Europe shaken not stirred

 By tomtom

It’s like the Euro participants need to be turned upside down and shaken to see what falls out of their pockets

If the Bundesbank is reticent about the proposed issuance of Euro Bonds well there’s only one thing for it, if the precious single currency is to be saved. The entire seventeen nation collective, needs to be turned upside down and shaken, to see what falls out of their collective pocket. Then it needs to be swept into a pile so they can divvy it up and everyone has enough moulah to satisfy the Shylocks. All that needs to follow is the ultimate risk aversion policy, of issuing individual bonds backed by this collective pile. Then we can all jump onboard the same old roundabout, with all the basket cases of European Union, free to live the good life to their heart’s content.

  The day of reckoning can then be postponed for ever, consigned to the dustbins of history. All we have to dispose of once this major step is achieved, is the plethora of Eurocrats in their Ivory Towers and their outpourings of grief for the way we chose to live. Though first we may need to do something concrete, with all these lefty non-jobbers who parasite on the state for an easy life, of protest and camping out, wherever they choose to pitch their tents. Concrete boots maybe and a free trip on a leaking ferry?

  But before it gets to this, there’s another wheeze up the sleeve of the clueless Eurocrats, as they wriggle and squirm to crawl out from under the stone.  To propose once more, who should be the lender of last resort. They’re trying to foist it on the IMF, but first they had to rid the system of a canny leader, who might smell a rat. There was someone in the line of fire, who might be a stumbling block to this latest wheeze. So they cooked up a few sex charges against this IMF Chief and flung the mud, anticipating some of it might stick. So was it the Eurocrats wot dun it?

  Whatever, stick it did, long enough for them to shoehorn in a chosen successor, more receptive to their whims. But they couldn’t move immediately or suspicion of their motives might have revealed a stitch up. So several months needed had to pass, before moves could be made to progress this latest wheeze to confuse the Shylocks, as the interest charges were  ramped up for supporting this sovereign debt pile. 

     

  It’s like a game of find the Lady, a now you see it, now you don’t kind of thing, as they shuffle the deck to propound this litany of deceit, with their ‘Clinggon’ mentality. Will it work? I suspect not and the ultimate recognition that default is unavoidable will once again rear its head, as seventeen proud and once independent nations scramble for the trenches, sucked into the biggest Ponzi/Pyramid scheme of all time. The Euro is DOOMED and you saw it here first!

Watch this space, I’ll be back!

Tom

Gloomsters out in Force

By tomtom

As the Labour Bullies, labour the Point

Don’t you just get sick to the back teeth with this constant mewling and puking by Labour. "If only you did it our way we’d all be in clover?"

  “Well Mr Miliband, Balls & Darling, we did it all your way, for thirteen wasted years and look where it got us. In the Poor House no less, thirteen wasted years of spend, spend, spend backed by nothing more than little pieces of plastic. While almost the entire nation went on a this plastic fuelled debt binge, as if there was no tomorrow and Boom and Bust was no more.”

  Well the Fiddler came calling, demanded his cut and we all fell down. Why? Because like Old Mother Hubbard, as she opened the cupboard, we found it was bare. So bare in fact that Labour's Chief Secretary to the Treasury, even had the temerity to leave a message to that effect for the incoming Chancellor.

  Now, as the dust begins to settle over Europe and the misguided clowns who wanted a Federal Superstate get their come-uppance, we are beginning to understand the total and utter stupidity of their masterplan. Europe as a Federal Super State is a busted flush, it is going nowhere with nothing in the tank because the only place it can fill up: the Bundesbank is closed. Closed in much the same way it was when the UK left the ERM back in the nineteen nineties.

  Later rather than sooner when the demand curve outstrips the supply curve the economy will pick up. That is why the forecasters play the long game when they speak of recovering to the place we were all lead to believe we were at. It’s a natural cycle that repeats itself down history and there’s little anyone can do to defy the odds, when it comes to claiming as the failed politicians of Labour do, that if we had only listened to them it would all be hunky-dory.

  They’re as deluded today, as they were a couple of years ago, when they were chucking our money about like confetti in a wasted attempt to cling onto power and they still don’t geddit.They should shut up and put up.  For, so long as we keep the shylocks at bay, we stand a pretty good chance of balancing the books at minimum interest rates.

  In the meantime all these forecasts, we here about from whosoever, are nothing more than best guesses, thoughts. We all know what thought did in the rhymes of old and it’s not very pleasant. But listening to the cacophony of mewling and puking from the aforementioned Yesterdaymen, adds nothing to the prospects for the future. Nothing other than to hope and pray that the Nation will never again elect these Fabian Socialist lightweight, deadbeat misfits within touching distance of the levers of power.

Watch this space, I’ll be back!

Tom

£4,365,636, – 169 times more than the average worker in Britain today.

By tomtom

“Ay! That’s the rub”

Like the weather it probably found its way over here from the USA, as US companies decided to make hay in the UK, due to the relaxed regulatory regime. No doubt the dearth of CEOs worth their salt, on the back of this invasion, added fuel to the fire and as the roof fell in. The bottom line shot through, rocket propelled, in a fetid attempt to justify what we see today.

  How you get back to reality from this situation seems to be eluding everybody, including this High Pay Commission, for all we have seen so far is the end result with no idea how to roll back the frontierspiece? “Link it to performance,” crows Vince, ‘but that’s exactly what they did in percentage terms. But millions per annum? “Ay! That’s the rub,” as the Bard might have put it. It has to be the biggest ‘Mickey Take’ of all time.

   Though it has to be said, they only did it because they reckoned they could get away with it. Backed by the very people who stood to gain most from it for themselves and the companies they ran. So in essence, all they were doing was just to divvy up the spoils, as they all had vested interests. Golden Handshakes, Golden Parachutes and Golden Goodbyes.

  There’s not a lot more that can be said about these practices, but you would think in the real world, we could devise somekind of clawback mechanism for the rape of a company in this way. For this exactly what it amounts to, the rape of UK Plc and a few more Plcs worldwide, as the scams were globalised.

  So if the truth is, that this was a contributing factor to the crash and subsequent credit crunch. Surely there has to be some jurisdiction in which the proceeds of these alleged crimes can be repatriated. All it needs is the will and a worldwide agreement to act. Maybe the answer is a worldwide Transaction Tax and the only reason the authorities say it has to be worldwide, is the fact they think that’s an Impossible Dream, in harness with the European imbroglio.

They’re all colludin’! For they think it’s something that can readily be kicked into the long grass and I really don’t know what more can be said on this subjec matter?

Watch this space though, I’ll be back!

Tom

Is a Tobin Tax the death knell for Europe’s Impossible Dream?

By tomtom

As fill your boots at shareholder’s expense becomes an Anathema.

And Executive pay comes under scrutiny from a government enquiry, the focus falls on what can be done about it. Public disapprobation will win the day as executives across the world are overtaken by a ‘Financial Accountability Spring’ . Will the government in present circumstance, be prepared to act? The simple answer I have to advise: is little or nothing.

  There will of course be an outcry about transparency and limiting the extent, to which an Investment Banker can fill his boots, at the expense of shareholder. But quite simply, the people most intimately affected by any legislation in this respect, will point out that most major companies and banks included; have remuneration committees. Then, since income to the Treasury relies in the major part on this source, for a huge tranche of government income, it will be swept under the carpet for another day.

  Though whether these remuneration committees are just a bunch of old-boy back-slappers or really hog-tied to reality – is open to speculation. That they should be exposed to all by legislation, is no doubt the ultimate desirable outcome. Will it happen? Highly doubtful and the dilemma as to how you achieve this most desirable outcome, will rumble on. The excuse peddled on behalf of these hi-flyers will be that if they are not paid what they presume to be the going rate, they flee to other more desirable destinations.

  But like the proposed Tobin Financial Tax on transactions favoured by the cash strapped Eurocrats of Brussels, aimed at neutering the primacy of the ‘City of London’ as the ‘Financial Epicentre of World Trade, in Finance, Commodity Trading and Currency Exchange’, this is nothing more than the opening shots of a takeover bid by these faceless, unelected, technocrats of Europe, for control over  the ‘City of London Corporation’.

  This essentially faceless entity, the ‘City of London Corporation’, bestrides the Global Financial Stage like a Colossus, with control of all the fundamental levers of Global Finance. So such manoeuvring by the European Commission can do nothing more than bring about secession of the United Kingdom from this putative effort, to become the overall dictator of the 27 Nation States it comprises.

  This fetid attempt to prove who will be ‘King of the entire Continent of Europe’ is destined to become a ‘Bonfire of all the Vanities’, if they persist in following this foolish path to oblivion. A matter highlighted, as far back as the days of Lord Palmerston, followed by Jean Monnet and the UK’s Peter Thorneycroft. Who all said, what amounts in these days of yore, to the death knell for ‘Europe’s Impossible Dream’.

  Lord Palmerston:- 1784 -1865 said:-  “Only three men in Europe understand the Schleswig Holstein question,” (aka – the West Lothian question – courtesy of Sir Thomas Dalyell Loch, 11th Baronet – ‘Tam Dalyell’MP) “and of these,  Prince Albert, Queen Victoria’s Consort is dead, a Danish Statesman unnamed is in an asylum and I myself,”  confessed Lord Palmerston, “have forgotten.”

  Jean Monnet:- 1888 – 1979 said:-  “All Europe’s nations should be guided towards a super-state, without people understanding what is happening. This can be accomplished by successive steps, each disguised as having an economic purpose, but which will eventually and irreversibly lead to federation.”

  Peter Thorneycroft MP:- 1909 – 1994 said:- “No government dependent upon a democratic vote could possibly agree in advance to the sacrifices an adequate European Plan must involve. The people must be led slowly and unconsciously, into the abandonment of their traditional economic defences. Not asked,” he said, “for it involves changes, which they may not at first be capable of recognising the advantages of -  themselves.”

  As and until these facts sink in to the detriment of those who would conceal them from the Public at Large and this putative bid to create a Federal Superstate fades into insignificance or descends into ignominy, they will fight on till the inevitable is staring them in the face.

Watch this space, I’ll be back!

Tom.

A Game of dominos, it Ain’t

But we all fall down

Also by tomtom

As the leaders across Europe, feel the full force of the voter’s angst and Sky News portrays it as a game of ‘Domino Toppling’. It brings to the fore, people who in better times would not stand the vaguest chance of even the slightest prod at the levers of power.

  But this is a tails you lose and a heads you don’t win game. There’s nowhere to go for these nouveau ‘Bigboys’ to go, except to the fountainhead. Mostly they’re new boys on the block when it comes to the game of politics and in Italy and Greece, these men imposed by the Frankfurt Group, have no idea what they are taking on, in engaging with the Shylocks.

  The Frankfurt group eh?  An outfit, which to all intent and purpose, sounds like a clandestine committee of Mafia ‘Godfathers’.  Could this be the grouping that dumped the UK out of the ERM back in those heady days of ‘White Wednesday’? When the UK finally clicked on to the idea that go it alone for Perfidious Albion, is the only way forward, after pursuit of the mighty Deutschemark at 3dms to the £1 sterling by Chancellor Lawson. A man now so vehemently opposed to the EU as to be a potential leader of the ‘Better off out Party’.  Of course we have no desire to have to sort out Europe’s woes by sacrificing another generation of redolent, thrusting Anglo-Saxon warriors.

  But the threat still looms as the pathetic do nothing, hapless leaders of the European Union, flail around like drowning rats in a sea of debt. Raising the threat of a new war in Europe as a way of mitigating their dread of the austerity programs, required to keep the ‘EU Gravy Train’ on the rails. By now there can be no doubts about what needs to be done, but in the face of public disapprobation, they lack the guts to do it.

  There can be no doubt that the day of reckoning for nations living the good life on ‘Chucky’ are at an end and come-uppance time is to hand. There is no lender of last resort for Europe’s Impossible Dream and the only man capable of performing this function is the last man standing, the Federal Republic of Deutschland. But as they did on ‘White Wednesday’ when they effectively ejected Perfidious Albion from the ERM, they are led by a’Deadman Walking’. A President with no power and a Board of Commissioners bereft of solutions.

Watch this space I’ll be back!

Tom.

Time for the EU to return to its Roots

By tomtom

 Our Europhile PM., not the man to defend British interests in Europe

Where we once had high hopes that the Euro itself would bring to an end, the Federal States of Europe idea, which is now to all intent and purpose a dead duck. It is becoming abundantly clear that the power hungry politicians are relentlessly, in the face of daunting odds, fighting tooth and nail to keep their dream alive, by attempting to bring it about by stealth. Much on a par with the way our boy Gordie wrecked the UK economy with his claims to have ended Boom and Bust.

  After presiding over what is probably the biggest bust of all time his credibility is shot to pieces and I draw this analogy to attention, because the same degree of hubris that accompanied Gordon Brown’s outrageous claims, appears to be blinding the wannabee    Masters of the Universe in Brussels.

  Blithely they go about the business of preparing for tighter fiscal union in the face of total and utter disregard for the facts. Without a lender of last resort the Euro was doomed from the day it was introduced and it was just a matter of time. All the indications are that muddling through by applying short term fixes to fundamental errors of construction, is a risible way of trying to convince the Shylocks of your credibility. It will not wash and since Germany has no intention of underwriting the debts of a Continent, in fiscal turmoil, the Euro as we know it is DOOMED!

  No doubt a compromise of sorts will be cobbled together and it is always possible the leaders of this failed experiment can be led down the path which can morph this European Union back to its roots as a Trading Bloc. The Common Market which the voters of the UK were led to believe was what we were joining in the first place and hopefully can all leave it at that and call it a day.

  With anything else, endless depression and stagnation are staring us in the face and we have no need to be ruled by the faceless, unelected, Commissioners of Brussels and Strasbourg. We are quite capable of governing ourselves in the face and overwhelming odds, as we did in facing up to the Zealots across the Globe in WW’s I & II. There are none so blind as those who do not wish to see and it’s time to call it Game, Set & Match in favour of Perfidious Albion.

Watch this space, I’ll be back!

Tom.     http://amzn.to/nVxXzy  http://bit.ly/h8XJVU

Drowning in a Sea of Euro Debt

By tomtom

Bring on the Dancing Girls

Enter stage left, a chorus line of high kickers, not the famous Windmill Girls mind you, a parade of so-called Technocrats. Technocrats, Eurocrats, Academics, what’s the difference, you might well ask? Will it be the panacea we’re all led to believe, as Democratic Government is replaced by unelected academics and former Commissioners of European pedigree, in countries where the Shylocks are piling on the agony with rocketing interest charges of 7 to 11%.

In Italy’s case, as it turns a man who was previously an elected Prime Minister, now billed as a Technocrat, one of the 38 or so leaders Italy has enjoyed since WWII. Will these so-called Technocrats make any difference, as they push through measures calculated to calm the fears of the Shylocks, who control the bond buying masses out there and thrive by lending money to cash strapped nations?

They may indeed be tossed a few million, billion or even trillions, but will it make any of these profligate entities more ready to live within their means? Highly unlikely if you follow the dictat of Britain’s failed politicians who enjoyed a doubling of the income to our Treasury over the thirteen years they were in power and still failed to balance the books of the nation.

And they’re still at it, telling us the answer, is to borrow even more. Then to let up on the deficit reduction plan that has drastically reduced the level of interest payments on what they were already planning to borrow and to squeal like stuck pigs as they trumpet a verse of how deep is my river of debt and more is better, while the Euro pigeons come home to roost.

We have to be eternally thankful that the myopic, failed Eurocrats of Brussels are not calling the shots in debt-fuelled Perfidious Albion and forcing us to hire unelected Technocrats in place of our elected members. We can rely on our democracy to make the decisions that will put us firmly on our feet again. While we ignore all the heckling from the sidelines, by the failed politicians of yesterday, who can only stand and watch in bewilderment, as no one takes a blind bit of notice of their manic ravings to spend, spend, spend.

Technocrats, academics, it makes no difference, if you fail to live within your means. The only way is down and out and for Europe the choice is stark reality. They forged a monetary union without a lender of last resort and are now trying to bulldoze the Deutschebank to take on the role, without the slightest chance it will agree. So it will just rumble on till it all implodes in a Witch’s brew of default and inflation.  

Watch this space, I’ll be back!

Tom.

We’re all living in Never Never Land

By tomtom

  Use pensions to buy homes says the CBI from its parallel universe.

Massage growth they say, as we lurch from one crazy scheme to another. Growth relies on demand fuelled by borrowing in today’s world, it has to be said. But with debt being written off credit is destroyed. So there is no money for the banks to lend on easy terms.

Then, with these same bankers hoovering up all the spare cash in the economy to shore up their balance sheets and the demand curve lagging the supply curve. There’s little hope of growth beyond what we see, 0.2 – 0.5% and it will stay this way till government and people learn to live within their means.

   With circa £650bn flowing into the Treasury and we can’t balance the books. There’s something rotten in the state of government. to paraphrase the Bard.

  The real problem here, is the vociferous client state created by Labour over the past decade. As and until they are made to understand, that the gravy train has hit the buffers, there’s little chance of progress and that’s it in a nutshell.

 Watch this space I’ll be back!

 Tom

The Day that will live in Infamy?

By tomtom

1^st May 1997 the day the Charlatans took hold of the Levers of Power

The real problem today is that from this moment on 1st May 1997, reality took flight and has still not come back in to land. Okay, to use an in-flight analogy it’s on the approach, though that’s not much use till it touches down, especially in Berlin, Paris & Brussels.

  As the EU moves to write off-debt for the Greeks and at the same time governments express their intention to get lending on the move to (SMEs). For those less informed souls out there, these are the Small & Medium Enterprises on which most national economies depend for the bulk of their income.

  The employed are taxed by (PAYE) Pay as you earn and companies contribute on a quarterly basis, the National Insurance accumulations. So, thereby lies the root of the problem. Without a flourishing (PAYE) sector delivered by these (SMEs), the government can be in deficit, it has to borrow and when we include personal debts: (We’re all in it Together) whether we like it or not. In fact were all in schtuk, to coin a phrase. However, what they fail to make apparent to all and sundry, is that this huge Pyramid-cum-Ponzi Scheme, is severely undermined by writing off credit. Especially if it is the credit these (SMEs) rely on to keep trading.

  The Bankers are asked to lend out cash they don’t have and the only way they can fund this borrowing is by creating bonds they can sell to the money markets or buying bonds they expect to provide interest payments they can lend out. In this way therefore a vicious spiral is created and it is this spiral which has the entire economy teetering on the edge of an abyss, when all these pigeons come home to roost.

  So the write-off of debt, makes an untenable situation even worse, it immediately erodes the amount of cash available to a lending institution to apply to its lending account. The main obstacle being what goes under the heading of Fractional Reserve Banking. This is a practice whereby the liquid assets available to a bank, represent only a fraction of the assets it is liable for on its books. The rest of its assets are lent out again and again or used to buy interest producing bonds, till only a small amount a few percent is available in cash for immediate emergencies. Like those produced by a Credit Crunch, the likes of which we saw in 2008.

  Who would be a banker in today’s world? They must be going out of their tiny minds in desperation? The bonus cheques they fill their boots with, are gone like smoke up the chimney and all they can come up with is to grab the cash available from the Bank of England as it prints the money to keep them in business.

  Then they wring the necks of anyone wishing to start up an (SME) or raise a mortgage, to keep the Housing Market on the move, as funds dry up at an unprecedented rate and they Hoover-up all the spare cash in the economy to shore up their balance sheets as they too teeter on the edge of the abyss and still try to fill their boots at the same time.

  So that’s it in a nutshell folks or as Shakespeare’s Polonius put it: “Neither a borrower or a lender be.”

Watch this space, I’ll be back!

Tom.