than that. The financial crisis and climate change are pushing national governments towards global solutions, even in countries such as China and the US that are traditionally fierce guardians of national sovereignty.
´´A taste of the ideas doing the rounds in Obama circles is offered by a recent report from the Managing Global Insecurity project, whose small US advisory group includes John Podesta, the man heading Mr Obama’s transition team and Strobe Talbott, the president of the Brookings Institution, from which Ms Rice has just emerged.´´
´´But some European thinkers think that they recognise what is going on. Jacques Attali, an adviser to President Nicolas Sarkozy of France, argues that: “Global governance is just a euphemism for global government.” As far as he is concerned, some form of global government cannot come too soon. Mr Attali believes that the “core of the international financial crisis is that we have global financial markets and no global rule of law”.
´´But this “problem” also hints at a more welcome reason why making progress on global governance will be slow sledding. Even in the EU – the heartland of law-based international government – the idea remains unpopular. The EU has suffered a series of humiliating defeats in referendums, when plans for “ever closer union” have been referred to the voters. In general, the Union has progressed fastest when far-reaching deals have been agreed by technocrats and politicians – and then pushed through without direct reference to the voters. International governance tends to be effective, only when it is anti-democratic.´´
gideon.rachman@ft.com
Something for everyone in that little lot, apart of course for the Establishment.
Crux AnsataAn Indictment of the Roman Catholic Church
by
H.G. Wells
First published by Penguin Books, London, 1943 First US edition: Agora Publishing Co., New York, 1944
II. — THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE IDEA OF CHRISTENDOM
http://gutenberg.net.au/ebooks13/1303501h.html It is impossible for an intelligent modern student of history not to sympathise with the underlying idea of the papal court, with the idea of one universal rule of righteousness keeping the peace of the earth, and not to recognise the many elements of nobility that entered into the Lateran policy. Sooner or later mankind must come to one universal peace, unless our race is to be destroyed by the increasing power of its own destructive inventions; and that universal peace must needs take the form of a government, that is to say, a law-sustaining organisation, in the best sense of the word religious—a government ruling men through the educated co-ordination of their minds in a common conception of human history and human destiny.
The Catholic Church was the first clearly conscious attempt to provide such a government in the wor1d. We cannot too earnestly. examine its deficiencies and inadequacies, for every lesson we can draw from them is necessarily of the greatest value in forming our ideas of our own international relationships.
Marxism vs. Liberalism An Interview
by
H.G. Wells & J.V. Stalin
H.G. Wells visited the Soviet Union in 1934 and on July 23 he interviewed Joseph Stalin. The conversation, lasting from 4 P.M. to 6:50 P.M., was recorded by Constantine Oumansky, then head of the Press Bureau of the Commissariat of Foreign Affairs. The text, as printed in this pamphlet, has been approved by Mr. Wells.
Stalin: You object to the simplified classification of mankind into rich and poor. Of course there is a middle stratum, there is the technical intelligentsia that you have mentioned and among which there are very good and very honest people. Among them there are also dishonest and wicked people, there are all sorts of people among them. But first of all mankind is divided into. rich and poor, into property owners and exploited; and to abstract oneself from this fundamental division and from the antagonism between poor and rich means abstracting oneself from the fundamental fact. I do not deny the existence of intermediate, middle strata, which either take the side of one or other of these two conflicting classes, or else take up a neutral or semineutral position in this struggle. But, I repeat, to abstract oneself from this fundamental division in society and from the fundamental struggle between the two main classes means ignoring facts. This struggle is going on and will continue. The outcome of the struggle will be determined by the proletarian class, the working class.
Wells: But are there not many people who are not poor, but who work and work productively? .
Stalin: Of course, there are small landowners, artisans, small traders, but it is not these people who decide the fate of a country, but the toiling masses, who produce all the things society requires.
Wells: But there are very different kinds of capitalists. There are capitalists who only think about profit, about getting rich; but there are also those who are prepared to make sacrifices. Take old Morgan for example. He only thought about profit; he was a parasite on society, simply, he merely accumulated wealth. But take Rockefeller. He is a brilliant organizer; he has set an example of how to organize the delivery of oil that is worthy of emulation. Or take Ford. Of course Ford is selfish. But is he not a passionate organizer of rationalized production from whom you take lessons? I would like to emphasize the fact that recently an important change in opinion towards the U.S.S.R. has taken place in English speaking countries. The reason for this, first of all, is the position of Japan and the events in Germany. But there are other reasons besides those arising from international politics. There is a more profound reason, namely, the recognition by many people of the fact that the system based on private profit is breaking down. Under these circumstances, it seems to me, we must not bring to the forefront the antagonism between the two worlds, but should strive to combine all the constructive movements, all the constructive forces in one line as much as possible. It seems to me that I am more to the Left than you, Mr. Stalin; I think the old system is nearer to its end than you think.
Stalin: In speaking of the capitalists who strive only for profit, only to get rich, I do not want to say that these are the most worthless people, capable of nothing else. Many of them undoubtedly possess great organizing talent, Which I do not dream of denying. We Soviet people learn a great deal from the capitalists. And Morgan, whom you characterize so unfavorably, was undoubtedly a good, capable organizer. But if you mean people who are prepared to reconstruct the world, of course, you will not be able to find them in the ranks of those who faithfully serve the cause of profit. We and they stand at opposite poles. You mentioned Ford. Of course, he is a capable organizer of production. But don’t you know his attitude towards the working class? Don’t you know how many workers he throws on the street? The capitalist is riveted to profit; and no power on earth can tear him away from it. Capitalism will be abolished, not, by “organizers” of production, not by the technical intelligentsia, but by the working class, because the aforementioned strata do not play an independent role. The engineer, the organizer of production, does not work as he would like to, but as he is ordered, in such a way as to serve the interests of his employers. There are exceptions of course; there are people in this stratum who have awakened from the intoxication of capitalism the technical intelligentsia can, under certain conditions, perform miracles and greatly benefit mankind. But It can also cause great harm. We Soviet people have not a little experience of the technical intelligentsia. After the October Revolution, a certain section of the technical intelligentsia refused to take part in the work of constructing the new society; they opposed this work of construction and sabotaged it. We did all we possibly could to bring the technical intelligentsia into this work of construction we tried this way and that. Not a little time passed before our technical intelligentsia agreed actively to assist the new system. Today the best section of this technical intelligentsia are in the front rank of the builders of socialist society. Having this experience, we are far from underestimating the good and the bad sides of the technical intelligentsia and we know that on the one hand it can do harm, and on the other hand, it can perform “miracles.” Of course, things would be different if it were possible, at one stroke, spiritually to tear the technical intelligentsia away from the capitalist world. But that is utopia. Are there many of the technical intelligentsia who would dare break away from the bourgeois world and set to work to reconstruct society? Do you think there are many people of this kind, say, in England or in France? No, there are few who would be willing to break away from their employers and begin reconstructing the world. Besides, can we lose sight of the fact that in order to transform the world it is necessary’to have political power? It seems to me, Mr. Wells, that you greatly underestimate the question of political power, that it entirely drops out of your conception. What can those, even with the best intentions in the world, do if they are unable to raise the question of seizing power, and do not possess power? At best they can help the class which takes power, but they cannot change the world themselves. This can only be done by a great class which will take the place of the capitalist class and become the sovereign master as the latter was before. This class is the working class. Of course, the assistance of the technical intelligentsia must be accepted; and the latter, in turn, must be assisted. But it must not be thought that the technical intelligentsia can play an independent historical role. The transformation of the world is a great, complicated and painful process. For this great task a great class is required. Big ships go on long voyages.
Wells: Yes, but for long voyages a captain and a navigator are required.
Stalin: That is true; but what is first required for a long voyage is a big ship. What is a navigator without a ship? An idle man.
Wells: The big ship is humanity, not a class.
Stalin: You, Mr. Wells, evidently start out with the assumption that all men are good. I, however, do not forget that there are many wicked men. I do not believe in the goodness of the bourgeoisie.
Wells: There was a case in the history of England, however, of a class voluntarily handing over power to another class. In the period between 1830 and 1870, the aristocracy, whose influence was still very considerable at the end of the eighteenth century, voluntarily, without a severe struggle, surrendered power to the bourgeoisie, which serves as a sentimental support of the monarchy. Subsequently, this transference of power led to the establishment of the rule of the financial oligarchy.
Stalin: But you have imperceptibly passed from questions of revolution to questions of reform. This is not the same thing. Don’t you think that the Chartist movement played a great role in the Reforms in England in the nineteenth century?
Wells: The Chartists did little and disappeared without leaving a trace.
Stalin: I do not agree with you. The Chartists, and the strike movement which they organized, played a great role; they compelled the ruling classes to make a number of concessions in regard to the franchise, in regard to abolishing the so-called “rotten boroughs,” and in regard to some of the points of the “Charter.” Chartism played a not unimportant historical role and compelled a section of the ruling classes to make certain concessions, reforms, in order to avert great shocks. Generally speaking, it must be said that of all the ruling classes, the ruling classes of England, both the aristocracy and the bourgeoisie, proved to be the cleverest, most flexible from the point of view of their class interests, from the point of view of maintaining their power. Take as an example, say, from modern history, the general strike in England in 1926. The first thing any other bourgeoisie would have done in the face. of such an event, when the General Council of Trade Unions called for a strike, would have been to arrest the trade union leaders. The British bourgeoisie did not do that, and it acted cleverly from the point of view of its own interests. I cannot conceive of such a flexible strategy being employed by the bourgeoisie in the United States, Germany or France. In order to maintain their rule, the ruling classes of Great Britain have never foresworn small concessions, reforms. But it would be a mistake to think that these reforms were revolutionary.
Wells: You have a higher opinion of the ruling classes of my country than I have. But is there a great difference between a small revolution and a great reform? Is not a reform a small revolution?
Stalin: Owing to pressure from below, the pressure of the masses, the bourgeoisie may sometimes concede certain partial reforms while remaining on the basis of the existing social-economic system. Acting in this way, it calculates that these concessions are necessary in order to preserve its class rule. This is the essence of reform. Revolution, however, means the transference of power from one class to another. That is why it is impossible to describe any reform as revolution. That is why we cannot count on the change of social systems taking place as an imperceptible transition from one system to another by means, of reforms, by the ruling class making concessions….
Go to http://www.isgp.eu/for more information…. See the article “Le Cercle: a private bridge between Vatican-Paneuropean and Anglo-American intelligence”. This video was based on research by ISGP (the Institute for the Study of Globalization and Covert Politics). However, this video WAS NOT made by ISGP or Joël van der Reijden.
The Role of Oligarchs in Russian Capitalism Sergei Guriev, Andrei Rachinsky To cite this version: Sergei Guriev, Andrei Rachinsky. The Role of Oligarchs in Russian Capitalism. Journal of Economic Perspectives, 2005, pp.131 – 150.
How Did the Oligarchs Gain Control? A common belief is that the oligarchs owe their fortunes to the “loans-forshares” auctions held in mid-1990s, which are widely regarded as the most scandalous episode of Russian privatization. In the classical loans-for-shares scenario, the government appointed a commercial banker to run an auction that would allocate a controlling stake of a large natural resource enterprise in exchange for a loan to the federal government that the latter never intended to repay. Not surprisingly, the auctioneer always awarded the stake to himself for a nominal bid (usually, slightly above a very low reserve price) by excluding all outside bidders. The scheme was designed to consolidate the bankers’ support for Yeltzin’s reelection campaign in 1996 (Freeland, 2000). The conventional loans-for-shares story fits the cases of Abramovich (in 1995– 1997, a junior partner of Berezovsky), Khodorkovsky and especially Potanin. The other two winners were the oil sector insiders Alekperov and Bogdanov, who obtained stakes in firms they already controlled. However, most of those listed in Table 1 did not become oligarchs through the loans-for-shares program. Some of the 22 largest owners tried to participate in the loans-for-shares and even offered more competitive bids, but were excluded by those in charge of respective auctions; some even raised their concerns in public (Freeland, 2000).
Russian Oligarchs in International Perspective Cross-country comparisons of wealth concentration are usually based on the share of stock market capitalization controlled by a given number (often ten) of families. Certainly, this metric is not a perfect one—after all, it doesn’t include firms not listed on stock markets and emerging markets are likely to provide at best an imperfect measure of value. But we are not aware of comparable data sets on nonlisted firms, so we rely on the data on the share of the stock market owned by the top 10 families. By that measure, ownership concentration in modern Russia is higher than in any other country for which the data are available. The top 10 families or ownership groups (a subset of Table 1) owned 60.2 percent of Russia’s stock market in June 2003. This percentage is much higher than in any country in continental Europe, where the share of 10 largest families is below 35 percent in small countries and below 30 percent in all large countries (Faccio and Lang, 2002). In the United States and the United Kingdom, this share The Role of Oligarchs in Russian Capitalism 139 is in single-digit percentages (Faccio and Lang, 2002, Claessens et al., 2002).8 In east Asian countries before 1997 crisis, the highest shares of 10 largest families were in Indonesia (58 percent), Philippines (52 percent), Thailand (43 percent) and Korea (37 percent) (Claessens, Djankov and Lang, 2000). The numbers for Indonesia and Philippines include the holdings of Suharto and Marcos families, each controlling 17 percent of total market capitalization in the respective countries. In Russia, the personal wealth of Yeltsin and Putin is considered to be very modest
Seeing how serious intelligence agencies have always taken any left wing threat, from anti-war to anti-nuclear energy protestors, we can only imagine how serious they take the threat of a conspiracy community digging into the state’s sordid affairs. Conveniently, a conspiracy community is a major potential source of manipulation by foreign powers, so controlling it from top to bottom is probably, somewhere, semi-legal. In various locations on this site evidence of this control is discussed.
The Georgia Guidestones is a granite monument erected in 1980 in Elbert County, Georgia, in the United States. A set of 10 guidelines is inscribed on the structure in eight modern languages, and a shorter message is inscribed at the top of the structure in four ancient language scripts: Babylonian, Classical Greek, Sanskrit, and Egyptian hieroglyphs.
The monument stands at the highest point in Elbert County, about 90 miles (140 km) east of Atlanta, 45 miles (72 km) from Athens, and 9 miles (14 km) north of the center of Elberton. One slab stands in the center, with four arranged around it. A capstone lies on top of the five slabs, which are astronomically aligned. An additional stone tablet, which is set in the ground a short distance to the west of the structure, provides some notes on the history and purpose of the Guidestones. The structure is sometimes referred to as an “American Stonehenge“.[1] The monument is 19 feet 3 inches (5.87 m) tall, made from six granite slabs weighing 237,746 pounds (107,840 kg) in all.[2] The designer and meaning of the Guidestones are unknown, leading to speculation and conspiracy theory.
The stones defaced with polyurethane paint and graffiti
In June 1979, a man using the self-confessed pseudonym Robert C. Christian approached the Elberton Granite Finishing company on behalf of “a small group of loyal Americans”, and commissioned the structure. Christian explained that the stones would function as a compass, calendar and clock, and should be capable of withstanding catastrophic events. Joe Fendley of Elberton Granite assumed that Christian was “a nut” and attempted to discourage him by giving a quote several times higher than any project the company had taken, explaining that the Guidestones would require additional tools and consultants. Christian accepted the quote.[2] When arranging payment, Christian explained that he represented a group which had been planning the Guidestones for 20 years, and which intended to remain anonymous.[2]
Christian delivered a scale model of the Guidestones and ten pages of specifications.[2] The five-acre[2] land was apparently purchased by Christian on October 1, 1979,[3][4][non-primary source needed] from farm owner Wayne Mullinex.[2] Mullinex and his children were given lifetime cattle grazing rights on the Guidestones site.[2] The monument was unveiled on March 22, 1980, before an audience variously described as 100[5] or 400 people.[2] Christian later transferred ownership of the land and the Guidestones to Elbert County.[2]
In 2008, the stones were defaced with polyurethane paint and graffiti with slogans such as “Death to the new world order”.[6]Wired magazine called the defacement “the first serious act of vandalism in the Guidestones’ history”.[2] In September 2014, an employee of the Elbert County maintenance department contacted the FBI when the stones were vandalized with graffiti including the phrase “I Am Isis, goddess of love”.[7]
A message consisting of a set of ten guidelines or principles is engraved on the Georgia Guidestones[8] in eight different languages, one language on each face of the four large upright stones. Moving clockwise around the structure from due north, these languages are: English, Spanish, Swahili, Hindi, Hebrew, Arabic, Chinese, and Russian.
Maintain humanity under 500,000,000 in perpetual balance with nature.
Guide reproduction wisely — improving fitness and diversity.
Unite humanity with a living new language.
Rule passion — faith — tradition — and all things with tempered reason.
Protect people and nations with fair laws and just courts.
Let all nations rule internally resolving external disputes in a world court.
Avoid petty laws and useless officials.
Balance personal rights with social duties.
Prize truth — beauty — love — seeking harmony with the infinite.
Be not a cancer on the earth — Leave room for nature — Leave room for nature.
A few feet to the west of the monument, an additional granite ledger has been set level with the ground. This tablet identifies the structure and the languages used on it, lists various facts about the size, weight, and astronomical features of the stones, the date it was installed, and the sponsors of the project. It also speaks of a time capsule buried under the tablet, but spaces on the stone reserved for filling in the dates on which the capsule was buried and is to be opened have not been inscribed, so it is uncertain if the time capsule was put in place.
The complete text of the explanatory tablet is detailed below. The tablet is somewhat inconsistent with respect to punctuation, misspells the word “pseudonym”, and incorrectly uses the adjective “hieroglyphic” as a plural noun. The original spelling, punctuation, and line breaks in the text have been preserved in the transcription which follows (letter case is not). At the top center of the tablet is written:
The Georgia Guidestones Center cluster erected March 22, 1980
Immediately below this is the outline of a square, inside which is written:
On the left side of the tablet is the following column of text:
Astronomic Features 1. Channel through stone indicates celestial pole 2. Horizontal slot indicates annual travel of sun 3. Sunbeam through capstone marks noontime throughout the year
Below the two columns of text is written the caption “GUIDESTONE LANGUAGES”, with a diagram of the granite slab layout beneath it. The names of eight modern languages are inscribed along the long edges of the projecting rectangles, one per edge. Starting from due north and moving clockwise around so that the upper edge of the northeast rectangle is listed first, they are English, Spanish, Swahili, Hindi, Hebrew, Arabic, Chinese, and Russian. At the bottom center of the tablet is the following text:
Additional information available at Elberton Granite Museum & Exhibit College Avenue Elberton, Georgia
The four outer stones are oriented to mark the limits of the 18.6 year lunar declination cycle.[9] The center column features a hole drilled at an angle from one side to the other, through which can be seen the North Star, a star whose position changes only very gradually over time. The same pillar has a slot carved through it which is aligned with the Sun’s solstices and equinoxes. A 7/8″ aperture in the capstone allows a ray of sun to pass through at noon each day, shining a beam on the center stone indicating the day of the year.[2]
Yoko Ono and others have praised the inscribed messages as “a stirring call to rational thinking”, while Wired stated that unspecified opponents have labeled them as the “Ten Commandments of the Antichrist“.[2]
The Guidestones have become a subject of interest for conspiracy theorists. One of them, an activist named Mark Dice, demanded that the Guidestones “be smashed into a million pieces, and then the rubble used for a construction project”,[10] claiming that the Guidestones are of “a deep Satanic origin”, and that R. C. Christian belongs to “a Luciferian secret society” related to the “New World Order“.[2] At the unveiling of the monument, a local minister proclaimed that he believed the monument was “for sun worshipers, for cult worship and for devil worship”.[5] Others have suggested that the stones were commissioned by the Rosicrucians,[11] with conspiracy theorist Jay Weidner observing that the pseudonym of the man who commissioned the stones – “R. C. Christian” – resembles Rose Cross Christian, or Christian Rosenkreuz, the founder of the Rosicrucian Order.[2]Alex Jones‘s film Endgame: Blueprint for Global Enslavement proposes that the Guidestones are a harbinger of self-appointed elites who intend on exterminating most of the world’s population.[12]
Computer analyst Van Smith said the monument’s dimensions predicted the height of the Burj Khalifa, which opened in Dubai over thirty years after the Georgia Guidestones were designed. Smith said the builders of the Guidestones were likely aware of the Burj Khalifa project which he compared to the biblical Tower of Babel.[13]
The most widely agreed-upon interpretation of the stones is that they describe the basic concepts required to rebuild a devastated civilization.[14] Author Brad Meltzer notes that the stones were built in 1979 at the height of the Cold War, and thus argues that they may have been intended as a message to the possible survivors of a nuclearWorld War III. The engraved suggestion to keep humanity’s population below 500 million could have been made under the assumption that war had already reduced humanity below this number.[15]
The Guidestones were briefly shown and discussed in the 1986 documentary film Sherman’s March, and were featured extensively in a 2012 episode of Mysteries at the Museum, a “Monumental Mysteries Special” featuring Don Wildman.[16]
29. But I admit that the counsels of such a dominion can hardly be
concealed. But everyone will also admit with me that it is far better
for the right counsels of a dominion to be known to its enemies, than
for the evil secrets of tyrants to be concealed from the citizens. They
who can treat secretly of the affairs of a dominion have it absolutely
under their authority, and, as they plot against the enemy in time of
war, so do they against the citizens in time of peace.
It is better to be loved rather than feared, or feared rather than loved? It might perhaps be answered that we should wish to be both: but since love and fear can hardly exist together, if we must choose between them, it is far safer to be feared than loved.
Ch. 15; Variant: A man who strives after goodness in all his acts is sure to come to ruin, since there are so many men who are not good.
I say that every prince must desire to be considered merciful and not cruel. He must, however, take care not to misuse this mercifulness. … A prince, therefore, must not mind incurring the charge of cruelty for the purpose of keeping his subjects united and confident; for, with a very few examples, he will be more merciful than those who, from excess of tenderness, allow disorders to arise, from whence spring murders and rapine; for these as a rule injure the whole community, while the executions carried out by the prince injure only one individual. And of all princes, it is impossible for a new prince to escape the name of cruel, new states being always full of dangers. … Nevertheless, he must be cautious in believing and acting, and must not inspire fear of his own accord, and must proceed in a temperate manner with prudence and humanity, so that too much confidence does not render him incautious, and too much diffidence does not render him intolerant. From this arises the question whether it is better to be loved more than feared, or feared more than loved. The reply is, that one ought to be both feared and loved, but as it is difficult for the two to go together, it is much safer to be feared than loved, if one of the two has to be wanting. For it may be said of men in general that they are ungrateful, voluble, dissemblers, anxious to avoid danger, and covetous of gain ; as long as you benefit them, they are entirely yours; they offer you their blood, their goods, their life, and their children, as I have before said, when the necessity is remote; but when it approaches, they revolt. And the prince who has relied solely on their words, without making other preparations, is ruined, for the friendship which is gained by purchase and not through grandeur and nobility of spirit is merited but is not secured, and at times is not to be had. And men have less scruple in offending one who makes himself loved than one who makes himself feared; for love is held by a chain of obligation which, men being selfish, is broken whenever it serves their purpose; but fear is maintained by a dread of punishment which never fails.
Ch. 17, as translated by Luigi Ricci (1903)
Variant translations of portions of this passage:
From this arises the question whether it is better to be loved rather than feared, or feared rather than loved. It might perhaps be answered that we should wish to be both: but since love and fear can hardly exist together, if we must choose between them, it is far safer to be feared than loved.
He ought to be slow to believe and to act, nor should he himself show fear, but proceed in a temperate manner with prudence and humanity, so that too much confidence may not make him incautious and too much distrust render him intolerable.
The prince who relies upon their words, without having otherwise provided for his security, is ruined; for friendships that are won by awards, and not by greatness and nobility of soul, although deserved, yet are not real, and cannot be depended upon in time of adversity.
Still, a prince should make himself feared in such a way that if he does not gain love, he at any rate avoids hatred; for fear and the absence of hatred may well go together, and will be always attained by one who abstains from interfering with the property of his citizens and subjects or with their women. And when he is obliged to take the life of any one, to do so when there is a proper justification and manifest reason for it; but above all he must abstain from taking the property of others, for men forget more easily the death of their father than the loss of their patrimony. Then also pretexts for seizing property are never wanting, and one who begins to live by rapine will always find some reason for taking the goods of others, whereas causes for taking life are rarer and more quickly destroyed.
“Hegel declares that poetry is supreme among the arts, combining music’s apprehension of the inner life of the mind with the determinate phenomenal character of sculpture and painting. In contrast to many of his contemporaries who make similar claims, however, Hegel never wavers in insisting that poetry is the crisis of art as much as it is its triumph. Poetry’s uniqueness stems from the fact that the subject and the object of poetry, the medium and the message, are one and the same. Unlike painting or sculpture, poetry can deal with any and every topic in any and every fashion because in the final analysis what poetry really expresses is the mind’s apprehension of itself to itself in itself”, “Derrida, Hegel, and the Language of Finitude”, Jan Mieszkowski, Postmodern Culture, May 2005
Peter Sutherland, United Nations Special Representative of the Secretary-General for International Migration and Development, is former Director General of the World Trade Organization, EU Commissioner for Competition, and Attorney General of Ireland. He will issue a report on improving internationa… READ MORE
Cecilia Malmstrom is EU Commissioner for Home Affairs and former Swedish Minister for Europe.
LONDON – Europe faces an immigration predicament. Mainstream politicians, held hostage by xenophobic parties, adopt anti-immigrant rhetoric to win over fearful publics, while the foreign-born are increasingly marginalized in schools, cities, and at the workplace. Yet, despite high unemployment across much of the continent, too many employers lack the workers they need. Engineers, doctors, and nurses are in short supply; so, too, are farmhands and health aides. And Europe can never have enough entrepreneurs, whose ideas drive economies and create jobs.
The prevailing skepticism about immigration is not wholly unfounded. Many communities are genuinely polarized, which makes Europeans understandably anxious. But to place the blame for this on immigrants is wrong, and exacerbates the problem. We are all at fault.
By not taking responsibility, we allowed immigration to become the scapegoat for a host of other, unrelated problems. The enduring insecurity caused by the global economic crisis, Europe’s existential political debates, and the rise of emerging powers is too often expressed in reactions against migrants. Not only is this unjust, but it distracts us from crafting solutions to the real problems.
European countries must finally and honestly acknowledge that, like the United States, Canada, and Australia, they are lands of immigrants. The percentage of foreign-born residents in several European countries – including Spain, the United Kingdom, Germany, the Netherlands, and Greece – is similar to that in the US.
Yet, despite this, we do not make the necessary investments to integrate newcomers into our schools and workplaces. Nor have we done enough to reshape our public institutions to be inclusive and responsive to our diverse societies. The issue is not how many new immigrants are accepted into the European Union, but acknowledging the nature and composition of the societies in which we already live.
It is ironic – and dangerous – that Europe’s anti-immigrant sentiment is peaking just when global structural changes are fundamentally shifting migration flows. The most important transformation is the emergence of new poles of attraction. Entrepreneurs, migrants with Ph.Ds, and those simply with a desire to improve their lives are flocking to places like Brazil, South Africa, Indonesia, Mexico, China, and India. In the coming decade, most of the growth in migration will take place in the global south. The West is no longer the Promised Land, placing at risk Europe’s ability to compete globally.
The aging of Europe’s population is historically unprecedented. The number of workers will decline precipitously, and could shrink by almost one-third by mid-century, with immense consequences for Europe’s social model, the vitality of its cities, its ability to innovate and compete, and for relations among generations as the old become heavily reliant on the young. And, while history suggests that countries that welcome newcomers’ energy and vibrancy compete best internationally, Europe is taking the opposite tack by tightening its borders.
But all is not lost. Europe got itself into this situation through a combination of inaction and short-sighted policymaking. This leaves considerable room for improvement. In fact, there are rays of hope in certain corners of Europe.
Consider Sweden, which has transformed its immigration policy by allowing employers to identify the immigrant workers whom they need (the policy has built-in safeguards to give preference to Swedish and EU citizens). In more rational times, these reforms would be the envy of Europe, especially given the relative resilience of Sweden’s economy. They certainly have caught the attention of Australia and Canada, which aim to emulate them.
There have also been innovations in integrating immigrants. Some initiatives, albeit modest, encourage those with immigrant backgrounds to apply for public-sector jobs in police forces, fire departments, media, and elsewhere. Such measures also respond to the urgent need for public institutions that look like the populations they serve.
There are many other tools to advance integration. We understand well the importance of early childhood education, and what kinds of programs can bridge the gap between immigrant and native children. We know as well the importance of finding a job in the integration process. We know how to recognize immigrants’ skills better, and how to provide the right kind of vocational training. We know how to ward off discrimination in hiring.
But, while we know what to do, we now need to muster the political will to do it. The good news is that, if we get integration right, we will be far more likely to bring publics along on more open immigration policies.
Equally important is international cooperation on migration. Last year, during the Arab revolutions, the EU missed a historic opportunity to begin weaving together the two sides of the Mediterranean. It failed to open its doors to young students, entrepreneurs, and other North Africans. Today, the EU is making a more serious effort to engage its southern neighborhood. Among the potential opportunities are free-trade agreements, an easing of visa requirements for university students, temporary work programs, and incentives to attract entrepreneurs.
No country is an island when it comes to migration, and none can address it alone. We have a long way to go, probably in a climate that will not turn favorable to immigration for many years. How much progress we can make will hinge on our ability to break through the myths about migration.
Migration is changing in fundamental ways, and we must continue to push ourselves to devise systems and approaches that respond to new realities. If we succeed, human mobility can become one of the great assets of the twenty-first century.
Superclass Index: permanent government (U.S., Europe, Russia, Middle East)
Below the reader can find names of prominent individuals ranked according to the number of private groups and a number of key corporations that they have (certainly) been involved with (maintained here). Overall it appears to be a very accurate influence index when it comes to, once and for all, and in rather scientific manner, identifying the “powers-that-be”. Certainly it identifies all the key players in the liberal (globalist), conservative (defense), Catholic conservative (Opus Dei/SMOM), Zionist, and to a large degree even the Russian establishments. As the reader will soon realize, most of these people know one another very well. Anyone with an interest in globalization or parapolitical issues would do well to become familar with these individuals.
“The friendship Nancy and I shared with Kay Graham is one of the legacies of my government service that we cherish most. … The Kay of the permanent establishment never lost sight of the fact that societies thrive not by the victories of their factions but by their ultimate reconciliations. Kay and I met in 1969 at the home of Joe Alsop, another member of Washington’s permanent establishment.”
July 23, 2001, Henry Kissinger, Eulogy for Katharine Graham of the Washington Pos
David Copperfieldis the eighth novel by Charles Dickens. The novel’s full title is, The Personal History, Adventures, Experience and Observation of David Copperfield the Younger of Blunderstone Rookery (Which He Never Meant to Publish on Any Account).[note 1]It was first published as a serialin 1849–50, and as a book in 1850. Many elements of the novel follow events in Dickens’ own life, and it is often considered as his veiled autobiography.[2]It was Dickens’ favorite among his own novels. In the preface to the 1867 edition, Dickens wrote, “like many fond parents, I have in my heart of hearts a favourite child. And his name is David Copperfield.”[3]
Wilkins Micawber – A melodramatic, kind-hearted and foolish gentleman who befriends David as a young boy. He suffers from much financial difficulty and even has to spend time in a debtors’ prison before moving to Plymouth. As an adult, Copperfield meets him again in London and gets him a job with Wickfield and Heep. Thinking Micawber is criminally-minded, Heep forces him to be his accomplice in several of his schemes, but Micawber eventually turns the tables on his employer and is instrumental in his downfall. Micawber eventually emigrates to Australia, where he enjoys a successful career as a sheep farmer and becomes a magistrate. He is based on Dickens’s father, John Dickens, who faced similar financial problems when Dickens was a child. Micawber is known for asserting his faith that “something will turn up”. His name has become synonymous with someone who lives in hopeful expectation. This has formed the basis for the Micawber Principle, based upon his observation:
“Annual income twenty pounds, annual expenditure nineteen pounds nineteen and six, result happiness. Annual income twenty pounds, annual expenditure twenty pounds nought and six, result misery.” – (Chapter 12)
I trust that the labour and hazard of an investigation -of which the smallest results have been slowly pieced together, in the pressure of arduous avocations, under grinding penurious apprehensions, at rise of morn, at dewy eve, in the shadows of night, under the watchful eye of one whom it were superfluous to call Demon, combined with the struggle of parental Poverty to turn it, when completed, to the right account, may be as the sprinkling of a few drops of sweet water on my funeral pyre. I ask no more. Let it be, in justice, merely said of me, as of a gallant and eminent Naval Hero, with whom I have no pretensions to cope, that what I have done, I did, in despite of mercenary and selfish objectives, “FOR ENGLAND, HOME AND BEAUTY.” Remaining always, &c, &c, Wilkins Micawber.
Welcome poverty!..Welcome misery, welcome houselessness, welcome hunger, rags, tempest, and beggary! Mutual confidence will sustain us to the end!
They say a picture is worth a thousand words. Whoever they are, they are right. There has never been a more eloquent expression of David Cameron’s Big Society, a more annihilating wrecking-ball of Conservative rhetoric, a more profound embarrassment of the shallow motto “we’re all in this together” than this picture from last night’s “save the NHS” rally.
Sacco prrrrrrrrrobably doesn’t have a job anymore, though a bad AIDS joke likely won’t keep a good PR person down for too long. Sooner or later, Sacco will be employed again and potentially back on Twitter, except this time she’ll probably be smart enough to keep her racist jokes amongst friends.
And thus concludes another heartwarming version of “An Internet Story,” just in time for the holidays.
The movement against public shaming had gained momentum in 1787, when Benjamin Rush, a physician in Philadelphia and a signer of the Declaration of Independence, wrote a paper calling for its demise — the stocks, the pillory, the whipping post, the lot. “Ignominy is universally acknowledged to be a worse punishment than death,” he wrote. “It would seem strange that ignominy should ever have been adopted as a milder punishment than death, did we not know that the human mind seldom arrives at truth upon any subject till it has first reached the extremity of error.”
White guilt gave us a mock politics based on the pretense of moral authority.
White guilt is not angst over injustices suffered by others; it is the terror of being stigmatized with America’s old bigotries—racism, sexism, homophobia and xenophobia. To be stigmatized as a fellow traveler with any of these bigotries is to be utterly stripped of moral authority and made into a pariah. The terror of this, of having “no name in the street” as the Bible puts it, pressures whites to act guiltily even when they feel no actual guilt. White guilt is a mock guilt, a pretense of real guilt, a shallow etiquette of empathy, pity and regret.
It is also the heart and soul of contemporary liberalism. This liberalism is the politics given to us by white guilt, and it shares white guilt’s central corruption. It is not real liberalism, in the classic sense. It is a mock liberalism. Freedom is not its raison d’être; moral authority is.
Today’s liberalism is an anachronism. It has no understanding, really, of what poverty is and how it has to be overcome. It has no grip whatever on what American exceptionalism is and what it means at home and especially abroad. Instead it remains defined by an America of 1965—an America newly opening itself to its sins, an America of genuine goodwill, yet lacking in self-knowledge.
This liberalism came into being not as an ideology but as an identity. It offered Americans moral esteem against the specter of American shame. This made for a liberalism devoted to the idea of American shamefulness. Without an ugly America to loathe, there is no automatic esteem to receive. Thus liberalism’s unrelenting current of anti-Americanism.
Let’s stipulate that, given our history, this liberalism is understandable. But American liberalism never acknowledged that it was about white esteem rather than minority accomplishment. Four thousand shootings in Chicago last year, and the mayor announces that his will be a sanctuary city. This is moral esteem over reality; the self-congratulation of idealism. Liberalism is exhausted because it has become a corruption.
Tucker Carlson interviews Shelby Steele about the Op-Ed he wrote about The Exhaustion Of American Liberalism, he claims that liberals believe that you are not only attacking their ideas, but that you are attacking them personally when you debate them on politics. Shelby Steele wrote the Wall Street Journal-
“The recent flurry of marches, demonstrations and even riots, along with the Democratic Party’s spiteful reaction to the Trump presidency, exposes what modern liberalism has become: a politics shrouded in pathos. Unlike the civil-rights movement of the 1950s and ’60s, when protesters wore their Sunday best and carried themselves with heroic dignity, today’s liberal marches are marked by incoherence and downright lunacy—hats designed to evoke sexual organs, poems that scream in anger yet have no point to make, and an hysterical anti-Americanism. All this suggests lostness, the end of something rather than the beginning. What is ending? America, since the ’60s, has lived through what might be called an age of white guilt. We may still be in this age, but the Trump election suggests an exhaustion with the idea of white guilt, and with the drama of culpability, innocence and correctness in which it mires us. … This liberalism evolved within a society shamed by its past. But that shame has weakened now. Our new conservative president rolls his eyes when he is called a racist, and we all—liberal and conservative alike—know that he isn’t one. The jig is up. …”
Welcome to WhoRulesAmerica.net, a site about how power is distributed and wielded in the United States. It both builds upon and greatly supplements the book Who Rules America?, now in its 7th edition. The book’s new subtitle, “The Triumph of the Corporate Rich,” reflects the success of the wealthy few in defeating all of their rivals (e.g., organized labor, liberals, environmentalists) over the course of the past 35 years. The story of how the corporate rich won all the big battles is complicated, but most of the answers are in the new Who Rules America? and/or this Web site; there’s also a YouTube video of Bill giving an invited lecture on the topic.
As argued in Who Rules America?, the owners and top executives of the largest corporations, banks, investment firms, and agri-businesses come together as a corporate community. Their enormous economic resources give them the “structural economic power” that is the basis for dominating the federal government through lobbying, campaign finance, appointments to key government positions, and a policy-planning network made up of foundations, think tanks, and policy-discussion groups. The CEOs and owners in the corporate community, along with the top executives at the foundations, think tanks, and policy-discussion groups, work together as a leadership group that I call the power elite. However, they do fight among themselves sometimes, leading to moderate-conservative and ultra-conservative factions in the power elite. This class-domination theory developed out of Power Structure Research, going back to the 1950s.
Questions and Answers
Q: So, who does rule America?
A: The owners and managers of large income-producing properties; i.e., the owners of corporations, banks, other financial institutions, and agri-businesses. But they have plenty of help from the managers and experts they hire. You can read the essential details of the argument on this site, or read the new seventh edition of Who Rules America?.
Q: Do the same people rule at the local level that rule at the federal level?
A: No, not quite. The local level is dominated by the land owners and businesses that own downtown real estate and big shopping malls. They come together as growth coalitions, which turn cities into “growth machines” when they gain control of local government. Everything is about land values for them, and that requires office buildings, stadiums, museums, concert halls, shoppers, conventions, and tourists.
Q: Do they rule secretly from behind the scenes, as a conspiracy?
A: No, conspiracy theories are all wrong for many reasons. It’s true that some corporate leaders lie and steal, and that some government officials — including the President — initiate secret actions and then try (and usually fail) to keep them out of the newspapers. But those activities are not what is meant by a conspiracy theory, most of which involve an imagined small group of people secretly plotting to gain or retain control of the government through illegal means.
Q: Then how do they rule?
A: That’s a complicated story, but the short answer is through lobbying, open and direct involvement in general policy planning on the big issues, participation (in large part through campaign donations) in political campaigns and elections, and through appointments to key decision-making positions in government.
Q: Are you saying that elections don’t matter?
A: No, but they usually matter a lot less than they could, and a lot less in America than they do in other industrialized democracies. That’s because of the nature of the electoral rules and the unique history of the South.
Q: Does social science research have anything useful to say about making progressive social change more effective?
A: Yes, it does, but few if any people pay much attention to that research.
Q: Is WhoRulesAmerica.net connected to the “Who Rules America?” documents on natvan.com or ncoal.com?
The Corporate Community, Think Tanks,Policy-Discussion Groups, and Government
by G. William Domhoff, Clifford Staples, & Adam Schneider
This document presents new findings about the American power structure based on the connections among 2,563 corporations, 6 business leadership and policy-discussion groups, 33 prominent think tanks, 82 major foundations, 47 private universities with large endowments, and 19 White House advisory committees for the years 2011-2012. In all, the database used for our study contains 2,750 separate organizations and 9,121 individuals.
Epigraph This book is intended for normal, mainstream, secular, modern, disaffected and alienated intellectuals; those who are complicit in political correctness (as are all intellectuals) but who are (when not distracted, drugged or dreaming) in a state of despair. This book will, I hope, help such people to understand their condition, and present the likely choices. It will not help them to save their world (too late for that) but it may help them to save their souls. * *
Note: Why I use the term Political Correctness, instead of Liberalism or Socialism? The reasons include: 1. The confusion over what ‘liberalism’ means – to some a free marketeer, to others a socialist. My definition of political correctness is broad and includes most mainstream conservatives, libertarians and anarchists; who are nowadays all significantly PC.
Thus, the major output of the modern international Mass Media consists of only four categories: 1. Good presented as bad 2. Bad presented as Good (That is to say simple inversion) 3. Good presented as Good for a bad reason 4. Bad presented as bad for a bad reason (That is to say explanatory inversion) These four categories, which can be summarized as either simple or explanatory inversion, account for all sustained and high impact modern major Mass Media stories without any exceptions.
The problem is that Political education and discourse are so poorly communicated. Read Pedagogy of the Oppressed and what will become apparent is Political liberation is a Praxis and not a party. Freedom is something you live and do not something you join.
Political correctness, the intellectual elite and the mass media
PC depends upon at least two necessary (although not sufficient) conditions: an intellectual ruling class and a large and effective mass media.
The intellectual ruling elite are necessary because only they have the disposition for abstraction, the preference to regard ideas as realer than experience (because PC ‘reality’ is socially constructed), and the tendency to privilege ideas even (or especially) when they are in conflict with commonsense observation.
The mass media are necessary because the media constitute the discourse – the cognitive process, the mode of thinking – of modern societies.
*
Political correctness is (roughly) a mixture of bureaucratic Old Left and subjective New Left, the interspersion of a system of communist/ Fabian totalitarian central planning with irruptions of counter-cultural hedonism.
*
The main difference between the late Soviet Union in the Brezhnev era and political correctness in the West, is therefore the presence of a mass media.
In the old Soviet Union the media were instruments of state propaganda; they were dull, people didn’t pay much attention to them, and the quantity of media output was anyway kept low (because the media content was controlled and checked, item by item).
In the modern West, by contrast, the mass media are vast, primarily attention-grabbing, and still growing; media content is vivid and varied; and the subject matter is controlled only by self-censorship.
The mass media disciplines intellectuals and organizations who endanger political correctness: disciplines first by exclusion then by demonization – working like an inquisition by choosing and publicizing suitable anti-PC targets for aggression by ‘the secular arm’: organized Leftist direct action, rioting by approved groups, apparently-random acts by lone vigilantes – and so on.
The mass media identifies and locates reactionary targets for ‘legitimate’ aggression of many types, including violence.
And since these reactionary targets are seen as having willfully-provoked violence against themselves, the perpetrators of violence are exonerated from blame.
The moral universe of PC subsists on two distinct realities – good causes and good intentions, but never the twain can stay stuck-together.
(Note the lack of reference to good outcomes. Being wholly abstract, PC is indifferent to outcomes. ‘Outcomes’ are regarded as having no autonomous reality, but are merely seen as part of abstract theory.)
When everything is interpretation, action is rendered hazardous, indeed unnecessary.
The bureaucrat and the media communicator (those who do nothing and risk nothing – but who interpret, and re-interpret reality for the masses) are the modern cultural exemplars: certainly not the heroic producer, maker, act-er and do-er (whose positive behaviors might, at any moment, be re-interpreted; and the erstwhile hero exposed as a modern villain.)
*
So, wretched inert submissiveness oscillates with arrogant but empty moral grandstanding.
Is anybody safe?
Under PC, whatever you do, whatever willing you show, status is contingent.
There is no safety even for members of the ruling elite in a system of Political Correctness; anyone at all is susceptible to denunciation for any reason or no reason at any time.
Since PC is a wave of moral ‘progress’ which leaves-behind all previous moral standards and behaviours – there can be no accumulation of moral capital.
This applies to the ultra-PC just as much as to the openly reactionary.
*
(In this respect PC is more like communist than fascist totalitarianism: under fascism membership-of and courageous loyalty to the in-group usually brings safety from denunciation; but under communism anybody was vulnerable to denunciation – friends and enemies of the government alternated with bewildering rapidity: nobody was safe.)
The insanity of pure abstract altruism
Pure disinterested altruism, imposed on all by abstract systems, is therefore a logical consequence of the moral primacy of pure altruism…
It is also insane, and lacks any test in reality.
PC is good by definition and for no other reason; especially not because PC has been found to be good.
*
What is more, PC is the creation of that minority of humans capable of abstract thought and who regard abstraction as primary, and experience as derived from theory. This perspective is coercively enforced on that majority of other humans who privilege experience above abstraction (e.g. the majority who spontaneously privilege natural law above moral inversion, beauty above shock, truth above subversion and so on…)
The mass majority therefore experience coercive altruism as merely alienating – either as aggressive or patronizing depending on whether they are at that moment givers or receivers.
*
PC stands or falls by the fact of a secular intellectual ruling elite, and can be imposed widely by this elite only by the recent technologies of modern mass media.
And PC is only possible in a fully materialist and secular society: where this-worldly ‘goods’ and their just (i.e. altruistic) allocation can assume ultimate importance, over-riding all other considerations (such as the saving of souls).
*
It is this idealistic quest for pure impersonal abstract altruism, in a secular context, which has caused the anti-human, alienating, aggressive, patronizing, self-hating and suicidal insanity that is political correctness.
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Frameworks of Understanding. ( Mine as it developed.)
http://www.lovemoney.com/news/property-and-mortgages/house-prices/2325/why-house-prices-will-fall-this-year
I am optimistic that peoples openness to hearing alternative views is increasing, I think people sense something is badly up and although the current culture is for quick solutions in a 2 minute sound bite 101 and thats all you need to know Fox News sort of way. But I think we can provide some of that and I thing Satire needs to be directed at the subject and some poking fun in the great tradition of Radical Etchings and Pamphlets. I suspect these days Americans and Brits alike would struggle to get through Thomas Paine’s Common Sense in one sitting but remember that a lot of people would have got through it or introduced to it by group readings and discussions and that sort of thing whilst difficult to re introduce into modern life can be done through social media. I have tried to do it with a few original songs and poems and by writing to people I am in regular contact with and who I care about.
The idea of Community approaches is well put by Robert Moore in this two part interview with Sue Supriano on her Steppin out of Babylon series. This series helped me to seek out a lot of information I did not have the tools to search out before as my framework of understanding in many of the areas simply didn’t exist.
I posted a link in a Linked in discussion on the Economist, a place I try to provide the other view to the main stream economics and free market exponents some of whom are happy to discuss things and some of who are still pretty shouty, part of what we do does involve kissing a lot of frogs to find our princes though.
I have just read this interesting Blog regarding the true nature of democracy and indeed if it has indeed existed anywhere in the past 6000 years.
http://harmonization.blogspot.se/
RogerGLewis May 18, 2011 at 5:16 am #
I was directed here by a comment posted in Sturdy Blog http://sturdyblog.wordpress.com/2011/04/08/to-whom-do-we-owe-this-money-exactly/#comment-610
There are more and more people seeking answers to unasked let alone unanswered questions my comment is directed more to those who like me agree that there absolutely is a very bad problem and it is what Roy Madron calls the Global Monetocracy its a coporate Oligarchy that has hijaked the Agenda in pursuit of its own narrow interests.
THose banks should then be kept in Public ownership and there should be a return to a credit based Honest Money system If any of the other Private Banks survive without Public Assistance them good for them but more regulation and very strict regulation regarding the usefullness of the funn money merry go round needs to follow.
Just a quick post and basic idea I’d happily throw all my effort into a joint effort to initiate such a campaign if upon full discussion and reasoning a caucus of opinion felt it was a worthwhile plan.