by John Ward
Since yesterday afternoon I’ve compiled eight econo-political stories of note. They’re set out below. If we do have genuine direct Democracy in the First World, then those who voted for the numbskulls in charge are entirely to blame. But the eight examples show clearly that either the People never voted for them, or they voted for things that the élites will do anything to undermine and then reverse those votes. To quote him IN as opposed to OUT OF context for once, this is what Viktor Orban of Hungary means when he says, “If that’s democracy, I don’t want any part of it”.
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Some oddities in the latest “news”:
- CPI inflation fell to 2.4 per cent over the year to April, but Sterling fell by over one cent against the US dollar on the news. Why is inflation now good, when from 1966 to 1997 it was bad? Or put another way, why is it now good, under neoliberal economics, to destroy the savings of the elderly while making regular repurchase impossible among family formers?
- Our Lord Jeremy of Galilee has ordered Labour peers to abolish themselves. A Labour spokesman told The Spectator, “We want to see the abolition of the House of Lords and its replacement with an elected second chamber… it’s a basic democratic reform, it must take place”. Given that the House of Commons is every bit as corrupt as the Lords, why does Fortress Momentum think a second elected Chamber is likely to improve matters? Perhaps even more to the point, do the Progressives have the faintest idea whatTF the role and objective of the new chamber would be?
- The man running the Bank of England says we are all £900 worse off because of Brexit. Why is a Goldman Sachs trained banker commenting publicly on the ‘effect’ of something that hasn’t happened yet?
- The man running HMRC says the customs system favoured by Cabinet Brexiteers as the post-Brexit model could cost businesses £20bn a year. Why should I take seriously any prediction by a cowboy outfit which, four years after I left Britain, still sends me tax demands? It would also be nice to see his long division, and what assumptions were made in his meticulous calculations.
- The Daily Telegraph made this its top website story today: ‘Brexiteers’ dream of a second Elizabethan age of trade after Britain leaves the EU is nothing more than “buccaneering blather”, Britain’s former top EU diplomat Sir Ivan Rogers warned on Wednesday.’ Why does the Barclaynaff think this Whitehall gravy-training mandarin would say anything else?
- Under the current “rules” agreed before Brexit is finally signed off, the UK will not be able to start its negotiations over future trade with New Zealand and Australia until 30 March 2019. But this hasn’t held the EU back: they’re gabbing away to the Antipodeans already. Which brilliant negotiator allowed this, and why DO Remainers place such trust in these Brussels lizards?
- The Economist magazine says that Argentina “should not view the IMF as the Devil”. I wonder how else one should view it in the light of its one-trick-pony history – the one trick being take it out on the innocent ordinary citizen with ruthless welfare austerity and high taxes as the default “solution”? The IMF cure never works….but it does ensure that this same IMF lends the victim money and then makes a huge return based on the interest charged. A blindly monetarist approach to every problem also ensures that Wall Street’s bond-vultures buy at the right place and double their money on the payout….given that of course, the IMF effectively works for Wall Street.
- Bloomberg notes that the Turkish lira ‘suffered its biggest loss in almost a decade Wednesday’ with a fall of around 4%. Turkey’s economy has been overheating for some time: The Slog has been warning since late 2015 that its growth hype and high deficits would render the Erdogan economy a basket case in the end. We are only two Fred rate rises into The Great Ecocnomic Recovery, and already the big borrowers are feeling the pinch. Lest we forget, this is the ruthless dictator and joke-balloon economy that Brussels was trying to get into the EU five years ago. Lest we forget, this is NATO’s most important “ally” in the Near-eastern Muslim world. The next slated Fed Rate rise is mid June….just three weeks away. Will they or won’t they?
All the players mentioned in the above snippets are either major influencers of governmental opinion, or allegedly in charge of running stuff. They are, in turn, running economies, changing constitutions, undermining electorates, cheating EU member States, ripping off overborrowed emerging nations, and creating One Party dictatorships.
They are called, variously, the Financial Times, monetarism, Jeremy Corbyn, Momentum, The Spectator, Mark Carney, a dysfunctional tax collection department, the Foreign Office, Sir Ivan Rogers, The Daily Telegraph, the European Commission, Jean-Claude Juncker, The Economist, the IMF, Christine Lagarde, NATO and Recep Erdogan.
All of them at one time or another have been quoted as “experts” by the UK Remainer camp. And all of them have – on a regular basis since 2010 – been the subject of excoriating criticism by this blog as people who are one or more of dangerous, insane, incompetent, murderous, muddled, badly run, illiberal, amoral, unelected, ideologically rigid, disloyal, Islamist and ruthless.
So as they are all going from strength to strength, you can judge for yourselves the effect of The Slog’s enormously persuasive prose in defeating the Bad Guys.
But hopefully, there might be a few clues here as to why the World is in the mess it most assuredly is in.
Most important of all – thinking chiefly of the US, UK, French, Italian and Greek situations wherein I tend to specialise – these events underline what I am trying to say:
- What is right and beneficial for the greatest fulfilment of the greatest number of citizens isn’t even on the élites’ radar.
- The biggest drive they have is for power at any price, and the smallest thing they have is a capacity for wisdom.
- They have huge numbers of deprived, disenfranchised, disappointed and desperate citizens.
- Their politics are increasingly divided, divisive and almost entirely bankrolled by minute special interest groups.
- The real Executive power centre is beyond the legislatures, the Cabinet and (in most cases) beyond the borders of their Nation State.
- The idea that voting for any Establishment Party can deliver an escape from the trap we’re all in is ridiculous to the point of being infantile.
The only new – and to my mind, encouraging – development among those countries is the rapid emergence of Italy as the leading challenger of the various minority élites. The next year or so will show us whether a divided Coalition of anti-Globalist/Federalist elements can hold it together….and if so, how long it will be before the NATO-Wall Street-Brussels-am-Berlin-Dollar axis of nut-crunchers gets on their case.