I have a favour to ask.
My friend Mark Tanner phoned me the other day to ask if I was going to enter the blog for the Orwell Prize. I said I hadn’t thought about it. There was a tolerant silence followed by a gentle suggestion that I do think about it. I have and …well, why not. I never win these things because there is pretty stiff competition but what’s the point in not even entering.
To enter you have to submit 10 blog posts from the last year. So my favour is to ask any of you who feel like it, to suggest your top 10 or top 5 or however many you think are worth submitting. If, between us, we can come up with 10 we feel are worth asking the judges to read, I’ll submit them. The entry has to be in – by email – by Jan 10th.
I will quite understand if you don’t have the time but I thought I’d ask which worked for you.
Thanks to all of you. For both the kind comments and your suggestions. I added up your votes for particular pieces, added one of my own and here they are.
Liars Lexicon – Mark to Market 1st Feb
Regulatory Arbitrage – What bankers don’t have to tell us 3rd March
The New Normal 15th May
How to Destroy the Web of Debt 26th May
World Wide Credulity Crunch 22nd September
Risk – tricky stuff 15th November
Debt or Taxes – the battle of our time 23rd November
The Hammer of Debt 5th December
Plan B – How to loot nations and their banks legally 15th Decmeber
The Miracle of Solvency 29th December
I would like to express both my sincerest apologies to Hawkeye for not being able to include any of his pieces and to thank him for his wonderful contributions to this blog. The conditions of the Orwell prize are that you can only submit your own work. Otherwise I would have definitely submitted both Wall Street Fiddles and Irresponsible Borrowing and irresponsible Lending.
“Goldman Sachs wants your pension”
By Golem XIV on March 29, 2011
Golem you have a lot of readers it seems. i would set up a poll if i was you, if it is not too much hassle. happy new year and thanks for all the hard work.
My faves are
The New Normal
Debt or Taxes – the battle of our time
Hammer of debt
How to destroy the web of debt
“The places and people who help Barclays ‘minimize’ its taxes.”
BY GOLEM XIV ON OCTOBER 12, 2011 IN LATEST
I really enjoyed the latest one ‘the miracle of solvency’. Some great phrasing – really captures your style and of course it helps unmask the charade by which the insolvent banks remain propped up.
Good luck!
Hi Golem,
this is just a ploy to make me re-read all of your posts isn’t it 🙂
From Zeno’s Recovery to the Miracle of Solvency it is hard to pick 10 of the best from 2011 (does Hawkeyes’ post Wall St Fiddles count ?, any chance of another one ?)
I did like Hammer of Debt.
I agree with Barry, some kind of poll might be best.
Cheers for all the work you put in, it is their loss if you don’t get at least an honourable mention.
Heck! And I thought I was being so subtle.
I think a poll would be good. If only I knew how to set one up.
Polls various
I like Nell’s sugesstions and would add Zeno’s Recovery, People’s Debt Jubilee, making the New sub-Prime and all the Liar’s Lexicon posts from this year (Mark to Market, Support Uplift and Orderly Default.
My favourite Guest Post was Irresponsible Borrowing and Irresponsible Lending by Hawkeye.
Happy New Year Golem. Please Watch!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qBSCqH6xm_U
Difficult to choose just 10. The following 13 from last year would make my shortlist:
Liars Lexicon – Mark to Market.
Who do the ‘regulators’ work for?
Regulatory Arbitrage – what bankers don’t have to tell us
The ongoing IMF attack on European Democracy
Money Laundering and the moral world of bankers
How to destroy the web of Debt
A People’s Debt Jubilee
What the Ratings Agencies really do. Liars Lexicon – Support Uplift
A Debt Commision [sic] for the publically [sic] owned Banks like RBS.
The financial propaganda war – summer ’11 offensive
World Wide Credulity Crunch.
What would it look like if our leaders had lost control?
The Hammer of Debt.
Happy New Year David and likewise to all the readers and contributors here.
Wow – what a choice. I really liked Debt or Taxes – the battle of our time
Yes, include a Hawkeye one too. I really like the fact that you ask guests to contribute.
You have a friend?????
Sorry! Make the move!
Just remember to always be true!
“Hammer of Debt,” for sure
Plan B- How to loot banks and Nations legally- is a stand-out for me. It goes right to the heart of the whole repo scam, plus it explains in a macro sense the dangers to our whole way of life and democracy in the Western world by the worlds vampire capitalists and subservient ,if not downright corrupt politicians.
My top 10 Golem XIV posts 2011:
Debt or Taxes – the battle of our time
Plan B – How to loot nations and their banks legally
The Miracle of Solvency
STOP the Zombie Banks
SHOW ME THE MONEY
The knotted cords of debt
The monstrous fact. From bail-outs to debt peonage.
World Wide Credulity Crunch.
They haven’t a clue
The ugly absurdity of Europe
Certainly i think you should be in the running for orwell prize . I won’t nominate anything in particular yet although I did think the last one was interesting . The strength of the blog is that it provides a kind of narrative fluency that cuts through the demands of dealing with a highly technical subject. It leans on analogy and imagery to create the fluency but while this style has drawbacks too, of over-simplifying some areas and leads int speculation, it is an essential compromise. One of the remarkable qualities of the blog is its prescience and the fact that it has led, by some considerable margin, much of the offerings in the mainstream. It is quite an achievement.
The blog has the great advantage of it being clear that it is an ‘essay’, in the true sense of the word, and is therefore a real conversation with the audience, more so than if it was a technical exegesis.such blogs are deliberately inscrutable and dishonest. So all in all I think this blog is one of the more honest blogs around, and captures the spirit of what the Orwell prize should reward.
I do enjoy reading your blog and others like it, but I fear it’s bad for my blood pressure – getting more and more angry with the bankers/financial elite but powerless to do anything about it…..anyway here’s my choices :
The Hammer of Debt
The New Normal
The cost of the bail out – just your democracy
Who are the bondholders we are bailing out. I like it when you name names :-).
I am a recent reader so my scope is quite small, but I think “the Hammer of Debt” deserves a spot
Wish you the best of luck David but the choice must be yours to make.
If it’s anything like the Booker I would regard failure as success.
I would agree with all the above suggestions. I think there is an embarrassment of riches, which like my record collection, makes it very hard to isolate a few as the best.
One of the things I like about this blog is that unlike many other sources of internet information, it is in no way parochial, but endeavours to accomplish the far from easy task of considering events worldwide, for the very good reason that we are all now interconnected due to globalisation. Orwell was an internationalist, I think Golem is too, perhaps the final choice could reflect this.
All your blog’s are great, the one I liked best was talking about biflation describing it as a double vortex, but having looked through your blog’s I can’t find it again. The one about CDS being like taking out insurance on your neighbors house was also very good. And of course domino’s falling from the east!!
Looking at the orwell prize, I don’t understand why they have separate categories for journalism and blogging. There are no journalists in MSM, all the real journalists are in the blogosphere, so you should win both prizes
Sphincter-nomics and the credulity crunch were superb.
I enjoyed “What would it look like if our leaders had lost control?” – October 19th, because it reminds me of the incessant wrestle for control of a nation’s economy by our leaders and that dyed-in-the-wool paradigm “the free market”. In these days of trade without goods, profit without investment, and cannibalization of jobs by the pension funds, one can be forgiven for thinking that the term “free market” is twee.
I wish I could vote for articles from previous years, because for me “Toxic Debt Wasteland” is a classic.
richgb,
Happy New Year Rich. I hope it’s a good one for you and yours. Always a great pleasure to know you are around.
Happy New Year David.
Being the “ghost of Christmas past” I would rattle some chains, if I had any.
Good luck. Your blog deserves all the recognition as it’s so important, so few people are talking about these issues and the MSM is dire. Anyway:
World Wide Credulity Crunch
The hammer of debt
If our leaders lost control.
The web of debt (? The one that showed the interlinking of debt across EU nations and banks)
The posts on re-hypothecation because only a few are talking about it.
The new normal.
Who are the bondholders we are bailing out? (A brilliant post).
(P.s. off topic slightly. When you were on Max Keiser you were discussing how worrying it is that millions of people in the UK are paying their mortgages on credit – have you seen this today: http://www.guardian.co.uk/money/2012/jan/04/payday-loans-cover-mortgage-costs?commentpage=last#end-of-comments )
Dave,
Have you seen this?
http://www.thebureauinvestigates.com/2011/12/23/city-banks-cheat-europe-in-e600m-tax-avoidance-trading-scheme/
I love the ones that propose solutions:
– Ireland, Greece and portugal should default. (for the; “The Commission’s next job – after the audit – is to establish if any of that debt was Odious, Illegitimate, Illegal or Unsustainable”)
– How to destroy the web of debt
– A peoples debt Jubilee (Sovereign debt swop)
(or reveal some of the corruption;)
– Who are the Bond holders we are bailing out?
– Ireland was Germanys offshore tart.
– A peek into one of the deepest cesspits in Europe
or the “series” ie.
– The ugly sisters inflation/deflation.
Actually we don’t need to look far back in time;
– Rumours, disasters & re-hypothecation.
– Plan B – How to loot nations and their banks legally (how MF global changed the pay-out order of bankruptcy)
Or cries from the heart – although those probably wouldn’t appeal in a “competition”, however much they do to me.
– The Miracle of solvency and the credulity blog.
——–
Thanks for a great blog Dave.
One suspects Unicredit – Another Lehman Brothers? might need a rejig before the years out…
https://www.golemxiv.co.uk/2010/12/unicredit-another-lehman-brothers/
Maybe before Easter, if they make it so long. 14% drop in one day is scary
16% drop today, they might not make to the end of next week
The best blogs you have done are the ones where you are most angry, in a state of sheer disbeliefe or both. Hve to work now so will do mine after dinner (China time).
David, will you post the top ten that you decide on, please?
Hyperlinked would be great 😉
1. Who are the bond holders?
2. The credulity crunch.
3. The Euro or your democracy
4. Ireland was Germanys OFF shore tart
5. Liar’s Lexicon – The List
6 Plan B – How to loot nations and their banks legally
7 Who do the ‘regulators’ work for?
8 A peek into one of the deepest little cesspits in Europe
9 Greece – It’s all about bailing out French and German Banks
10.Guest post by Hawkeye: – Sell freedom, Buy control
I have picked out a top ten of the most predictive blogs you have done. What you said was before the MSM even sniffed the story. Shame it’s not a top 50 because I have missed so many good bits out.
I am new to your blog so a review of the ones I have read would not do service to contributions from earlier in the year.
My simple suggestion is that you submit the 10 most recent. They are all excellent and have the advantage of being topical in these fast moving times.
Excellent suggestion – they’re all winners.
Big choice David!
I would certainly include the Hammer of Debt. The re-hypothication explanation is also worth including (it has to be written down and understood to realise what a monumentally stupid re-hyp is!). As for the others there are so many! As has been mentioned above, some of your best blogs are clearly written in a state of anger / disbelief and are all the better for it. I would include any number of them.
Chris
Tomorrow is the last day for entry.
Look at the Judges.
The Blog Prize 2012 judges are journalist Suzanne Moore, who writes for The Guardian and Mail on Sunday (and previously wrote for Marxism Today, The Independent and the New Statesman); and blogger Hopi Sen, shortlisted for the Orwell Prize for Blogs 2010 (and longlisted for the 2009 Prize).
Elite members, comfortable, personally ambitious, part of the 99.0000000009% for sure.
Cancel the entry, you have your audience.