What use are news organisations?

Our news media are a craven lot, aren't they? Mahmoud al-Mabhouh is killed in his hotel room by (allegedly) a Mossad assassination team, and everything I hear or see on the news is a fuss about the passports they used. I would almost rather have D-notices slapped all round, than have the media come in on cue and on one note like well-trained little choristers. At least censorship would indicate some residual respect for the Press; and for us.

The readers of the Boston Evening Transcript
Sway in the wind like a field of ripe corn.

T.S. Eliot

What goes up...

Reading "Jesse", I see an interesting graph (reproduced right). This looks at what proportion of US mutual fund (UK: think unit trust) money is held in cash. According to the graph, funds are more nearly "fully invested" than at any point since 1970.

So, where will the money come from to power further gains on the index? Or is it (as I fear) a sign that the private investor is trustingly holding the baby, just as the institutional investor (who only holds 20% of total US shares) is about to "pop out to get something, he'll be back in a bit"?

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Why inflation is bad

Mike Shedlock:

7Q. Who benefits from inflation?

7A. Inflation benefits those with first access to money, the banks and the already wealthy. It is a stealth tax on the middle class and poor whose wages never keep up with inflation. That problem is compounded by rising property taxes, sales taxes, etc, that eats consumers alive. Those at the bottom end of the totem pole get hit even harder. Their wages do not rise and they have no assets to inflate.

Absolutely spot-on. The theorists who say increasing the money supply doesn't matter because the effects spread throughout the system, overlook the point I've highlighted above. It's a grab.

DISCLAIMER: Nothing here should be taken as personal advice, financial or otherwise. No liability is accepted for third-party content, whether incorporated in or linked to this blog.

The advance of totalitarian ideals continues

In a well-publicised and suspiciously originated piece of research conducted on behalf of MiniJust, doubt is thrown on the "efficient" working of juries. Far better, you may think, ladies and gentlemen of the jury, to leave it all to us and not worry your pretty little heads about it.

Meanwhile, the case against Cossor Ali, in which she is being tried for not acting as a police informer against her husband (despite not knowing exactly what he was going to do), continues.

Also, support for killing the terminally ill grows, according to a poll conducted by YouGov, perhaps not entirely coincidentally well-timed to announce its results just before well-loved author Terry Pratchett was permitted to use his fame and the (exceptionally-well-publicised this year) platform of the BBC's annual Richard Dimbleby Lecture to air his euthanistic views. YouGov is not, officially, a politically-sponsored organisation, but was founded in May 2000 by Stephan Shakespeare (ne Kukowski), a former Socialist Worker and Conservative Party candidate who owns some prominent political websites including ConservativeHome. He may not be directly controlled by any party (though how far do they differ these days?), but oh, for his contacts book!

An old Nazi writes:

"What is all this nonsense of wives not reporting their criminal husbands? In my day, children could inform on their parents, and quite right, too. I trust the Cossor Ali case will set a valuable precedent.

"It is refreshing to see that after the unpleasantness of the late 1930s and early 1940s, and the vilification of us and our ideas in the decades since then, the principles of right-thinking people are finally being rediscovered and properly valued. Gratifyingly, British political parties have been drawing together for decades, forming a consensus on which the New Society can be built. Once the people have asserted their power to deal with all the fleas that multiply on their backs and weaken them, we shall become clean and healthy again.

"A vital first step was the establishment of the right to make the problem of inconvenient children go away. Some 7 million such problems have been solved in the UK since 1968, the overwhelming majority on legal ground C ("The continuance of the pregnancy would involve risk, greater than if the pregnancy were terminated, of injury to the physical or mental health of the pregnant woman"). You will note, of course, that the "injury" does not have to be grave, and can therefore be interpreted to mean as little as a mild social or financial embarrassment.

"The killing of unborn cripples is covered by ground E, and I see that a fruitful extension of this principle has been called for by doctors as lately as 2006, so that newborns may be included in your cost-effective program. Quite rightly, these doctors draw attention to the interests of the family as a whole, and this offers a promising route to including the needs of society at large, especially when so many families are supported by public funds.

"Crime is another kind of disorder in which society most definitely has an interest, and Freakonomics author Steven Levitt famously argued that abortion has been a great boon in this regard. There are those who say his research is fatally flawed, but even if the details are wrong, surely he was on the right lines. The poor are a great burden, and their lives are so messy.

"But you cannot always tell in advance when someone will turn out to be one of Life's failed experiments. Once we have established postnatal abortion, pre-decline "mercy killings" and the execution by thirst of those in a persistent vegetative state, we should be in a position to reformulate the fundamental principles on which society operates.

"How much longer, for example, must felons be spared - so weakly, so expensively, so anomalously - their worthless and destructive lives? Why should the guilty not share the fate of the troublesome innocents you dispatch in such numbers? This is so illogical of you British; but then, my people used to proud of their ability to think. As Menzel said, "Das sinnige deutsche Volk liebt es zu denken und zu dichten, und zum Schreiben hat es immer Zeit." Only connect, ja?

"Before that becomes possible, (and now, it seems, may be the time) we will have to address the unreliability of courts, juries and the appeals system. I confidently expect the evolution of a form of Volksgerichthof in due course, though before that you may need to reeducate public opinion. Perhaps a first step would be revisionist histories on TV to neutralize the pernicious legacies of Magna Carta, 1688, Common Law, natural justice, equity etc. All this blether about historical rights causes nothing but delay and frustration, and comes from undesirable elements of the community. If the people come together, guided by prominent figures and facilitated by mass communication, and shout long and loudly enough, all such divisive opposition will vanish. We live and work today for a bright, efficient, socially harmonious tomorrow, not for a superstitious and contradictory past."

China extending secret support for USA

Reportedly, China has radically reduced its holdings of US Treasury securities; actually, the truth may be exactly the opposite - see my post on the Broad Oak Blog.

China NOT withdrawing support from the US?

UPDATE (28 Feb): another theory (which I heard on Max Keiser's site yesterday) is that China spent the money on buying IMF gold instead, though that doesn't explain the surge in buying from the UK. We'll see next month whether China resumes its support for Treasuries.
______________________________________________"Foreign demand for US Treasury securities falls by record amount as China reduces holdings"
... That's the AP news story as relayed by the Drudge Report. But is all as it seems?

Looking at the data published by the US Treasury, China's holdings dropped by $34.2 billion between November and December 2009; but at the same time, the UK's holdings increased by $24.9 billion, and Hong Kong's increased by $6.7 billion. (The AP reporter quotes a total drop in foreign holdings of $53 billion that month , but that's for T-bills alone, NOT Treasury securities as a whole, which ROSE by $16.9 billion.)

Back in January 2009, Brad Setser analysed purchases of US Treasuries and Agencies, and concluded that the UK (and, to a lesser extent, Hong Kong) was making proxy purchases on behalf of China.

Here is the picture of US Treasury holdings by Japan, China and the UK between Dec 2008 and Dec 2009 (figures are in billions of US dollars):


Now, here is the same information, but aggregating holdings by China and the UK:



... both have risen by 23% over the 13 months to the end of 2009 - like two horses under one yoke. (Total foreign holdings of US Treasury securities increased by 17%).
Far from "China's pulling out", the story might be read as "All hands to the pump, or we'll all sink".
UPDATE: Jake at Econompic concurs.
SECOND UPDATE: It seems one of POTUS' interns is also interested in this issue, to judge by a fleeting visit to this blog:
DISCLAIMER: Nothing here should be taken as personal advice, financial or otherwise. No liability is accepted for third-party content, whether incorporated in or linked to this blog.

Should a bomb-plotter's wife turn supergrass?

Liquid bomb plot wife Cossor Ali 'did not warn police'

This is a tricky one for libertarians and all others who no longer have a naive trust in the State. Should a wife be expected to act as an informer against her husband?

I thought that under English law, a wife is not a compellable witness against her husband in most criminal cases, although a change in the law of Scotland was proposed in 2006. If she cannot be forced to testify against him, why should she be expected to act as a spy or agente provocateuse?

Is this another way in which the State can use a hard case to make a bad law? Is this part of a general modern assault on the natural law of family, so that the State (and, eventually, the Party) will reign supreme in all things?