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.

Don't Push Me ...

Someone left a comment on the "North To Alaska" post to the effect that while my politics were sound, my taste in music was dire.

Let me tell you, Mr Anonymous Commenter, that was nothing compared to what I could post. For example, I've kept quiet till now about a musical fetish I've had ever since a mädchen I met on a Tyrolean holiday taught me how to yodel down the beautiful Liebestal valley.

Cop this. And think yourself lucky I don't post this. Or even this.

UPDATE - a yodel blog ! Mademoiselle Montana's Yodel Heaven. (She like cumbia too ... another thing I've kept quiet about).


I know the Laban readership aren't too big on political correctness. Nonetheless the combination of the music and the lyrics may prove too much for some. Just call this a product of its time.




(A while ago, btw, I posted about the late Hank Thompson, and lamented that his classic "The Wild Side of Life" wasn't on Youtube. It is now.

Neither was the original version of Merle Haggard's "I'm A Lonesome Fugitive". It is now.)

What's It All About ?

BBC :

Global central banks are pumping $180bn (£99bn) of extra money into the markets in a co-ordinated move to lift the amount of funds available.

The $180bn has been released by the US Federal Reserve to five other main central banks, who in turn are issuing the funds in their own countries.

The Bank of England is making $40bn available, while the European Central Bank is to provide $55bn.

Central banks in Switzerland, Canada and Japan are also taking part.

The Swiss National Bank is releasing up to $15bn extra, while the Bank of Japan is offering $60bn, and the Bank of Canada $10bn.

Commercial banks in each country will be able to access the funds in the form of loans to boost their short-term funding requirements.

What exactly does all this mean ? No-one's pumping any money in my direction. And if the central banks are making loans to the commercial banks, where's that central bank cash coming from ? Reserves ? Are they just inventing the stuff ? And what are central bank reserves anyway - where did they come from ? In the days of Prudence, when the Government ran a budget surplus, was the unspent tax handed over to the Bank of England with a note saying "whack this lot in the reserves, my son" ?

I don't know. And in all the blogosphere, I've not seen anyone explaining it either. I've just about got my head round the concept of fractional reserve banking, that cunning wheeze that turns a £100 deposit into £500 of cash, £400 of which is lent out and which functions perfectly well until the day all the bank's depositors decide they want their cash back at the same time (a la Northern Rock) - but I'm generally as a babe unborn with these things.

Try this - the Mystery of Banking (19M pdf), by Murray Rothbard. He may bring bits of ideological baggage to the party - an anarcho-capitalist, what'e'er that may be - but he writes well. I'm still wading through it.

It's Arrived !

And it's Shameless Milne !

Actually it's a bit of a disappointment - even the Mad Dog isn't that mad.

Key sentence is "What is certain is that the dominance of the free-market model of capitalism, which has held sway across the world for more than two decades, is rapidly coming to an end."

If by 'free market' he means 'liberalised credit' I can't find much to argue with. If he means 'free market in goods and services' he's talking through his nether regions.

The other key point is that no-one on the Left seems to have much in the way of answers. The Graun trawled assorted lefties asking if they thought capitalism was on the skids. No one thought the revolution was just around the corner.

Laban's naive solution is that we try living within our means - as a nation and as individuals. It'll never catch on.

Way Up North ...

They don't write them like this any more ... Johnny Horton's tribute to the land of moose-shootin' mommas.

That Crisis Of Capitalism

Me no understand, doctor.

Alright. So the credit crunch was caused by people being a bit too clever, and not asking 'what if' ? But the reason governments are stepping in all over the place is because of the size of the exposures. If Northern Rock had been the Puddletown and Kingsbere, a small building society who foolishly demutualised then ran out of credit, they'd either have gone bust or another bank would have picked them up.

This applies in spades to Freddie, Fannie, Merril Lynch, AIG and now HBOS. They were so big, with so much business out there, that going bosoms up would threaten the survival of other major institutions.

"You owe the bank £50,000 and can't pay. You're in trouble"

"You owe the bank £5 billion and can't pay. The bank's in trouble"

So what's the solution of the great and the good ? In the case of Fannie, Freddie and AIG, hand over pots of taxpayer cash. In the case of Merrill and HBoS, merge them (with BoA and Lloyds respectively) to form even bigger financial entities.

Is it just me ? You've got something so big that its collapse threatens the system - and the solution is to make it bigger ?

I suppose if you want the Lloyds deal to go ahead it's probably not a good idea to start muttering about breaking it up, but surely post-kerfuffle any institution big enough - Fannie, Freddy, BoA, AIG, Lloyds/HBoS (I'm presuming NR wouldn't have been rescued without all those retail customers) - to cause major structural damage in the event of its death - surely anything that size needs to be split up - by legislative fiat if necessary - until the biggest companies are of a size where they can't take the whole economy down with them if they go.

It's not as if the Yanks lack practice at busting companies up. They just (I think) haven't done it for a while - not since Ma Bell. I'm not sure if antitrust law would cover such cases - so here's an opportunity for some legislation. OK, you lose some economy of scale and add some small amounts onto transaction costs, but think of all the taxpayer dosh you'll save.


Commenters are welcome to tell me

a) if this is nonsense - and if it is,
b) why

A Few Clippings From The Curate's Lawn

Stuff I've noted but not had time to post on :

Everybody knows that one of the things which destroyed the Major government was 'Tory sleaze', exemplified by the 'Cash for questions' affair, when money was handed in brown envelopes to MPs in exchange for questions in the house - questions on behalf of the people putting up the cash.

Journalist and regular Biased BBC commentator Jonathan Boyd Hunt doesn't see it that way. He and a colleague, Malcolm Keith-Hill, reported on a different story - that the thing was basically a fabrication knocked together by the Guardian (who wanted to attack the government for obvious reasons) and an embittered Mohammed Al-Fayed, who'd just been denied British citizenship.

The story is on this website, it's a long and copiously documented one. It certainly looks as if there's a case to answer. Tory MP Neil Hamilton, usually known as "the disgraced former Tory MP" sued al-Fayed for libel, but Al-Fayed's staff impressed the judge under cross-examination and the case failed. What wasn't known at the time was that Hamilton's case, including draft transcripts of the cross-examination questions, were in the hands of the defence - having been retrieved from the lawyers dustbins by Benjie "the binman" Pell. The whole thing is well worth a look.


Elsewhere :

Radical Muslims Warn of another 9/11 - the usual British suspects.

"Lord Carey warns that immigration could lead to violence" - what does he mean, could ?

Yasmin Rehman, like pretty much every other minority officer in the Met, is suing them for discrimination. It is amusing to see Ian Blair being bitten in the hand that feeds.

Andrew Anthony on immigration : "The Time Has Come To Say Britain Is Full". Well England certainly is.

Immigration levels have pushed population density in England to a higher level than any other major country in Europe. The figures, released by the Office for National Statistics, indicate there is an average of 395 people in every square kilometre in England. This is an increase of five per sq km in the past two years. The increase has pushed England's population density above the previous highest figure set by the Netherlands.

More stats. According to the EU :

The European Union's statistics office has projected a British population on the rise, growing from the current level of 61 million people to 77 million over the next 50 years. As incoming migrants and rising birth rates multiply the number of Britons, Germany, currently Europe's most populous nation, is projected to decline from 82 million to 71 million people by 2060.

Frank Field's cross-party immigration committee is set up :

Field claims in the pamphlet, entitled Balanced Migration, that the government's solution of an Australian-style points system for non-EU migrants based on skills amounts to an open door for tens of thousands to migrate, since any work permit holder staying on for more than five years will be qualified to apply for permanent residence in Britain or probationary citizenship. He claims the rate of inflow is higher than any other previous period of immigration since the Norman Conquest in 1066, making Britain the most crowded land in Europe.

Genetics is something I don't know enough about. Stephen Oppenheimer writes in Prospect that, far from being either a 'nation of immigrants' or descendants of the Saxon hordes, pretty much all Brits are descended from the same stock. He answers questions on the article here.

"BBC banned me because I'm Christian". He certainly wouldn't be the first.

The Rev G P Taylor, who has sold millions of books worldwide, claims that a producer at the corporation told him they couldn't be "seen to be promoting Jesus". The author of Shadowmancer, which spent 15 weeks at the top of the British book sales charts in 2003, says that he has been the victim of political correctness that favours minority religions at the expense of Christianity, a claim the BBC denies.

A wee Postette

At Biased BBC.

(Still awaiting the "Death of Capitalism" post at CiF)

And the next one please ....

Turns out the clever-clogs who've developed so many innovative and ingenious financial instruments over the last thirty years aren't so clever after all. Our old friend moral hazard could have pointed out the long-term conseqences of your bonus size being dependent on the risks you take with other people's money. Only a few years ago bank share prices and profits were at record levels.

Ten of the world's biggest banks have established a $70bn (£38.74bn) emergency bail-out fund intended to avert further failures following a dramatic weekend in which Lehman Brothers filed for bankruptcy and Merrill Lynch succumbed to a takeover.

As top financial regulators burned the midnight oil on Sunday night to get a grip on a rapidly widening banking crisis, the US treasury secretary Henry Paulson issued a statement acknowledging an "extraordinary environment" in the financial markets. The Federal Reserve weakened its guidelines to make it easier for troubled institutions to access urgent funds.

Ten international banks including Barclays, Credit Suisse, Citibank, Deutsche Bank, Bank of America and Goldman Sachs announced that they were each contributing $7bn to a hastily arranged fund. If any of them find themselves in danger of collapse, they will be able to access the pool of money with any single troubled bank able to draw up to a third of the $70bn total.

The banks said they were acting together to "enhance liquidity and mitigate the unprecedented volatility and other challenges affecting global equity and debt markets".

It's 8.30 and there's only one (quite readable) CiF post on the subject. The inevitable "this spells the doom of global capitalism" piece is yet to appear. My money's on Shameless Milne.

Of course it doesn't spell any such thing. Maybe it spells the doom of one variety - and good riddance if it does. Perhaps we'll even be back to the pre-Thatcher, pre "credit liberalisation" days - when if you wanted a mortgage, you had to have been saving, usually for several years, with the institution you were borrowing from.

The government banking guarantee limits compo to £35,000 per bank. Those readers fortunate enough to have liquid assets in excess of that should perhaps consider spreading the risk between several banks. Or moving, ironically, to Northern Rock !

PS - Jackie Ashley :

The inner core of Gordon loyalists differ from the rest in one respect only. They cling to the hope that this is all really about the economy and that, if it improves quickly, so will his and Labour's ratings.

Oh dear.

"Pollygate"

I like the sound of it.

Government whips have launched a witch-hunt to track down the Labour politician blamed for sending copies of a vicious attack on Gordon Brown to all 350 of the party’s MPs.

The investigation follows a ferocious verbal assault on the Prime Minister last week in the Guardian newspaper written by former Brownite cheerleader and Left-wing pundit Polly Toynbee.

Within 48 hours of its publication, every single Labour MP received an anonymous letter containing a copy of Ms Toynbee’s near-hysterical tirade via the Commons internal mail.

You can read the near-hysterical tirade here. I must say this is all most amusing.