Boycott WC 2022

So now we have the decision from the FIFA 'working party'.  They suggest that the only option for holding the football World Cup, in Qatar, is to move it from the summer months to November and December.

This will cause significant upheaval to European soccer whose national leagues will be in full flow, at that time.  Given also that 75% of all footballers at the World Cup play in those leagues, the turmoil is not confined to European national teams.

I doubt we will ever get an honest answer as to why the World Cup was awarded to Qatar.  Any chance of delving into the allegations of corruption are more than likely to meet a wall of silence and all of the client nations of Sepp Blatter - clients because they are dependent on the largesse of Sepp and FIFA - will vote, time and again, to keep this stinking mess, concealed.  I doubt that anybody involved with the selection process will ever face the consequences of a flawed decision - why did it seem to come as a surprise that Qatar has summer temperatures of more than 40 C?  What kind of bid validation process, ignores that?  Belatedly, FIFA have realised this is an issue and so have come-up with this crazy and highly disruptive proposal.

So now we need leadership from UEFA and its president, Michel Platini and all of the national football associations.  The simple position is that UEFA and all its members must now declare that they will not participate in the 2022 World Cup.  The emphasis being on now.  Now, as in before sponsors sign-up for the lucrative deals that fund the extravagant lifestyle of  Blatter and his allies.  Now, as in before Blatter is re-elected in a bought-votes election.  

You know what to do!

The English Vow

Immediately prior to voting commencing for the Scottish Referendum, UK political leaders issued a so called 'vow'.  This promised certain changes to the constitutional settlement, post vote, should a No vote be achieved.  Subsequently, the Smith Commission has convened and published a report on the devolution of further powers to the Edinburgh parliament.

What though of the English?  Where is the 'vow' for them?

It is clear that the Scottish Nationalists, who despite losing the referendum seem to be the party that is in a rampant ascendancy in Scotland,  intend to be very meddlesome in English and UK politics.  There is a certain irony in a party that wants no part of the UK being committed to becoming so heavily involved in those self-same politics.  However, this hypocrisy is then compounded when the SNP announce that they will, in the next parliament intend to participate very frequently in UK and English politics and will use their parliamentary right, to vote on purely English matters.   So for the SNP, they would not extend their 'Scottish votes for Scottish matters' to the English.

The SNP have already stated that they could not conceive of forming any kind of a coalition with the Conservatives, so that means they could only get into bed with Labour.  Irony heaps upon irony since the SNP are probably the second largest barrier to Labour achieving an outright majority at Westminster.  The biggest barrier is the Labour party itself - economically incompetent and very badly led are just two of the factors.

How about a new 'vow' ?  One signed-up to by the leaders of the Conservatives, Labour, Lib-Dems, UKIP and the Green parties?  One that guarantees, on a cross-party basis, that following the May 2015 General Election, an English equivalent of the Smith Commission would be convened to address the issue of English matters within the UK parliamentary system - perhaps looking at English Devolution.  I consider myself a Unionist but the reality is that right now, the constitutional settlement that is currently in play, is so biased against the English  and England that it should not continue.

It cannot be right that Scottish, Welsh and Northern Ireland MPs can vote on matters affecting the English NHS or English education etc., but cannot vote on those same matters within their own constituencies.

This isn't about a particular economic or environmental policy on which we could expect the parties to differ.  This is about making sure that the rights and views of those living within England are appropriately  represented and considered.  I suppose 'party politics' might intrude when the proposed commission looks at issues like the anti-English Barnett Formula are considered but the necessary review of this no-longer appropriate legislation would require a UK based approach rather than solely being an 'English' matter.

 So how about it David, Ed, Nick, Nigel and Natalie?  How about a pledge to the people of the largest country in the United Kingdom?  One that says that the views of the people from the largest constituent part of the United Kingdom, will no longer be ignored.

Ukraine, Banking and a Pink Bus

I try to write a blog every week.  Usually I cover a single, topical subject but regular readers will know that I sometimes stray off of topic.  For regular readers I say thank you.  For me this is a way to scream at the world for the idiocies that we see around us.

This has been a strange week for news. 

We have Labour’s Pink Bus for women, the Ukraine cease-fire  and the HSBC Switzerland story.  I will try and bring these into a single narrative, please bear with me.

Running throughout the week, we have had the spectacle of the USA and the UK sitting on the sidelines, while Germany and their favourite European poodle-nation, France, negotiating with Russia and a ‘dragged to the table’ Ukraine in an effort to get a ceasefire in place.  The ceasefire would be between the Ukraine government and the separatist rebels.  You will note that these separatist rebels were not involved in these talks.  Don’t worry though, they were ably represented by Russia.  If nothing else, these talks and Russia’s seeming ability to make commitments on behalf of the rebels, lays bare the fact that these separatists are in fact fully dependent upon the Russians.  It is Russian arms and Russian artillery fired by Russian soldiers  that has made advances and forced the Ukraine government to the table.  That and the appeasers in the German dominated European Union. 

In case you have forgotten, Ukraine is, in large part, in its current state because they were led up the path by the EU.  They were sweet-talked, by the EU, into rejecting an agreement that would have pushed them towards Russia and then, when Russia flexed its muscles, the EU ran away.  They, and the US and UK then embarked upon imposing sanctions against Russia and certain Russians.  Commentators regularly tell us that these sanctions are really biting.  Coupled with the collapse in the price of oil and with it the Rouble, the Russian economy is suffering (unfortunately that then means its people as well!).

So, we have a situation where Russia has made a land grab (Crimea) and has been fomenting and arming secessionist activity in Eastern Ukraine, while at the same time, the essentially feeble sanctions are finally starting to affect Russia and what is the EU reaction?  Go to the negotiating table and concede territory and legitimacy to both the rebels and Russia’s land grab, cut the throats of the Ukrainians  and then congratulate themselves on a war averted!

And what of the USA?  Good old President Obama was in Washington and given the snowfalls hitting that part of America, he was unable to attend to other presidential  duties, such as golf, and managed to make some comment on the Ukraine.  His comments, strangely, had the potential to be helpful.  He was making noises about providing the Ukraine with a re-supply of arms.  Reverting to type though, nothing came of these fine words.  Maybe it is because America is broke and cannot afford to ‘fight the good fight’ or maybe it’s because it’s President Obama – make your own mind up!

And David Cameron?  He was in the difficult position of being in electioneering mode and having to fend-off accusations that the UK was becoming irrelevant on the world stage because the UK wasn’t at these talks.  Possibly, Cameron could see where this whole shabby exercise would end and the idea of being a party to the sell-out of Ukraine, was too much for him to stomach or possibly he was focused on home-front issues.

Home-front issues, for Cameron are now all about the General Election to be held in May. 

He received a boost from Harriet Harman, Labour’s equality obsessed, deputy leader (so obsessed that rumours abound that she planned to change her name to Harriet Harperson!).  I have to use the word 'harpy' to describe her because all other thoughts and words might breach this blog’s no offensive language rule.

Anyway, this harpy has hit on the wheeze of having a pink bus which will travel around the UK, visiting marginal seats and then opening discussions with women because she claims that Labour speaks to women’s needs and wants to listen to women and their problems.  In spite of all, I repeat, all polling data suggesting that men and women rate the economy, NHS, immigration and education as high priority issues for them and their families, Harriet is expecting to be chatting aboard the, immediately and appropriately named 'Barbie Bus’, about domestic abuse as the number one issue affecting women. 

Of course domestic abuse is awful but does Labour really believe that this is the key problem facing women today?   All women?

One of the first, all-women, conversations that took place was gate-crashed by, horror of horrors, a man.  He was politely indignant that his genital arrangements caused him to be not worthy of voicing an opinion or to be listened to. 

Not sure I understand this approach by Labour.  Will women flock to the Barbie Bus and abandon the key issues that they have previously told pollsters that influence them and talk about an issue which, at the end of the day, politicians can do little about – domestic abuse.  I mean that does anyone think that more laws, from Westminster, will solve this particular problem?  Yes it is awful but of national importance?  I am reminded of President Obama's and John Kerry's claim that the number one danger facing the USA is 'climate change'.  Not Al Qaeda, not Islamic State, not illegal immigrants, not Ebola, not a jobs-absent recovery - no, climate change!  And now this fool is posting selfies all over the internet!  Boy, when Americans go for tokenism and ignore Dr Marting Luther King's comments about judging people on their character and not the colour of their skin, you go all out!

How then will this sexism play with Labour’s male voters?  Will they feel excluded and desert in droves?  Will they head to UKIP or to the Conservatives?  Or will they maybe just stay at home?  We will see.

They say in politics that you need to be lucky,  Labour got lucky and managed to get the Barbie Bus behind themselves with the breaking of the HSBC story.  This bank has a branch office in Switzerland  and – cue shock! cue horror!  Some British people had accounts there.  Labour played a good game on this one, aided as always by the ignorant and biased BBC and other media.  Labour seem to contend that any Brit  with an account in Switzerland  only has one for nefarious purposes – as in, tax evasion.  It produces no proof that this is so, it just throws the mud and some sticks.  Millions in taxes are being dodged they claim.  Even if that were true, the amounts that are being spoken of, are but a drop in the ocean relative to the spending of the current government leave alone of any future Labour government (is there something smaller than a drop in the ocean?)

Labours problem with HSBC is that while they can bang on about it, they need to be careful.  Already there are rumblings and stones being uncovered about the careful inheritance tax planning carried out by the Miliband family, following the death of the father of Ed and David.  This communist died and left the family with property that would cause the boys tax problems - as in lots of it to pay.  So they arranged for something called a deed of variation, which, if I understand correctly, allowed their now dead father to change the will and gift them parts of the property such that taxes were much reduced.  All perfectly legal but as said before, hypocrisy is rankest at the higher levels of government!

I will be absent from the UK for much of the election campaign - but of course will be voting - so my comments and this blog will be filtered through time, distance and a biased media.  Caveat emptor!

Have a good week!

Obama's problem with the C word

Don’t worry, this won’t be a foul-mouthed tirade.  I don’t allow that on this blog.

No, the C word is the one that President Obama seems to have such difficulty with.  C stands for Christianity.  And it is the word that he has a problem with, not the letter.  He managed to use the letter C when he equated the actions of ISIS terrorists to those of the Crusaders from more than 900 years ago!  He doesn’t have a problem with the letter I, as it relates to 'the inquisition', which he also linked as some kind of equivalence to the ISIS terrorists.

Obama has other difficulties with the letter I.  He is unable to use the phrase Islamic  and Terrorists together.

Consider:

• 
  
• The 9/11 bombers in the USA were Muslims.
• The 7/7 bombers in London, were Muslims
• The Madrid train bombers were Muslims
• The Charlie Hebdo killers were Muslims
• The Bali bombers were Muslim
• The Mumbai killers were Muslim
• The killers of more than 2,000 inhabitants of the Nigerian town of Baga, are Muslim
• The killers of hostages held by ISIS, are Muslim
• The killer of Fusilier Lee Rigby, on the streets of London, are Muslim
• The Boston Marathon bombers are/were Muslim

The list goes horrifically on and on and provides evidence of many terrorist atrocities and all carried out by Muslims.

And yet, President Obama, aided it has to be said by some other political leaders, continue, to insist that Islam is the ‘religion of peace’.  Obama is unable to specify that these people are Islamic Terrorists.  Astute observers will note that the current problem child calls itself Islamic State or Islamic State in Syria or as Obama insists on calling them, Islamic State in the Levant (ISIL) and that all of these names make absolute and clear reference to the religion of the followers.  It is abundantly clear by the names used that these are Islamic.  Delve a little further and see the aims of this organisation (howsoever named) and it is crystal clear that the over-arching goal is the establishment of an Islamic caliphate.  A caliphate where only one religion, Islam, is allowed.  A caliphate where Sharia law, based on interpretations of the Quran, the holy book of the religion of Islam, applies.   A caliphate where freedoms are severely curtailed and all are subservient to the religion of Islam.

Could it be that Obama doesn’t call a ‘spade a spade’ or a Muslim bomber or killer, an Islamic terrorist because he doesn’t want to offend his buddies in Saudi Arabia?  The Saudi government has long been seen as the major backer of Al Qaeda and its now successor, ISIS.  The Saudi’s , who follow the Sunni strand of Islam, see AQ and ISIS as a potent weapon in their struggle for regional dominance against Shiite Iran.

Whatever the reason, Obama just cannot bring himself to call these barbarians, Islamic Terrorists   Perhaps, the reason is, as so often claimed in the Twittersphere, Obama himself is a Muslim.  The latest rumour is that the ring that Obama wears carries, in Arabic script the Shahada – the Islamic creed – engraved upon it.

This posting is primarily aimed at any political leaders out there.  At what point will you publicly distance yourself from Obama and those who still maintain that Islam is the 'religion of peace'?   When will you take that disagreement further and actively oppose these fools?  Oh, and such opposition must be on the broadest possible front - not just on foreign affairs but on every issue - budget - oppose, endorsement of appointees, oppose, shut down the government.

If you're not a Western political leader, maybe pass this onto your leaders and get them to start the fight-back.

If you're a Muslim, when will you aggressively attack, with the emphasis on aggressively, your co-religionists?  King Abdullah of Jordan has started to show the way but even he needs to get his country on a war-footing against both ISIS and radical Islam.  Someone on Twitter suggested that the difference between a radical Islamist and and 'regular Islamist is that the Radical Islamist wants to cut off your head, while the 'regular' Islamist wants the Radical Islamist to behead the infidel.  If Islam is truly a 'religion of peace' then Islam needs to reform and Islam needs to clean its house and Western leaders need to cease the appeasement of Islamic terrorists and the nations that support them.

Financial diarrhoea

I suggest that it wouldn’t be unreasonable to say we are all occasionally, act in a hypocritical manner.  We call ourselves law-abiding and then drive over the speed limit  or we call ourselves Christians but don’t publicly bear witness to Christ the Redeemer, etc..

It seems to me though that when it comes to hypocrisy, governments practise this on what might be called an industrial scale.  When the ‘government’ is the European Union, the scale increases exponentially.

Let me explain.

For a few years now, European governments and conservatives in the USA have been preaching the virtues of living within ones means and the need for austerity in order to get the country back on track, etc., etc..

How many times, in the last five years, has UK Premier David Cameron or his Chancellor of the Exchequer, George Osborne, spoken of the need for austerity and that cuts, in public expenditure,  have to be made?  How many times has German Chancellor, Angela Merkel or any number of other German, Dutch and Finnish politicians, lined up to lecture the Greeks, Spanish, Italians, Irish and Portuguese (the so called (and rudely so) PIIGS countries), of the absolute and dire need to reduce their government expenditure and to make swingeing cuts in public service provision and pensions, etc., etc.?  Cast your mind back and recall the same sort of comments coming out of the IMF and the World Bank.  Indeed, I also seem to recall some similar comments, in relation to Greece, coming out of the hallowed halls of Goldman Sachs.

Don’t bother ‘googling’ the subject, we can take it as read, that these members of the governing elites have spouted this ad nauseum. 

The cannier politicians ‘humanise’ this by putting this into a family context.  The line runs something like this:

Imagine that the UK (Greece, Ireland, etc., etc., ) is like your family household.  You have been living beyond your means for years – spending more money than you have been earning and filling the gap by borrowing more and more money each year.  You are now in a position where you owe so much that a not insignificant part of your earnings is just used to cover the interest payments on your overdraft or credit cards.  As a responsible family, you decide that this is unsustainable and things need to change.  So you abandon the 2-3 foreign holidays a year – you stay at home or holiday in your home country.  You eschew the latest electronic gadgets and curved wide-screen TVs and make do with what you’ve already got.  No more weekend shopping excursions buying impulse items, where your flexible friend (your credit card) takes the strain.So you stop the monetary bleeding by cutting off your expenditure or rather, dramatically reducing it – maintaining only that which is necessary for the basics of life.  Then you start to pay down the debt and get your finances on an even and sustainable keel.  After time, you develop a habit of avoiding debt and only buying for cash rather than on credit and all of the family accept that while the journey to where you now are, was hard, it was worthwhile as we didn’t drown in debt, which was a very real prospect.

And this is where the hypocrisy comes in. 

Those very same politicians ‘talk the talk’ but don’t ‘walk the walk’.  While they have been mouthing-off about the need for austerity, they have continued to spend taxpayers money like a drunken sailor.  Indeed, I do drunken sailors a dis-service.  When a drunken sailor runs out of money, he doesn’t rush off to the printers and ‘magic-up’ some extra bank notes.

And that really is the core of the hypocrisy of these governments.  Like the above mentioned family, they have been over-spending for years.  The 2008 financial crisis supposedly caused these governments to realise their wild spending sprees had to end and so we entered the times of austerity.

  

Except, we didn’t  - governments continued to borrow more and more money and interest payments continued to mount.  For the UK, interest payments on national debt is running in excess of £47 billion  (US$71Bn) each year – that is, more than the UK currently spends on defence or on education. 

There have been significant cuts in government spending in Greece and the other PIIGS countries  and these have directly impacted on people – so, using the family analogy, the multi –holidays and wild spending have been cut back but because earlier spending and borrowing in countries like Greece was so very far out of control, these cuts, severe as they are at the human level, are really insufficient.

Going back to the family analogy,  the family would have declared personal bankruptcy and the lenders would have taken a loss on the overwhelming part of their reckless lending.  That’s not the case here in Greece and the other PIIGS countries. 

The lenders - major international financial institutions and banks - have seen their assets - the loans to the Greek and other PIIGS governments - protected and their interest payments - income or revenue for the banks - continuing.  This was achieved by these PIIGS governments implementing austerity and creating major problems for their own people.   Youth unemployment in some of these countries is in the 50% region!  Ireland has seen an exodus, mostly of its young, that the 'celtic tiger' thinking back to the days of the potato famine, had thought was banished from its memory.  Not so!

In the other EU countries, bankers and their Central Bank ‘masters’ then came up with the wheeze of using  Quantitative Easing or QE.  This is the process whereby the country’s Central Bank ‘prints’ virtual money which it then uses to buy bonds issued (to fund the country’s deficit or overdraft, if you will) by the same country’s Government and its financial institutions.  The rationale is that this helps the local economy.  The reality is that this means that those preachy countries don't have to make the same cuts - which by rights they should be making - and could carry on spending beyond their own means.  It also supports those banks and financial institutions who can shore-up their balance sheets with good and reliable government debt - it's not as if those countries are going to default, is it?

A kind of quid pro quo if you like - large banks get their governments and the IMF, EU and World Bank to force austerity upon these really over-extended/borrowed countries and the banks then agree to not cry default on the loans that they have outstanding.  This helps the banks - they don't have to write-off their uncollectable loans - and it helps these more powerful governments - by not having to face the effects, of the extremely poor lending policies of these banks, on their own local economies, and it also keeps sacrosanct, a phoney currency like the Euro.  Then these banks use the money, that they can borrow ever so cheaply from their own governments, to buy the bonds issued by their very own governments.  Their own governments can issue cheap loans - essentially interest free - because the money is not real, it is virtual, created out of this air!  The banks' governments then have sufficient 'money' to avoid those austerity cuts that they have forced upon the PIIGS.

Yes that is all very confusing but that is what 3-card monte or a shell game is all about - it's a con!  The pea is never under the shell and the queen is never on the table except when the dealer wants you to see it!

And, dear American readers, please don't think that you have been above such reproachful behaviour.  You can expect any  US Government led by the likes of President Obama, Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid to have absolutely no morality when it comes to economic matters.  They haven't in any other policy arena, so why would they have it here?  Also the US does have some rather large, and aggressively so, banks and these could not be allowed to suffer the consequences of their reckless lending decisions.  So QE was invented in the US and America needed to defend its leadership in the field by issuing a staggering $4 Trillion of phoney money.  Now, in fairness, the US economy has recovered - kind of.   America's GDP is growing but unemployment remains stubbornly high.  Some Americans believe that this isn't really so but then these people choose to ignore the individuals that have removed themselves from the jobs market which make the unemployment statistics look better.  The reasons for leaving the jobs market are manifold but it is strongly suspected that many people have just 'given up' looking for a job!

Not to be outdone, the European Central Bank has now decided to get in on the act.  They are to issue QE to the value of Euro 1.1 Trillion over the next couple of years.  This will stave-off any need to address the economic malaise in Europe by this act of financial ledger-de-main.  They will continue to allow Europeans, even in the strong economies of Germany, Netherlands and Finland, to live beyond their means, to enjoy short working weeks and extensive holidays and unaffordable welfare programmes but at some point (I guess in two to three years) the game will be up and things will start to unravel.  Indeed, given the large budget deficit already being seen in France (at more than 4% it already exceeds the 'allowable' level, set by Europe) we may have to amend the acronym to FIGSIP.

These countries, those in the European Union, the USA and UK, have managed to get away with these acts of devaluing their currencies, by the virtue of all doing the same thing and them being major currencies.  The Chinese Yuan is not traded widely in international markets and so people can only use, US$, £ or Euro and while all these countries practice monetary diarrhoea the devaluation isn't apparent - relatively speaking, there is no change since they get measured against each other.  

Except, Switzerland, which is above such financial shenanigans has removed its currency's peg against the Euro and immediately saw its unsullied Swiss Franc soar in value against the Euro - and that was before the ECB decided to switch-on the 'printing presses'.

In the elections that come-up in the coming months, don't be fooled by claims of one party being in favour of austerity and so support us because we care and don't support it  The current reality is that all of the major parties in all of the major economies are in favour of continuing, to a lesser or greater degree, the current over-spending and  reality-avoiding policies which store-up problems for our children and grand-children.

Not a good start to 2015!