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Thank you, Paul, for noticing the campaign for real politics as displayed by the Visteon workers.

The dignity of a factory occupation by its employees who have been betrayed by their once and previous employer contrasts spectacularly with the smash-up in the City.

There is a certain symmetry in these events. The City has smashed up the economy and so it is now being smashed up itself. Whilst condemning the the violent disorder one cannot escape a sense of justice.

On the other hand the people at Visteon have been making things and want to continue making things, yet they are the people who are being truly treated very badly. This is where the injustice prevails.

I feel solidarity with the Visteon workers although I also feel quite useless at their predicament. We should support them.

I think this is probably your finest blog posting Paul. Very astute.

Alas, the ³ÉÈË¿ìÊÖ did not have a French or German translator on hand for the grand Merkel-Sarko conference so cut away from it. Unless of course, you are of the belief that some at the ³ÉÈË¿ìÊÖ do whatever Gordon - no one calls him Primeminster anymore - wants and that Merkel-Sarko are only spoiling his plans to save the bankers... I mean, save the economy.

The Isle of Man and the Channel Islands hit back at us Brits today - from today any Brit travelling to the islands will no longer be covered by the NHS there. That will teach us for not bailing out the tax havens when the Icelandic banks went bust!

I am now awaiting an annoucement from the monks on Caldey Island that they are seceding from the Commonwealth and are no longer going to flog their organic ice cream to anyone with a UK passport.

"I can think of no ruling politician who is prepared to say "let the crisis rip", as Hoover did in the early 1930s, and as happened under the Conservatives in the early 1980s."

Is this observation about the Conservatives in the 1980s something that is established as a generally accepted fact? Or is it an unjustified slur by those who wish to deny that there is any alternative to political big-statism as a means of successfully governing modern societies?

#1 Stallinic

I am with you on this one, there needs to be much more protest on the lines of the Visteon workers.

As humans we seem incapable of responding to force change before it is too late, only when people lose thier jobs and know there will be no other job to go to / great hardship before them do they start to take matters into their own hands and act. We are reaching that point now I think, a part of me is relieved at that, it is the real start of arecovery in my view, a recovery of ideology, forced from the bottom up. The rest will follow in time.

The politicians are even slower to respond, it will be a few years before anyone turns this oil tanker of a recession around. By that time things (hopefully) things will look quite different, earnt by the endeavours of the workers of Visteon and those who will follow.

A colleague I knew was made redundant from my employer before Christmas, he has just found a new job...at HBOS...amending ISA policies..he is a qualified and experienced engineer, he is now working for just above minimum wage on fairly routine clerical tasks, he has an architect and a vet for company in the newly formed department working on the same terms as him.

Another engineer I know now works in a card shop.

They are all hugely overqualified for this work but given the choice employers will take them on for obvious reasons.

That does not bode well for the workers at Visteon and the newly unemployed in general or for spending our way out of a downturn if middle class people are now taking minimum wage jobs.

There may be some razmatazz and hope about the G20 but there is a whole load of reality already on its way down the pipeline that can not be stopped.

The real change starts with the workers of Visteon and those who will follow them.

Good luck to you.

Jericoa

Hi Paul,

Dont believe just yet that the new world has arrived with Uncle Sam in the backwater. We'll all be dancing round his markets for a long time yet. The reserve currency, I agree, is another one for the long green grass.

Still, lets enjoy the razzmatazz - Airforce One in Essex, Marine One and Cadillac One sweeping around, 500 entourage, tea with the Queen, Boateng ties, rococco chocolates, Jamie Oliver menus - but above all that priceless 'cats got the cream' smile of Gordon this morning at the press conference. At a price tag of 20million, its sure to be worth every penny to the elites.

Hope you're right about the poor and ordinary joes. Steph thinks the development budget for the poorest countries is being bartered to make the Obama IMF bail-out fund.

I'm off to the pub now but will be back for Newsnight.Cheers!

the 'blue eyed' quip has to be one of the most ignorant statements made yet about the failure of rules. It even beats the 'anglo saxon' jibe.


both demonstrate a financial illiteracy which is the real reason behind why politicians allowed people to do business with no rules.

this is further compounded by politicians talking about morality when they should be admitting their failings. why did Gordon so terrify the FSA they say they were afraid to regulate. Tony even let rip into anyone daring to point out everything was not 'marvellous'.

capitalism hasn't 'failed'. It has worked. If you ignore the rules and laws of economics then the rules and laws will come and bite you on the derriere.


this has to be the central point all the anarchos, revo-socialists, greeny beanies and denial politicians refuse to see.

and its not a complex idea.

re newsnight debate and Liam Halligan's comments:

the credit crunch first hit the nation's consciousness as a crisis in the interbank lending markets due to fears of horrendous losses hidden on (off surely?) the banks' balance sheets.

has this now been resolved by the recapiltalization and socialization of the finance houses? or, as Liam Halligan suggests, has this problem not yet gone away? and have we been merely treating the external symptoms from these cancerous assets?

what he seems to imply is that the original problem has not been properly resolved. or is he just being so last autumn?!

also is the US banking system still technically insolvent as roubini suggested a few months ago? or again is that now a dead issue since the US treasury is now supporting the banks?

or are all these Qs irrelevant now?

"...there is a centre-left, centre-right consensus on display here that the poor, the powerless and the ordinary Joe has to be protected from the heavy impact of stagnation."

You can count among those Joes the millions of US taxpayers who are being systematically robbed by the bailout of the big financial institutions orchestrated by Obama's appointee Geithner.

Joe Six Pack's main hope of seeing any of his money back was for the US banks to sucker Europe into buying their next round of hallucinated "wealth" (think of AIG's London operation during the bubble).

Now that France and Germany have slammed the door on that option, Obama will have to choose between his Wall Street buddies and his people.

Whichever way he goes will show the US to be what it is: a poorer and less economically powerful country. (Of course, it will be in good company.)

I have just seen Newsnight, 2 things stood out.

First

How on earth did those few protestors manage to fight their way through all those journalists outside RBS. looked like the protestors were outnumbered about 5 to 1 by camera crews from the footage I saw.

There is a message in there somewhere about the type of society we have become...


The labour minister (forgot his name already) looked rather non-plussed when it was pointed out to him that a good deal of the government buildings built under PFI finance and now occupied by government are owned by companies that reside in tax havens which the government pay rent to them...ooops.

May be a rather tricky situation to unwind then, maybe the tax havens could retaliate if threatened and lock government out of their offices :). Would we notice ?

The guy who brought this up is a comedian by trade, yet even he felt compelled to call that situation ridiculous!

The ridiculous prize of today must go to the parliamentary labour party and Gordon , clearly basking in the glory of global attension and still selling themselves as the ones to lead us (and the world no less) out of this crisis.

That takes delusion to a whole new level, I actually got the sense that they believed this could start them back on the road to winning the next election!!!

Newsnight comedian take note..such material handed to you on a plate is priceless.


Jericoa

9. At 11:33pm on 01 Apr 2009, Jericoa:

How on earth did those few protestors manage to fight their way through all those journalists outside RBS.

G20: Exclusive snap! Idiot breaks bank window!!

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

Jericoa

Your comments remind me of the fallout from the Seventies.

I used then to buy my shoes from a retailer who was formerly a toolmaker.

You describe yet another deskilling of Britain.

As I shepherded the Eddie's lambs back into the field last night, as they had escaped onto the lane, I recalled that this was how certain of my forebears worked as little as one hundred years ago. Will the past be our future?

Tax on the mainland UK is too high compared to other Anglo Saxon economies. In this society hard work is punished while if one is on dole money than one is pampered beyond all reasonable expediences. It is no wonder than that people try to take their hard earned money offshore. Britain must cut taxes and spending and let people have what they deserve.



By Sikander Hayat