I’m tired …..

Message from a tired man

I’m 63.  Except for one semester in college when jobs were scarce and a six-month period when I was between jobs, but job-hunting every day, I’ve worked, hard, since I was 18. Despite some health challenges, I still put in 50-hour weeks, and haven’t called in sick in seven or eight years. I make a good salary, but I didn’t inherit my job or my income, and I worked to get where I am. Given the economy, there’s no retirement in sight, and I’m tired. Very tired.

I’m tired of being told that I have to “spread the wealth” to people who don’t have my work ethic. I’m tired of being told the government will take the money I earned, by force if necessary, and give it to people too lazy to earn it.

I’m tired of being told that Islam is a “Religion of Peace,” when every day I can read dozens of stories of Muslim men killing their sisters, wives and daughters for their family “honor”; of Muslims rioting over some slight offense; of Muslims murdering Christian and Jews because they aren’t “believers”; of Muslims burning schools for girls; of Muslims stoning teenage rape victims to death for “adultery”; of Muslims mutilating the genitals of little girls; all in the name of Allah, because the Qur’an and Shari’a law tells them to.

I’m tired of being told that out of “tolerance for other cultures” we must let Saudi Arabia use our oil money to fund mosques and mandrassa Islamic schools to preach hate in America and Canada , while no American nor Canadian group is allowed to fund a church, synagogue or religious school in Saudi Arabia to teach love and tolerance.

I’m tired of being told I must lower my living standard to fight global warming, which no one is allowed to debate.

I’m tired of being told that drug addicts have a disease, and I must help support and treat them, and pay for the damage they do. Did a giant germ rush out of a dark alley, grab them, and stuff white powder up their noses while they tried to fight it off?

I’m tired of hearing wealthy athletes, entertainers and politicians of both parties talking about innocent mistakes, stupid mistakes or youthful mistakes, when we all know they think their only mistake was getting caught. I’m tired of people with a sense of entitlement, rich or poor.

I’m real tired of people who don’t take responsibility for their lives and actions. I’m tired of hearing them blame the government, or discrimination or big-whatever for their problems.

Yes, I’m damn tired. But I’m also glad to be 63. Because, mostly, I’m not going to have to see the world these people are making. I’m just sorry for my granddaughter.

Robert  A. Hall is a Marine Vietnam veteran who served five terms in the Massachusetts  State Senate.

 

Gordon Saves the World (Again)

Gordon Brown to warn against global youth unemployment epidemic

Former prime minister will call for Barack Obama to take the lead in helping the 81 million people under the age of 25. Gordon Brown Gordon Brown will tomorrow make a speech on behalf of the world’s young and unemployed.

Gordon Brown will warn on Thursday that the world faces youth unemployment of “epidemic proportions”, as he urges joint action by the G20 group of developed and developing nations to tackle rising joblessness.

Yes, all very noble, but this is the same GB who massively hiked National Insurance instead of income tax. NI is of course a “tax on jobs”. In France, it is so high that employers will bend over backwards NOT to employ anyone and make do with the staff they already have. This is why French workers on average are among the most productive in the world and ALSO why unemployment is consistently around 10% and young people do not on average get their FIRST, FULL-TIME, PERMANENT job till they are OVER THIRTY.

We need to adopt the Franco-EU model like a hole in the head.

So, thanks Gordon, but pontificate less – you’ve done enough damage already. However, if you REALLY want to help, campaign against:

-  the EU tsunami of regulations which make it ever more difficult to compete against Asia
-  high taxes on employment (see above)
– over-complicated tax regimes that penalise endeavour and stifle jobs, except for accountants and tax advisors
– excessive debt, which destroys economies, jobs and in your case careers ….
– the lax regulation of the financial services

I do realize this will be tricky for you, since when in power you worked ceaselessly FOR all the above.

Oh, and while you’re at it, campaign to set up a German-style technical-training and apprentice system to provide the engineers and technicians that we might need if there was any industry left. This would cost, but you could save money by not sending half of Britain’s youth to university to study media skills, sociology and/or football management. I’m not sure if tiddley-winks is yet available ……

 

Europe’s BIG Question

As the Chinese “bail out” Europe, the BIG question is ….

Will the Germans REALLY allow themselves to be shamed and suckered into a ‘fiscal union’ (= Germany pays all the bills)?

The answer is not yet clear, but VAST CHANGES hang on it, and until we know, all the rest is just pussy-footing around waiting …….

The smug self-satisfaction of the gruesome Van Rompo, Juncker, Borroso  mafia and their cronies will be difficult to take if they manage to shame the Germans into signing a blank cheque in this final battle of World War III.

 

IN DEFENCE OF STUART WHEELER

Stuart Wheeler has just become Treasurer of UKIP. Some commentators have called him “dangerous” and/or “a rich, right-wing toff” or even “a monster” …..

Is this fair? Click below to see an analysis ……

IN DEFENCE OF STUART WHEELER

 

Today’s Eurozone Meeting

Shut up before I slap you, you irritating little French git .....

“Important members of Chancellor Angela Merkel’s coalition in Germany are resisting plans for an increase in the EU’s bail-out fund to protect Spain from contagion, complicating a crucial meeting of EU finance ministers on Monday.”

Mr Trichet, also said the fund should be improved “quantitatively and qualitatively”.

They are idiots.

“Errm …. you’ve got severe debt, and it’s killing you …”

“Oh dear, Doctor. What do you prescribe?”

“Well, I think a vast increase of debt will do the trick. I’ll arrange it right away.”

“But Doctor, I can’t pay the existing debt, so how will I be able to pay any MORE?”

“No worries – when you start feeling sick again, we can quantitatively and qualitatively improve your debt and give you some more …”

“But will it work?”

“Not a chance, Matey – Europe gets more sclerotic by the day with every new EU regulation imposed by people who couldn’t run a whelk stall in the real world – but with any luck I’ll have retired with my fat pension by the time we find out. Anyway, you might suddenly start exporting high-quality heavy machinery and machine tools like Germany and thereby experience spectacular growth.”

“It doesn’t sound very likely ……..”

“Who knows … someone always wins the lottery every week, don’t they?”

ENOUGH OF THIS NONSENSE … LET THE BASTARDS GO BUST AND START AGAIN WITHOUT THE RAMPANT GREED.

And how do you “qualitatively” improve a loan? A loan is a loan, innit? A debt is a debt, no!! Just imagine the insult!

“Nah nah – my debt is better quality than yours, so there!!!!”

This is all a surreal farce. ALMOST EVERY country in Europe is in debt; that is the POLITICIANS’ fault. WE THE PLEBS can’t control debt, ONLY THEY CAN. France has not set a balanced budget for THIRTY-FIVE YEARS. The Franco-Belgian-Luxembourg plus ClubMed & Ireland Model HAS FAILED. Cut bureaucracy. Cut red-tape, otherwise the Asians will murder us. And for Christ’s sake GET OUT OF THE EU.

 

The European Patient

EU sends out £4.4m diaries to schools which list Muslim,
Chinese and Hindu holidays… but miss out Christmas and Easter

I don’t know what business it is of the EU sending out diaries.

This is going to be a defining year for “Europe”. We are losing competitivity, losing our way, swamped by Francist statism. Now, according to Fillon, they want the UK to pay for their mistakes ; no accounts signed off for years, no French budget balanced in 35 years, vast debt everywhere, extraordinary benefits for EU elite, the euro launched on a lie, gigantic ripping-off of taxpayers and utter contempt for voters.

But for Delors and the others at the heart of this project, these crises are MEAT AND DRINK. Their cunning plan is to exploit them to argue (as Fillon, Sarko, Rompo et al are now doing) that ONLY by having a unified state IN THEIR IMAGE can Europe “survive”.

Absolute bollocks of course, and in fact, Europe being forged “in their image” is destroying it – somewhat ironical …..

Whom the Gods wish to destroy. But someone, somewhere, sometime has to say “Enough, enough ……”

That person or country will of course be blamed totally for any loss of momentum towards the United States of Europe that Rompostiltskin lusts for.

If it does end up being Germany, then expect the full banshee wailing of the grotesque, nonentity Juncker of Luxembourg and the usual cronies to be unleashed on Germany for being “uneuropean”, with plenty of insinuations about a “return to German arrogance and hegemony” and of course even “Nazism”.

They make me sick, the lot of them.

 

Financial Services v the Rest

Jeremy Warner tries to defend the bankers ….

… which is like waving a red flag at a bull.

These people can make vast amounts of money SIMPLY because they work in financial services which are NOT a fundamental part of a society’s survival, as are farming, rubbish-collection, education, health services, sewage-treatment, defence and so on. “YES”, FS create wealth but “NO”, this doesn’t mean they should earn for their practitioners more in one year than many ESSENTIAL workers do in a lifetime.

Nobody denies the TRUTH of much of what you say;Mr Warner, but YOU simply ignore OUR truth, which is that it is not EQUITABLE to be able to earn vast sums JUST because you HAPPEN to work in financial services. Bankers can ONLY afford to work in finance because OTHER ESSENTIAL workers create the civilised platform for them to DO so.

Is that CLEAR enough for you?

 

Portugal – the Dam Breaks …

Ambrose Evans-Pritchard once more – this time he IS right!!

“My sympathies to the Portuguese people who are not to blame for the foolish illusions of their governing elites. And remember, Cara Nação, this bail-out is not for you: it is for European banks exposed to Portuguese debt, just as the Irish and Greek bail-outs were in reality rescues for German, French, Belgian, Dutch, British, and Spanish lenders that ran amok during the credit bubble. But you pay.“

European governments (and the USA) are once again being cowards in face of the banks. It’s a quadruple whammy:

- we bail them out at vast expense
- we bail out entire countries in Schtuck because of the bankers AND the EQUALLY feckless governments
- we can’t get loans, get no interest on our savings and suffer cut-backs and job losses
- they continue to get their vast bonuses
- ONE cretin says: “The time for apologies is over.”

“Disgrace” is I think the word.

 

Financial Union or Bust?

Ambrose Evans-Pritchard is usually one of my favourite commentators. However, nobody’s perfect …. The recent headline of one of his articles in “The Telegraph” read:

Self-righteous Germany must accept 

a euro-debt union or leave EMU

Now the basic premise of this is exactly right. All this fiddling about with bailouts is a WASTE OF TIME, MONEY and BREATH. They DON’T solve the basic problems of the countries involved. The idea that lending an already extraordinarily-indebted Greece YET MORE money is going to “save” it is preposterous. It will NEVER be able to repay these debts and its ONLY solution is to default UNLESS there is FULL ECONOMIC and FINANCIAL UNION ….

… Is there ANYONE who wants that in Germany? It would mean Germany FOREVER paying out VAST sums to profligate states which CANNOT compete with Germany in economic terms, even if the food and weather are usually better ….. We CERTAINLY don’t want it in Britain, and I am far from sure about France, though any mechanism that allows them to keep milking Germany’s war guilt is of course very attractive to them.

As for Belgium and Luxembourg, ……………. Oh dear ….. talk about the tails wagging the dog …..

So, we’re clear on that. However, it is the “Self-righteous Germany” bit that I find really irritating.

Germany didn’t really want the euro – it was doing fine thankyou with the Deutschmark. However, with the subtle moral bullying (You must continue FOR EVER to pay for starting the war) of the Franco-Belgian-Luxembourgois alliance of high taxes, vast spending and waste and excessive bureaucracy Germany was finally persuaded with some difficulty to abandon the Mark. It was FAITHFULLY promised that Hell would freeze over before Germany would have to bail anyone out, and the deficit level allowed in Euroland was set at 3%.

Of course, it all went pear-shaped from the VERY START. In a frenzy of self-delusion and high pretension Greece went into the euro on a lie. Everyone KNEW it was NEVER under 3% and it is now alleged that Goldman Sachs helped them cook the books. Of course, as SOON as Greece got into the euro they got billions of euros “to help them develop” and promptly set off on a tsunami of “Spanish practices”: retiring at 50, pensions passed on to relatives, civil servants having two jobs, not turning up for work, vast government salaries and so on.

Then France SOON went over the 3% limit and when challenged promptly said: “That rule was made for little countries, not France”. You couldn’t make it up …..

Since 2002 Germany has paid BILLIONS into the euro and TRILLIONS into East Germany and so has MORE THAN “paid its dues”. Yes, it has benefited from the euro, but is THAT supposed to be her fault, too? (It’s ALWAYS someone else’s fault of course.) Your headline seems to be aligning you with the FBL axis in putting moral pressure on Germany to bail everyone out. It is not GERMANY’S “fault” that Greece, Ireland, Spain, Portugal, Italy, Belgium and also FRANCE have so wildly overspent. Indeed, Germany ITSELF is heavily in debt. The only difference is that Germany can actually sell stuff abroad and so is better-placed than the others.

No, other countries should stop their snide whinges about Germany and sort their own act out. But this has the potential to turn nasty; nobody has more fury than those to whom the incessant flow of German money is suddenly cut off. I can’t see Germany accepting full financial union and all that that entails; it would in any case be a TOTAL BETRAYAL of what was promised to the Germans by the EU-Elite. Of course on that basis financial union is inevitable, since EU promises are worth about as much as Greek drachmas.

So, WHEN the Euro hot-air bubble bursts, expect the Germans to take a hammering from the FBL axis of greedy unreality. This will NOT be good news, but the EU will have brought it all on itself.

 

Bankers, Governments, Globalisation and Murdoch (Phew …)

Snuggsy:

A) You blame the world’s ills on the greedy bankers (and rightly so), BUT they have broken no laws.

B) You also defend RM because he has broken no laws.

The financial world seized upon the opportunity afforded by short-termist, dogmatic, incompetent and above-all negligeant, craven, cowardly and greedy governments which removed effective regulation, in particular those separating traditional banking from casino-style gambling with derivatives – and of course in property speculation, particuarly in the USA and Spain. Man collectively is indeed “greedy”. This is something that goes back to caveman times when if you caught a dinosaur you gorged yourself silly on it because you didn’t know when you might catch another one. (Yes, Clever Dick, I do know that Man didn’t live at the same time as the T Rex, but you can see what I mean …) The best example of this greed, which I have elsewhere likened to a pathological illness, was the Enron directors. Already fabulously wealthy by any standards, they wanted even more and so sabotaged their OWN power plants so as to push up the price.

The astounding degree to which greed can blind even clever people to danger is funnily-enough being shown AT THIS VERY MOMENT by top bankers. Do they not understand the degree of anger about the renewal of their bonus schemes only two years after being bailed out? They MUST understand this intellectually, but their greed is overpowering and so they are ploughing on regardless.

No, governments are ultimately to blame even if bankers can be blamed for excessive greed on a personal level (Yes, I KNOW that “excessive” is a “value judgement”, but without those you can’t discuss ANYTHING except maths and pure facts), but at the NATIONAL level you can ONLY blame the government. Parliament is sovereign; it can and should make laws that achieve the results that the people want. Re the bankers, they are CLEARLY not doing that, and it is NOT JUST THE TORIES either.

If they DON’T deal with this problem of “greedy bankers”,  then we should ask A) WHY NOT and B) what can be done to fix this?

Considering A) this is mainly because they fear that banks will quit the City of London if Parliament starts “interfering” too much – as the bankers see it – in their business. In this way, a game of bluff is going on; the banks are effectively engaging in “divide and rule”, as indeed are multi-nationals avoiding tax. However sooner or later in poker you have to call someone’s bluff. This requires a degree of courage and nerve, both in very short supply in recent years.

As for B), I think Parliament is too unaccountable and unresponsive; having to pretend they are responding to people’s wishes only once every 5 years is not good enough.  There is a continuum from MPs being 100% representatives and doing ONLY and EXACTLY what voters want to MPs considering themselves as 100% DELEGATED and thus doing what THEY want in what THEY consider to be in our best interests (which is often now what is in THEIR best interests)

I consider they have moved TOO FAR up this continuum. Is there a solution there? Well, voters should have some mechanism between elections to make themselves heard more strongly – perhaps by forcing a constituency vote on a specific issue. One problem here is that it’s a vicious circle; too many people say “I’m not interested in politics” or “There’s nothing I can do anyway.” and of course (as I have explained quite clearly) the FPTP system prevents the TRUE spectrum of opinion from being registered on election days. The current system seems to me to lead to an almost total contempt for the people, as was clearly and wonderfully shown by the Brown-Duffy mini-soap.

MULTI-NATIONALS?
A) You cannot blame either individuals or companies for tax AVOIDANCE. Only an idiot pays voluntarily more tax than he or she has to. If governments (and clearly Old Rantonicus) think they pay too little tax, then it is up to governments individually and collectively to deal with this problem. Once again, multi-nationals play the “divide-and-rule” and poker games, but national governments being sovereign and also operating in international alliances should be able to deal with this problem to find a solution “fair” to everyone.

Tax EVASION is another matter and must of course be punished harshly. Yes, the tax system in Britain is horrendously complex, but look who was in charge of it for 13 years!

B) They (like Murdoch) operate within the regulatory frameworks and facts of life as they ARE, not as some would LIKE them to be. If people don’t like the way they operate and/or think they should pay more tax, then – governments being sovereign – it should not be beyond our wit to deal with this.

C) On balance, I do not believe multi-nationals to be as evil as the usual ranting suspects keep banging on about. They generally (but not always) treat indigenous people much better than these latter would be treated by their own people and they create jobs and wealth in developing countries (a Vietnamese, African, Chinese, Indian or whatever would die for a good job with a multi-national). Where it has all gone wrong is in the speed and scope of globalisation and relocation off-shore, which is destroying the USA. (and what happens there usually happens in Europe later)

D) As in every other field, some multi-nationals are nastier than others and some are very nasty. Others are not. We should not see the world in black and white.

GOVERNMENTS? My problem with governments is that A) they can’t stop spending money they haven’t got and B) they shy away from most really tough decisions (see A). But they also seem extraordinarily stupid and short-sighted at times. For example, it would be EASY for a government to pass several laws to make it illegal:

A) … to use public money to rescue a bank (let them go bust, nationalise them, repay the creditors BUT NOT SHAREHOLDERS, run them properly (WITH SUFFICIENT RESERVES), SEPARATE banking from gambling activities (Glass-Seagall) and they would soon be back in profit FOR THE COUNTRY.

B) … for banks to charge more than a fixed % above bank-rate – that it is legal to issue a “store-card” charging up to 30% interest is unbelievable; Brown could have STOPPED that outright if he’d wanted to, but it suited him for people and the country to run up horrendous debts so as to give the illusion for his own short-term ends that there was an unbustable boom, which is why I HATE him so much.

C) … to limit the differentials between the highest and lowest paid in  a company to a certain multiple. It is obscene that this differential has ROCKETED in recent years to quite absurd levels, because of course there is little to stop directors paying themselves what they want, which is EXACTLY like the EU elite, whose useless President in a pointless job is paid more than Obama and is just having a new €300,000,000 office palace built in Brussels.

IF Britain introduced such laws and companies threatened to pull out, then tough – call their bluff. They might of course go to America, which is collapsing economically and therefore simultaneously socially, though surreally-enough the Americans don’t seem to understand this. It is like watching the Titanic steaming towards the iceberg and shouting at them to stop without anyone being on the bridge. No country has a happy long-term future where vast rich-poor differentials exist, and these are getting bigger and bigger with NO GOVERNMENT, left or right, seeming to CARE or DO ANYTHING about it.

Aren’t you also fed up with this attitude “We can’t (or won’t) do anything about this problem?” Bankers, wealth-gap and all the rest? Our governments are or should be SOVEREIGN. Yes, capital is mobile and can move to another country, but call their bluff, act in multi-governmental co-operation to deal with this. It would be of no value to companies to base themselves in Liechtenstein if their national governments sanctioned that country, if financial transfers to and from there were blocked. And sanctions against tax-havens are JUSTIFIED. In the same way that you CANNOT tolerate country A harbouring terrorists B and allowing them to train to attack you, you CANNOT allow a tax-haven to store money earned by your country’s companies who thereby evade tax. Money has now clearly been seen to be a WEAPON OF MASS DESTRUCTION; the recent crisis has changed the game totally, but governments seem only dimly to understand this.

In this respect, the EU should help (and they do SOME good things), but they mostly seem to act in their own interest, which (apart from enriching themselves beyond belief – well done Kinnock – your losing the election in 1992 and getting the cronyist EU job was the best financial move you ever made) is to create a European Superstate, which we do not want. And of course, their OWN agenda causes them to seek to go too far and too fast and often in the “wrong”direction. For example, it is clearly beneficial to have a degree of “harmonisation” in the EU in various areas. The trouble is, that for the Franco-Belgian-Luxembourgeouis axis of financial lunacy this harmonisation is clearly meant to be UPWARDS to their absurd levels of tax, government-spending and bureaucracy. What a pity that the EU elite are killing the goose that should lay the golden egg!

Finally, GLOBALISATION has gone too far too fast. It cannot be right that almost all the manufacturing is stripped out of a country, leaving just highly-paid executives overseeing overseas operations served by a pleb population of McDonald’s servers. It seemed like a wonderful idea at the time, especially in evening out world standards of living. And it IS a good idea in that respect, but done TOO FAST – again, a lack of balance. As a species, we are TOO IMPATIENT. You saw this with Brown. So eager was he to build new hospitals and schools everywhere that rather than wait till we could afford it he launched a spending binge including the long-term hideously-expensive PFI schemes he so favoured because they don’t appear on the books in the normal way so that it is isn’t immediately apparent just how great are the future deficits and bills being piled up for future generations.

In a world concerned about carbon emissions it doesn’t make sense either for vast tonnages of (often frivolous) products to be shipped across the world when many of them could just as easily be made much nearer – creating more jobs of course.

MURDOCH: I repeat, he operates within the law. If the law is inadequate, pester your MP to help change it. I’m not sure what else you can reproach him with. If he is unethical, then punish him by not buying his products; this has already happened with some companies, but I would like to see specific examples of his unethicality. I have no special brief for him; I just think it is funny (and silly) when the usual suspects keep churning out his name as if he was Goebbels in a Darth Vader suit.