The European Tinder Box.

by Moraymint

I wonder if harsh economic realities could transcend generally accepted logic.  The common perception of unravelling events relies, by and large, on politicians remaining in close control of events and in particular in tight control of their societies.

But when institutions start running out of cash and people don’t get paid on a grand scale (which must now be well and truly on the cards in saying the coming 1 – 3 years, if not within the coming months), then politicians’ grand economic and political plans can rapidly turn in to the proverbial ‘ball of chalk’.

Like many people I struggle to discern the details of unfolding events over the coming months.  However, my age and instinct tell me that Europe’s political elites are losing control of their own societies even now.  There are more than 18 million people unemployed in Europe today and, for as long Europe’s political class stays on its current course, that unemployed rate will climb and climb.  That’s a really bad state of affairs; indeed, it’s life-threatening.

Eventually, I judge that the smouldering European tinder box will burst forth in to flame and thence on to conflagration.  At which point all bets are off.  No amount of logical and neat arguments about how politicians will engineer a European superstate without an explicit democratic mandate so to do will counteract the incandescent rage that could grip a critical mass of European citizens going without work, going without shelter, going hungry and living without hope.

It’s this ‘direct action’ by angry citizens that would scupper the controlled, totalitarian formation of a European superstate, I believe.  But I accept that I may be quite wrong in this and that the Europeans could well end up stumbling like lambs to the slaughter when it comes to their political masters implementing a ‘coup de continent’ and forcing the formation of the United States of Europe on 495 million people.  God help them if it happens that way.

And if it does, there would need to be revolution in the UK to prevent our own political class from stitching us in to that self same socialist-fascist nightmare that would be the nascent USE.

Frankly, with each passing day now I can barely believe what the European political class is doing and getting away with.  It’s both scary and shameful and made so much worse by the benign way in which our own ignorant and cowardly political class just goes with the flow. Europe is on the verge of being raped and our own politicians don’t know where to look, still less what to do.

Team GB Win Equestrian Silver.

It’s Not Doping, It’s ‘Scientific Training’.

John Leonard, the executive director of the World Swimming Coaches Association, has caused a bit of a storm, and brought upon himself accusations of sour grapes, by implying yesterday that Ye Shiwen, the 16-year-old Chinese swimmer, may have taken performance enhancing drugs when she won the women’s 400m individual medley in a world record time.

After swimming the final 50m freestyle leg faster than American swimmer Ryan Lochte managed in his final leg when he won the same race in the men’s event, John Leonard said;

“The one thing I will say is that history in our sport will tell you that every time we see something, and I will put quotation marks around this, ‘unbelievable’, history shows us that it turns out later on there was doping   involved. That last 100m was reminiscent of some old East German swimmers, for people who have been around a while. It was reminiscent of 400m   individual medley by a young Irish woman in Atlanta……….Any time someone has looked like superwoman in the history of our sport they have later been found guilty of doping”. Ye was more than seven seconds   faster in the 400m individual medley than she had been in the equivalent race of the World Championships last year. While Leonard accepted that such   improvement was feasible, he described the final 100m as “impossible”. He   added: “To swim three other splits at the rate that she did, which was quite   ordinary for elite competition, and then unleash a historic anomaly, it is   just not right. I have heard commentators saying ‘well she is 16, and at that age amazing things happen. Well yes, but not that amazing, I am sorry.”

In response Ye Shiwen defended herself, “The Chinese team keep very firmly to the anti-doping policies, so there is absolutely no problem,”

Rightly, we should give every competitor the benefit of the doubt, especially when, like Ye Shiwen, they have never failed a single doping test.

Nevertheless, I think it is only fair to point out that during the 1980s and 1990’s Chinese officials were similarly aghast when similar accusations were made against Chinese swimmers and athletes and yet we’ve since found out that there was a state sponsored program of doping, known euphemistically as ‘Scientific Training’.

Only 4 days ago  Xue Yinxian, the former chief doctor for the Chinese gymnastics team in the 1980s, told the Sydney Morning Herald that, steroids and human growth hormones were officially treated as part of “scientific training” as the country emerged as a sporting power. “It was rampant in the 1980s,” she told the Sydney Morning Herald. “One had to accept it.”,”And so it was with human growth hormones, which she described as a scientific training method. Whoever rejected them would face punishment or criticism.”

The Chinese women’s swimming team came from obscurity to win 12 of 16 gold medals at the 1994 world titles in Rome, prompting suspicion among competitors but the Chinese team was decimated by positive steroid busts that same yearat the Hiroshima Asian Games.

This was not, as the Chinese authorities claimed at the time, an issue of a few bad apples but a state sponsored program.

Now, you can believe that the Chinese are now all squeaky clean or just more sophisticated in their doping, it’s up to you.

The problem is that those whose job it is to detect new doping methods are always one or two steps behind those that are inventing them. It is generally the poorer country’s athletes who get caught, as they can only afford the doping methods from ten years back while the wealthier countries can afford to invest and innovate.

The Loop of Doom

by Catherine Carr

The ECB to buy bonds in the secondary market:

This frees up money for the banks to lend….
But  will they lend to the private sector ? Will they hell !
So the banks put the money into new issue Government bonds…
Allowing the Spanish to pay their bloated public sector…

What does this mean for Spain ???

Well their overall debt is increased and therefore their interest payments…
The ratings agencies will lower their ratings because off the increased debt and likelihood of default…
The markets will then sell off their current and new holdings because the likelihood of a default has increased….
Yields rise…..

Now go back to the top to see what happens next…. the only break in this is loop bankruptcy

Full Spanish Bailout Will Cost €650bn …………..It’s Impossible !

by Moraymint

It’s always absolutely terrific when economic realities start to slaughter political fantasies.

Personally these days I’m placing all my bets on economic realities eventually destroying first the euro monetary union and then second the European Union (EU) itself.

I’m reasonably hopeful about the euro collapsing, but I fear that the EU will prevail for some time to come.  The EU will probably have to be destroyed by the direct action of citizens rather than by economics per se (normal democratic arrangements in Europe have been all but snuffed out by the Lisbon Treaty).  That said, in the end economics is really only the actions and study of humanity itself and as such its ideas are often little more than common sense (according to Ed Conway, anyway).

So, we have to trust that eventually common sense and humanity will prevail over Europe’s oligarchic ruling elites and that order and prosperity will return to the European continent.  On the other hand, if Europe’s ruling mafia (that toxic mix of arrogant politicians, unaccountable bureaucrats and all-powerful bankers) prevails, then God help Europe’s citizens over the coming decade.

Incidentally, where the hell is anyone going to find €650 billion just like that?  Let’s be honest, by any measure you care to choose, the euro/EU is unmitigated madness.

As an ex-military man, I learned that a deception plan is an integral and vital component of any battlefield strategy.  The European Union will almost certainly turn out to have been one of the greatest deceits in history.  The citizens of Europe and the UK were never supposed to understand the true intentions of their political elites.  But, “oh what a tangled web we weave, when first we practise to deceive …”.

EU Lemmings

by Moraymint

Europe’s politico-bureaucratic and banking “elites” are seemingly oblivious.  Indeed, even millions of European citizens themselves still seem to believe the euro/EU to be fundamentally “a good thing”.  In my view, this has everything to do with the European Commission’s annual “communication” (propaganda) spend of some €2 billion.

European citizens don’t know if they’re coming or going.  They think they believe in the euro/EU, but they know they don’t like 25% unemployment (and climbing) and standing in lines at soup kitchens.

We’re witnessing the most grotesque disconnect between a ruling elite (a toxic mixture of politicians, bureaucrats and bankers) and the ruled themselves.  The situation in Europe has all the ingredients of revolution, if not sooner, then later … at this rate anyway.

There are days when I think that if Europe’s politico-bureaucratic-banking elite press on with “ever closer union” whilst singing the euro/EU is “irreversible” chorus, then there’ll come a day when the European Commission headquarters will be razed to the ground by a critical mass of disaffected and hungry Europeans.

Meantime, however, most European citizens still seem to be oblivious to the trajectory of their beloved project, whilst most Brits probably couldn’t give a toss about Europe for as long as ‘Britain’s Got Talent’ and ‘Come Dine With Me’ are showing on the telly (if you see what I mean).

You can sense how frustrated Winston Churchill must have felt in the run up to WW2 … it’s surreal watching Europe descend slowly but surely in to socio-economic chaos (or enforced misery at best), knowing that it needn’t be like this.

We’re probably witnessing the most destructive example of ‘groupthink’ in modern history.

Correcting the Record. Not German President and not Nazi Salute.

Walther Troger and Joachim Gauck

Last night I posted that German President Joachim Gauck appeared to give a repeated Nazi salute. It appears I was wrong.

I’m going to paste below the comments of one Youtube user, including castigation against Brits, as I think that it’s only fair I shouldn’t edit his post.

“This is Walther Tröger, an 83 year old man who once was the president of the National Olympic Committee for Germany and member of the International Olympic Committee.

During the 1972 olympics he took part in the negotiations with the terrorists who later killed Israeli athlets.

Tröger is definitely no Nazi. He is an old man with stiff joints who tries to wave like the athlets do.

Thank you Britain for once again putting us Germans into the Nazi corner. Thank you very much.

Cyrano1202”

Sorry, Cyrano1202 and other Germans who were offended.

But……..

What I would say is that it certainly did look like the German President, Joachm Gauck, I never thought whoever it was deliberately meant to give the impression that it was a Nazi salute. I personally thought it was hilarious and the most inappropriate accident since Chancellor Gerhard Schröder visited Yad Vashem and accidently turned off the eternal flame at the holocaust memorial.

Here is the Youtube Video for last nights non-nazi salute – http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9EJmm9vbif4

German President Nazi Salutes the German Team.

This Post is incorrect please see correction here

Is it Boris Johnson [London mayor], behind, who can be seen laughing in this photo ?

Joachim Gauck is the German President who appeared to repeatedly nazi salute the German team as they came out.

Buy Euro Bonds !

Olympic Security

Postcard From Merkel.

How Do You Know if Draghi is Lying ?

Seriously Mr Cable ?

Olympic Opening Ceremony: Just How Naff Can it Be ?

Like many Brits I am looking forward to the Olympic opening ceremony with a mixture of expectation and trepidation. I know we have neither the money nor the compliant cast of ten’s of thousands of ‘volunteers’ that the Chinese had four years ago in Bejing but every snippet that I see ‘leaked’ increases my concern.

I’m worried that the selection process for items to feature in the ceremony might have resembled the TV show ‘Room 101’, that one where celebrities put the the things they dislike the most into a locked vault. I’m worried because I’ve seen a clip from the rehearsals, so I know there will be art students dressed in 1970’s glamrock garb, including platform shoes, shaking their heads in unison to ‘Tiger Feet’ by Mud but what else did Danny Boyle put into Room 101 ?

Will there be majorettes of outrageously different heights, out of tune school marching bands and traffic wardens ? I dislike people who cut into queues, does Danny Boyle have a similar dislike, will there be a choreographed queue cutting scene ?

I’ve seen a clip of angels riding bicycles, not something I would put into Room 101 myself but these are Danny Boyle’s choices afterall.

I’m pretty certain most people in the country dislike Cockney Pearly Kings and Queens and I’m confident they’ll be put in, as will politicians, who doesn’t hate them ?

But what about littering, aggressive seagulls, mobility scooters that run you off the pavement, railway carriages with standing room only, and bankers ?

I’ve heard that Danny is including synchronised euthanising nurses who will deny hydration to elderly patients in unison, but how will he incorperate cheques taking five working days to clear, privatised water companies that don’t invest in infrastructure, or speed cameras ?

It’s a high risk strategy for Danny Boyle to take, the danger is not that it’s naff but that it’s not naff enough, that is my great fear. If the rest of the world doesn’t get the joke then they will just think it’s crap.

A Solution to the Ed Balls Problem ?

Curious George Osborne Explains.

FGM, Female Genital Mutilation.

Last night Newsnight [link to programme] held a special debate about FGM [Female Genital Mutilation] in the UK. Although it has been illegal in this country for 20 years there has not been one prosecution. Compare this to France who have prosecuted 100 cases. There is disturbing evidence that some families are travelling to the UK so that their young children can be mutilated here.

Unfortunately, there is a great deal of ignorance about FGM (often euphemistically called ‘female circumcision’) and so this article is designed to educate.

The practice is most common in the western, eastern, and north-eastern regions of Africa, in some countries in Asia and the Middle East, and among migrants from these areas. Procedures are mostly carried out on young girls sometime between infancy and age 15, and occasionally on adult women. In Africa, about three million girls are at risk for FGM annually. About 140 million girls and women worldwide are living with the consequences of FGM. In Africa, about 92 million girls age 10 years and above are estimated to have undergone FGM.

FGM is classified into 4 types.

Type 1 – Clitoridectomy: partial or total removal of the clitoris and, in very rare cases, only the prepuce (the fold of skin surrounding the clitoris).

Type 2 – Excision: partial or total removal of the clitoris and the labia minora, with or without excision of the labia majora.

Type 3 – Infibulation: narrowing of the vaginal opening through the creation of a covering seal. The seal is formed by cutting and repositioning the inner, or outer, labia, with or without removal of the clitoris.

Type 4 – Other: all other harmful procedures to the female genitalia for non-medical purposes, e.g. pricking, piercing, incising, scraping and cauterizing the genital area.

The immediate complications can include: severe pain, shock, haemorrhage, tetanus or sepsis (bacterial infection), urine retention, open sores in the genital region and injury to nearby genital tissue.

Longer term consequences can include: recurrent bladder and urinary tract infections, cysts, infertility, an increased risk of childbirth complications and newborn deaths, the need for later surgeries. For example, the FGM procedure that seals or narrows a vaginal opening (type 3 above) needs to be cut open later to allow for sexual intercourse and childbirth. Sometimes it is stitched again several times, including after childbirth, hence the woman goes through repeated opening and closing procedures, further increasing and repeated both immediate and long-term risks.

All of these practices are illegal in the UK, all are forms of physical and sexual abuse of young girls.

It is not enough for UK citizens to turn a blind eye and dismiss these practices as cultural, they are criminal and the UK authorities should do all that they can to prevent this practice happening here, and prosecute the parents of British children who travel to Africa and have this procedure done.

Key Source: World Health Organisation.

A petition can be signed for UK citizens against FGM here – http://epetitions.direct.gov.uk/petitions/35313.

Let the Games Begin !

It is very easy to be cynical about the Olympic Games. There are the Swiss based IOC who, like FIFA, are a shadowy elitist organisation who are like a kind of sporting royalty that expect everyone in the country to genuflect and pamper them, then there are the corporate sponsors, many of them inappropriate for a sporting event who seem to be dictating what we can eat, drink, what we can wear, and how we pay for things, and then there are the crony contractors like S4G who while failing to deliver will still rake in huge profits at the taxpayers expense. The Olympic Games seem, at times to be all about money, and I think that is true if you look at those individuals and organisations which have taken the limelight until now.

But this evening the one group of people, indeed the most important group of people, enter the Olympic stage as the first Women’s football games begin ahead of the opening ceremony. Those people are, of course, the athletes.

For the athletes the Olympics it is not all about money. For the athletes, many of whom have been training hard for the last four years, sacrificing so much as they have done so, just to be here, this is the pinnacle of their carreers. This is the opportunity to match themselves against their peers and decide who is the best in the world.

It is because of the athletes, not the IOC or corporate sponsors, that the Olympics is such a compelling event and they deserve our support as they aspire to be the very best a human being can be.

I am British and it should go without saying that I will be supporting the British team, but above all partisan consideration I will be supporting all those who compete in the the spirit of the Olympic ideal, regardless of what country the come from.

Good luck to them all !

Is Paying Cash Morally Wrong ?

by martinedwards

If a trader is willing to offer me a discount for paying promptly, in a way that saves him going to a bank, queuing and then waiting 5+ working days for his money to clear, and then being charged for paying money into and out of his business account then that is fine by me.

It is not for me to enquire into how he runs his tax affairs. Just as we were told Lord Ashcroft’s tax affairs were a matter between him and the taxman.

Who are we meant to turn against here, the plumber, the householder or both?

The government’s list of baddies is growing by the day.

Orwell on Hope.

Suggested by Blackadder50.

“If there was hope, it must lie in the proles, because only there, in those swarming disregarded masses, 85% of the population of Oceania, could the force to destroy the Party ever be generated. The Party could not be overthrown from within. Its enemies, if it had any enemies, had no way of coming together or even of identifying one another. Even if the legendary Brotherhood existed, ……..it was inconceivable that its members could ever assemble in larger numbers than twos and threes. Rebellion meant a look in the eyes, an inflection of the voice; at the most, an occasional whispered word. But the proles, if only they could somehow become conscious of their own strength, would have no need to conspire. They need only to rise up and shake themselves like a horse shaking off flies. If they chose they could blow the Party to pieces tomorrow morning. Surely sooner or later it must occur to them to do it. And yet –!”