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Wednesday, May 16, 2012
Sunday, May 13, 2012
Starve the beast
Labradors are just naturally greedy. Whatever you give them they'll eat, and if you don't restrict their diet, pretty soon you'll have a coffee table on furry legs. It's not good for them or kind to them.
Whereas bankers are capable of restraint: as recently as this January, RBS boss Stephen Hester turned down a bonus worth almost £1 million. He and Bob Diamond are good examples to set our much-loved but undisciplined pets.
Prisons: a reply to Peter Hitchens
Peter Hitchen's first item today is inspired by a touchy-feely recruitment poster for the prison service:
... Pasted up in an Oxfordshire byway, I found extraordinary proof of what most of us have long suspected and what politicians always try to deny (above). We are now so soft on wrong-doing that the wicked must be laughing at us.
It is a recruiting poster for prison officers. Beneath a picture of two smiling, kindly types in uniform sharing a jolly moment are the words: ‘Father figures. Agony Aunts. When you’re the closest to family anyone’s experienced in a long while, it becomes less of a job and more of a calling. Prison officers. People officers by nature.’
It continues: ‘Gaining the respect of offenders isn’t a skill you can learn. It’s something you need to have in you already: that ability to build rapport with a broad range of characters and ultimately make a breakthrough.’
The Ministry of Injustice, whose name and superscription are on the poster, have confirmed to me that it is really theirs. There you have it. For the worst people in the country, we hire ‘agony aunts’ and ‘father figures’ whose job is to ‘gain the respect’ of people who have repeatedly trampled on the rights and freedoms of their neighbours.
For the rest of us, death and taxes, indifference, inefficiency, scorn and an array of decrepit, slovenly ‘services’, which grow worse the more we pay for them.
Why, exactly, do you vote for the people who are responsible for this? I’d love to know.
To which I comment:
For once, I have to disagree with Peter, in relation to the first item. We should look to deal with what caused so many people to be imprisoned - so many prisoners have previously been "in care" and/or have lower levels of literacy and/or have mental health problems.
I'm sure there are many who would be dissuaded from crime by a realistic expectation of conviction (for a first offence, or at least an early one in their series) and punishment, and the traditional approach could work for them.
But there are many others who are in a spiral of self-loathing and destructive behaviour because of a lack of loving care, and I think a higher proportion of them end up in the prison system because they have despaired and the connection between behaviour and sanctions has broken.
The prison system needs reforming - when did prisoner-on-prisoner bullying and violence begin? Not in the days when they were strictly segregated even in chapel. And forcible buggery is not a judicial punishment, despite the leering threats made by officials to young offenders in all those police movies.
Jail is a punishment in terms of deprivation of personal liberty and loss of daily contact with loved ones; it is a deterrent for those considering similar offences; and it is a protection for society, during the time that offenders are kept inside.
But unless we're prepared to hang prisoners, or jail them for life, we need to do something about their addictions, their mental and emotional dysfunctions and their lack of employable skills.
And then we need to look at the dysfunctional society from which they come, and to which they will usually return: one that doesn't do much to support families and marriage, and employment (especially of men, because of how they are when they have nothing constructive to do).
... Pasted up in an Oxfordshire byway, I found extraordinary proof of what most of us have long suspected and what politicians always try to deny (above). We are now so soft on wrong-doing that the wicked must be laughing at us.
It is a recruiting poster for prison officers. Beneath a picture of two smiling, kindly types in uniform sharing a jolly moment are the words: ‘Father figures. Agony Aunts. When you’re the closest to family anyone’s experienced in a long while, it becomes less of a job and more of a calling. Prison officers. People officers by nature.’
It continues: ‘Gaining the respect of offenders isn’t a skill you can learn. It’s something you need to have in you already: that ability to build rapport with a broad range of characters and ultimately make a breakthrough.’
The Ministry of Injustice, whose name and superscription are on the poster, have confirmed to me that it is really theirs. There you have it. For the worst people in the country, we hire ‘agony aunts’ and ‘father figures’ whose job is to ‘gain the respect’ of people who have repeatedly trampled on the rights and freedoms of their neighbours.
For the rest of us, death and taxes, indifference, inefficiency, scorn and an array of decrepit, slovenly ‘services’, which grow worse the more we pay for them.
Why, exactly, do you vote for the people who are responsible for this? I’d love to know.
To which I comment:
For once, I have to disagree with Peter, in relation to the first item. We should look to deal with what caused so many people to be imprisoned - so many prisoners have previously been "in care" and/or have lower levels of literacy and/or have mental health problems.
I'm sure there are many who would be dissuaded from crime by a realistic expectation of conviction (for a first offence, or at least an early one in their series) and punishment, and the traditional approach could work for them.
But there are many others who are in a spiral of self-loathing and destructive behaviour because of a lack of loving care, and I think a higher proportion of them end up in the prison system because they have despaired and the connection between behaviour and sanctions has broken.
The prison system needs reforming - when did prisoner-on-prisoner bullying and violence begin? Not in the days when they were strictly segregated even in chapel. And forcible buggery is not a judicial punishment, despite the leering threats made by officials to young offenders in all those police movies.
Jail is a punishment in terms of deprivation of personal liberty and loss of daily contact with loved ones; it is a deterrent for those considering similar offences; and it is a protection for society, during the time that offenders are kept inside.
But unless we're prepared to hang prisoners, or jail them for life, we need to do something about their addictions, their mental and emotional dysfunctions and their lack of employable skills.
And then we need to look at the dysfunctional society from which they come, and to which they will usually return: one that doesn't do much to support families and marriage, and employment (especially of men, because of how they are when they have nothing constructive to do).
Monday, May 07, 2012
UK money supply growth hits historic low
Issued 2 May, the latest Bank of England quarterly M4 figures plumb new depths - remember, M4 had NEVER been negative from 1963 on, until the credit crunch in 2009.
INVESTMENT DISCLOSURE: None. Still in cash (and index-linked National Savings Certificates), and missing all those day-trading opportunities.
DISCLAIMER: Nothing here should be taken as personal advice, financial or otherwise. No liability is accepted for third-party content.
INVESTMENT DISCLOSURE: None. Still in cash (and index-linked National Savings Certificates), and missing all those day-trading opportunities.
DISCLAIMER: Nothing here should be taken as personal advice, financial or otherwise. No liability is accepted for third-party content.
UK money supply growth hits historic low
Issued 2 May, the latest Bank of England quarterly M4 figures plumb new depths - remember, M4 had NEVER been negative from 1963 on, until the credit crunch in 2009.
INVESTMENT DISCLOSURE: None. Still in cash (and index-linked National Savings Certificates), and missing all those day-trading opportunities.
DISCLAIMER: Nothing here should be taken as personal advice, financial or otherwise. No liability is accepted for third-party content.
INVESTMENT DISCLOSURE: None. Still in cash (and index-linked National Savings Certificates), and missing all those day-trading opportunities.
DISCLAIMER: Nothing here should be taken as personal advice, financial or otherwise. No liability is accepted for third-party content.
Silver as a protection against the powerful
Some days ago, the King World News blog posted an interview with the octogenarian Mexican billionaire, Hugo Salinas Price. He says "full-blown socialism" is on its way. Some might read the results of the recent French and Greek elections in that context.
There comes a time in a successful old man's life when he starts to ride a hobby-horse, whether it be philanthropy or politics. Sir James Goldsmith, dying of cancer, spent his last energies urging a British referendum on membership of the EU, having previously and presciently warned (in 1994) of the social instability inherent in the GATT agreement that set the labour forces of nations against one another. For all his faults, such as they may have been, I think that was a heroic finish.
Mr Price's horse is sound money, and he has worked long to reintroduce silver to Mexico as at least an alternative to fiat (paper, symbolic) money. In February he was interviewed by James Turk of GoldMoney and explained that this would be silver money with a twist: no face value expressed in currency terms. That is because when silver rises in price, it tends to be melted down for its scrap value; so the Libertad coin issuance is in various degrees of weight of silver content. He tells Turk that even if it is accepted as a partner with fiat, it won't necessarily be used in daily commercial exchange; instead, it will be held, as a store of value.
Why is this important? Because private property is a bastion against the powerful. In this latest interview, Price notes that Italy and Spain now ban cash purchases larger than 2,500 Euros, and refers to the US food stamp system as "ration cards": all part of a drift towards the State seizing control of commercial transactions.
The trouble is, States and big businesses become a threat when they join hands. As Marc Faber said (on King World News, again): "Near the end of a society or civilization, they typically become very corrupt. Either the government runs the businesses or the businesses run the government." Faber's hobby-horse is doom - perhaps this old man's conceit has persuaded him that the world will end shortly after he does; one can only hope that in this, unlike previously in other matters, he will be proved wrong.
What I find interesting about Price is that his is no simple redneck damn-Commie outlook: he sees socialism as merely a means used by an elite to continue in their position of power over the rest of us. They have made us dependent on a welfare state largesse based on corrupt money, and will move to a more naked form of control when the financial system breaks down. Since (he says) socialism is less efficient, this means declining resources (especially post Peak Oil) and therefore, ultimately, a dwindling world human population. That process of dwindling is easily referred to, but would be so hard to live through; perhaps we face a Spring and Autumn Period; I very much hope not.
But remember, this is not primarily about socialism; it is about power. From 2008 on we have seen businesses take over government, from the way Hank Paulson and his banker friends bullied Congress into re-voting to ensure that the first $700 billion of public money was paid via TARP, to the EU central bank installation of puppet financial regimes in proud independent States like Greece and Italy.
So, in a pseudo-capitalist phase, the businesses run the government; and then, in a faux-socialist aftermath, government will run business.
The people doing this will be essentially all of one class: I started saying to friends some years ago, that we are witnessing the reconstruction of a pan-European (perhaps I should have said, global) aristocracy. The bankers, politicians, journalists, advisers are dining and sleeping together, intermarrying, living in great houses and sailing fine yachts; and don't know the price of milk. They may ride bikes in public, forget to wear ties, slur their speech in demotic imitation; but it's all like Harold Wilson as PM, stubbing out his cigar and seizing his pipe as he strode from Number Ten to be photographed by the Press. The ones who lead the mob to supplant them are their brothers and sisters, under the skin. And the hereditary principle is stronger among socialists: look at peerage-renouncing Tony Benn and his constituency-inheriting son, look at Peter Mandelson and his vaunted descent from Herbert Morrison (possibly even the throne of Poland), look at North Korea. The sense of entitlement stinks to high heaven.
Yet, if only the mice could bell the cat, the solution could be so quick. Debt forgiveness (or repudiation); mutual debt cancellation (since a debtor to one is the creditor to another, in a great international web); or simply starving the beast, by shifting our deposits to more responsible banks.
But fundamentally, holding your own money means it is not the creature of a central bank (created out of debt), or a government's (created out of nothing, by printing). Despite the high price of silver and gold, I find myself leaning to their promise of a degree of wealth preservation in an increasingly unstable economic (and political) system.
INVESTMENT DISCLOSURE: None. Still in cash (and index-linked National Savings Certificates), and missing all those day-trading opportunities.
DISCLAIMER: Nothing here should be taken as personal advice, financial or otherwise. No liability is accepted for third-party content.
There comes a time in a successful old man's life when he starts to ride a hobby-horse, whether it be philanthropy or politics. Sir James Goldsmith, dying of cancer, spent his last energies urging a British referendum on membership of the EU, having previously and presciently warned (in 1994) of the social instability inherent in the GATT agreement that set the labour forces of nations against one another. For all his faults, such as they may have been, I think that was a heroic finish.
Mr Price's horse is sound money, and he has worked long to reintroduce silver to Mexico as at least an alternative to fiat (paper, symbolic) money. In February he was interviewed by James Turk of GoldMoney and explained that this would be silver money with a twist: no face value expressed in currency terms. That is because when silver rises in price, it tends to be melted down for its scrap value; so the Libertad coin issuance is in various degrees of weight of silver content. He tells Turk that even if it is accepted as a partner with fiat, it won't necessarily be used in daily commercial exchange; instead, it will be held, as a store of value.
Why is this important? Because private property is a bastion against the powerful. In this latest interview, Price notes that Italy and Spain now ban cash purchases larger than 2,500 Euros, and refers to the US food stamp system as "ration cards": all part of a drift towards the State seizing control of commercial transactions.
The trouble is, States and big businesses become a threat when they join hands. As Marc Faber said (on King World News, again): "Near the end of a society or civilization, they typically become very corrupt. Either the government runs the businesses or the businesses run the government." Faber's hobby-horse is doom - perhaps this old man's conceit has persuaded him that the world will end shortly after he does; one can only hope that in this, unlike previously in other matters, he will be proved wrong.
What I find interesting about Price is that his is no simple redneck damn-Commie outlook: he sees socialism as merely a means used by an elite to continue in their position of power over the rest of us. They have made us dependent on a welfare state largesse based on corrupt money, and will move to a more naked form of control when the financial system breaks down. Since (he says) socialism is less efficient, this means declining resources (especially post Peak Oil) and therefore, ultimately, a dwindling world human population. That process of dwindling is easily referred to, but would be so hard to live through; perhaps we face a Spring and Autumn Period; I very much hope not.
But remember, this is not primarily about socialism; it is about power. From 2008 on we have seen businesses take over government, from the way Hank Paulson and his banker friends bullied Congress into re-voting to ensure that the first $700 billion of public money was paid via TARP, to the EU central bank installation of puppet financial regimes in proud independent States like Greece and Italy.
So, in a pseudo-capitalist phase, the businesses run the government; and then, in a faux-socialist aftermath, government will run business.
The people doing this will be essentially all of one class: I started saying to friends some years ago, that we are witnessing the reconstruction of a pan-European (perhaps I should have said, global) aristocracy. The bankers, politicians, journalists, advisers are dining and sleeping together, intermarrying, living in great houses and sailing fine yachts; and don't know the price of milk. They may ride bikes in public, forget to wear ties, slur their speech in demotic imitation; but it's all like Harold Wilson as PM, stubbing out his cigar and seizing his pipe as he strode from Number Ten to be photographed by the Press. The ones who lead the mob to supplant them are their brothers and sisters, under the skin. And the hereditary principle is stronger among socialists: look at peerage-renouncing Tony Benn and his constituency-inheriting son, look at Peter Mandelson and his vaunted descent from Herbert Morrison (possibly even the throne of Poland), look at North Korea. The sense of entitlement stinks to high heaven.
Yet, if only the mice could bell the cat, the solution could be so quick. Debt forgiveness (or repudiation); mutual debt cancellation (since a debtor to one is the creditor to another, in a great international web); or simply starving the beast, by shifting our deposits to more responsible banks.
But fundamentally, holding your own money means it is not the creature of a central bank (created out of debt), or a government's (created out of nothing, by printing). Despite the high price of silver and gold, I find myself leaning to their promise of a degree of wealth preservation in an increasingly unstable economic (and political) system.
INVESTMENT DISCLOSURE: None. Still in cash (and index-linked National Savings Certificates), and missing all those day-trading opportunities.
DISCLAIMER: Nothing here should be taken as personal advice, financial or otherwise. No liability is accepted for third-party content.
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