Tuesday 29 November 2011

"In five years time we will have balanced the books," he said.

Mistake no 1.

That is, putting a target and a date in the same sentence.

You would not expect professional politicians to make that sort of error.

'Tonight we will have full analysis of what is said'

By which objective, proven sages, one wonders?

Surprise us.

What is said by Westminster politicians is often at great variance from what, if anything, is subsequently done in our England.

Sometimes I wonder if we English are living in a parallel universe named 'Britain' because we will probably hear about mooted infrastructure projects, which will all be in England, but England must not be mentioned by politicians or the media, apparently to maintain the fiction of a United Kingdom.

England cannot progress if its very existence is denied.

This comment was removed because the moderators found it broke the house rules. Explain.

IT'S GROUNDHOG DAY - AGAIN.

Seems to me I've heard this song before.

Hang on a minute lads, I've got a great idea.

How can it be that Westminster Creatures, notable for spectacular, serial failure, have suddenly THIS TIME GOT IT ALL RIGHT? What is the error band?

+/- 100%? D MOCK CRASS but Y do we let it continue?

Nuff sed

As one listens to Osborne talk of recession, confidence and the markets, just remember who drives much of this, what the recent history is and what the long tern Marshall Plan investment was all for. None of this is meant to suggest tat we don't have problems, but we don't seem to have learned from the problems of just a few years back. Why? Once on discovers that the Identity Disordered have deceived one, it's very easy to think that they will learn the error of their ways to avoid future sanction as that's how one expects normal people behave. But this is not basically about PEOPLE. It's about a conscience-free SYSTEM. The people are largely just doing their jobs or fiduciary duty. Computer SYSTEMS don't have consciences. They are just driven by short term outcome and the people working in the Financial Service sector all know this. They are however, just doing their jobs. What better way to achieve EU fiscal integration by stealth than through a foreign policy which is delegated to NGOs like rating Agencies and Bond Markets because one does not do Big Government?

THEY ARE ALL JUST FOLLOWING ORDERS

There are quite a few articles on the role of the Rating Agencies.
Rather than ask if the SYSTEM works, perhaps one should ask WHO the system works FOR? Instead of asking what CAN politicians do given that they have abrogated control to the markets, one should perhaps ask why they would want to do anything other than nothing if their politics are Libertarian free-market.

"The Trouble With Ratings Agencies"

https://www.thestreet.com/story/11319340/1/the-trouble-with-ratings-agencies.html

https://uk.reuters.com/article/2011/11/29/markets-europe-stocks-idUKL5E7MT1DG20111129

The OBS is independent of what, the Public Sector and Civil Service? The Government? That's what the Public Sector is, it's the Government. It's not the few people in Parliament who are only there because of mass confusion.

https://www.hm-treasury.gov.uk/data_obr_index.htm

Isn't the Civil Service (and Public Sector) supposed to be "independent"? Is a rose still a rose even if it's plastic? There are now so many NGOs which are allegedly independent that it's hard to tell the difference between NGOs, Agencies, QUANGOs and "Think Tanks". Might we have "anarchists-in-suits" running amok with truth and language disorders?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Budget_Responsibility_and_National_Audit_Act_2011
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Office_for_Budget_Responsibility
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Sassoon,_Baron_Sassoon
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sassoon_family

As a community, should we not be caring more, or is it deemed "discrimination" to notice, and remark upon destructive behaviours?

Osborne must be doing something right if the eco-fascists are squealing, but the proposed tax relief for " energy intensive industry " is a prime example of " there was an old woman who swallowed a fly " policy when the smart thing to do would be to repeal the entire 2008 Climate Change Act. It also remains to be seen as to whether the EU will bounce Osborne's " carbon tax relief " as being as " anti competitive " if it only applies to big corporate users and does not include the local " blacksmith ".

https://www.businessgreen.com/bg/news/2128598/green-business-concessions-osbornes-autumn-statement

Iranaphobia

never mind the cuts there's a blank chq book for wars on islam. Go long arms makers.

The ONLY way out for the UK, and indeed for the US and the Eurozone countries, is to put up trade barriers against cheaply made and imported goods from China.

OK, the banksters and share-holders will not like it but, both on a financial and moral position, we simply cannot see our own economies continue to be destroyed by the need for Apple shares, and other companies' shares, to be 300 bucks.

Whoopee! We are destroying our own economies and ensuring that vast numbers of Chinese workers work for peanuts, as well as often working in appalling conditions with little or no rights.

Trade barriers need to go up between the West and China - that way we can create jobs and prosperity here again in the West and, in China, the Chinese can begin the long road to workers' rights & decent wages.

Trade barriers are inevitable. The longer that we in the West put them off the worse our economies will become.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ra6wW3eECSg&feature=feedu

brossen99 wrote: "Osborne must be doing something right if the eco-fascists are squealing, but the proposed tax relief for " energy intensive industry " is a prime example of " there was an old woman who swallowed a fly " policy when the smart thing to do would be to repeal the entire 2008 Climate Change Act"

How likely is repeal given the voting pattern in 2008? What bothers me about all our politicians and journalists, commentators is that they all talk too fast and when asked questions, they never have to pause for thought. That strikes me as odd.

https://www.publicwhip.org.uk/division.php?date=2008-10-28&number=298&dmp=1030

THE KUALA LUMPUR FOUNDATION TO CRIMINALISE WAR

https://criminalisewar.org/?p=322

KUALA LUMPUR, 20 November 2011 – The Kuala Lumpur War Crimes Tribunal (Tribunal) entered its second day of hearing war crimes charge of Crimes against Peace against George W Bush (former U.S. President) and Anthony L Blair (former British Prime Minister) in Kuala Lumpur. For the first time a war crime charge has been heard against these two former heads of state in compliance with due legal process, wherein complaints from war victims had been received, duly investigated and formal charges instituted by the Kuala Lumpur War Crimes Commission (Commission).

#13 Mr Dog

Your link probably proves what barrie has been saying all along about Westminster but in post climategate / CERN cloud project and NASA radiation escaping the earth all the warmist models the 2008 Climate Change Act was based on are now proven to be pure fantasy. It must be intellectually dishonest to continue the current Climate Scam but politicians can never admit that they got it wrong, time to throw them all out and get a complete new set save for the likes of Graham Stringer and Kate Hoey perhaps ?

tawse57 wrote: "Trade barriers are inevitable. The longer that we in the West put them off the worse our economies will become."

Like several others here you seem to think we live in a dictatorship where anything can be done by decree. We live in a LIBERAL democracy where most of what happens is done by legislation which has to go through Parliament or which can be done within the exiting legislation.

Not only that, but we have "allies" who would sanction us if we did things which were against their national interest.

There was a time when Newsnight viewers all knew the rules of the game and appreciate what fouling would mean in international politics. That is no longer true it would seem. Now we have people shamelessly announcing to everyone what they don't understand what the rules are and using that ignorance to justify why they call for X or Y to be done whilst asserting that politicians are incompetent for not being despots!

Try to grasp this point (and others).

Osborne missed the boat again on cutting UK VAT?

UK unable to 'recover' with 20% tax on spending - its absurd
20% less in our pockets, effectively
Vat reduce margins for business
If banks don't see margins for business - they don't lend any money to them
Osborne cut taxes for big business
If Osborne had cut VAT - most would gain instead of top 10% getting main tax cuts.

Osbo has done a good job on deficit reduction - but missing the big boat on VAT cut was the 'last boat out of cannibal country'.

Osborne spoke of youth unemployment across Europe. He spoke of lack of jobs and lack of skills after 11 years of schooling. he then talking of transforming our school system, He then praise Mr Gove. He said Gove had created 1200 Academies and that his economic

£1.2 billion for school infrastructure, half to LEAs and the other £600 million to........ fund 100 additional Free Schools.

Effect, disgruntled State School teachers leave to these new schools, and have their terms and conditions chance, not noticing that Osborne is also going to change TUPE rules. This is how they erode the state and have always done it. It is a hollowing out.

What many people don't SEEM to see when they look at the tiny number of 600 odd MPs in Parliament, is that most of these people have been put there by people in the Private Sector who want them to work to undermine the very infrastructure which many think they are ostensibly there to Govern via - i.e. the Civil Service, and the 6 million workers comprising the Public Sector. After a while, any decent person who knows what is really the case would not run for election...

If you also think about Osborne's promises that by diverting tax-payer's money to "Free Schools", and that these, like Academies would raise standards, there's NO evidence that this ever happens or ever could happen, as ability is genetic. It isn't the teachers (environment) which basically matters, it's what eggs and sperm one is made from that counts.

16 @brown-dog - thanks for the insults. I will try not to come down to your level.

Before this economic crisis is over the US, and both the UK and the Eurozone following behind, will have set up trade barriers against Chinese imports.

You can huff, and you can puff and you can insult all you like... and come across as a pompous so and so... but trade barriers will happen.

It is just a question of whether the US will set up separate trade barriers against the Eurozone, and vice versa, and where the UK will be amongst all this. There would be no point in the US blocking goods from China if instead they get shipped into the US from the Eurozone, the UK or any other third party.

So I suspect that there will be a giant block of the US, the UK and the Eurozone all putting punitive trading restrictions together on Chinese goods, although the US is so huge domestically that it really could just go it alone, in order to be in a position to rebuild their own engineering, manufacturing and, basically, rebuild their economies.

Without trade barriers in place what do you think will happen once anyone in the UK has any spare cash in their pockets? That's right, they will buy more tat from China and we will quickly be back into the mess we are in.

But the mess is so huge that it is going to take us a decade at least to get out of this - at the moment it seems that an awful lot of people just do not understand how bad this mess is.

Trade barriers will come. They were inevitable once the credit bubbles began popping in 2008. Just a question of how long it is before the intellectually challenged wake up and realise that it is the only way out of this.

As for your gibberish about democracy and leglislation - what on earth is that all about. Do you know how Government works?

No, don't answer that. I am off to the shops for some chocolate - or what passes for chocolate these days since the cocoa content has been reduced in so many bars! I may be gone some time.

p.s.

When the Eurozone melts down the UK economy is finished anyhow. Our banks will go under so fast that people will not realise what has happened. The sums of money that the UK owes are mind-boggling - truly mind-boggling.

All so that we could pay ludicrous sums for houses and fill them full of Chinese tat that all those property porn TV programmes told us that we should do.

The Libertarian theatrics continue:

https://bbc.kongjiang.org/www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-15947473

"Asked whether his editors had known about mobile phone voicemails being intercepted by News of the World journalists, Mr McMullan said: "I could go a bit further on that: we did all these things for our editors, for Rebekah Brooks and for Andy Coulson.

"You only have to read Andy Coulson's column in [the Sun's] Bizarre where it would just be littered with ... 'Pop star A is leaving messages on pop star B's phone at 2am in the morning saying 'I love you and shall we meet up for a drink?'. I mean, it was that blatant and obvious - I don't think anyone realised that anyone was committing a crime at the start."
//
"Privacy is the space bad people need to do bad things in," Mr McMullan said. "Privacy is for paedos."

Mr Murdoch senior made a memorable point at the Select Committee - when asked if about celebrities and/or politicians being vilified in the press, he said worlds to the effect that they did it to themselves. They just made it public. He had a point. .

https://www.guardian.co.uk/news/datablog/2011/jul/20/james-rupert-murdoch-full-transcript

As to the power of these Committees (one knows that Civil Servants don't have to speak out) so what is going on?

https://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2011/jul/22/phone-hacking-lying-to-select-committee

It's largely theatrical it seems, as most of these miscreants can't be shamed. After all, many celebrities tell tales and do all sorts of things with t heir clothes off, and parade around just like these people below (except they get paid more). So, what ARE they complaining about?
Is it published pictures and stories which they DON'T get paid for?

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2067391/Why-DO-young-women-dressed-like-We-meet-nightclubbers-unsettling-answer.html

ERROR-BAND OF BROTHERS.

Will Mason and Grossman be able to discuss tiny percentages, without mentioning the error band?

I calculate, using my INDEPENDENT book of divination, there is a 0.03% chance of it's mention by Paul and a 0.04% chance of mention by David.

Oh well - at least there will be graphics.

Has nobody told Mr Osborne that these education polices actually CAUSE our problems, especially those which keep people in education LONGER?

Or are our politicians all so arrogant that they can't grasp that every advance in man's thinking has come from what is not glaringly obvious.

Day after day, week after week, month ....... we hear these politicians telling us what all the evidence says is actually NOT the case, and yet these people allegedly all have degrees. How is that possible? How do they get away with peddling answers which we have evidence from research and years of failed policy across the world (HeadStart, Sure Start) DON'T work?

Completely agree about the inevitability of major changes in our trade flowing from the failure of globalisation, but those who don't like import controls need to realise that unless we manage it, fundamental change it will happen anyway through the collapse of the financial system.

Say we go on with GO's Plan A - and we end up in the same mess as Eire did following exactly the same policies. There will be a Sterling crisis - and the price of imported goods will skyrocket, along with food, energy and everything else. A greek style firesale and deep, deep austerity would be the price for the IMF to bail us out - even if it could do so, which I doubt.

This will choke off demand for imported goods from China, but it will also hammer the rest of the economy in the process - a huge amount of damage will be done which IMHO the UK won't recover from for decades.

A managed approach based on imposing punative import tarrifs on countries running large balance of payments surpluses with us would IMHO be entirely justified because if you take a good look at China, no one in their right mind can possibly say that a communist country with nationalised banks and industries running a rigged exchange rate and allowing naked exploitation of the population can in any shape or form be said to be engaged in "fair trade". Indeed, its current massive armaments programme and belicose attitude to its neighbours makes you think that the chinese communist party are already fighting an economic war with the developed countries.

What is going on in China is simply not sustainable anyway - there isn't the energy, raw materials, food or environment able to sustain this level of industrialisation there - nor can the world's financial system stand the trade imbalances this causes.

Nor can the UK go on running up bigger debts - personal and national - we need to become a sustainable country, producing what we consume, employing our people to do so.

We need a massive import substitution investment - we need to spell it out to retailers that they need to source goods made in the UK, or see their profit margins squeezed hard - we need an industrial policy to onshore jobs and eliminate the dole queues, the welfare bill and get Britain back to work.

I hope this is clear - managed change of catastrophic collapse - that is the choice - and it will have to be made before the next election because I simply don't buy the OBR's ludicrous claim that the UK will return to growth in two years and avoid a recession.

To think that%2

continued

To think that either domestic demand will hold up in the teeth of massively deflationary policies or that there is a cat in hell's chance of exports picking up when our main export market is teetering on the brink of its currency collapsing is to my mind just as ridiculous as thinking there would be £600 Bn investment in industry, 2.5M new jobs and UK exports would rise by a third - i.e. the first forecast made by the OBR which has finally been proved to be completely delusional.

brossen99 wrote: "Your link probably proves what barrie has been saying all along about Westminster but in post climategate / CERN cloud project and NASA radiation escaping the earth all the warmist models the 2008 Climate Change Act was based on are now proven to be pure fantasy. It must be intellectually dishonest to continue the current Climate Scam but politicians can never admit that they got it wrong, time to throw them all out and get a complete new set save for the likes of Graham Stringer and Kate Hoey perhaps ?"

I guess it may contribute towards making people ration/conserve costly energy supplies as they get dumber and more impulsive/child-like?

Other than that the reason why they can get away with this is the same reason they can get away with all the other economics nonsense, i.e because of the uncertainty of chaotic systems, which is just to say that nobody can measure these things very well so can blag. Meanwhile they studiously ignore the graver drivers of our problems, and poke their tongues out at countries which ARE looking after their people's longer term best interests.

Today our Foreign Secretary appear to think himself credible when hostile about the behaviour of legitimately angry Iranians. He's not. He's just likely to be seen as helping others (Israel) cause trouble for us all, and more and more people are now seeing this.

Meanwhile, Russia sets up a radar station in Kalingrad.

https://english.ruvr.ru/2011/11/29/61226419.html

tawse57 wrote: "brown-dog - thanks for the insults. I will try not to come down to your level.

Before this economic crisis is over the US, and both the UK and the Eurozone following behind, will have set up trade barriers against Chinese imports.

You can huff, and you can puff and you can insult all you like... and come across as a pompous so and so... but trade barriers will happen."

You don't seem to understand geopolitics

There are international conventions like the WTO.

The free-world is all about free-trade. The West and OECD in general promotes free-market economies not protectionism. With the USA it goes to WAR or facilitates regime change in defence" of this.

https://www.oecd.org/document/25/0,3746,en_36734052_36761863_36952473_1_1_1_1,00.html

Try to grasp that challenge is education not "insult".

#26

So apparently what you are saying is that we are still effectively under US occupation and therefore our alleged democratic government has no more economic power than that say the " Vichy " French had under the Nazi's in WW2 ?

Tawse57 "As for your gibberish about democracy and leglislation - what on earth is that all about. Do you know how Government works?"

Yes.

"No, don't answer that. I am off to the shops for some chocolate - or what passes for chocolate these days since the cocoa content has been reduced in so many bars! I may be gone some time."

Not sure what the connection is. Does this make you female-brained?.

"When the Eurozone melts down the UK economy is finished anyhow. Our banks will go under so fast that people will not realise what has happened. The sums of money that the UK owes are mind-boggling - truly mind-boggling."

The Eurozone is just a 17 state common currency agreement set up in 1999. It was never a fiscal union, hence its ECB is not really a Central Bank. As it's only been around 12 years what's the big deal if they go back to using their own currencies like we do?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eurozone.

You don't make a lot of sense - you seem to have been sucked into the Wall Street propaganda fear machine

#19 tawse57

You must be very thin skinned. Re-read b-d's post #16 again though pretending as if they were responding to someone else. Trust me, it won't appear half as bad. Remember, play the ball (argument) and not the man.

Journalist George Monbiot's moniker (on his old website) used to say "tell somebody what they know already and they will thank you for it, tell somebody something that they don't know and they will hate you for it".

You should really thank people for telling you something that you were not already aware of. Are you a trained scientist?

Trade barriers won't come as they are anti-libertarian and as b-d has outlined, we live in a libertarian democracy just like the US, whether you like it or not. Remember, Apple's entire business model is based on cheap manfacturing in China. No Chinese imports, no Apple.


brown-dog

Your efforts on here remind me of those of Galileo Galilei in his day...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Galileo_Galilei

"Galileo's championing of heliocentrism was controversial within his lifetime, when most subscribed to either geocentrism or the Tychonic system. He met with opposition from astronomers, who doubted heliocentrism. The matter was investigated by the Roman Inquisition in 1615, and they concluded that it could only be supported as a possibility, not as an established fact. Galileo later defended his views in Dialogue Concerning the Two Chief World Systems, which appeared to attack Pope Urban VIII and thus alienated him and the Jesuits, who had both supported Galileo up until this point. He was tried by the Inquisition, found "vehemently suspect of heresy", forced to recant, and spent the rest of his life under house arrest."


I guess it's the old "nobody like a smart arse" syndrome. I bet even the likes of Newton and Leibniz were not very popular in their day. But what knowledge they gave to the rest of the world.

Keep posting.

26.At 21:21 29th Nov 2011, brown-dog wrote:
tawse57 wrote: "brown-dog - thanks for the insults. I will try not to come down to your level.

++ IMO, Tawse is right - some well placed protectionism needed for UK as free market economics has destroyed healthy UK domestic economy, demand, supply, production, investment, margins, prospects, living standards.

But you are right as will not happen - not because of WTO, which is a pile of ++++ when one country in particular has 46 protectionist measures aimed solely at the UK and WTO takes no action - but because of our feeble London centric, globalist, foreignising, cowardly, self serving politicians & corrupt vested interests that support the City of London ponzi parasite cartel rich tax dodging club that runs the UK (as aided & funding all main political parties in the UK).

UK will need to crash & be rebuilt from ground up by British people for British people - as reformed & competent govt/constitution/institutions are not available to make a difference for benefit of 90% of population.

UK govt could also use BOE QE money to fund VAT cuts?

High risk - Yes
Inflationery? No not when UK economy already sinking?

Will it work & provide huge stimulus to UK economy?
Create jobs, growth, etc

You bet!

Will it get done? - No never!

Why?

Because you read it on here?

The opening images on News at 10 tonight showed scenes from the sacking of the British Embassy in Tehran earlier today, the main shot showing the burning of the Israeli, US and UK flags.

Now just why might the Iranians do that? Do they see Jewish politics as the same as that of the US and the UK?

Just touching on the complication when switching back to your old currency from a failed Euro it would appear that it could take up to a year to print and mint the said new currency. It would also cost you a fortune, I can't help speculating just how much it actually cost the UK to convert to decimalisation, probably subsidised by the fact that a lot of actual silver two bob bits were still in circulation, scrap value on the copper eventually replaced by steel. The main problem is that if anyone ( especially the Germans ) was accurately reported as printing and minting a new currency the value of the Euro would collapse and the speculators game would be up.

brossen99 wrote: "So apparently what you are saying is that we are still effectively under US occupation and therefore our alleged democratic government has no more economic power than that say the " Vichy " French had under the Nazi's in WW2 ?"

Not quite that dramatic, but it shouldn't strike anyone as at all odd that given the proportion of the US budget which is spent on defence, and the nature of the Cold War, we were never in a position to implement much of what was outlined in the 1945 Labour Manifesto, as that set us on the road to becoming like our erstwhile ally the USSR. We were living on USA money when the Welfare State was created. It's why Labour got nowhere until it ditched Clause 4 (which said it would nationalise the means of production, communication and exchange) and why nearly all our leading politicians have been "groomed" in the USA. It's been the same in Europe. The Socialist International is Social Democratic - Libertarian. These are essentially "Trotskyites" - the very types which the former USSR had thrown out in the 1920s and 1930s. We know them today as Neocons.

Surely this is all obvious and is no secret?

George Osborne was "groomed" in the US...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Osborne

"Osborne was educated at two independent schools in west London: at Norland Place School in Holland Park and St Paul's School in Barnes (near Hammersmith), followed by a Bachelor's degree at Magdalen College at the University of Oxford where he received a 2:1 in Modern History. At Oxford he edited the university's Isis magazine, and was a member of the Bullingdon Club. He also attended Davidson College in North Carolina for a semester as a Dean Rusk Scholar."

:p Plan A has clearly failed - as pointed out by Jeremy. And no more cuts within the Parliamentary term?
Where does the other £28billion come from? Not a clue.
And more cuts to come.....so much for their promises.
Best question - why are people going to vote for you? What credibility do you have?
Was there anything the Lib Dems kept out?
Too many assumptions in the Autumn Statement.
The best line is that it will work if there isn't a problem in the Euro Zone.
Jeremy at his finest :o)

And yet another Yank on NN offering us their pearls of wisdom.

@ MuseV #37 - Professor Mazzocato may well be American, but she is a Professor at Sussex University.

:D "Brownian Motion" and "roadworks announced by the Chancellor"
"You bagged a big lion tonight Jeremy" (re: Danny Alexander) - Lionel Barber.
13% loss of GDP by 2015 :(

Have you looked @ the OBR's growth forecast? The ludicrous shape of their growth curve - flatlining to just avoid going into recession then suddenly jumping up in two years' time to a magical 3% by the next election?

This in the teeth of massively higher borrowing costs, deeply deflationary policies on incomes and demand and ramped up austerity which is the main cause for the lack of growth since the election, whilst our main export market teeters on the brink of collapse - and the world economy is rapidly cooling off.

It's simply not credible.

I am a long time critic of the OBR and I see these growth forecast figures as quite simply George Osborne's wishlist. Mr Choate may stand there and say he doesn't know what will happen - but it's somewhat peculiar that in all their reports, the OBR has always been wrong on the same side of their projections - always over-estimating growth and underestimating critical issues like unemployment. To be at least even handed they would need to be wrong on both sides of the out turn figures - they never are - so they are biased - the figures do not lie - Mr Choate is simply George Osborne's apologist.

I predict the reality will be 5m unemployed, a deep & rapid recession shaving 10% off GDP and 20% off the average living standard on the next 18 months - and a full blown Sterling crisis as we head into the election - and by the way, I accurately predicted the current economic figures 18 months ago on Stephanie Flanders' BBC blog, whilst the OBR has consistently got them wrong and is now on its fourth major downward revision - I broadly go with the OECD's analysis of imminent recession, but see big waves heading our way which will lead to a sharp deteriorisation in the UK economy next year which will drive the recession they predict much deeper than their current figure.

Rearranging the deckchairs by robbing Peter to pay Paul does nothing about net spending or net aggregate demand it simply moves it around a bit.

Neither will making the taxpayer take a punt on underwriting SME loans that banks deem to be too risky for them, do anything other than cost all of us a shed load of money in bad loan defaults.

The libertarian economic model is being tested to destruction by a government which does not have a mandate to do this - two thirds of voters voted for manifestos opposed to deep & rapid spending cuts - Clegg then ditched his manifesto commitment and did the complete opposite.

No doubt at all now that the electorate will therefore ditch him and%

#38

Look up her background and her links to the think tank DEMOS.

JUST SOMETHING ABOUT LEAVES

Autumn Statement. Embellishment department NewsyNighty: LEAVES!

But when some pathetic producer plonks an isolated patch of leaves - looking gauche - in the bottom of the shot, it is time to save money with another redundancy . . .

DID YOU HEAR THAT?

It was the sound of silence, regarding ERROR BANDS.

This comment was removed because the moderators found it broke the house rules. Explain.

MuseV wrote "Your efforts on here remind me of those of Galileo Galilei in his day..."

There's been a VERY long history to this. Look into what happened to R A Fisher, C Burt, R B Cattell, and MANY others. The only useful thing I'm really contributing is the point about discrimination of quantifiers and classes, and the poverty of intensions, whilst highlighting a dismal history of neglect.


Mistress76uk wrote: "Professor Mazzocato may well be American, but she is a Professor at Sussex University"

Do you now see how our entire system is tragically flawed in the attribution to identity/personality rather than to WHAT'S said?

As the media is where this Credit Assignment problem is most obvious, it's where it's most *obviously* tumbling down. Do you also see how the problem is a feature of arrested development?

today [wed] paul tweeted about 'climate denial' [yes its back] and linked to this as a good article
https://www.thenation.com/article/164497/capitalism-vs-climate?page=full

that article is such a deep darkness it is difficult to know where to begin.

the first clue its waffle is that it is too long.

what it does do is demonstrate where the lefties went after the collapse of communism. They went into climate activism to use it as a tool to dismember capitalism. which is why their stuff is full of nonsense like 'climate justice'.

so why does paul think this a good article? why flag it up when its such nonsense?

looking at the workers power site https://www.workerspower.co.uk/

we find a recent critique of counterfire which sets out how the left has an obligation to provide leadership for revolution.

given the article paul flagged up ends with

"..which is why they [capitalists] are so determined to suppress the mountain of evidence proving that their worldview is a threat to life on earth. The task for the rest of us is to believe, based on that same evidence, that a very different worldview can be our salvation."

he seems to be in the salvation business? the belief business? the leadership for revolution business? fine. but is that the same as the reporting business?

3. At 13:04 29th Nov 2011,
'Tonight we will have full analysis of what is said'
By which objective, proven sages, one wonders?
Surprise us.

Ouch time, theesah say, in big letters so as not to be missed.

Great panel of 'what we oughties' to offer advice for the noughties. If seldom putting any money or careers along with mouthpieces. At least some do still enjoy guarantees even when returns do go down as well as up (the wry smile on my pension advisers face was a joy to behold as I asked why mine was not the same as others in this regard).

'21. At 20:16 29th Nov 2011, barriesingleton wrote:
ERROR-BAND OF BROTHERS.
Oh well - at least there will be graphics.'

A post, and point (to the nearest decimal) to savour.

'...he seems to be in the salvation business? the belief business? the leadership for revolution business? fine. but is that the same as the reporting business?'

Answers on a ballot slip? However, there seems one, unique way where such a mechanism of feedback has not, is not and will not be an option.

https://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/commentators/christina-patterson/christina-patterson-race-resentment-and-the-white-working-classes-6269658.html

In post #28 brown-dog asked tawse57:

"Not sure what the connection is. Does this make you female-brained?."


Here is a simple test on the BBC website to determine your brain gender...

https://bbc.kongjiang.org/www.bbc.co.uk/science/humanbody/sex/add_user.shtml


It takes only takes around 20 mins to complete.

Last night's show has hit the headlines:

The Autumn Statement Makes a Tory-Lib Dem Electoral Pact More Likely
https://www.spectator.co.uk/alexmassie/7436225/the-autumn-statement-makes-a-torylib-dem-electoral-pact-more-likely.thtml

&

Danny Alexander admits the truth: £28.8bn unaccounted for:Another Paxo moment: Chief Secretary to the Treasury fesses up to unplanned debts
https://www.theweek.co.uk/politics/uk-austerity/43134/danny-alexander-admits-truth-%C2%A3288bn-unaccounted
[Unsuitable/Broken URL edited by Moderator]

In the end all this comes down to what treats as one's truths when reasoning.

How many people look at how these "agencies" arrive at their ratings?

How many people question the truth of any of their premises when they start to think or argue?

How many just ASSUME their premises true, and then mistake what they say as reasonable simply because the formal reasoning process itself is valid (IF their premises are true)? How many even know the difference between truth and validity in reasoning?

If a nation is prepared to bomb other countries which have policies which it doesn't agree with (e.g Vietnam, Cambodia) how far will it go via its publishers and other Private Sector troops to encourage regime change (in friendly Europe for instance in order to "recover" money and further Libertarianism)?

"The French Financial Market Authority has already launched an investigation into the mishap. And S&P, a division of publisher McGraw-Hill (MHP, Fortune 500), has begun its own internal probe."
//
"The three main credit ratings agencies have long been criticized for their performance during the U.S. subprime crisis, when the agencies bestowed top ratings on mortgage-backed securities that turned out to be toxic.

In Europe, the U.S.-based agencies have been under fire for relentless downgrades of euro area nations at the heart of the debt crisis. Critics say the agencies contribute to market volatility and make it harder for nation's to borrow. "

https://money.cnn.com/2011/11/11/news/international/france_rating/index.htm

Mistress76uk wrote "Danny Alexander admits the truth: £28.8bn unaccounted for:Another Paxo moment: Chief Secretary to the Treasury fesses up to unplanned debts"

What he actually said was that it had not been decided (or it had not been decided to disclose) where that money would come from.

As he is a member of the Government, it could be culled from anywhere in the state assets which they have custody of. It's what Libertarians do.
They wither away the state and give it to the Private Sector (and Third
Sector) to improve their economy. It is done at the expense of the state..Most people (80%) of the 30 million workforce, do not work for the state. Are they stateless people? Are they anarchists? Do they even care? There are some out there who are rubbing their hands with glee.

Think of the Knightsbridge flat buyers.. Stateless oligarchs and their little helpers..

jauntycyclist wrote: "what it does do is demonstrate where the lefties went after the collapse of communism."

"Which "lefties" are those and when did "communism" collapse"? You will need to think long and hard on this.

Was it the The Left-Opposition (Left Communists) who "collapsed"? What you have seen on recent times are some very unpleasant greedy oligarchs
- have they made you love or loathe the wealthy?

As to which "communism" collapsed and when, was it those who purged in the 1930s (see The Moscow Trials), because if you look at China and its economy today, it's quite clear that communism didn't collapse (see also Vietnam and North Korea) so why do people say it did. .China has 4x the population of the entire former USSR and China is Stalinist (Stalinists or Old Labour types were the "communists" who threw the Left Opposition out in the 1930s). Remember, many of the original Bolsheviks came over from the USA. Look into when Klein's family stopped being "communists" - what sort of "communist" were they in the first place?.

"They went into climate activism to use it as a tool to dismember capitalism. which is why their stuff is full of nonsense like 'climate justice'."

Are you sure these weren't Neocons (Trotskyites)? The USA does not tolerate true socialists. It has powerful laws and wages wars against them.

I've suggested we all need to work on our classes as they're far too inclusive. It's a form of prejudice. All communists look the same to some people, and so they think they should all go home. That's much better for the opposition one-party Libertarians (New Labour, Conservatives and Liberal-Democrats) who fight over nothing to keep people distracted from the alternative. Ask why, if "communism"
collapsed, China has a Stalinist constitution, and why does it lead the SCO (which Pakistan and Iran are keen to join)?

If Russia is truly free-market democracy, why does it's tiny opposition party take the line which it does? Note most of what Russia exports is minerals, oil etc, not covered by the WTO.

More importantly, why do the USA Rating Agencies get away with playing this game (given the recent history in the Credit Crunch and over
Europe)?:

https://money.cnn.com/2011/11/11/news/international/france_rating/index.htm

We have short memories, as the population dumbs down these collectively get shorter (STM Digit Span is a good proxy for IQ). We are easily distracted. There's too much is going on. Some of us should question these "NGOs" (Rating Agencies) surely?

https://www.businessweek.com/news/2011-11-28/russian-hopes-of-wto-credit-boost-dashed-by-rating-companies.html

As today's 'reporting' across the MSM seems to have hurtled to unsurprisingly extreme tribal territory, twitter is also rather febrile, with a bunch of 'the truth abouts...' 'and the myths surroundings...' as regards pensions and national economic woes.

Just wondered if anyone here (the hosts taken as so impartial on such things they couldn't possibly) can answer...

1) Who was it that decided to dip into private pensions a wee while ago?

2) What were the consequences?

3) When did the principle of 'investments may go down as well as up' get segregated?

4) Who was it used taxpayers' money to prop up banksters?

5) Why are these questions seldom asked, much less 'discussed/analysed/answered', especially of folk invited on at the drop of a sound bite to waffle on what is 'fair' or 'guaranteed', and given near free rein to pontificate on what 'should' be done without challenge?

jauntycyclist wrote: "what it does do is demonstrate where the lefties went after the collapse of communism."

Finally, Klein has some of the hallmarks of an attention-seeking "Trotskyite" (any cause for attention, fame and fortune - even war & peace). There is a love of designer labels and attention seeking controversy Some choose writing, some just behave outrageously for cameras. It's human feminine-brained. In birds it's reversed - think of peacocks (male) - the chromosomes are reversed in birds to mammals so the classic analogies are highly misleading. This is just biology and sexual reproduction at work in the animal world, and its largely opaque to the performers.

"Klein was born in Montreal, Quebec and brought up in a Jewish family with a history of peace activism....Her paternal grandparents were communists who began to turn against the Soviet Union after the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact and had abandoned communism by 1956. In 1942 her grandfather Phil Klein, an animator at Disney, was fired after the Disney animators' strike, and went to work at a shipyard instead.
Klein's father grew up surrounded by ideas of social justice and racial equality, but found it "difficult and frightening to be the child of Communists", a so-called red diaper baby.

Klein's husband, Avi Lewis, works as a TV journalist and documentary filmmaker. His parents are the writer and activist Michele Landsberg and politician and diplomat Stephen Lewis, son of David Lewis, one of the founders of the Canadian New Democratic Party, son in turn of Moishe Lewis, born Losz, a Jewish labour activist of "the Bund" who left Central Europe for Canada in 1921..... Klein spent much of her teenage years in shopping malls, obsessed with designer labels. As a child and teenager, she found it "very oppressive to have a very public feminist mother" and she rejected politics, instead embracing "full-on consumerism."

She has attributed her change in worldview to two events. One was when she was 17 and preparing for the University of Toronto, her mother had a stroke and became severely disabled. Naomi, her father and brother took care of Bonnie through the period in hospital and at home, making educational sacrifices to do so. That year off prevented her "from being such a brat." The next year, after beginning her studies at the University of Toronto, the second event occurred: the 1989 École Polytechnique massacre of female engineering students, which proved to be a wake-up call to feminism."
//
In a speech in Ramallah on the 27th of June, she apologized to the Palestinians for not joining the BDS campaign earlier. Her remarks, particularly that "[Some Jews] even think we get one get-away-with-genocide-free-card" were characterized by an op-ed columnist in the Jerusalem Post as "violent" and "unethical", and as the "most perverse of aspersions on Jews, an age-old stereotype of Jews as intrinsically evil and malicious."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Naomi_Klein

There are others who "go commando" - there is a pattern to this behaviour, and many of them even look similar. Have a look, it's genetic. All part of human diversity. It needs to be better managed.

Now looks like a good time to sell off some of our gold reserves.... Oh no, I forgot, Gordon Brown and Ed Balls flogged it off at rock bottom prices to gamble on sub-prime and featherbed the public sector.

I thought Newsnight's lowest points came with a shot of Stephanie Flanders standing beside a lamppost on Budget Day looking upwards towards a series of ascending post-it notes and, in the weeks following, a set of films using lavish displays of food to obscure a simple point. But I was wrong. Yesterday's attempt as European Arthouse Movie-style has recorded a new low.

I am simply intrigued as to where all this money, for stuff is, or meant to be.

Endless vox pops of ladies (Ms. Harman's critique having goaded the producers of today's special to at least make things look balanced on the unsporting sex front) and large men in big overcoats saying they want things to be fair and guaranteed. Well, life seldom offers either.

So all I can hazard is those shouting the odds now are rather hoping my sons go into the private sector and create enough to earn a big enough wedge to pay for what 'we' as a country owe now thanks to spending over the last several years, what my wife and I may need in our dotage (our 'pot' not being guaranteed and definitely going down), the fair/guaranteed needs/wants of these public sector strikers and their well-suited bosses, and if any left over... a bit for them.

That... does not seem 'fair' either.

Here are a few extracts from a PBC transcript. If one doesn't see the connection between Thatcher's revolution in the 80s, "Trotskyism" (The Left Opposition, or "Infantile Disorder") i.e Neoconservativism and Murdoch, it's probably best to start with Murdoch's "bag-man's book on Neoconservativism, i.e t hat edited by Irwin Stelzer which has chapters by Blair and Thatcher and others suspects. Still, it looks to me like most people in the UK are quite happy with all this, so maybe its a case of just deserts? The Washington Post drew out the history of the Neoconservatives and Trotsky long before the second Iraq war, but some never learn. Most people can't discriminate very well. They think discrimination (intelligence) is bad behaviour in fact. Don't think, it's rude!

Just remember, the Left Opposition were ANARCHISTS. They wanted the state to wither away. That is why the Russians purged them. That is why the Americans hated the Russians, many of their relatives had been ousted by the Soviets. Those that stayed became "dissidents", Many of those that left went to USA and helped the rise of the Neocons. Unless one sees this a lot of world politics makes no sense. The vilification of "communists" by "Trostkyities "in the USA is quite invidious. It's a form of feminine-brained identity politics aka psychological warfare.

https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/programs/transcripts/1404.html

ROBERT SPITZLER, Former Managing Editor, "New York Post": Rupert has no geographical boundaries now.

ANNOUNCER: Maybe you should know.

EXPERT: I don't think Rupert believes in government.

ROBERT SPITZLER: Dangerous character.
//
"KEN AULETTA: Murdoch has been warring with rules and regulations his entire life. He scorns government interference, seeing himself as an anti-establishment, free-market buccaneer."
//
"KEN AULETTA: If young Rupert's interest in newspapers pleased his father, his sophomoric politics did not.

THOMAS KIERNAN: His mother once told me a story about how Rupert used to get under his father's skin by uttering Leninist statements at the dinner table and starting arguments with his father. And the one phrase that particularly riled Keith Murdoch, the-- or Sir Keith Murdoch, as he was known then, was Rupert's characterization of Lenin as "the great teacher."
//
GEORGE MASTERMAN, Q.C., University Friend: He was very interested in politics and radical politics in particular and he had a bust of Lenin on the mantelpiece. He was a self-confident, arrogant, cocky, rich and, seemingly to the English, a communist. And the whole mixture, the cocktail, obviously got a number of his fellow students off-side.
//
ANDREW NEIL: As the '70s went on, Rupert Murdoch was moving more to the right politically. The man who had Lenin's bust in his room in Oxford was now becoming more and more Thatcherite and Reaganite. Rupert Murdoch admired Margaret Thatcher enormously. He thought she was the savior of the country. Here was this sort of lower middle class woman coming along, hand-bagging British institutions, shaking the country up, taking on the unions, berating management when it was useless, and he admired it a lot."


Incidentally, although the above is a US broadcaster, when one listens to or watches UK Parliamentary hearings broadcast in Britain, note that the transcripts which are taken and published (both Uncorrected and Corrected) are sometimes not exactly what one hears said verbatim in the session as broadcast. If one asks those working on this they will tell you that the oral statements are just a guide..... in other words, what sometimes finds its way into Hansard is not exactly what was actually said. This is perhaps because they are allegedly evidence sessions and what evidence is given is not necessarily what is said verbatim. I guess that's intensional politics? Something to be wary of perhaps?

Just had a quick 20min lunch 'break', where I watched SKY.

There was a summary of PMQs, which should have been enough to explain the state this country is in, with the displays by leaders, parties, the risible Speaker and our woeful theatre of the absurd political media showing just how out of touch from reality the Westminster bubble does render people.

But I also caught a gobsmacking interview with a strike union leader, Len McCluskey, that explained a lot, if not in a good way.

His grip on reality made the contents of Parliament seem almost sane.

Plus he seemed also inspired to emotion by the moment as well, though I am unsure if the Liverpudlian accent is best designed to wail 'it's not fair' in a way that engenders empathy.

But what stuck me were the sheer number of soundbites he was determined to get out that were completely false. The anchor, Adam Boulton, was continually having to correct his claims, which of course weakened his advocacy position.

I do wonder how many interviews the paying public are getting served that amount to little more than PR pulpits to spout rhetoric, and how many offer insights into the competencies of those at the heart of this dispute, along with those also claiming to educate and inform objectively?

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/tvandradio/8923857/Newsnights-Paul-Mason-puts-the-case-for-rioters.html

It can be hard to feel well served credibly in this regard at times.

Single women: an American obsession
https://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/cifamerica/2011/nov/29/single-women-an-american-obsession

In certain parts of the US, or even just New York, there remains a weirdly monetised and loveless view of marriage.
"American women as a whole have never been confronted with such a radically shrinking pool of what are traditionally considered to be 'marriageable' men – those who are better educated and earn more than they do. So women are now contending with what we might call the new scarcity." Yes, we might call it that, if one could only countenance consorting with men who earn more than oneself.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hadley_Freeman


And you could quite easily mistake Hadley Freeman as being the younger sister of Naomi Klein.

Mr. McCluskey on the BBC..

https://bbc.kongjiang.org/www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-15965143

A bit calmer all round. Maybe that's because of all the decent people involved, as opposed to...?

Here's an insight for some into the WTO/GATT and how the "environmentalist" economics game is unfairly played in what's essentially an ongoing universal political (statist vs Libertarian aka "Stalinist" vs "Trotskyite") Cold War. This is about rare earth elements. It could just as easily be oil and gas from Russia though.

It happens within nations too. Whatever one like to think, what actually matters are laws and international agreements. It just isn't what most of the electorate thinks that matters.

https://www.reuters.com/article/2011/08/24/us-china-wto-rareearths-idUSTRE77N1RI20110824

"U.S. and EU officials have speculated about filing a complaint against China at the WTO, and some experts have suggested they may be waiting on the raw materials appeal to run its course before borrowing it as precedent.

Wang Jiangyu, a law professor and WTO expert at National University of Singapore, said China was unlikely to win the appeal, and despite a legitimate need to protect its environment it would likely lose any rare earths case because of its discriminatory export measures.

It is unclear what grounds the raw materials appeal might take, but China has asserted in the past that under article 20 of the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade a country can limit exports for special purposes such as conservation.

Wang said a significant point in the WTO panel decision was that the special nature of China's WTO accession protocol means it is not entitled to invoke article 20.

"That makes China's WTO accession agreement an unequal treaty. All the countries can do it, but only China cannot. That is a bit absurd," he said."

Speaking of facts, darn facts and BBC polls...

https://www.newstatesman.com/blogs/the-staggers/2011/11/public-sector-strikes-serwotka

'A BBC opinion poll just before the strike showed 61 per cent thought it was justified, while only 36 per cent disagreed. Why should that be? '

A good question, if not perhaps in the way intended.

"Ministers conceded that the economic impact would be no greater than that of a one-day holiday to celebrate the Royal Wedding."
//
"George Osborne said: "The strike is not going to achieve anything; it's not going to change anything. It is only going to make our economy weaker and potentially cost jobs."

https://bbc.kongjiang.org/www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-15961863

Given these are two extracts from the same article, why aren't politicians abolishing Christmas, Easter and Bank Holidays, Sundays etc in the interests of the economy? This is partly why so many don't put much faith in what these Libertarian politicians say. They speak with forked tongues and are clearly out to weaken Government..

One can even see misleading banner lines on TV which say that "only" 1/3 of "Civil Servants" are on strike, but that 2 million "Public Sector" workers are on strike. For some there's no difference between "Civil Servants" and "Public Sector workers" (this is a classes issues note, "they are all the same"), even though Civil Servants only number 453,000 which is well under 10% of the Pubic Sector. Many won't know or care that 80% of the workforce (i.e about 23 million people) work in the Private Sector, which is where all this trouble and debt is!. The reason politicians can fleece the Public Sector is that this is basically all they have any control over, and most of the people who put them in office work in the Private Sector. The Public Sector is the next-egg (and septic tank) for Libertarians when their greed gets them into trouble. Most of the electorate are abused as foot-soldiers aka "useful idiots"..

https://www.civilservant.org.uk/numbers.pdf

Even though there are 6 million people working in the Public Sector, how many know what those Public Sector workers comprise and what do they do and can't do?

https://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/magazine/7141970.stm

One may try asking the same unenlightened people whether the police or prison officers are on strike? The answer is that they are not, but ask many why and they'll probably just creatively make something up telling one what they "think" rather than look it up. We see more and more of this daft behaviour these days, and then they feel insulted when they are corrected! The facts are more complex than they would like to believe. Police are legally banned, and prison officers, though the ban was technically repealed by New Labour, have a no-strike agreement, like most nurses. Some of the other unions have been infiltrated by "Trotskyites" (Libertarians).

JunkkMale wrote: "But I also caught a gobsmacking interview with a strike union leader, Len McCluskey, that explained a lot, if not in a good way.

His grip on reality made the contents of Parliament seem almost sane.

Plus he seemed also inspired to emotion by the moment as well, though I am unsure if the Liverpudlian accent is best designed to wail 'it's not fair' in a way that engenders empathy.

But what stuck me were the sheer number of soundbites he was determined to get out that were completely false. The anchor, Adam Boulton, was continually having to correct his claims, which of course weakened his advocacy position."

Next time, it would help others if you included WHAT was said which you considered "completely false" so that we can all objectively tell the difference between what he said and your reaction to what he said was.
From what you posted it's objectively impossible to tell. Do you see that?

What has his accent got to do with anything? Are you not able to focus upon what is relevant?

JunkkMale watched SKY News and commented on a union spokesman from Liverpool.

Which conglomerate runs SKY?

Let me use what you wrote to make a point with one change (deletion):
-
"His grip on reality made the contents of Parliament seem almost sane.

Plus he seemed also inspired to emotion by the moment as well, though I am unsure if the ----------- accent is best designed to wail 'it's not fair' in a way that engenders empathy."

Do you appreciate that the brakes on the Financial Service Sector and other predators in the Private Sector are workers in the Public Sector?
These are "regulators"? Many have ben turned into QUANGOs or Agencies over the years. Libertarians don't believe in Governance. They're anarchists like the revolutionaries which were sent in to Russia in 1917 to topple the allies of Britain. Many of those anarchists went over to Russia from NYC..

What is going to happen if this Libertarian Government succeeds in further undermining/cutting the regulators just like Thatcher and Reagan did in the 1980s, when there are now so few Public assets left to strip?
It won't be like last time when gas, electricity, water, airlines, rail and communications were all sold off. That's all been asset stripped out, and just look at the consequences in terms of services and prices.

Are you sure you know what is going on? Or are you being "ironic"?

MuseV wrote "And you could quite easily mistake Hadley Freeman as being the younger sister of Naomi Klein."

They're all doing their "turns". They're natural "Permanent Revolutionaries".

JunkkMale wrote: "A bit calmer all round. Maybe that's because of all the decent people involved, as opposed to...?"

Or you're radically confused/misled.

It really is not very smart to attack the firemen when they come to try to put out your house which is on fire (especially when it's your fault), or the nurses when they try and patch you up when you have self-injured, just because you're very upset and confused at the time.

But...it happens all the time, and these Libertarians count on such confusion. You are helping them make matters worse.

67. At 16:21 30th Nov 2011, brown-dog
Next time, it would help others if you included WHAT was said which you considered "completely false" so that we can all objectively tell the difference between what he said and your reaction to what he said was.
From what you posted it's objectively impossible to tell. Do you see that?

Not sure 'others' are that fussed, but what I do see is that you suddenly seem very keen on making demands to suit that you are rarely keen to provide or abide by protocol you don't see as applying yourself*, or to media evidently held to a lesser standard than mere personal blog posters. Obsessively. 3 stabs at retorting? But to get a Robinson or Peston to list every claim their opinions get based upon would be a great precedent, mind. He spouted BS, and got called on it, often. Take my word. Or cite a counter.

But why 'next time'? Here's one now: he claimed that all Ministers did not use public services such as state school or the NHS. He was corrected. You want more detail, tough. Check out the archive via Google, as I very much doubt in any case my transcription would make much difference to what you choose to pick on.

What has his accent got to do with anything?

I was, with some regrettably excessive generality borne of satirical allusion, subjectively noting some tonalities carry less heft when rallying support, and when it comes to union organisers there seem to be certain commonalities of origin suggested via their accents. A whingeing entitlement victim (ask Boris) from our beloved ex-City of Culture who has just happened to get to be a Union overlord; what are the odds? I just keep fingers crossed there is not an 'ism to get another quango fired up once a petty box ticker gets their dander up.

Are you not able to focus upon what is relevant?

Yes. To me. It's a blog. Full of opinion. Deal with it. I suspect you have conflated all that is about you with what 'is'. Sorry to disappoint. As to relevance, it's hard to even assess what you are trying to get at with this if you are so keen on fact and relevance being in perfect complement:

'Which conglomerate runs SKY?' What... does that matter if he said it, on record, live on air?

More crucially, can you focus on anything bar your own not infrequent demands that others simply defer to or agree with you?

*On the evidence of this, not likely:

'What's Ed Miliband doing making a 32 year old his Chief Secretary to the Treasury? Labour Friends of Israel'

Nifty, two 'isms, or at least odd relevancies in one sentence. Irony not a strong point either, then.

And as dealing with the demands of professional provocateurs and even more blatant hypocrites is a fools' errand, especially those presuming to instruct from so poor a foundation, it's probably best that future exchanges, as far as my time commitment goes, to be best left between yourself and whatever voices speak to you.

JunkkMale wrote ""And as dealing with the demands of professional provocateurs"

Sadly, that's become an all too common way that people have taken to abusing their educators - i.e anyone who tells them what to do (doctors etc). Sometime not too long ago people took it upon themselves to believe that whatever they thought was opinion and most destructively for all (the nation) that they were ENTITLED to hold these as true. If you want an inking as to why we are in such trouble economically and in terms of skills, there's a good part of your answer.

What can be done about it? That's the big question. Do many people even want to do anything about it?

"What can be done about it? That's the big question. Do many people even want to do anything about it?"

In fact, from what I see, most people seem to expect someone ELSE to so something about it, except...when someone else tells THEM that they have to do something that they aren't already doing, they throw narcissistic hissy fits and, outraged, "ask" who said person is to tell them what to do!

This appears to be the nature of an incorrigible infantile/adolescent identity disorder, and we appear to have been breeding this across Libertarian democracies by the millions.

So, Rupert Murdoch isn't all wrong. Just ruthlessly honest perhaps? Like many others, he appears to have decided long ago to make hay whilst the sun was still shining. If anyone can find the exact words he used when he said words to the effect that celebrities etc brought their woes upon themselves by their behaviours and that the papers just reported these for public consumption, please let me know.

In many ways, Murdoch did learn from Lenin as the above commentators attest. He's made naked capitalism something which many now despise, but only like kids despising their teachers and parents for highlighting their own self destructive behaviours.

Market forces drive what News Corporation/International delivers. I the public (markets) didn't want it, they'd go out of business. Leninism says that naked capitalism does not have to be undermined by foreign agents, it just needs to be left to self-destruct. Was he wrong?.

It seems to me that Libertarians are getting their just deserts and that much of Europe and the USA is throwing a collective narcissistic hissy fit as expected..It is all in the demographics if you look.

isn't it funny. it all went pear shaped in the west when the Berlin wall came down, the west, (America) tried for years to wear down the Soviets with expensive millitary hardware, shields, proxy wars, espionage, dirty tricks, you name it, the Yanks did it and what was the result? A debt ridden western economy, riddled with fraudsters, like Enron, the collapse of Bear Sterns and the origine of the debt mountain, the US prime, what a result, what a tragedy and how utterly delightful.....

stevie wrote: "isn't it funny. it all went pear shaped in the west when the Berlin wall came down, the west, (America) tried for years to wear down the Soviets with expensive millitary hardware, shields, proxy wars, espionage, dirty tricks, you name it, the Yanks did it and what was the result? A debt ridden western economy, riddled with fraudsters, like Enron, the collapse of Bear Sterns and the origine of the debt mountain, the US prime, what a result, what a tragedy and how utterly delightful....."

Marxist-Leninist theory (see modern China for The Elephant in the Room) asserts that capitalism has its own inherent seeds of self-destruction.
The long-term Soviet strategy, would, logically therefore have been to let it destroy itself by running its own deregulating course with the help of "useful idiots" (infantile disordered narcissists/anarchists known as Social Democrats which they'd ousted in the 1930s and which the USA then welcomed (like a Trojan Horse?) as "dissidents". This was also seen as the road to socialism in that societies had to pass through that phase.

Anglelton (CIA Counter Intelligence) was, allegedly, persuaded that Golitsyn may have been genuine. He was ousted. Was he right?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anatoliy_Golitsyn

Somehow, I don't see Newsnight looking into this.