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, …
The lies which got us to the purgatory we are in, are being told all over again, right now, in every bank in the Western World. Not by accident, but on purpose, by men with calculators and degrees, in the full knowledge of what they are doing, why and for whose benefit. Every religion has …
To all of you who have made this blog what I hoped it might be: – a place where people think, question and converse in a community of their own making, – where rancour and rudeness are not accepted, – and where people know they can ask for help and offer it in the knowledge …
Is there a plan B? That question is usually asked of governments regarding their attempts to ‘save’ the banks domiciled in their country. But has anyone asked if the banks have a plan B? Does anyone think that if our governments fail to keep to their austerity targets and fail to keep bailing out the …
Plan B – How to loot nations and their banks legally Read More »
The rumours are swirling. Top of the list is “re-hypothecation”. Next is German bank re-capitalization. And last is an IMF Europe bail out fund. At the end of the US trading day came a report from the Japanese press that the G20 were going to set up a $600 billion rescue fund for Europe. American …
“…nobody would claim that their own thinking was ideological, just as nobody would habitually refer to themselves as Fatso. Ideology, like halitosis, is in this sense what the other person has.” “Ideology” by Terry Eagleton. P.2 We all see the world through a lens of ideas and assumptions. The courageous man admits this to himself …
So as European leaders admit they can’t find the money to make the EFSF (Europe’s bank bail out fund) anything like the size they all said it had to be, but they are saying nevertheless that the EU gives itself 10 days to fix the crisis. The latest plan is to turn to the IMF …
Where is the European Bond and Banking crisis going next? Well Europe has a simple problem – it can’t sell its debt, neither sovereign nor private bank debt – at an interest rate they can afford. Italy sold €7.5 billion in bonds but at rates that are completely unsustainable. To give you an idea of …
For those who might be interested I will be giving a talk in Edinburgh on Dec. 6th. There will also be what I hope will be another lively Q&A afterwards as well as a chance to meet in person and talk informally. I hope you can make it. It will be at 7.30 pm at …
Debt is to the free market and its political agenda as taxes are to democracy. Both are THE ultimate source of power for their respective worlds. Taxes are what gives governments their power. Debt is what gives banks and the financial system its power. It has no other. The power to tax your future work …
