Economy

Few who are given to rational thought can look at the contemporary welfare state and not think "I can't believe it's not better". The perverse incentives, the poverty traps, the cruelty, the cost. There is plenty to bemoan.

As people ask more questions of Parliamentarians and others about the Bradbury Pound and the policy it represents, the usual, pathetic, stock answers are thrown back at them. Lets deal with them ...

The 19th March is Budget Day, and we will be gathering in London to promote the Bradbury Pound. Our purpose will not be to protest, but to educate - the public, mainstream journalists, the police and any MPs or Lords brave enough to come and speak to us. So, what is the Bradbury Pound all about? Read on ...

Numerous articles in today’s mainstream media elude to the fact that we are fast slipping into a tightly controlled fascist existence very similar to George Orwell’s nightmarish 1984.

The UK Charity Commission has released charity income and expenditure figures up to the end of Q1 2013. The figures show that income rose to £59.9 billion in the year to the end of March, up from £59.48 billion three months previously.

On November 6, 2012 UK Column live Interviewed Watcyn Richards, a welsh farmer who had been defrauded of nearly £200,000 by Barclays bank by way of fraudulently copying his wife's signature. Following this interview, Guy Taylor, a landlord in Hereford, contacted us after Barclays had tried a similar stunt with him, this time for more than £900,000.

In an interview with Jon Snow on this evening's Channel 4 News, Lord Myners called for full Glass Steagall legislation to deal with the corruption of the banks, a policy I have been demanding for years.

There is one question which will have system-serving politicians and economists running for cover:  why can’t the British government through its Treasury issue  interest free money based upon the common wealth and integrity of this country - worth trillions?

JP Morgan executive Ina Drew has taken the fall for last week's $2 billion loss at the investment bank. He has been replaced by Matt Zames, previously a trader at LTCM.

The Euro crisis continues to build as the European debt bubble becomes ever more fragile. While most of the media focus has been on Greece, Spain has been building its status as the next big collapse.

While Moritz Kraemer, head of sovereign ratings at Standard & Poor believes Greece will have to restructure its debt once more, the ECB calls for more regime change.

Numerous sources, both mainstream and alternative, are reporting of a convergence of events in March that point to a massive break point in the ongoing financial collapse.

As another EU summit ends with no solution to the Euro crisis, David Cameron surprised no-one by dropping his pledge to stop the eurozone from using the European courts to uphold its new fiscal pact outside the EU treaties.

Who is promoting the introduction of a financial transactions tax, and, for what purpose will any collected revenue be applied?

Last April, the Mexican National Water Commission (Conagua), the World Wildlife Fund (WWF, for its acronym in English) and the Interamerican Development Bank (IDB) announced an alliance to reclaim water used by humans for environmental use, ensuring water resources needed for the proper functioning of ecosystems. Since human use is not considered "environmental", the result is nothing less than murder.

The markets seem to have mostly shrugged off France's loss of its triple-A rating.

On the 22nd December last year, the European Central Bank began lending some new money. 523 European banks borrowed €489 billion in one day.

We could be forgiven for thinking that the Euro crisis has gone away, with so little coverage in the media. Sadly, it's just the calm before the storm.

For some reason, a contact forwarded me a story from the Guardian originally published in 2002. It was just another example of WWF propaganda regarding the Earth's population. What interested me most, though, was the effort to demonise the potential for colonisation of space.

Positive Money bills itself as “a simple solution to the debt crisis”. With a cursory glance, it might appear to be making some of the right noises. On closer inspection, however, there’s just nothing there.

What is happening beneath the surface of March Hywel Mountain in south Wales? This was the location less than two weeks ago of the mining disaster at Gleision Colliery, where 4 miners lost their lives, due to an inrush of water at high pressure.

The statements from within the global financial "leadership", and reflected in the mainstream press release mashup squad, have been staggering. There is "already a raging panic around the solvency of the European banking system", wrote the Telegraph's Jeremy Warner, "Most people will find the idea that more than four years after the banking crisis began, the banking system continues to require squillions of public money almost beyond belief".

Yesterday's rather pathetic speech by Vince Cable demonstrates once again that British politicians - even those who appear to be critical of the banks - are, in reality, working for them.

Our hearts go out to those who wait for news of their loved ones at Gleision Colliery in South Wales and right now the focus of attention must rightly be the rescue efforts currently underway.

The UK is not in the firing line, says William Hague. He must have been on drugs or something, because aside from that, he believes that European nations need to "demonstrate to the satisfaction of financial markets the credibility of their own intentions to bring their deficits and debts under control".

Past Is Not Prologue Readers of my articles in the UK Column over recent years may have puzzled at the long silence. Without boring you with the details, let it be said that a tactical retreat is not to be confused with capitulation, but part of a wider strategy. Notwithstanding tactics, all that was pertinent with respect to the economic and political situation as it stood at the time my last article went to print, had already been said. It therefore only remained to wait for the next major phase shift in the situation before summoning the inspiration to offer a genuinely new perspective. Such a phase shift has now occurred.

The ignorance of the majority of our political classes to the enormity of the financial crisis that we face is staggering. Their wilful denial of the fact of the continuing collapse of our nation, its institutions and ways of life is absolute deliberate treason. In fact, I would go further, it is murderous, and that fact will become clear as the destruction of the NHS takes its toll. As a result, they prefer to decimate public spending, while at the same time increase VAT and other taxes, in order to pay off the banking mafia that pays their salaries.

The Federal Reserve Bank's announcement of QE2, the second round of American Quantitative Easing, on the 3rd of November, caused a tidal wave of funny money to hit the markets as "investors" decided to place their bets on stocks and commodities. Stock markets around the world climbed by nearly 2% on Thursday, oil broke through $87 a barrel, and a range of other commodities also saw dramatic price increases.

The use of batteries alone to power cars is clearly a bit nutty. Poor performance, a short operating range and long recharge times make their practicality limited.

The banks are back in profit, and the bankers can afford a 25% increase in bonuses. So, all's well that ends well, isn't it? Well, isn't it?

On the 22nd of February, the Register, a UK technology website, published an article entitled "The Myth Of Britain's Manufacturing Decline." What, I wondered, could a publication that focusses on IT and finds "amusing" positions to place Playmobil plastic characters know about British Manufacturing? As I read the article, I realised the answer is, nothing.

Two systems are before the world…. One looks to pauperism, ignorance, depopulation, and barbarism; the other to increasing wealth, comfort, intelligence, combination of action, and civilization. One looks toward universal war; the other to universal peace. One is the English system; the other we may be proud to call the American system, for it is the only one ever devised, the tendency of which was that of elevating while equalizing the condition of man throughout the world. Henry C Carey, The Harmony of Interests (1851)

As I write this, in a real sucker punch, the FTSE is up 10% so far today. Hooray, the world is saved! Or not.

History is a cyclic poem written by time upon the memories of man.  - Percy Bysshe Shelley

Those were the closing words of the new global chancellor of nothing yesterday, during his post G20 summit speech. "These are not just a single collection of actions," he said, "This is collective action; people at their best. I think a New World Order is emerging, and with it a new and progressive era of international cooperation. We have resolved that from today, we will together manage the process of globalisation ..."

The IMF is out of cash. That is, according to the governor of Mexico's Central Bank, Guillermo Ortiz, at this years otherwise absolutely insane Davos economic forum, who said, "The IMF does not have enough money for what is coming."

Let's say, for the sake of argument, that those pushing global warming are correct. Let's say that we are, in fact, all going to die as a result of carbon dioxide emissions from power generation and transporting goods. Go on, you can suspend your disbelief long enough to read this, can't you?

Fear and panic has gripped the world over the last two weeks as crisis meeting after crisis meeting has done more to stoke the carbon swaps market than the collective hot air from the lunatic global warming falange.

We hang the petty thieves and appoint the great ones to public office. - Aesop