Thursday, April 09, 2009
Thirty years on
2009: Ian Tomlinson
1979: Blair Peach
When Britain turns to Fascist methods, it employs them totally incompetently. And this is the Left at work, too; we are led by people who themselves were on the picket line and putting the "chicks up front" so the "pigs" couldn't clobber the guys.
1979: Blair Peach
When Britain turns to Fascist methods, it employs them totally incompetently. And this is the Left at work, too; we are led by people who themselves were on the picket line and putting the "chicks up front" so the "pigs" couldn't clobber the guys.
Sunday, April 05, 2009
Interlude
Off air for a few days - back soon. In the meantime, can anybody find me a picture of "Three Homes" Geoff Hoon that makes him look fully alive? I've had my doubts for a long time.
The truth will out: it WAS fraud
William K. Black, a former financial regulator who has written a book about the U.S. Savings & Loan disaster of the 1980s, is unequivocal: the banks defrauded us. It was deliberate and with full knowledge of what they were doing. How much longer before mass trials are set up?
Worse, the regulators didn't even start to investigate until the crash, whereas in the S&L crisis they were making preparations even while the lenders were boasting of record profits.
Black says the current mess is at least 100 times worse than the S&L debacle. In his view, Bernard Madoff is a mere "piker", not even in the first rank of the fraudsters responsible for all this.
(htp: Michael Panzner)
Worse, the regulators didn't even start to investigate until the crash, whereas in the S&L crisis they were making preparations even while the lenders were boasting of record profits.
Black says the current mess is at least 100 times worse than the S&L debacle. In his view, Bernard Madoff is a mere "piker", not even in the first rank of the fraudsters responsible for all this.
(htp: Michael Panzner)
Saturday, April 04, 2009
Divination by horses
Hippomancy is an ancient art, still alive in the Grand National. My wife's uncle was in Liverpool in 1959 when the workforce at Oxo all backed the horse of the same name: it won at 8-1. He says the town was lit that night.
Well, I backed Golden Flight and down it went at the first fence - though the name is Delphic: will gold flee or take wing? For adherents of cash, Offshore Account stayed the course, but lost ground as the pace picked up, miming the effect of inflation.
On a political note, I was pleased that Eurotrek failed to complete. And we bloggers should not have been surprised to see Fleet Street unseated.
The winner, against all expectation, was Mon Mome (= "my kid"), perhaps a sign that we should be thinking of the next generation, as skewed demographics meets declining GDP. The trainer, Venetia Williams, was sporting a striking golden coat...
Well, I backed Golden Flight and down it went at the first fence - though the name is Delphic: will gold flee or take wing? For adherents of cash, Offshore Account stayed the course, but lost ground as the pace picked up, miming the effect of inflation.
On a political note, I was pleased that Eurotrek failed to complete. And we bloggers should not have been surprised to see Fleet Street unseated.
The winner, against all expectation, was Mon Mome (= "my kid"), perhaps a sign that we should be thinking of the next generation, as skewed demographics meets declining GDP. The trainer, Venetia Williams, was sporting a striking golden coat...
Who ruins Britain?
It's not just the bankers and the politicians. I'm reading Robert Peston's book "Who runs Britain?" and I'm wondering about the social benefits of private equity entrepreneurs.
Take store group Arcadia, for example. In the year 2000, it was acquired by Stuart Rose, at which time it had a turnover of £2.5 billion, debts £250 million and a market capital value somewhere around £100 million. "The business was viewed as dead meat when he arrived." Two years later, the turnover was down to £2 billion, but all the debt was cleared and the group was making an annual profit of £106 million.
Rose then sold out to Philip Green for a reported £850 million (Peston says £775 million), of which Green's personal investment was only £9.2 million.
In 2005/2006, Arcadia's sales were down to £1.8 billion, but profits had risen to £300 million, according to Peston. Green then made it declare a £1.3 billion dividend, £1.2 billion of which went to his wife - who by then was, technically, domiciled in tax-free Monaco. This record-breaking payout was funded by bank loans to Arcadia totalling £1.35 billion, with the result that the group's net asset position went from plus £303 million (in August 2004) way into the red - minus £807 million. You'll see that the dividend accounted for the decline in Arcadia's net worth, and more besides.
Stuart Rose is like a man who buys a sick donkey, nurses it back to health and sells it at a profit. Green appears to me like the new owner who nurtures it further, then suddenly puts back-breaking quantities of heavy stone in its panniers and wanders off on other business, whistling merrily while the poor, over-laden beast staggers behind him in the wilderness. If it should stumble...
I can see what's in it for the bankers (less so, their shareholders). I can certainly see what's in it for Philip Green. But what's in it for us? We work, earn money, pay taxes and what is left we spend in stores that export our capital.
If this is to be the pattern for British business, we are finished. I don't see Johnny Foreigner making plans to take on the obligations of our Welfare State when we no longer make anything he wants; if he's looking for maltreated, ill-bred, indolent slaves, he'll find all he needs closer to home.
Are we making a nation fit for Marxists?
Take store group Arcadia, for example. In the year 2000, it was acquired by Stuart Rose, at which time it had a turnover of £2.5 billion, debts £250 million and a market capital value somewhere around £100 million. "The business was viewed as dead meat when he arrived." Two years later, the turnover was down to £2 billion, but all the debt was cleared and the group was making an annual profit of £106 million.
Rose then sold out to Philip Green for a reported £850 million (Peston says £775 million), of which Green's personal investment was only £9.2 million.
In 2005/2006, Arcadia's sales were down to £1.8 billion, but profits had risen to £300 million, according to Peston. Green then made it declare a £1.3 billion dividend, £1.2 billion of which went to his wife - who by then was, technically, domiciled in tax-free Monaco. This record-breaking payout was funded by bank loans to Arcadia totalling £1.35 billion, with the result that the group's net asset position went from plus £303 million (in August 2004) way into the red - minus £807 million. You'll see that the dividend accounted for the decline in Arcadia's net worth, and more besides.
Stuart Rose is like a man who buys a sick donkey, nurses it back to health and sells it at a profit. Green appears to me like the new owner who nurtures it further, then suddenly puts back-breaking quantities of heavy stone in its panniers and wanders off on other business, whistling merrily while the poor, over-laden beast staggers behind him in the wilderness. If it should stumble...
I can see what's in it for the bankers (less so, their shareholders). I can certainly see what's in it for Philip Green. But what's in it for us? We work, earn money, pay taxes and what is left we spend in stores that export our capital.
If this is to be the pattern for British business, we are finished. I don't see Johnny Foreigner making plans to take on the obligations of our Welfare State when we no longer make anything he wants; if he's looking for maltreated, ill-bred, indolent slaves, he'll find all he needs closer to home.
Are we making a nation fit for Marxists?
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)