Politics

[sejintenej]

dsmg; I would have written the same if I had known you are in Spain. Yes, what you write exists and is well known; on on,e occasion in the early 1960s I had to count by hand £5 million equivalent of 100 peseta notes - the proceeds, I suspect, of tobacco smuggling in the Algeciras area. It is just that itis better publicised than elsewhere. I used to have to go to Italy and Switzerland and saw the Mercedes crossing and taking huge quantities of cash to the lawyers. I know the companies ran three sets of books, lopsses for the taxman, breakeven for owners and the truth (perhaps) for management. Then there was a famous small-arms company which could avoid all taxes.
Then we have the "strange" situations like the law that parents must support their children; last year one 45 year old man sued his pensioner parents because they were not adequately supporting him by giving him cash, won and bankrupted them. There is a similar requirement in another EU country though that is far more pervasive. I haven't seen that in the UK but there are innumerable cases of questionable behaviour; there was a bequest made to a NHS hospital top be used for the benefit of patients but the money was used for a party including the printing of special paper serviettes.
Someone wrote that this does not concern the Nordic countries; perhaps not but questionable behaviour does exist in at least one of them from what I have seen personally.

[rockfreak]

Daniel, you may have been reading the same polls that I've been seeing, showing a surge in support for Podemos in Spain (a movement developed from the Idignados direct action group in Madrid) which is now polling 28% and leading the other two parties, and in Greece, Syriza, the leftist protest group is now polling 25% in the opinion polls and beating the mainstream party and also whacking the Nazi Golden Dawn party back down to 4.5%. The centre-left party in Italy, Democratic Party, has come surging through to dwarf the right-wing parties. This has all happened pretty quickly, showing that Europe generally is fed up with the working people being asked to bear the austerity while the investment bankers, hedgies, private equity sharks, rich tax dodgers and other greedy, unpatriotic trash continue to get away with it.

[rockfreak]

It's official. Thatcherism has failed. The OECD last week tells us that there's been trickle-up rather than trickle-down. But I think we knew that anyway, didn't we? It's a sobering thought that the three Labour MPs (I think it's three?) produced over the years have been nullified by the beast that crawled unnoticed out of CH called Steve Hilton, the Malign Magyar. He it was who organised Cameron's election campaign so he it is who must bear some blame as this dreadful government moves farther to the right than anything Thatcher managed and tears up the last vestiges of a fair and just society.

[Donsimone]

The optimist in me hopes for an imminent seachange in European politics as anybody can see that this menage-à-28 is not working. Italy, where I live, seems pretty emblematic of the intractability of the current woeful situation. What should be a massively prosperous nation has been impoverished by years of monstrous malpractice at the highest levels of government. Despite being a founding signatory of the EU, it's also considered one of the PIIGS, along with ( Southern ) Ireland ( as dodgy a horse-trader of a state as any but which often slips under the radar ). The land of amore and bambini is also the land of endemic corruption par excellence. I don't want to sound like the Rutger Hauer android character at the end of Blade Runner but suffice to say that, generally invisible to the tourist eye, its a place of extreme volatility. Cynicism and sentimentalism tango together in perfect equilibrium to create the fertile terrain for the various mafie to thrive with the collusion of the state, along with populist politics and of course the Vatican which has its lair smack in the middle of the 'boot' and is no stranger to scandal.
I've lost count of the number of governments since the end of WWII, there hasn't been an elected Prime Minister for years if you discount the brief tenure of Letta before he was ousted by the self-appointed Renzi, a sort of bad clone of Tony Blah-blah-blah.
I really don't know what's happened to the principled application of the concept of enlightened self-interest when it comes to Eurozone leaders – the Euro, which always looked a bit like it fell off the back of a lorry, may well fall backwards off a cliff if it keeps up with this vicious circle of 'austerity' i.e. rich men asking poor men to settle for being poorer while they get richer. This will inevitably open the door to the populist Robin Hoods - the difference being that he had a king to serve.
It's really regrettable that the UK has relinquished its sovereignty to these bureaucratic EU smurfs.
Are they elite – or effete? Power and luxury have always had a real affinity but there's a reasonable argument to state that we've moved beyond plutocracy – to pornocracy.

Shame – now there's an old-fashioned principle - on the lot of them.

[J.R.]

.... and now it looks like Greece may well vote for a far left Government before the end of the year.

That really must worry Merky Merkel and Co !!

[rockfreak]

In reply to Donsimone. While I personally feel that the Euro is unsustainable and will probably implode of its own contradictions one day, I do feel that there are some things we can only do in tandem with the rest of Europe. Dealing with the offshore tax havens is one; damping down damagingly speculative financial trades is another. In both these cases it is the British Tory government that is dragging its feet. One of the things Italy can take credit for is banding together with France, Germany and others in trying to impose a Tobin tax on trades across Europe. Guess which country has refused to participate? Why, Britain of course. The Tory government, frightened of offending the Dodge City gamblers in the City of London, the very people who bankroll it fifty percent at election time, the very people who brought our economy down in 2007.
I believe that this whole anti-EU thing in Britain is to do with jobs. Immigrants compete for jobs. We are up to our necks in rents, mortgages etc, Job insecurity is endemic. Of course we're worried (well, those still in the workforce, that is). Who wouldn't be? When I was younger I could live cheaply (rent controls, more social housing, etc). Now, the oligarchs are buying up London and squeezing out working Londoners. But the right-wing papers always punch down and blame those at the bottom. When will the Daily Telegraph say a word against those real immigrant chancers, the Russian and Bulgarian, er, businessmen?
What is the nature of the anti-European wedge in Italy, Donsimone? Over here they are pretty bizarre. Every week there's a new UKIP scandal involving racism, homophobia or misogyny. A recent one involved UKIP figures Roger Bird and Natasha Bolter. What happened? Did Roger roger the bird? Did Natasha do a bolter? They couldn't seem to agree. Then there's Neil Hamilton. You've maybe heard of a play called "Six Characters in Search of an Author"? Well Hamilton always seems to be "One Politician in Search of a Party". Maybe he and his wife should go back to doing gameshows on telly.

[sejintenej]

Let me express my fury at someone who appears not to know what he is writing about - OR is very possibly trying toi cause an upset.

My real and detailed reply has been sent by email

[Donsimone]

In reply to Donsimone. Dealing with the offshore tax havens is one; damping down damagingly speculative financial trades is another.
What is the nature of the anti-European wedge in Italy, Donsimone?

Shame the fox has been put in charge of the hen house - the Ruritanian Jean-Claude Juncker is thee man to guarantee mindblowing unfairness, having been personally responsible for setting up a tax scam in Luxembourg which dwarfs the mightiest efforts of the likes of Bernie Madoff. If you subscribe to the trickle-down theory of prosperity, well, all I can say is you'd just better give your coat a thorough brush before venturing out into public with something very nasty clinging to your lapel ..

Italians are generally a pretty uncomplaining lot but the Movimento 5 Stelle, allied with UKIP in Brussels, is a genuine expression of outrage which plays down the careerism in favour of grass-roots activism. ( Grillo, their 'guarantor' is an acquired taste but he stays out of Parliament anyway. ) They volunteered to give away half their salaries, refused to accept millions of euros in party finances offered to all major political parties and so on. Their heart is in the right place if not always their head, nice to see a little revolutionary spirit in these disenchanted times though.
Suffering as I do from both a keen sense of pathos and a lack of scorching naivety, I don't currently see any way round the usual problem of so-called 'stable' consensus - i.e. 'Antagonist' A cosies up behind the scenes to 'B'Stard' B to facilitate disaster D to pull the wool over the eyes of citizen C. Net result, both A and B get richer. Quelle surprise.
( BTW my thoughts go out to the satirists blown away by the posturing maniac 'terrorists' in Paris - at a time like this, we could all do with a little more satire, not less. )
IMHO greedy self-obsessed fanaticism in all walks of life is exactly what fuels the culture of revenge and ultimately stops us from forming representatives who believe in a shift to a disinterested future.
Think I'll have a glass of Sangiovese.

[J.R.]

.... and now it looks like Greece may well vote for a far left Government before the end of the year.

That really must worry Merky Merkel and Co !!

Looks like I was right back last year !!

[rockfreak]

Freaky gets yet another of his letters into the Guardian (20 March) challenging young Gideon's lies about the economy ("What the chancellor didn't put in his budget"). I do love that episode in The Revolution will be Televised where they waylay him as he goes in to make his Mansion House speech and try to present him with a book called Basic Economics.
The banks are still getting up to their tricks. UKUncut will be targeting HSBC tomorrow (Saturday) in various towns to help keep this issue alive.

[J.R.]

Freaky gets yet another of his letters into the Guardian (20 March) challenging young Gideon's lies about the economy ("What the chancellor didn't put in his budget"). I do love that episode in The Revolution will be Televised where they waylay him as he goes in to make his Mansion House speech and try to present him with a book called Basic Economics.
The banks are still getting up to their tricks. UKUncut will be targeting HSBC tomorrow (Saturday) in various towns to help keep this issue alive.

The banks will ALWAYS be up to naughties.

They are too fire-proof in my humble opinion.

[rockfreak]

They used not to be up to their tricks John until Nigel Lawson deregulated them in 1986 - when the functions of the investment banks and the retail banks were merged. Up till then the investment banks (or merchant banks as we used to call them) knew that if they played fast and loose they would not get bailed out. Once they had our money to play around with they knew that the government would always rescue them if push came to shove because otherwise the ATMs would dry up on the instant and the high street would collapse. You and I will remember when we went to see our bank manager at one of the old clearing banks, as they were called (Lloyds, NatWest, Midland, etc) to say nothing of the old building societies, and the guy rather resembled the old boys in Mary Poppins, exhorting the youngsters to save the pennies and the pounds would take care of themselves.
The whole set-up is different now and they thrive by trying to sell you vast amounts of credit. Before the crash Britain was apparently the most privately indebted country in developed Europe and it's evidently getting back to that level now. The Vickers Report has been kicked into the long grass until 2019, presumably because the Tory party doesn't want to offend the City - the people who bankroll 50% of its election campaign.
And of course tax havens have prospered under the modern deregulated globalised financial system. It's that much harder for nation states to keep track of things.

[sejintenej]

They used not to be up to their tricks John until Nigel Lawson deregulated them in 1986 - when the functions of the investment banks and the retail banks were merged. Up till then the investment banks (or merchant banks as we used to call them) knew that if they played fast and loose they would not get bailed out. Once they had our money to play around with they knew that the government would always rescue them if push came to shove because otherwise the ATMs would dry up on the instant and the high street would collapse.

Sorry but your supposition is insufficient.
Yes, we had that feeling about the clearing banks bt it was never that the government would bail them out but that the Old Lady would "arrange" things as they did in at least one case during my time. Overarching everything there were nice simple rules - 8% of total deposits had to be held in the branches as cash - fivers, tenners, quid notes. Then there was a higher level of "paper" which the B of E would discount same day under its strict rules plus (from memory they were included here) market quoted government issued bonds etc.. The balance of 30% of total deposits could be in readily marketable stock exchange securities which could be sold within 3 days. Beleive it or not I had all this drilled into me before I was 15.

As for the "merchant banks" we were very very tightly controlled. The above rules applied but since we were "guaranteeing" the paper which the Old Lady was allowed to discount (see above) things were tight. The "banking" side of the merchant banks was totally separated from the M and A side and we didn't even know the people who worked there. When I had exceptionally to work with someone from the 5th floor on a specific (banking) deal I had to give further security bundertakings in case he said anything untoward. As for government support just try to research the secondary banking crisis of the late 70's - there was none and even the banks' cusztomers didn't know there had been a crisis.

[J.R.]

.... and even after the last crisis, the top 'fat-cats' in banking are STILL awarding themselves massivive bonuses that most of us would just die for. are they immediately transfered to an offshore account, perchance ??

[rockfreak]

Yes, and HSBC is the biggest rotten apple in a pile of rotten apples when it comes to tax avoidance and evasion. The Tax Justice Network estimates that we lose something like £100 billion a year this way, enough to sort out our financial problems overnight rather than bleeding dry those at the bottom of society.
UK Uncut at least had the satisfaction of closing them down today with our picketing. We taped them up and declared them a crime scene in London, Cambridge, Cardiff, Shrewsbury and Taunton.