July 24, 2002

Scott Adams saw it all ...

(big company life does reflect Dilbert cartoons rather well. In my employee days we were once given a pep-talk by a motivational speaker. At one point she told us to 'work smarter, not harder' and looked offended by the gale of laughter this advice provoked. She obviously didn't read Dilbert)

What Other People Think

Kipling :

Then the Gods of the Market tumbled, and their smooth-tongued wizards withdrew
And the hearts of the meanest were humbled and began to believe it was true
That All is not Gold that Glitters, and Two and Two make Four
And the Gods of the Copybook Headings limped up to explain it once more.

David Warren :

As one of my more knowing correspondents put it: "Wall Street loves money but hates free markets, because free markets distribute economic benefits to those who earn them, rather than to those best able to seize them."

The capitalist investment bankers stand accused, rightly, of having invented brilliant kiting schemes -- ultimately to deliver credit to customers who hadn't earned it. Their "greed" is irrelevant -- everyone is trying to make money. The point is that the schemes themselves were basically unsound. The lesson is that when home ownership is considered a "right" instead of a privilege, it is not only the housing market that goes bottom up.

The great Kirk Elder :

As I write, the Dow Jones index on Wall Street is plunging at the speed of an Apollo re-entry vehicle, and a conservative Congressman is warning that the rescue plan advocated by the political establishment represents "the slippery slope to socialism". Would that it were so. Such a fate might imply a degree of economic planning, albeit with the side effect that the supermarkets would run short of fresh vegetables while being overstocked with tractor tyres and shoes comprising two left feet.
It's at moments like this that I am grateful that my savings are stored in jamjars in the airing cupboard, behind my wellington boots.

The Public Sociologist :

Academics, armchair economists, libertarians and House Republicans are the only ones who take the "principles" of neoliberalism seriously. Governments here and across the Atlantic only stick with it in as far as it entrenches the rule of capital. And the way the government has handled the nationalisation of Northern Rock and Bradford & Bingley and waived competition rules regards Lloyds-TSB and HBOS are entirely consistent with this. The state absorbs the the bad debts and liabilities, while it facilitates a transfer of assets to the private sector. As Vince Cable, the LibDem deputy leader observed in February, "Northern Rock’s ‘assets’ include unsecured debts, such as portions of mortgages in excess of the value of the properties concerned. In other words, the rubbish."

While sections of finance capital goes under, the government has and will continue to maintain the strength of finance capital as a whole. Whatever Tories and their ilk may think, nationalisation of this character is nothing to do with socialism. It's asset-stripping by another name.

He has a point. We get the debts they can't value, Santander get those nice cash deposits.

The problem for most UK banks seems to be that their lending isn't covered by their deposits. You'd think that to encourage more saving you'd raise interest rates. I see that the world and his wife are calling for immediate interest rate cuts - as happened after the dot-com crash. Let's start the merry-go-round again ...

All things are moving at the same time. We have very low savings ratios in this country - spending is seen as a good thing, it keeps the money circulating at an appropriate velocity. Low interest rates encourage "investment" - true. They also encourage asset inflation - which is why we've seen a massive transfer of the housing stock to the wealthy over the last 15 years - while inflation as measured by Gordon Brown has been "low". Trickle-down didn't quite work as planned - instead of those City bonuses and ever-increasing director salaries going into luxury yachts and slate bathrooms, creating employment on the Hamble and in Bethesda, large chunks of it went on forcing up property prices, and making it near-impossible for a first-time buyer to afford property. Thirty years back a poor Laban paid £10,000 for a two-bedroom cottage - with roses round the door - in a country village. He was earning £3,000 pa - bad money even in 1978. There's not a cat in hell's chance that someone on £15-20,000 could afford that house now.

So the money whirls round, we get and spend, the economy booms for twenty years. Trouble is, a percentage of the cash flies off to China and Saudi Arabia, because we import so much more than we export. It's a bit like those penny cascade machines at the arcade - some of those 2p bits fall into a bucket marked "offshore".

We don't save much, while other people do. So as this process continues, we think we're rich - while all the time we're growing relatively poorer compared to, say, China, Singapore, Saudi. Because the money flowing out is balanced by money coming back in - foreigners investing in government and corporate bonds and shares, we end up with what's left of our industry being owned by others. Our current account deficit is terrifyingly large, worse than the US given the size of our economy. How long can this process continue before we're wholly owned, the pound collapses (revealing our true poverty), or both ?

To some extent the same things are happening in the US, although their much stronger Christian culture, while in decline, will postpone any collapse until well after ours. Who knows, our fate may act as a warning and example. (It's scary to see the glee with which the assembled Guardianistas greet the prospect of America's decline and China's rise. They ring the bells, but within their lifetime they'll be wringing their hands).

And at the same time, the British cultural collapse is almost complete, mass immigration is transforming the country into an interesting patchwork of ethnic groups, with all the potential for conflict which that implies, the natives are still merrily aborting their descendants, the group with the highest fertility has also the strongest, most militant and most cohesive culture, education's still pretty shot, the underclass, native and otherwise, shows no sign of diminishing in size or in its range of pathologies. We haven't got the money to pay our soldiers properly, so we increasingly offshore the military. Didn't a chap called Vortigern try that one ?


Will the options for my children be "fight or flight" ?

It's a pretty impressive feat, to have transformed what in 1945 was the third most powerful nation on earth, renowned for its stability and civility, into one with the most tremendous basket-case potential (oh alright, compared to large chunks of Africa it's not - but is that the benchmark ?). Just take away the religion, and all else follows in its natural, horrible and inevitable sequence.

"Events, dear boy, events"

Thus, apocryphally, Harold MacMillan, when asked what could blow a government off course.

But they can have the opposite effect. I'm remembering another Prime Minister suffering economic difficulties, with high unemployment, high inflation, and record low poll ratings. Mrs Thatcher (for it is she) looked doomed against her smooth young public-school opponent, Michael Foot ;-)

Don't mock. By 1982 Mrs T was so far behind in the polls that even Footy only had to avoid clangers to stay well ahead. The next election was his to lose, not Thatcher's to win.

Then General Galtieri invaded the Falklands. The fact that the trigger for the invasion was a penny-pinching act of her own government (the announcement by Defence Secretary John Nott of the proposed withdrawal of the only British naval vessel in the South Atlantic, HMS Endurance) was forgotten. Her response to the invasion, and the success of the task force, sent her popularity soaring.

Three weeks ago Gordon Brown was the most despised man in Britain. The Right hated him for his gargantuan waste, the abolition of the 10p tax band, his destruction of private pensions, his utter uselessness. The Left hated him for PFI (as did some of the Right), ID cards, the abolition of the 10p tax band, bankrolling Iraq and Afghanistan (although not with a big enough wad to give our soldiers decent kit), his utter uselessness. Everyone else hated him for his utter uselessness. Everything he touched turned to dross.

Then the Great Economic Disaster of 2008 struck as a whole cloud of securitised-debt chickens came fluttering home to roost. But it's done Gordy a lot of favours - despite the fact that GB, as Chancellor for ten years, is implicated up to his neck in whatever dodgy debt fantasies the City's accountants dreamed up to keep the bottom line looking good. Who was in charge of regulation ? Who prided himself on the 'light touch' of the FSA ? Who was the guy who knew it all ?

Nonetheless :

a) a lot of the lefties have stopped lambasting him to focus attention on their old enemies, the bloated plutocrats. This may not last.

b) said lefties are suddenly chipper at the sight of Big Capital calling for state intervention and the perceived collapse of capitalism. Just when they'd pretty much given up on any such thing happening.

c) conversely, the free-marketers are depressed to a greater or lesser extent. The American disaster has dampened their ardour. To be fair, this has been a Big Week. Tectonic plates have shifted, and the deregulated - or specifically, credit deregulated model of capitalism looks fatally compromised. Good. Doesn't of course, do anything about the long-term, structural disasters - education, demography, welfare dependency - which, more than any amount of creative asset pricing, spells our decline.

d) being 'the man in charge' at a time of crisis will always mean that people tend to rally round you. Bush may need (a Democratic) Congress - Brown has still a tame PLP, with a hefty majority, to do his bidding.

e) the Tory Conference has been overwhelmed in the news by the financial hurricane. In vain Mr Cameron offers to help the Government. As seen above, Gordon don't need Dave's help. The expected 'conference bounce', when the Leader is all over the news bulletins for a week, may not materialise.

f) having something to worry about other than what two public-school bullies (I'm trying to put myself in his Oxfords) will be throwing at him each Wednesday can't but do him some good.

Of course, I still want him out asap. But what will the man being beaten up by Somali youths on the top floor of the Clapham omnibus think ?

*Sigh* (again)

What was it Peter Hitchens said ? The criminal justice system now enforces 'the letter of a bureaucratic law rather then the spirit of an agreed and respected moral code'.

The extraordinary scene unfolded on Friday last week when 39-year-old Mr Gilbert was dragged out of the van in a busy shopping street in Witham, Essex. He was then escorted by Mr Cremer and another man around the corner to the police station. Slung around his neck on a piece of cardboard was the message: 'THIEF. I stole £845. Am on my way to police station.'

Mr Cremer, 41, who runs In House Flooring of Witham, said that Mr Gilbert had been at the company for six months and earned around £1,000 a week. He has been accused of taking a business cheque and making it out to himself. Mr Cremer was contacted by the Cash Converters company after the cheque apparently bounced.

Essex Police confirmed that five men were on bail in connection with the incident.

A spokesman said: 'A 39-year-old man from Colchester has been arrested on suspicion of theft. A 44-year-old man from Halstead and a 22- year-old man from Witham were arrested on suspicion of false imprisonment, assault and theft. On Saturday, a 41-year-old from Maldon and a 42-year-old from Colchester were also arrested on suspicion of false imprisonment. They have all been released on police bail until November 27.'

The spokesman added: ' It's important to remember that people are innocent until proven guilty.'

There was no answer yesterday at the flat Mr Gilbert shares with his girlfriend at a newly-built development near Colchester town centre.

Mr Cremer, who opened In House Flooring eight years ago and has six employees, said he was still waiting for police to return his van, which was seized after his arrest and contains his tools.

Plastic Washing Bags / Laundry Bags

You know the things. Large, heavy-duty plastic bags, with plastic carry handles. They come in bright primary colours and you use them - or we do - to transport wet washing from machine to line or tumble-dryer.

You used to be able to buy them in supermarkets at about a quid a throw - but they seem to have vanished from the shelves everywhere. Laundry baskets take up too much space - you can't fold them up when not in use as you can a bag. Ours are ageing, splitting, losing the handles.

Where have they all gone ? Anyone know who sells them these days ?

Can't Say They've Not Got Guts ..

As I understood it from the Guardian and points left, the evil Republicans were going to rob Joe Six-Pack in order that the Wall Street pirates could continue to clock up billions in bonuses - all taxpayer-funded.

"Hah ! They've been talking about standing on your own feet and 'let the market decide' for years ! Now THEIR industry's gone pearshaped they're screaming for Mummy State to kiss it better !"

Instead, it's the Democrats that want to rescue the fat cats while the Republicans, in what IMHO is a courageous and principled stand, find the thought of billion-dollar tax-funded bailouts just too much to stomach.

I said I thought it courageous and principled. Whether it's actually going to do more damage to poor Mr Six-Pack than fleecing him would do, I'm not qualified to say. Sound money and no bail-outs didn't exactly keep Joe in beer last time out.

In the 1920s, American consumers and businesses relied on cheap credit, the former to purchase consumer goods such as automobiles and furniture, and the latter for capital investment to increase production. This fueled strong short-term growth but created consumer and commercial debt. People and businesses who were deeply in debt when price deflation occurred or demand for their product decreased often risked default. Many drastically cut current spending to keep up time payments, thus lowering demand for new products. Businesses began to fail as construction work and factory orders plunged.

Massive layoffs occurred, resulting in US unemployment rates of over 25% by 1933. Banks which had financed this debt began to fail as debtors defaulted on debt and depositors attempted to withdraw their deposits en mass, triggering multiple bank runs. Government guarantees and Federal Reserve banking regulations to prevent such panics were ineffective or not used. Bank failures led to the loss of billions of dollars in assets.[citation needed] Outstanding debts became heavier, because prices and incomes fell by 20–50% but the debts remained at the same dollar amount. After the panic of 1929, and during the first 10 months of 1930, 744 US banks failed. (In all, 9,000 banks failed during the 1930s). By 1933, depositors had lost $140 billion in deposits.

Bank failures snowballed as desperate bankers called in loans which the borrowers did not have time or money to repay. With future profits looking poor, capital investment and construction slowed or completely ceased. In the face of bad loans and worsening future prospects, the surviving banks became even more conservative in their lending.

Hmmm. Food for thought there ... nonetheless, isn't American democracy wonderful ? Over here, Government initiatives are overturned by the courts. Over there, they're overturned by the votes of democratically elected representatives. We used to have something like that - it was called a Parliament.

The End Of Demutualisation

It's just about the lot, isn't it ? Any building societies left who demutualised and haven't either gone down the tubes or been swallowed up ?

Still, the managements at the time of demutualisation will have cleaned up. I'm not sure it's improved 'consumer choice' a great deal.

Wow

Not the bit about the ship.

A team of international archaeologists is working round the clock to rescue the wreck of what is thought to be a 16th Century Portuguese trading ship that lay undisturbed for hundreds of years off Namibia's Atlantic coast. Ivory tusk and a piece of cannon The shipwreck, uncovered in an area drained for diamond mining, has revealed a cargo of metal cannonballs, chunks of wooden hull, imprints of swords, copper ingots and elephant tusks. It was found in April when a crane driver from the diamond mining company Namdeb spotted some coins. The project manager of the rescue excavation, Webber Ndoro, described the find as the "the most exciting archaeological discovery on the African continent in the past 100 years". "This is perhaps the largest find in terms of artefacts from a shipwreck in this part of the world," he said.

The ship may have been unable to withstand the currents in the volatile seas off the Namibian shore. The area is also known as the Skeleton Coast and is associated with the skeletons of wrecked ships and past stories of sailors wandering through the barren landscape in search of food and water.

The bit about the mining.

The site is about 130km (80 miles) south of the Namibian harbour town Luderitz, in an area long sealed off for mining. The mines are established by sea-walling the ocean and dredging the dry seabed for diamonds. Pumps ensure the sea does not reclaim the land - an exercise that is costing thousands of dollars each week.

Bruno Werz, the archaeologist leading the excavations, said the shipwreck was particularly valuable because it had not been tampered with. "This collection has not been disturbed by human interference," he said, "we are very fortunate to have found an untouched wreck with all the material that was on site still here in one collection."

I must know more ...

Inside the forbidden zone is the city of Oranjemund, with its own food-producing farms and reservoirs. The vast mining area runs alongside the Atlantic Ocean. To enter into the mining area, one has to insert his plastic security badge into a slot in the wall and wait for a door to slide open automatically. The central computer, which opens and closes these passageways, tracks the comings and goings of everyone in the mining area. De Beers' helicopters constantly patrol overhead, and closely monitor the activities of the fishing craft that pass by in the ocean (even though the enormous waves would make landing a boat on the beach all but impossible). Behind the beach, a pack of Alsatian guard dogs patrol the no-man's-land between the two barbwire fences. And behind the barbwire fences is the Namib Desert, one of the most inhospitable areas on earth. It is made impenetrable by 1,000-foot-high sand dunes and 120 degree temperatures.

The extraordinary security procedures are considered necessary in Namibia because what is recovered from the 200 mile-long beach is not kimberlite ore but pure gem diamonds, which can be easily pocketed by anyone. In one small crevice in a rock outcropping, some 15,000 carats of sparkling diamonds were found on this beach some years ago.

The mine, if it can be called a mine, is actually the continental shelf of the Atlantic Ocean. To get at the richest lodes of diamonds, the ocean must be literally pushed back and held back long enough to dig out the diamonds. The mechanism for holding back the pounding surf is a ten-story high mound, which, 600 feet out in the ocean, runs parallel to the beach.

Standing on this sandy mound, I looked down into the "mine," which was actually the exposed floor of the ocean. It was an incredible sight; a full-scale battle between man and nature.

You can see some of the workings on Google Maps ... here ... and here. Old ones here. Can anyone spot any more of the current ones ?

That Global Zionist Conspiracy ...

It just gets more evil by the day ...

Think about it. It was lovely Linda who turned Paul on to vegetarianism. Then there was all that rolling about with seals with Heather. Now he has a Jewish girlfriend, the glamorous Nancy Shevell, he's suddenly playing concerts in Israel and 'finding out for myself what the situation is'.

Suspicious? I think so. Let us pray that I'm wrong.

(Mind, you, to think that you have to believe (as Susan does) that a Macca concert is A Good Thing, rather than (as Laban does) a crime against humanity).

Nazi Scum Out !

Schools secretary Ed Balls sick Nazi past revealed ! (and he looks as if he's wearing makeup).

See the Mail On Sunday (where else ?) for the whole sordid tale and even more disgusting - nay, perverted - photographs. Not child-friendly. As readers may remember, Laban's views on this topic are generally rather liberal. I'll make an exception in this case.



(Can't understand why Lancaster Unity haven't picked this up ...)

Here We Go Again ...

Remember "The Jewel of Medina", the touching, Sylvie Krin-like romantic novel about the Prophet's true love (or one of them, anyway), publication of which was pulled by Random House after dhimmi University of Texas professor Denise Spellberg saw a preview and decided to "warn Muslims", telling Random House that its employees would have to watch their backs if publication went ahead ?

Telegraph :

Four people have been arrested in London over an alleged terror attack which may be linked to the publishing of a controversial book. The arrests are thought to be linked to a fire at a property in Islington, north London, which is used as the home and office of publisher Martin Rynja.

His company, Gibson Square, recently agreed to publish a controversial novel about the prophet Muhammad and his child bride, entitled The Jewel of Medina. The blaze, which led to people being evacuated from the house, may have been started by a petrol bomb pushed through the letter box.

Initially, three men, aged 22, 30 and 40, were detained at around 2.25 am this morning in the Islington area of north London after a fire at a property in Lonsdale Square. Two were stopped by armed officers in Lonsdale Square, and the third was seized following an armed vehicle stop near Angel underground station. Police are searching four addresses around north-east London - two in Walthamstow, one in Ilford and one in Forest Gate.

The men, who were arrested on suspicion of the commission, preparation or instigation of acts of terrorism, are being questioned at a central London police station. Later a fourth person, a woman, was arrested at a property in Ilford for allegedly obstructing the police, a spokesman for Scotland Yard said.

Walthamstow, Ilford, Forest Gate.

A Bailout Reader and a Few Thoughts

As I posted the other day, I don't understand banking, money and credit. All that seems self-evident to me is that you can't, in the long term, run an economy on ever-increasing levels of personal and corporate debt, while the nation imports more than it exports and the government spends more than it takes in. It has to stop somewhere - and it seems a chunk of it - mortgage debt packaged into corporate debt, packaged into bonds/securities/financial instruments which no-one fancies putting a value on any more - has done just that.

That's one chunk. There are others. How long can we continue importing much and exporting little ? The difference, as I understand it, is made up by foreigners buying government and other bonds - sterling and the dollar being seen as 'safe' currencies.

But for how long will this last ? Sterling and the dollar rose to greatness on the back of their countries' industrial greatness (and IMHO a key component of that was cultural greatness). When that's gone, why hold dollars ? And when the foreign money goes, our economy stands in all its skeletal nakedness - compared with the well-covered economies of the BRICs (I don't mean that there isn't - or won't be - an economy. There's an economy, and people working hard, in Peru - or Burma).

There's a comment by dearieme on my Westinghouse post :

My wife made a new friend this year, the wife of a Visiting Scholar at Cambridge, a Chinese. After a few weeks here she had a good question. "I don't understand how this country is so rich", said she, "where are all your factories?"

Admittedly Cambridge is the service sector capital of the UK.

And the culture ... I worked alongside some young guys from Bangalore last year. They couldn't believe the behaviour they saw in the streets of an evening - and this is Wiltshire they're talking about - not exactly Moss Side. The were afraid of - and tried hard to avoid - some of the gangs of young people walking around - especially the drunk ones.

"Why don't people stop it ?"

"Has it always been like this ?"

What happens if and when the countries of the Middle and Far East decide that they no longer wish to use their massive surpluses to fund the massive deficits of the West ?

Another chunk is accounting practice. Lehman Bros apparently made a profit of $800m in 2007, and a record $4bn in 2006. How come, if it was bust in 2008 ? How were their assets priced ? What was the Head of Risk Management doing ? I must say while I'd fancy his bank balance, I'm not sure I'd fancy his next job interview.

"Now tell us a little about your career, Mr O'Meara. What was your previous position ?"

"Global head of risk management for Lehman Brothers, sir"

"I see. That will be all. Next please !"

The Mises Institute, an organisation devoted to the Austrian School of economic thought, has a handy Bailout Reader, with links to the various issues surrounding the economic unpleasantnesses we seem to be vicariously experiencing at present. The real experiencing will doubtless arrive soon enough.

Here's a link to the first of a series of videos on our banking system ('fractional reserve banking') and how it works.

All of the above are from people who presumably have a view on the way things ought to be arranged. While you've got to be aware of that, no matter, if one can learn.

And more links from Ross at Unenlightened Commentary, including the story of how a combination of "community activism" and well-meant Democratic legislation encouraged lending which looks pretty irresponsible to me.

Looking into the future gives further cause for concern: "The bulk of these loans," notes a Federal Reserve economist, "have been made during a period in which we have not experienced an economic downturn." The Neighborhood Assistance Corporation of America's own success stories make you wonder how much CRA-related carnage will result when the economy cools. The group likes to promote, for instance, the story of Renea Swain-Price, grateful for NACA's negotiating on her behalf with Fleet Bank to prevent foreclosure when she fell behind on a $1,400 monthly mortgage payment on her three-family house in Dorchester. Yet NACA had no qualms about arranging the $137,500 mortgage in the first place, notwithstanding the fact that Swain-Price's husband was in prison, that she'd had previous credit problems, and that the monthly mortgage payment constituted more than half her monthly salary. The fact that NACA has arranged an agreement to forestall foreclosure does not inspire confidence that she will have the resources required to maintain her aging frame house: her new monthly payment, in recognition of previously missed payments, is $1,879.

That piece was dated 2000. Can't say no warning was given.

Another 419 Fraud Letter

From: Minister of the Treasury Paulson

Subject: Request for urgent confidential business relationship

Dear Sir: I need to ask you to support an urgent secret business relationship with a transfer of funds of great magnitude. I am minister of the Treasury of the Republic of America. My country has had crisis that has caused the need for large transfer of funds of US$700bn. If you would assist me in this transfer, it would be most profitable to you. We would in exchange for assistance be prepared to pay you a fee of 1% of funds transferred - $7bn.

This transaction is 100 per cent safe. This is a matter of great urgency. We need the funds as quickly as possible. My family lawyer advised me that I should look for a reliable and trustworthy person who will act as intermediary so the funds can be transferred safely to my country. Please reply with the following details and also re-confirm to me the followings

1) Your full name.

2) Phone, fax and mobile #.

3) company name, position and address.

4) profession, age and marital status.

5) Bank name and address, sort code and account number

As soon as this informations are received, I will respond with detailed information about safeguards that will be used to protect the funds and the methods of transmission to be used. Your payment will be made to you in a certified bank draft so that we may transfer your commission for this transaction.

Yours faithfully, Minister of Treasury Paulson, Nigeria, Washington DC

(via the Indie, first sighted at Lew Rockwell)

Fertility Goddess Steps Down

And a nation mourns. Well, a Tory nation does. The Left don't seem half so keen on her.


I suppose I can see their point. Christian, four kids - what's not to hate ? What's someone like that doing in the Labour Party ?


UPDATE - Peter Briffa feels the pain - or should that be payne ?

Another Two Bite The Dust

Edwin Greenwood reports the demise of the Black Information Link (cause unknown - the Ken Livingstone/Lee Jasper tap being turned off ?) and Kirklees Race Equality Council (head a convicted fraudster, unpecified concerns about where the 100k+ pa council dosh was going).

Oh dear ...

From P.J. O'Rourke's Eat The Rich ... he's investigating Wall Street.

The professionals in the world of money seem to make so much of that money themselves. How do they justify the size of the paychecks ?

"I don't," said the $2 billion money manager.
"I can't defend it," said David the floor broker.
"They shouldn't be making it," said the specialist.
....

We ordinary toilers at the cubicle farm. Why don't we rise up ?Why don't we get rid of the capitalist system and replace it with something that's nicer and more predictable, and gives everybody an even break ?

"What," I asked all the Wall Street people I interviewed, "does the investment industry give to society ?"

But this time they had an answer.

"Liquidity," said the $2 billion money manager.
"Liquidity," said the investment banker.
"Liquidity," said the other investment banker who'd told me things could move stupidly.
"Liquidity," said the Irish specialist broker.
"It provides liquidity," said David.

Liquidity is the Wall Street word for having things you can do with your money and being able to do them. Liquidity is the essence of the free market. Men with more time to explain themselves might have said something like "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these re Life, Liberty and Ka-ching ! Ka-ching ! Ka-ching !"

Now of course liquidity hasn't vanished. You can still use money to buy things. But some things that were liquid a while back don't seem to be any more. And a good thing too.

Nu Tories

This MessageSpace ad at Guido's (sign up for Tory Conference text updates) shows the Tories reaching out to the all-important young swinger demographic.



Vaguely related to Allison Pearson's lament for what's happened to the 'saucy' card. And the readers - or a hefty percentage of them - I'd say more than half - tell her to 'lighten up'. This is the Mail, remember - supposed repository of Middle British virtues. We're doomed.

More on the EDF Deal

I mentioned the amazingly positive spin the BBC were giving the sale of Britain's nuclear industry to (French govt-controlled) EDF.

Well waddya know ? Via blogger NotASheep in the B-BBC comments, the news that the director of communications for the UK arm of EDF (they also own elctricity company E On, who recently raised prices to UK consumers by 22% - and to French consumers by 5%), one Andrew Brown, turns out to be a former BBC journalist and Newsnight editor.

Andrew Brown ? That's right. Gordon Brown's brother.

(Dizzy wondered back in January why the Tories didn't make more play of this fact, concluding it was because EDF made a substantial donation to the Tories. I'm not sure at all about the ethics of accepting cash from a company controlled by the French state. On second thoughts, I am - they shouldn't do it. What a dirty bunch. It's the Treaty of Dover all over again.)

More Nuclear Foolishness

I'd forgotten we'd already sold Westinghouse, BNFL's subsidiary which designs and builds nuclear plants. If someone with a master plan to destroy the UK without actually using explosives was in charge, they could hardly do better.

The sale surprised many industry experts who questioned the wisdom of BNFL selling one of the world's largest producers of nuclear reactors shortly before the market for nuclear power is expected to grow substantially; China, the United States and the United Kingdom are all expected to invest heavily in nuclear power.

It's Gordon Brown's Midas touch all over again.

The Westinghouse sale will provide a windfall for the UK Treasury. But industry experts have expressed concern that such an asset is being sold off when the demand for new nuclear power stations is set to surge.

The Westinghouse money's probably already disappeared into Brown's Black Hole. I wonder how long his share of the British Energy dosh will last. He probably got rid of it in his last conference speech.

" EDF agrees to buy British Energy"

Gosh. EDF agrees to buy British Energy. How decent of them.

Of course the BBC could have used a headline like "French Government Takes Control of Britain's Nuclear Industry", but that, while true, would have overtones of xenophobia, wouldn't it ? Isn't the French state just as valid as the British one ? And besides, as current BE boss Adrian Montague said in a Today interview (Ed Stourton well out of his depth - Montague often ignored his questions and answered ones he hadn't asked), "historically the UK has been extremely open to foreign investment".

"Historically" as in "crime is historically low" - i.e the last twenty-odd years. Prior to that, UK energy generation was UK-controlled and for 50-odd years it was a state utility. No matter.

Besides, as the Beeb's expert (whose name escapes me) pointed out when asked "does it matter that the French government (EDF's largest shareholder) is in effective control of UK nuclear generation ?", all the other, non-nuclear generators are already foreign-owned. Again, not quite answering the question, and again, not being picked up on it.

"Are you concerned that your son has done x ?"

"Well, my daughters have already done y and z"

"Thank you"

The idea that, say, any French administration would sell their nuclear industry to the British government is unimaginable.

I wonder how long it'll be before cheap energy is being sent to France via the channel electricity link while UK customers pay through the nose. Currently (a/c/t Wikipedia) no less than 5% of UK electricity comes from France via the link. And I wonder what the implications of this deal - and the other generator sales - would be if Britain wanted to withdraw from the EU ? Energy blackmail seems to be working pretty well for Russia.

UPDATE - Robert Peston, whose BBC blog has some of the best and most insightful credit-crunch coverage, toes the party line.

"EDF's acquisition of our nuclear power industry can be seen as a powerful message of hope."

aka

"Hey, guess what ? I'm not a friendless nerd ! That big kid who ignored me before wants to sit down and share my sweets ! "

aka

"It's a spectacular vote of confidence from La Republique no less that the United Kingdom is anything but bust."

One could despair. Has it come to this, that Britain handing over a vital strategic asset to a foreign government - a French one, at that - is presented to us as a favour - a boon gratefully received ? Someone in Colombey-les-Deux-Églises must be chuckling.

Ideas have consequences. A combination of Tory privatisation and the decision, back in the early days of the Blair administration (and driven by Guardianista sentiment), to stop further development of nuclear power, resulted in the necessary engineering skills being in short supply. Now they've changed their minds about it - and golly gosh, who's got the skills now ? Not us. Our rulers should be ashamed, but they're shameless.