Scottish choices

As I write this, I am listening to the House of Commons debate on the European Union Referendum and hearing and seeing the shameful delaying tactics of the Labour Party.  If nothing else, the fact that Labour is so pro-Europe, might one say slavishly so, illustrates that this organization is a crypto-Socialist organization which fits solidly into the undemocratic mould that all Socialists desire.

Listening though, I am forced to return to the questions raised by the referendum that will be held in September 2014, on the question of whether or not Scotland leaves or remains within the United Kingdom.

These questions, I would suggest, are:

• How long after a yes vote, would it take for separation to occur?
• What would be the split of UK national debt assigned to an independent Scotland? Something around 8.2% - matching the population ratio?
• Similarly, how would pension liabilities be assigned?  Most of these are unfunded and so must come out of future current national income (GDP)
• In the event of a No vote, would that be it?  As in, would the current devolution settlement remain or would there be further concessions granted or demanded?  That is, independence by the back-door - total freedom without real responsibility. 
• Would Scotland have to apply as a candidate member, to join the EU (as I suggested on an earlier post, and now stated by the Spanish PM)
• Indeed, would the UK, which would be something less than when it signed-up for the old European Economic Community, have to re-apply for membership?
• What would happen to the Armed forces?  All fall under the rump UK or would some of the 'Scottish' regiments move to being part of Scotland's defence forces?  Would the military personnel have a choice?
• Back to the EU, if Scotland was admitted as an independent country then surely they would have to adopt the Euro as their currency and not the Pound Sterling as the Scottish Nationalists seem to think is possible?
• Staying with currency, how independent would Scotland really be, if it were able to retain Sterling?  Then its economic policy would effectively be set by Westminster not Holyrood. Mind you, if it joined the Euro, it's economic policy would be set by Berlin.  Funny kind of independence!
• If Scotland votes No, will the UK Government have the courage to abandon the Barnett Formula, which sees Scotland getting a disproportionate share of public spending, particularly welfare, and adopt a more equitable system?  Better yet abolish welfare all together

If you are wondering why I continue to pose these questions it is because these have not been answered by the Scottish Nationalist's papers on the subjects.  The recent Scottish Parliament White Paper is long on waffle and obfuscation and very short on facts.  Scotland will enjoy free this and free that, when the yoke of London is lifted etc. but no mention of how all of that is going to be paid for!

Anyone care to answer any of these?

The dark side of Labour and Parliament.

UK politicians are generally held in low esteem by the public.  It takes a lot to dislodge Estate Agents and Lawyers from the title but MPs and councilors are now competing against tabloid journalists for the dubious title of least trusted 'professions' .

Even with issues like Plebgate, the police are still viewed more favourably than politicians.  Imagine, the police stitch-up a senior member of the coalition-leading Conservative party and yet they are still considered to be 'better' than politicians!

The latest revelations to surface relate to the Labour party and concern the recently former chairman of the Cooperative Bank and his affinity with drugs and seemingly 'having inappropriate gay porn images on his council provided computer'. 

The Labour party has surpassed itself in the way it is trying to distance itself from Paul Flowers, the Methodist minister that they allowed to be appointed as chairman of the Cooperative Bank.  When Flowers was appointed, he was somehow found to be a 'fit and proper person' despite being previously convicted for drink driving and gross indecency.     This is the same bank that developed a £1.5billion hole in its balance sheet, under Flowers' watch, following the acquisition of the Britania Building Society.  The same bank and organization that, like the unions, provides funding to the Labour party (any connection, one wonders).  In the case of the Cooperative Group this includes funding, via direct payments to the tune of at least £50,000, the office of Ed Balls, the Labour Shadow Chancellor and, through providing a significant overdraft of £3.9 million to the party at what are reportedly 'unusually generous terms'.

Given all that Labour has received from the Co-op, you would maybe expect a bit of loyalty but no.  Damage limitation is the name of the game and so Paul Flowers and the Co-op are thrown to the wolves.  The Cooperative Bank has now been rescued by the darlings of the left, the hedge funds!

In typical Labour fashion, they claim that any inference that they closed their eyes to Flowers' appointment is a smear tactic used by political opponents.  This is the same tactic that is used by all so called 'progressives' whenever their policies or actions are questioned.  Want to talk about immigration?  You must be a racist!  Did you mention homosexuality?  You are a homophobe!  One can never question the integrity of a Labour politician because they are, 'well you know a straight kind of guy' party.

Make no mistake, just as with the scandal at Falkirk, where the Unite union (Labour's biggest financial backer) tried to pack the selection process with union paid members, this Co-op scandal will further stain the Labour party.

However, the Labour party led by Ed Miliband (one of whose 'business advisors was the same Paul Flowers!) are not alone in dragging politics into the gutter (or a place lower than the gutter (House of Commons?)).

 We have also heard, in recent weeks of Nadhim Zahawi MP, of the Conservative party,  who claimed £5,882 for energy bills, seemingly to, in part, heat his stables.

We have Dennis McShane, former Labour minister, who has admitted expenses fraud.

Chris Huhne the darling of the left in the Liberal party and proponent of crackpot 'green policies' was jailed earlier this year for perverting the course of justice.

The list goes on and on.

There are some honest politicians with integrity - lest I be accused of anti-Labour bias, Dennis Skinner and Frank Field immediately spring to mind - but one gets the distinct impression that they are in the minority.  That is likely not fair but that is the impression.  Time and again we have stories where it is apparent that for many MPs, the sole purpose of being in parliament, is to milk the system for all you can, and in some cases, for a bit more, if you can get away with it.

I can't think of a stronger word than venal but I'm open to non-foul-mouthed suggestions!

So I have had a rant but honestly can't think how the position can be changed.  Ed Miliband and Labour are so dependent upon vested interest funding from the unions that, even if they wanted to clean house, they simply couldn't.  The Lib Dems must be treated with suspicion because their solution would lead to state funding of political parties.  The Conservatives?  Many Conservatives, from David Cameron on down, seem to just think that being in government is it.  Policies and integrity, who needs them, we have 'red boxes'!

What a sorry state in which we find British politics! 

Poverty?

I think it is funny, in a perverse kind of way, how words get twisted around and come to mean different things to different people.  Now we also see that words can have geographical changes.

I have been thinking about poverty.  The pictures of the victims of Typhoon Haiyan, in the Philippine Islands, showed that before their lives became so sorely affected by this powerful force of nature, they lived, in many cases, in what a Westerner, applying a  'Third World' perspective, would call poverty.   They often lacked basic amenities such as clean water, sewage systems, regular access to food, etc..

Rightly, the World is stepping-up efforts to provide relief to these people and we should all make our own contributions rather than just relying on governments to do it.

Thinking on this got me on to the mis-use of the word poverty, within the UK.  (This probably also applies in other Western countries).

In the UK poverty becomes defined as not having the latest I-phone or wide-screen TV or fashion label.  Poverty sometimes means having to choose between beer, cigarettes, drugs or food for the table.

In the real-world of real poverty, these choices simply don't exist.  And exist is the word.  In the real-world of poverty, the only choice is can I put bread on the table.  Can I put food into the belly of my children?  Whether to go for an I-phone 5S or go for the lesser but, 'hey the colours are really nice' 5C doesn't enter the mind of these people.

I lived in South Africa for a while.  The beautiful city of Cape Town.  I remember being told a story of people from the townships - both parents working - who for them, the daily struggle was really about putting bread on the table.  Not bread and jam or bread and butter, just bread.  I have also traveled throughout Asia and other parts of Africa and as I have done so, I have seen similar examples of poverty.  And I am sure that in my western-cosseted lifestyle, I missed a whole lot more and a whole lot worse, during my travels.  So I don't consider myself an expert, but...............

I cannot help contrast  this real-world poverty with the way the UK media and Socialists and similar types apply double standards - so we have 'poverty in the UK', which has come to mean not being able to survive on a capped benefit level of £26,000 a year and then we have 100's of millions of people who get by (or tragically, sometimes don't) on less than a $1 a day.

In the eyes and twisted minds of some, these two levels of poverty have equivalence.   Except, they don't.

The poverty I have seen a first hand is what most sane people would consider to be real poverty.  These people suffer the lack of access to basics like clean water and food and, above all, opportunities.  They often have no real chance to break-out of their ugly life-cycle.  They are born into poverty, struggle through an often overly-short life of it and cannot escape.  Those in so called poverty in the UK, do have the opportunity to escape.  There are opportunities to 'get on'.  There are opportunities to make choices - 'I-phone or dinners for a month?'  Many of the poor in Britain think though that they are 'entitled' to both but given the choice would choose the I-phone because the 'state' will take care of the food, won't they?

Socialists and liberals, who have the temerity to call themselves, progressives, love to have social experiments.  Remember all of those social housing tower blocks provided by councils up and down the UK?  ''Vertical communities or 'communities in the sky' they were sometimes called.  These replaced real communities, where people were born and lived 'cheek by jowl', with cells where people could live and eventually die,  in isolation.

Anyway, I wonder if I could interest them in a truly enlightening experiment.  Let's take  number of Britain's 'poor' - let's say 100,000 and transplant them into a Third World poor environment.  Doesn't matter where.  Let's then take the same number of people from that host country/city and put them into the homes of the UK transplantees and give them state benefits but, since they are used to existing on a lot less, let's make these capped at £13,000 a year or 50% of the current welfare cap.  Before  any 'lefties' start howling, consider that the current welfare cap is higher than the national average, pre-tax and national insurance, wage of £25,000.  That means that there are a lot of people in the UK who work and earn less than £25,000 a year. 

Somehow, I would see the British 'poor' struggling in the host country, while the 'real' poor would thrive in the UK.  There is an old saying about a poor man 'not needing a hand-out but a hand-up'.  Maybe such an experiment would do just that!

Of course there is poverty in the UK but to my mind, the real poverty in the UK is government made.  And specifically, the work of the last Labour government.  And now maintained by the Liberal Democrats in the current coalition government.  This poverty is fuel poverty.  People are being forced to make choices between heating a home or feeding their family.  I am talking here of working people and pensioners facing these choices.

Why?  Well Labour and the Lib Dems would have you believe that this is all the fault of the energy companies that are working in concert to fleece the British fuel consumer.  Acting in concert would be illegal but because Labour and the Lib Dems know that there is no evidence to support their claims that just make them as soundbites rather than pursuing through legal channels.

Labour and the Lib Dems know, categorically and absolutely, that the so called 'green taxes' that they love - greater than life itself - contribute far more to fuel poverty (3 to 4 times as much), than the so called excessive profits of the energy companies.  And these taxes are set to continue rising, year on year, for the foreseeable future.   

If we want to eradicate poverty in the UK, then abolish these 'green taxes'.  End the subsidy for 'renewables' and lift people who are suffering genuine hardship, out of fuel poverty.  Pensioners who have paid into a system, all of their working lives,  shouldn't have to be making the kind of choices that they will face this winter.  Neither should low-waged working people.

I strongly dislike the idea of taxes but while we are at it, why not put a tax on the mis-use of the word poverty?  Charge the Socialists every time that they bang on about the poor in the UK.  Ed Miliband is a millionaire, he can afford it! 

The American idea of friendship?

I don't have a Webster's dictionary to hand but would struggle to believe the definition of friendship includes anything like the way the current US administration (and recent former ones!) is treating its friends and allies.

I am not a gambling man but I would bet the equity I have in my house, that Angela Merkel is not plotting the overthrow of Western civilization and its replacement with a Sharia compliant caliphate,  with Al Qaeda.  Does anybody really think that Francois Hollande has the time for such plotting?  Thinking up more and more daft taxes to impose on his benighted citizens takes up so much time, there is too little left for proper plotting.

And yet......  If the leaks from Edward Snowden are to be believed, then that is what the folks in the US Administration think is happening.  Somehow these people have got it into their heads that the 'war on terror' requires them to spy on whomever they choose.  Prime Minister of Spain?  You bet! UN Secretary General? Of course!  Millions of Americans? For sure!  

How do I know that is what they're thinking?  Well how else can the USA possibly justify spying on its friends?  The only justifiable reason to spy on Merkel would be to get hold of her Sauerkraut recipe, which is said to produce a result that is only surpassed by her Lebkuchen one (Lidl and Aldi both follow this, trust me, but don't ask me how I know!) 

Those of us, of a certain age, remember the 'cold war'.  Amongst us intelligent ones (as opposed to the fellow travelers), we always understood that certain actions, let's call them spying, would be undertaken on our behalf, to protect us.  I am sure that we also suspected (and condoned) the fact that sometimes our enemies - foreign or domestic - might be legitimate targets and even that they could end-up being killed by our security services.  It was a war and as such casualties are inevitable. 

Part of the acceptance came from a belief that our system was better than theirs.  That we had freedoms that were worth protecting and fighting for and that sometimes playing a little dirty was required and therefore acceptable. 

Now though our 'system' is coming to look a whole lot like the systems of control that we, in the West, fought against.  In the UK, we have a Conservative-led coalition (or at least on paper, Conservative-led) seeking to impose severe restraints on press freedom.  From the USA we have widespread snooping on foreigner's mail and phone calls - OK to some US readers that might be acceptable - they're foreigners, after all - but we also have US citizens having their own mail and phone calls snooped on.  In the USA you don't have the Stasi on street corners asking you for your papers, but you do have drones flying overhead and you being watched by people in darkened rooms, simply because they can.

And that really is it.  The NSA and it's co-conspirator, the British GCHQ, do all of this snooping because they have the technology to do so.  They are boys with toys and have to use them.  They are the kid that gets a remote controlled helicopter for his birthday and then has to use it to 'buzz' his neighbour's house simply because he has this new toy and since his dad got it for him, he is going to make sure his son's 'constitutional right' to fly the toy are protected.

We are told that Al Qaeda and other terrorist organisations are really smart and getting smarter and more sophisticated.  While many of their weapons are crude - suicide bombs, for example - they are an implacable and intelligent enemy.  So, how many of them, do you think, are getting on their cell phones and directing their 'martyrs' to the next atrocity or sending e-mails detailing their upcoming plans?  I suspect that because these terrorists are well aware of the counter-measures used by the West, such as snooping, then they resort to old-fashioned methods of communication like a whispered conversation in a crowded street or behind locked doors.  

And then there is the hypocrisy.  Remember how the USA was enraged when it discovered that its erstwhile allies, the Israelis, were spying on it?  I am sure that at the time, there would have been Senators and Representatives and other 'nodding heads' condemning this as being unfriendly, 'these are not the actions, we, Americans would expect of a nation that we consider, a friend' etc..

Going back to those domestic drones for a moment, consider this.  One of America's contributions to the English language is the term 'going postal' - where someone becomes so deranged at slights, real or imagined, that they just load-up on guns and ammo and go to the scene of their humiliation and start killing all and sundry.   Think though about those guys in the darkened rooms, looking at these monitors.  Think about them just maybe 'losing it'.  That cheerleader that said no, when she was asked to the prom?  The number plate of her car can be read from 25,000 feet.  That 'jock' who always gave lesser beings and nerds a wedgie?  His cell phone can be tracked, wherever he is.  And hey, the guy in the darkened room has rapid fire weapons and a hellfire missile or two.   But Americans have nothing to fear.  It couldn't happen in America right?  There are controls on all this kind of stuff, aren't there?

 Bottom line is that friends don't spy on friends.  That for freedom to have any meaning, a government shouldn't be spying on it's own people.  Terrorism isn't just about bombs and assassinations - it is also about creating a climate of fear such that the values that we hold dear and which are anathema to the terrorists, we agree to relinquish, in the belief that it's part of the 'war on terror' and yet, by us doing so, the terrorists win!      

America and Drugs

Why is it, do you think, that America spends so much money and effort fighting drugs that it has declared illegal, such as cocaine, marijuana and heroin and yet the two most dangerous drugs are ignored?

The two most dangerous drugs?  Sugar and debt.

Americans consume vast quantities of both.  Indeed the abuse of the former, because it leads to great obesity and a strain on medical systems, inevitably increase the need for the latter - a vicious circle of addiction.

I suppose that there might be something to be said for de-criminalising  the currently illegal drugs and taxing them, so that tax dollars on prevention could be saved and revenue raised.  I am not really sure where I stand on the argument - the 'war on drugs' seems to be a guerrilla-type one where the US gains some occasional small victories but the 'enemy' is too entrenched to actually be defeated.  All I have managed to come to know of the effects of drug use clearly demonstrate the very negative side-effects of such abuse but........

 Anyway back to America's drugs of choice.

Americans now consume, on a per capita basis, more than 34 Kg (75lbs)  of sugar in one form or another, each year.  The number 34 might be some kind of 'mystical' one as that is also the percentage of adult Americans that are classed as obese!  It seems that much of this consumption comes via so called,'soft drinks' - fizzy colas and such - rather than through refined sugar being ladled onto breakfast cereal or stirred into coffee or tea.  What's the common denominator when eating out in the US?  Some restaurants will have steak and other meats on the menu, some will just have vegetables, some pizza but not pasta etc., but all will offer soft fizzy drinks, which are loaded with sugar.  

Oh and don't think I am excusing the Europeans from this addiction, like with the other drug of choice, debt, the European Union members are mimicking the abuse seen in America but today's topic is America.

Think of what that level of sugar intake is doing to America's health and consequently it's economy.  All those emergency room visits for heart attacks - that isn't cocaine or heroin, that's sugar and it's consequential obesity.  All those large gas guzzling cars - that's the size vehicle that is needed to transport these larger people around.  Here's a visual for you.  Think of a small compact car - a Mini or a Micra or a Fiat 500.  Now think of trying to fit four average Americans inside.  Not working?  Brain can't get there?  Try two average Americans, maybe now you get a fuzzy outline of a picture?  You get my point, anyway.

 Now we move on to the other addiction - debt.  Quick pop quiz for you.  How many zeros in a trillion?  Don't know or can't guess?  Go on try, there's 6 in  million and 9 in a (US) billion so.......  You got it, 12.

Another question, what was the US debt level in 1980?  Less than $1T (I can't be bothered with all those zeros!).  2006 level?  $8T.  Currently it is north of $17T.  Think about that for a moment.  By 1980, America had accumulated, in its 204 years of independence, debt of $1T, 15 years later it had 8 times that level of debt, then during the Obama presidency, the amount has more than doubled again!  Think of that in an addicts frame of mind.  In 1980 you were smoking one joint or doing one line of cocaine a day but now you are smoking 17 joints or doing 17 lines of coke, a day! 

Americans are hooked on debt and as with most addicts (or at least how they are always portrayed), once hooked, just want evermore!

An American colleague tells me that when you add in the unfunded liabilities like Medicaid and pensions, then the debt level rises to $60T, even if that is only half right, that is truly scary.

Without concerted action to wean America off of it's debt addiction, Americans, for generations to come, will be paying the price for today's bingeing.

And please don't tell me that America is on the road to addiction-recovery.  The anemic spending reductions that have been put in place will still cause the debt to rise to $25T by 2023 - yes, in 10 years, the debt ceiling will increase by a further 50%.

And that is actually a conservative estimate.  Conservative because it pre-supposes that America can continue to export its inflation to the rest of the world and can continue to offload Treasury paper.  What happens though if over, say, the next ten years, the US Dollar starts to lose it's position as the world's reserve currency?  It isn't such a far-fetched idea.  China is starting to flex it's financial muscle.  Imagine if the Chinese, the world's largest producer and purchaser of gold, decided to back their Renminbi currency with gold and to make it freely tradeable.  The latter might be a way off but suppose you were a Middle Eastern government oil company and you were offered gold-backed currency rather than being paid in US$ which continue to lose value?  Not a difficult choice, is it? Can't happen?  Check out who are the largest investors in Iraq's oilfields.  Clue, it isn't those US oil companies that supposedly pushed Bush to go to war for oil, in 2003.  Nor is it the British oil companies that perhaps led Tony Blair and his Labour party to produce the so called 'dodgy dossier'. 

Maybe then, that's the solution.  Since America won't confront it's addiction problem, the rest of the world will need to do it for them.  To send America into 'rehab' by not buying it's debt or trading in it's devaluing currency and thereby forcing America to face the grim reality of a it's addiction.  Could be a win/win situation - America reduces government spending and, in the process the 'hardship' that ensues makes the average American reduce their soft drinks intake, simply because they cannot afford it.

Maybe but don't hold your breath.  There seem to be so few US politicians with the courage to hold-up a mirror and say, 'America take a good look, you are obese and you are getting worse and doing it on other people's money.  This cannot continue.'  There may be some honest politicians but I do not discern any with the courage required to deliver the needed message.

Oh, again!  the same applies to Europe though, as with so much in the 20th century, Europe lags behind the US but, is on the same downward spiral!

Apologies for being so depressing!  Who knows, maybe mirror manufacturing will lead to a revival of America's economy and prospects!