Talking About The Economy

The DAX is up, the Nikkei is down, CAC up, DOW down and the FTSE is doing the Hokey Kokey and turning around because that's what it's all about.
Not sure if the 5% drop in the Japanese market is a good thing, doesn't sound like it because one man on the television with an expensive looking haircut said it was a disaster while another man with an equally tidy short back and sides said it wasn't anything to be concerned about because it was just an adjustment to a previously good couple of months for the Nikkei.
All very confusing but luckily i am an expert in all things economy and to put it in simple terms, the markets will rise or fall and there will be a long or short period of inflation or deflation and the markets will recover or crash shortly, in the future or not at all and everything will work out in the end or we are up a well known creek and the oars are missing.
Right, where's my case of Bollinger and the £500,000 bonus?
To some that may seem like i have made it up on the spot and i have no idea what i am talking about but that's what makes me an expert because listening to them, they haven't got a clue either which goers a long way to explain why we are in such a bull market, and that is a lot of bull being spouted st the moment.

Meet Jesus

It has always seemed a dilemma to me that although some of the religions are waiting for the second coming of Jesus, who is going to believe him if he did show up?
The long beard and sandals may be a clue but it also the dress code of drama teachers so if someone turns up adamant that they are the son of God, he is going to be declared a nutter which is exactly what has happened to Alan John Miller who is not only claiming to be Jesus but his partner is Mary Magdalene.
'I have very clear memories of the crucifixion, but it wasn't as harrowing for me as it was for others like Mary who was present' explain AJ, 'I did resurrect quite a number of people ... including a friend of mine Lazarus, who most people know is mentioned in the Bible'.
AJ as he prefers to be known from Queensland in Australia is beginning to attract quite a following including Brits who have sold up in their own countries to move and be closer to 'Jesus' and follow his teachings.
'There were lots of people in the first century who didn't believe I was the Messiah and were offended by what I said and in fact I died at the hands of some of them' said AJ answering the question that he was a loony tune.
Now the 21st Century 'Jesus' is forgoing the old methods and spreading his message through DVDs and the Internet so we can look forward to You Tube videos of him walking on water which he then turns into wine to wash down the 5000 loaves and fish served by his virgin mother.
I'm also quite glad that he discovered he was Jesus later in life, might have had a problem finding the required 3 wise men in Australia if they had to go through the nativity scene.

Australia Best Place To Live

It may seem strange of a place that has almost every type of killer animal and insect you can think of inside it's borders but Australia has topped a poll as the best country to live in.
The Better Life Index from the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development used 11 measures including employment, health, income and satisfaction to discover that after the Aussies, the Swedes and the Canadians were the next best blessed with the US 6th and UK 10th.
Only the omission of Finland kept a Scandinavians clean sweep of the top 10 with with Norway (4th) and Denmark (7th) joining Sweden in the top 10.
Switzerland, Netherlands and Iceland made up the rest of the top 10. 
I'm sure the Aussies will be very happy to see that their homeland is the best place to live in, once one of them has sobered up enough to read the report that is.

Arms Industry To The Rescue

Albert Einstein said that the definition of insanity was doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results so it is with amazement that Britain and France can declare a 'victory' in stopping the EU arms embargo being renewed which now enables them to supply arms to the Syrian opposition from 1 August.
London and Paris were the only capitals of 27 EU countries that backed allowing the embargo to lapse this Friday, UK foreign secretary William Hague arguing that even the threat of arms would force Bashar al-Assad to the negotiations.
Leaving to one side for the moment how in a Democracy two countries out of 27 can have their own way, in what World do the British and French live where such bizarre logic as sending even more arms to a place where 70,000 plus have already died is a peaceful move that will reduce the killing?
With no popular support amongst the EU countries to arm the rebels, the UK and France are pretty much going it alone with the imbecilic John McCain cheer leading from the sidelines.
In retaliation, the Russians have taking the 300 previously mothballed S-300 anti-aircraft missiles and have dispatched them to Syria using the same mad logic as Hague that the were a 'stabilising factor' that could dissuade 'some hotheads' from joining the conflict.
A great success for the negotiating skills of our Foreign Secretary then as Syria is now being filled with more and more heavy weapons on either side in the most volatile part of the world.
The lessons of arming insurgents in Afghanistan in the 80's and more recently in Libya as well as the mess we created in Kosovo, Iraq, Afghanistan and Libya have obviously been ignored as has recent terrorist attacks on their own soil which have not taught the British and French governments anything about the wisdom of sponsoring terror in other countries.
A taste of what to expect if the Al-Queada linked rebels get their hands on Syria is evident in the rebel held city of Raqqa, where shops which sell alcohol and gambling establishments have been brutally put out of business and a Sharia Court has been set up and women are assaulted for not covering their heads or being out alone. 
The rebels consider 'democracy' and elections' as un-Islamic but these car bombing, chemical weapon firing nutcases are who we are supporting.
The murderous, chemical weapon firing Government is who the Russians are backing and stuck in the middle are the poor Syrians who are dying in their droves.
There are no good guys in this fight and we should be staying out of it so Hague and his French counterpart are crazy if they think that pouring more petrol on this bonfire will bring peace.
We were lied to regarding Iraq and Afghanistan, Libya was a scandalous sleight of hand so we can't be fooled again by the deceiving William Hague and our Government over our insane actions in Syria.
With Russia arming one side, the West the other and the loose cannon that is Israel in the mix, this is not going to end well for anyone, least of all the Syrians.

Swedish Riots??

I think if a riot broke out anywhere in the World i could accept it but Sweden??
I have been to Sweden many times, beautiful landscapes, marvellous cities and warm and friendly people and i have it in my mind that when i clock out for the last day, whenever that is, i will up sticks and move to the Scandinavian country so to hear that there was five days of rioting is as shocking to me as hearing the Queen belching loudly in the face of an Ambassador.
Part of me wants to just ignore it, pretend it hasn't happened and continue thinking of the Sweden that i have in my minds eye and not the Sweden with riot police, burnt out cars and petrol bombs.
The riots which were touched off on Sunday after police shot dead a 69-year-old man who was reportedly roaming the suburb of Husby, a suburb of Stockholm, with a machete.
Not in Sweden, that was my place to escape to and now the disease that blights everywhere else has arrived there.
It's all so thoroughly depressing.

Ignoring The Terrorists Message

After the July 7th attacks which killed 52 and injured 770, Tony Blair denied that the attacks were as a result of British foreign policy although the bombers themselves had left video messages explaining that their actions were directly because of what Britain was doing in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Obviously as he was directly responsible for the madness and mayhem he along with George W Bush unleashed, Blair was anxious to deflect any blame that he was in anyway responsible for the blow-back from his faulty decision making.
As happens with all these attacks, the condemnation is so loud that it drowns out the justifications of the warped minds but although their actions should be condemned, should we be so quick to ignore their message?
The two men involved in the chilling murder of Royal Marine, Lee Rigby, told us what motivated them, the killing of the soldier was in response to the killing of Muslims by British soldiers in other countries.
The bombers in Boston last month were similarly motivated but if we cast our minds back a decade to the rush to remove the Taliban and Saddam Hussein from power, the increasing threat of home grown terrorism is exactly what we were warned would happen.
It is an uncomfortable feeling that those of us who protested against these wars find ourselves condemning the act but having sympathy with the underlying message behind it.
The government and military will go out of their way to avoid drawing the conclusions that they should from the attack, instead keeping the focus on the abhorrent act and radicalisation of the two perpetrators but there is a difference between listening to what the people who do things like this have to say in order to understand their motivation, and accepting their actions as an excuse or justification.
It appears that we should not even try to understand why these two men were so motivated to kill because to pay attention is to somehow reward the killing, easier to dismiss it as an isolated act of terrorism and question Muslims and Islam but ignore the elephant in the room that this is exactly what we were told would happen when we launched our wrong-headed wars a decade ago and to ignore that is dangerously ignorant.

Not Getting The Chicken Insult

Apparently when Sergio Garcia made the crack about serving Tiger Woods fried chicken when asked if he would cook him a meal, there was an audible wince from the audience.
Woods is said to be 'upset' by the comment and Garcia has been suitable contrite and apologetic as a man who is in danger of losing his million pound sponsorship deal with Adidas is expected to be.
If i had been in the audience i would have been one of the few which the comment would have gone completely over my head as racist because somehow saying that black people like chicken has completely passed me by as a racist insult.  
I did feel slightly less confused when the newspaper reviewer on Sky News this morning asked the same question i asked of why was it racist to the host who did his best to expand on the theme of 'because it is' without actually explaining it. 
To an European ear, the fried chicken comment might seem harmless, but it obviously isn't if you're from the US, it's racist.
I'm guessing Garcia knew it would be taken as so and showed his contempt to Woods and a lack of class by making it and if he suffers a slandering for it then it's his own fault, but i'm struggling to make a connection between black people and fried chicken.
Is there particularly something bad about eating friend chicken that i'm unaware of or is it like saying the English drink a lot of tea or that Essex girls are a bit dim but is worse because it brings race into it?
I expect the answer lies somewhere in Wikipedia but i will play it safe and if Tiger Woods turns up for dinner one day, i will just serve beans on toast unless wheat based products are taboo also in which case i will just give him a cup of tea laced with Bromide and make sure he isn't parked anywhere near a tree.

Punishing The Tax Avoiders

So far this year Google, Starbucks, Amazon and now Apple have been exposed as tax avoiders who have paid far less in tax then they should have but the surprise is that anyone is surprised, the purpose of a company is to deliver profits for its shareholders. That's it, they are in business to make a profit and if that means exploiting tax loopholes so they barely pay any tax then they will.
This leaves us with just two options, one for the politicians and one for the consumers.
Governments have to slam shut the loopholes which allow the likes of Apple and Google to shift their profits across national boundaries to avoid paying what they owe, that's down to the politicians but the second choice is something that we can all do, boycott the tax evaders.
The success of any attempt to change the moral compass of a profit driven company comes down to hitting the company in the wallet and if we don't do that we can't complain.
The tales of sweetheart deals between the UKs Revenue Collectors and the likes of Vodaphone and Goldman Sachs prove to us that there may not be the desire for our politicians to go after the big companies so it would be naive to expect the initiative to come from the Governments so it will have to come from us going without the Starbucks coffee or choosing another mobile and leaving the iphone to gather dust on the shop shelf.
A third option is that the companies will change themselves but as we are increasingly living in a world that is run by and for Capitalists, if you believe that then I know a Nigerian ministers wife that would like to meet you and your bank details.

Why Sell RBS?

It isn't very often we get to quote Vladimir Lenin but apart from advice on how to achieve elegant facial hair, he also said the following: 'What, then, is the significance of nationalisation of the banks?  It is that no effective control of any kind over the individual banks and their operations is possible because it is impossible to keep track of the extremely complex, involved and wily tricks that are used in drawing up balance sheets. Only by nationalising the banks can the state put itself in a position to know where and how, whence and when, millions and billions of rubles flow'.
In short, he trusted Banks about as far as he could throw a Romanov Princess and that was almost a hundred years ago so heaven knows what he would say about the banks today because his words still ring true today, banks are still operating a bundle of wily tricks to separate us from our money.
After the numerous scandals that have been exposed in the banking sector, it would seem that keeping such a shabby outfit in public ownership where it can be tightly regulated is in the public interest rather than the current course we are on of nationalising them before cleaned them up at taxpayer expense and then selling them back to the private sector to recoup the public money therefore handing them to a new set of people set to commit the same scandals as the previous owners.
The UK Government plan to sell off its stake in the bailed out RBS before the general election in May 2015, even though this would involve a loss of around £20bn less than the £45.5bn it cost to bail it out.
So why sell it at all and just run it as a nationalised bank? Why hand it over once we have paid to clean it up and set it straight again and take a hit of £20bn on it just as it begins turning a profit?
When the banking crisis first hit in 2008 there was talk of setting up a Government bank, we already have one, RBS, so why are we even thinking of selling it?
The trouble with Capitalism is that eventually you run out of other people's money, just ask the citizens of Greece, Italy, Spain, Portugal, Iceland, Ireland...etc etc

MP's Find Extra For MP's Pay

It was only a few weeks ago that MP Ian Duncan Smith was telling us that he could live on £53 per week but went very quiet when he was asked to prove it so how about living on £1600 per week which is how much an MPs salary is due to go up to, could he do that?
The Independent Parliamentary Standards Authority (Ipsa) who took over responsibility for MPs salaries after it emerged MPs had been fiddling their expenses, have been looking at out Memebrs of Parliaments wages and have decided that the present MP salary of £66,000 per annum is not enough and they want to raise it by between £10,000 and £20,000.
While the average salary has risen by just 0.6% this year and many people are struggling to cope with the rising cost of living, a raise of over three times the £26,500 national average salary is sure to grate with the people these shysters are supposed to represent.
A survey released in January found politicians on average believed they should be paid £86,000 rather than £66,000, with some demanding more than £100,000 and rather obligingly, the Ipsa agreed.
I'd like to see David Cameron and other party leaders defend this one when they have frozen the pay and made redundant tens of thousands of civil and public servants as there is no money available but will be finding an extra £13.2 million from the same taxpayers pot to pay an extra £20,000 to the 660 MPs, many of who are already millionaires.
Over to you Dave, Ed, Nick because remember, we are all in this together.