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The hindenburg omen has made an ominious appearence (again)

Is a stockmarket crash around the bend.

OUR WHOLE WAY OF LIFE TO CHANGE - START WITH THE LOW HANGING FRUIT.

Would that Dave had the power - and would that he had half an idea what really matters and how to tackle it.

Both Dave and Nick use the term 'that is just wrong'. Before them, Labour would constantly trot out: 'it's the right thing to do'.

One manifest and agreed blight on British life is Booze. At the last count, Westminster had 19 bars. Close them Dave, IT'S THE RIGHT THING TO DO. Reliance on alcohol IS JUST WRONG.

A user is A USER - whatever the drug.

Some bizarre moderator decisions over the weekend but anyways we saw VJ day remembered and our heroes honoured whilst the BNP representative Adam Walker takes off to be with various far right extremists in Japan (Holocaust Deniers and all) as guests of "Issuikai, a right-wing association that denies Japanese war crimes and wants to build a global alliance of nationalist groups to fight American "hegemony" at least provides a change from our daily diet of the alleged "Jewish hegemony".

Still the usual suspects, some with changed ids, and their profound thoughts such as if you want a fuhrer don't vote for liberal democratic parties will pound on without even a fig leaf for evidence.

If they want to repeat the same tragedies that led to the world being left in ruins then they could go down that road but given even the BNP over here pretends to be a democratic party.

Meanwhile the BNP lost the dyslexia and church bells guy Barnbrook - their only London Assembly member - who has refused the BNP whip apparently.

Probably that is due to his failed leadership challenge against Griffin the man who was subjected to alleged threats to kill by his former BNP publicity officer Collet so they are all just as jolly as you would expect.

#1 kevseywevsey

"The hindenburg omen has made an ominious appearence (again)

Is a stockmarket crash around the bend."

Lets face it you just were never the sunny kid in class as they say.

When you aren't forecasting inter-racial and inter-faith strife you advise me that the "road to hell is paved with good intentions" when it comes to our multicultural society - that I welcome.

By the way when you were the cookieducker I recall you used to say something reverential about jaded_jean who responded that "the country is not ready for me" - that probably relates to the efforts of World War II against the Nazis and the fact that the huge majority of the country despise all that National Socialism stands for.

I just thought I would mention it as I am pretty sure that poster has donned a new id and is back trying to "explicate" far right views.

As far as I can see most don't dispute the need for cuts and those like Labour who pretend that it is quite simple and we could just grow our way out with moderate cuts (that they hardly mention given their integrity) seem to be at odds with the lack of supporting evidence internationally.

Germany is embarked on similar action to us and gained a massive export driven GDP boost partially due to one off construction sector factors in fairness.

The US has policies closer to the labour position and their growth figures remain very wobbly.

How much this has to do with the recovery and how much with secondary factors like sovereign debt would seem to be hard to say.

Anyway whilst I cheerfully support the cuts that the coalition will have to make it would seem to me that they would be very unwise to hold a purely ideological view on the matters as it would seem likely that there could be many twists and turns before we get back to "normal" and therefore I hope that they will deftly use brake and accelerator as required rather than rely on a foot to the floor Labour strategy.

It is surely a matter of concern that Goldman Sachs claimed recently that they did not have a corporate overview of all of the trades that they did - yet apparently on the Huffpost one former employee Garcia-Martinez who said:

"Unbeknownst to most of the non-strategists, you could see basically every position and holding across the company, whether you were supposed to or not."

My worry is that that would suggest that with the SEC having been in there six months before the collapse and with all of the post collapse attention there was no recognition of the apparent importance of the Goldman Sachs risk system, SecDB (which stands for securities database).

On this side of the water does this not suggest that we need draconian penalties for executives who are not as forthcoming as they might be and that the BoE must need to be aware of exactly what each firm can and cannot do so that any future emergency can be genuinely assessed as opposed to sticking a finger into the air?

I didn't keep up with the thread over the weekend but suspect that the entity formerly known as jaded_jean/statist etc is back in new "disguise" on a less than secret mission to "explicate" benefits of national Socialism. There are others who have "similar aims" and endorse those views.

The quick antidote is to mention that the racial aspects of that hateful and evil ideology rely on racial differences existing - and they don't.

There is no scientific consensus that there are any significant differences between the races as genetic variation is greater within a race than between races and skin colour is as cosmetic as it would appear. Propensity to illness varies as much within a race as between races and is not significant.

Culture has nothing to do with race and genetics and is a thing of the mind so back door attempts to circumvent the fact that all of the races are largely descended from a very few individuals come to naught.

This is why the BNP, for instance, could not simply challenge the racial equality law that the EHRC insists they comply with on non-racial membership. They would be shot to pieces.

Then there will be the usual attempts to foster a myth of "Jewish hegemony" that will remain equally barren of evidence and relies on the cult like fixations of the protagonists to try and generate social momentum nonetheless.

They will try to cite this poll or that fact to suggest that Britain does not want a multicultural society when in fact the hard evidence of their voting at general elections shows quite clearly that the vast majority of votes are for democratic parties who fully endorse the fairness and justice of a multicultural society.

People were unhappy about uncontrolled immigration but, largely, that is nothing to with the racial background of the immigrants.

change our whole way of life.....that should be interesting...I wonder if it compares with having an estimated personal fortune of thirty million, connections in the City and never having known the nightmare of redundancy, home taken away, dependent children never having a chance. This is not a knocking job...it is just fact and it applies to Messrs Clegg, Osborn and Cameron....you can always contradict me if you want....

On the Blair British Legion donation I tend to agree with the Brierly view that it is both generous and also "blood money" that should not distract from the utterly wrong actions that he took and has never recanted.

I doubt though that he will ever be taken to court and I would like to see legislation that would inhibit a clique using "sofa politics" to take the country to war - for instance it can't be just the word of the Attorney General that deems such action legal.

#7

Gango

To be honest. I'm quite sure that jj=statist & so on is into a different sort of ball game altogether. He thinks he'll be able to use politicians, journalists, the members of the Royal Family and all kinds of other people as 'useful idiots'. He. may indeed dislike you but it does't look he's used you yet, or has he

Anyway, I'm doing all I can to throw bright lights on his greedy activities.

mim

Singie

It's been proven that to most people alcohol in moderation is good for their health and anyway what would the closures of Westminster bars achieve? Not a lot, I don't think. It's a shame you've assumed the role of a preacher as occasionally you write interesting things in interesting ways.

mim

Gango

I wonder whether you could explain to me what you mean by 'sofa politics'? The reason that I don't understand might be due to the fact that English is not my first language.

mim

SOFA POLITICS

Mim - this was too tempting a question. Do not take my answer seriously.

I suspect 'Sofa Government' is when the exponents employ their fat backsides rather than any cerebral capacity, and where stuffing is magically transposed from the sofa, to the electorate.

A JOURNEY - IN RETREAT

St Tony gave forth abundantly: 'The Journey'. Then Mammon got cold feet and it shrank to 'A' Journey. Now fear has spread wider: What if it doesn't sell an hundred fold? PANIC! Master stroke: SELL IT FOR CHARIDEE! This is Tony we are dealing with, remember, all that matters is IMAGE AND LEGACY (with money and adulation along the way).

The Westminster Ethos allowed elevation of a desperate, delusional juvenile to Prime Minister. He harmed a lot of people. WE have a lot to answer for.

We have completely undermined the benefits of University education. More and more it is being used as a free training system for companies instead of being used for academic studies that are better done by a formal educational system.

If companies returned to the idea that they took school leavers and trained them up within the company, three things would happen of benefit to employers:

1. The employee would be more perfectly trained to the job
2. The employee would not have to be "untaught" first as they would be more of a blank slate
3. The employer would have a better chance of engendering loyalty in their workforce as they have been taken in younger and more eager.

My father was a senior branch manager at a building society many years ago. They did not have a computer system to help them so their maths and their organisational abilities had to be far higher than now - and yet they did not take on graduates. Indeed, my father had little formal education as he had left school at 14 before the war.

However, the company took him on, saw his potential and put him into the management stream. Later, they even offered him the chance to do an economics degree sponsored by them. He worked for that company from the time he came back from India till he retired. He declined more senior roles for health reasons, but he became respected in the City and within the company.

It was a stunningly good way of doing business and offered opportunities to all people from whatever background. Today, to do the modern, computer aided version of the same job, he would have had to do a degree first that he would never need for his job.

I would think there are literally hundreds of types of job that do not require degree level knowledge, but a degree is insisted upon just to help the clearing process.

Going back to the old way would also help the country - our tax funded education resources could be targeted properly at the areas that require very high levels of education such as teaching, sciences, art and so on while the employers who need managers, traders and so on pick up the tab for their own traders and do not clog up our higher education resources.

THE STATUS MENTALITY (#15)

I am suddenly wondering if Status-driven MPs see the labels conferred by universities as 'Status'? Actually being ABLE in Westminster seems of little account - as for being WISE as well as able, dream on.

By the above measure I have no status.

Re: A University education cost:benefit analysis:

1. If 50%+ of the population go on to higher education and we all use the skills graduates have gained, plus those that do get good jobs and earn more therefore pay higher taxes, so why do we bother with fees and graduate taxes? All it does is incur additional cost - if we need an educated workforce we should fund it through general taxation and provide the range of courses the country needs.

2. The current regime of fees and loans is totally irresponsible because it means that graduates can't afford pensions after they've paid for somewhere to live so we are creating a HUGE financial timebomb for the future of the vast welfare cost of keeping people on benefits for decades that will be many times the cost of funding education and introducing a compulsory pension scheme. Willetts goes on about the inter-generational wealth disparity - students leaving college with £25,000 of debt is cementing this into the future.

3. In the age of mobile youth and broadband, how can a three year residential degree be justified anymore in terms of the cost and the lost earnings? End sheepdip lectures and distribute them online/DVD - adopt the Open University approach to regional/local centres - implement virtual tutoring online - there is no need for this archaic way of teaching to continue.

4. Academic vs. vocational - we look down on vocational qualifications and overrate academic ones. The Germans don't do this - they value their engineers and respect their capabilities. The polys went and all became universities - we need to demolish the divide with vocational training too.

5. JOBS! At a time of a very tight labour market, surely we should be expanding education & training to keep young people moving forward - please let's not have another workless generation as happened in the 1980s - we are still paying for it today finanically and socially - there must be training/education or work for EVERY young person and if this means bringing a wealth tax or a mansion tax to pay for it, then so be it.

thegangofone - it seems to me that whilst you spend a lot of time and effort thinking and writing about matters which trouble you, you make one persistent error.

When one thinks about matters which concern one, it's a logical mistake to think that by abusing or trying to silence those who bring such matters to one's attention, this will make such troublesome matters go away.

It's a simple error, but one which is widely made, as such problems never go away by such tactics, they just end up being hidden/ignored etc, and in some instances, they're then taken advantage of by others on the quiet. This persistent error on your part is one which I think you would do well to think about.

For example, in years to come, when unemployment rises due to there being few jobs given a) the disproportionately high birth rate in our big cities (largely amongst those who moved to the UK over recent decades as ecolizzy points out), how will those people live? Where will the money come from to feed and house them? Many jobs which used to be done in this country have been outsourced to places where they in fact migrated from because it's cheaper.

I'd be very interested to hear what your positive solutions to this problem are. I see you abusing others for POINTING OUT that there are problems, but your complaining about these problems being highlighted isn't very helpful is it? These are problems which I think many people would like to see discussed (on Newsnight) by politicians and academic experts.

anyone, these days, who thinks they need physically to go to a university for a degree/education are living by a 20th century model and so deserve the stupidity tax? There is no shortage of 'places'. But if people think so there must be a shortage of intelligence?

With the same money you could train as a handyman/roofer/plumber etc which is more likely to get you money than another long haired yoof with a 2.2 geography degree because they spent 3 years drinking trying to sell charity direct debits.


Blair Tries to Wash His Hands or Conscience?

But will the blood ever come off?


Lockerbie

So who gave the cancer prognosis? A GP, a cancer consultant or Bob the Builder?

Interesting....

:o) I can't wait for the Courtaney Griffiths QC interview tonight!

The Royal British Legion, if it had an ounce of nous, would decline Blair's generous gift and highlight his other gifts as explanation; the hundreds of thousands of dead, maimed and traumatised Iraqi citizens, the military dead, maimed and traumatised, the Exchequer drained of cash, the accelerated rise of Muslim radicalisation and a Labour Party consigned to the wilderness for a generation.

Will someone please nominate him for a Lordship.

Shameful.

"20. At 8:16pm on 16 Aug 2010, ecolizzy wrote:
Interesting...."


But sadly all too predictable. They'll cut regulators even worse than New Labour did as these get in the way of people making money. Still, we don't need a nanny-state do we, any more than children need parents or grown ups need to be told what to do etc. People should be free to make their own choices - whatever the consequences.

See thegangofone and mimpromptu - they're doing just fine. I haven't a clue how they fund it though, have you?

"83. At 08:34am on 16 Aug 2010, ecolizzy wrote:

Over 9 million inactive people age 16 - 64, 23.4% of the population. I wonder when it was last this low."

I suspect your 'problem', like so many other good people's 'problem', is that you just can't believe that there are evil people in the world who only care about others to the extent that they are a means to their own selfish ends. To make it a bit easier, just accept that many doing this are just doing a job for someone else, and that they can't really afford to think very far ahead or look too closely into what they're doing as it's more than their jobs are worth. I bet you grew up after WWII when this country had governments which tried to manage in the best interests of the people rather than just making it easier for those who want to make money out of people. What I'm describing is what happens. Many are mere cogs in a great interlocking economic machine, and they just can't afford to stop turning as I see it.

Here's a question or two for you ecolizzy (and maybe Newsnight's Paul
Mason): With the high birth rate in recently settled inner city areas in Britain, given projected unemployment rate reported upon here in 2009:



what are these young people all going to do?

I see this shambles being part of the greedy property boom. People hiked property prices in order to make money out of a growing population of low skilled people who would only be able to rent. But who was going to pay the rent? Was it to be Local Authorities forking out Job Seekers Allowance and Housing Benefit? If so, where was that money come from? I don't know the answer. Do you?

:o) Excellent interview by Kirsty with Courtaney Griffiths QC.
I don't see why British universities can't use the US system for funding - ie, each student takes out loans to study (or scholarships if talented), and then pay it when they are employed......

This comment was removed because the moderators found it broke the house rules. Explain.

This comment was removed because the moderators found it broke the house rules. Explain.

#12 mimpromptu

Sofa politics is effectively when the ministers don't go through cabinet and the civil service procedures to make accountable decisions but in fact get their mates around and have a coffee on the sofa and work out the decisions where they cannot be challenged or held to account.

The process of the "dodgey dossier" was thought by some to be a steam roller process to "validate" a decision that was already made and the Attorney General who said the war was suddenly legal was Balirs close friend.

BLAIR IS BUYING OFF IGNOMINY NOT GUILT

I think Blair is making sure the book SELLS if only for charity. I do not think he is capable of acknowledging guilt over his wars - it would destroy him.

This comment was removed because the moderators found it broke the house rules. Explain.

This comment was removed because the moderators found it broke the house rules. Explain.

Well I only actually logged on to say that as a Lib Dem voter one of the best ways to refute Labour policies on social mobility that changed very little was to get the singing kettle Croquet Prescott on.

He is surely one of the best advertisements for the coalition going and I hope that they do go on to improve social mobility rather than talk about it as a totem image devoid of real meaning.

#34


Full of contradictions indeed, Gango.

There's gonna be a mosque built at ground zero. Why not just go the next step with this. Why not have an Islamic art centre built in the financial heart of America. We can have video installations of planes slaming into the twin towers with audio of someone yelling 'God is great!' and 'death to the infidels'. Has anybody heard the telepromter president Obumma push this project; the building of a Mosque at ground zero in New York? I swear to God.. someones put more strings on Barry Obama.. and having the lights down low ain't hiding them anymore, frightening stuff this!...talk about having the enemy within..Jesus H!

A BILLION DOLLARS BUYS A LOT OF STRING (#36)

Ask not what Magic Obama can do for America, but ask how his hysterical elevation and impending collapse, mirrors The Towers, The Wars, The Oil Spill and The Money.

Good grief!

THE STARBUCKS EXPERIENCE - EDGY? (#38)

The Newbury Building Soc has a competition to win a: "LONDON THEATRE AND DINNER FOR TWO EXPERIENCE GIFT PACK". I wonder if you can get fries with that?

I suspect all this gratuitous 'adjustment' of language, is the verbal equivalent of the 'sloping photograph' so beloved of our local paper.

#39

Thanks for the info, singie, but personally I'm not into competitions, however disappointing it may sound who 'take part'. It's nothing more than laughable. Disappointed for the one you're sponsoring?

mim