So just a quick round up on the day for all those who thought that the authorities had everything back in hand.
In the UK, Wolverhampton and Manchester are alight. I have little experience of Wolverhampton. But Manchester is a central pocket based around Market Street, basically rebuilt with Russian mafia money..sorry investment, which brought with it a huge drug business. Surrounding this rebuilt but, in my opinion, still strikingly ugly centre, are some extremes of poverty and deprivation. Longsight, Levenshulme and Moss Side are some of the country’s poorest areas. So far parts of Market Street are alight. Including, poetically, a housing benefits office – one of the places where they tell you you’re not poor enough yet.
Seems that the chaps from Longsight and South Manchester must have availed themselves of public transport so as to wreak havoc NOT in their own back yard. Good thinking chaps.
Meanwhile to add some badly needed levity the Iranian police have sent a message to the Met urging that they ‘show restraint’ when dealing with the protesters. Another good idea. Perhaps they could send over some advisers to lend a hand. They could keep an eye out for human rights abuses. They also suggested the authorities should try to develop dialogue with the protesters.
In various Middle Eastern Countries journalists are already talking about an “English Summer” taking over from the Arab spring.
Meanwhile in America, the rally that preceded the FED meeting, which was sold to the unwary on MarketWatch and the other financial propaganda outlets as ‘The Fed has this in hand, don’t worry’ with headlines like – “Bank stocks back in vogue” and stories about how,
Shares of Wells Fargo & Co. rose about 4% on Tuesday morning, gaining after analysts at FBR upgraded the company and placed the stock on the firm’s list of “Top Picks.”
UPDATE – in the last hour or so of today the US markets suddenly went up, up and away. 400 points up. I don’t know what the volume was like. I suspect it will have been low. At the same time the VIX which charts volatility shot down.
Will Asia read this as ‘all is OK’ and will Europe follow suit? Who the hell knows. Bernanke didn’t announce QE3. All he said is that low interest rates and therefore free money for the banks will continue for another couple of years. Good news for the Big Banks, but good enough for a 400 point rally?
Neither the US debt situation, nor Europe’s banking insolvency, nor the grinding to a halt of any signs of growth in Europe and the US has been solved. But don’t let that get in the way of a good mindless rally.
Hi G,
I think QE3 is a shoo-in in the face of the potential shit storm that the markets will face if further liquidity isn't pumped into the system. From what I can see volume in end of day trading was high, indicating to me that the fix is already in. Nods and winks all round I'm sure.
Looks like they're all ready to kick Armageddon down the road – at least until bonus season is over.
Les,
Do you think that the continued roll over of dbet – capital from maturing debt used to buy new – won't be enough? What about the downgrades and dbet ceiling? You think they'll ignore the warning shot and print merrily away?
I agree the banks will push for it alongside draconian cuts to welfare but will the debt argument not come back with big boots on? These are the questions I keep turning over. How about you?
I think they'll continue to push this as far as they can, to the detriment of everyone and anything that gets in their way, until we stop them. Unfortunately there doesn't yet seem to be any entity that represents the will of the people to stand up to these financial terrorists.
You're absolutely right, as usual, this will be revisited on an even scarier scale. The only question is when?
I wish to do a mea culpa here, not stictly on topic, but relevant. I am unable to condemn the rioters. I see the mob as a mataphor for the worlds banks and financial classes.
I saw footage of an injured man being robbed and thought of the outrageous bank charges that stole money from people least able to afford it.
I saw ordinary people have their homes burned down or invaded, I was reminded of the petty foreclosures on mortgages with no attempt to help.
I saw mobs destroying things just because they could. An apt description of globalisation and the theft of jobs.
In a way I'm cheering them on how well they have learned from their masters. To hell with community greed is good, do whatever it takes to have what you want.
Some peole did it wearing a suit and using a computer. Others did it in a hoodie using a crow bar.
I see no moral distiction between the two, I just feel angry on behalf of those who have tried to do the right thing. bill40
On the riots, I again beg to dissent, no matter how much I agree with the diagnosis of the financial situation.
People who've been arrested and appeared in court in London so far include a graphic designer, a university graduate and someone about to join the army; home addresses given include Essex and Kent, indicating that some people came into London from outside. There's evidence of organized gangs at work, cars being loaded up with loot and of Blackberries being used to communicate – hardly the standard possessions of the dispossessed.
The main features of the rioting seem to have been arson, looting and vandalism. I've yet to hear of any banks being attacked (though a police station in Nottingham has been firebombed).
To quote Chris Buckler of BBC News, on the other hand:
"People are following us around with bags, asking where the riots are. There is no doubt that there is a great deal of opportunism going on here tonight in Manchester."
All this is going to make genuine and legitimate protest all the more difficult in future – it just plays into the hands of the law'n'order brigade.
"Manchester is a central pocket based around Market Street, basically rebuilt with Russian mafia money.."
Manchester was always a Jewish centre. The mafia you are referring to is really the Jewish Russian mafia. 🙂
Bill, Neil,
interesting observations, especially the thoughts about the financial classes alter ego.
I hate to bring it up..it sounds totally outlandish..but what I hear, read and see reminds me of V-For Vendetta time and time again.
In Greece during the peaceful Syntagma Square demonstrations there were many reports of yobs being brought in by the police to cause some trouble, in order to give the riot police a reason to break up the peaceful part of the protests.
Now again this sounds totally crazy but could it be that the London riots have been partly instigated/kick-started?
I totally share your conclusion, it will give general protesting a stigma at minimum, and will take momentum out of demonstrations that will occur in the foreseeable future.
Guys, What is going on with these markets? Just like a woman, just when you think, `ah now i understand it` they do something off the wall. How long is this charade going to last?
On the rioting across your country I'm starting to think that maybe the idea that Bill came up with was something that someone else saw and in a strange twist from the norm they decided to jump on the band wagon and are trying to make this situation more about the economic situation and less about the free for all that it started out as. The downside to doing that of course is that it makes the cause less appealing to a wider audience. I don't believe that this was started by anyone other than opportunist little scumbags but it is gathering a wider audience and if it can somehow be turned around into a peaceful mass rally then that really would be something as right now the whole world is watching this, waiting for the next show, that show could be one of a want for want for change to the system that is robbing each and every one of us.
I figured one out for Ireland too that would get the attention of the masses. It would involve every publican in the country closing their doors for 2 days and marching to the government buildings to protest, this would get the attention of every man and woman in this country and unfortunately I think that it is the only thing that would. Maybe WhistleblowerIrl can take this one up with the Vintners Federation here 😉
I'm with Bill on this one.
Yes, the rioters are pretty repulsive, they're just thieves. Now, if you can imagine the economic damage they've caused and multiply it by several million, that's approximately the damage that bankers and Homer-Owner-Ists are causing. And the corporatists are as bad as the bankers and Home-Owner-Ists.
Neil and everybody please check out the Alex cartoon in the Telegrap today.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/alex/?cartoon=8692002&cc=8674102
It is spookily on topic and seems to back my view too.
@Bill
Good call! I think the Alex strip has probably provided the most accurate mainstream media reportage of the entire financial crisis! If you wanted to explain the financial crisis to someone who doesn't understand it, you could do worse than giving them a few of the recent annuals…
Young men, no future, with the perfect excuse that if the bankers got away with it we can too. Murdoch dumbs them down so they can be sold a lifestyle concept designed to make the rich richer. I think it's a case of you reap what you sow. It's not to say they are not opportunistic thugs but are they any different from the bankers? However, there is one difference: the bankers will be able to create a war and get the rioters conscripted. Can't see that happening the other way around can you?
1132: BBC reporter at Highbury Magistrates Court tells BBC 5 live the first person who appeared in the dock this morning was a 31-year-old teacher called Alexis Bailey. She pleaded guilty to being part of the looting of the Richer Sounds store in Croydon.
It's possibly because I am now much more aware, but the pace of events is staggering, blink & you will miss it. We seem to be descending into chaos.
One outcome of the rioting seems to be that old Joe Public now being sufficiently riled up will enable Cameron to justify the use of water cannon etc. Add agent provocateurs as in Greece to the peaceful demos that are coming with the inevitable application of more & more austerity measures & well, there you go.
Once again, I find myself hoping I am being paronoid.
@Bill, thanks for the link, it is now well shared.
Neil
"…Blackberries being used to communicate – hardly the standard possessions of the dispossessed."
The blackberry is *the* device of choice of the dispossessed.
Correction: it turns out that Alexis Bailey, the teacher who appeared in court in connection with looting in Croydon, is a man, not a woman. He lives in Battersea.
Strange isn't it when a republican Standard & Poor's downgrades America to double AA+ during the tenure of a Democrat President?
Even stranger when that Democrat President has to all practical purpose backed a Republican – cuts, but no tax rise motion – simply in order to have the funds for a second term in office.
Then we have the banks (financial shaman) who have been looting the public and their purse for years; and were finally, though not fully, exposed in the 2007/8 meltdown, are now blaming this continuing crises on the lack of political will and positive leadership.
It would seem they want the screws of austerity to be tightened by extracting even more of the spirit of endurance from the people who weren't allowed or considered worthy enough to either take part or be educated on the rules (if there are any) or the purpose of the game.
Meanwhile the markets are acting like suppurating toxic waste being liquidised to the point that would make a particle accelerator be defined as the epitome of serenity, and to what purpose?
Absolutely none except for the pockets of the wheelers and dealers – up, down, round and round its all grist to their commissions. What they can't stand is when the market is quiet and contemplative and they would go apoplectic should it ever be settled and content. Not only cant they stand it they couldn't afford it and like addicts they'll pay anything, irrespective of the effects it has on the non-junkies called, in general, society, in order to satisfy their addiction.
In effect London and any other conurbation in the UK along with those of certainly the Western World have been smouldering for some time which makes the eventual blaze inevitable.
It all becomes clear as soon as you contemplate and compare what you expect of a democracy as opposed to what you have got.
If we leave it to our children to try to make the police accountable and redistribute wealth, with no leadership or guidance, we shouldn't be surprised if they do a messy job of it:
http://rebelgriot.blogspot.com/2011/08/why-are-we-leaving-it-to-our-children.html