When Does It Start Growing Ma?????

Most of you will be to young, or to foreign, to remember the last years of the Major government. Even for many Conservative supporters we knew that, how ever wrong it could be, we had to lose the election. Our party had lost its way and was engulfed by scandal after scandal.

What made it worse was the opposition we making political capital of what a bunch of self-interested, money grabbing and self obsessed non entities were had in the party. Even the “Grey Man” himself was recognised for being a less than enspiring leader.

So they got their butts kicked and were replaced by New Labour – a better choice of name would have been Conservative-lite. Bliar came into office promising a new style of politics without the sleeze that had gone before. Britain would be a new country built on ethical policies and inclusive policies that would herald a new dawn. WE’d be financially and morally better off than ever before.

What we got was a liar as PM, the same old policies that let accountants, bankers and tax avoiders do whatever they wanted. With the Private Finance Initiative we had privitisation and unaccounted for debt spending. We’d enter two conflicts that no one understood and are still going on today. 

No we have a PM who, like Major, makes his predecessor look like a political messiah. As bad as Bliar was at least he had a personality. The one we have today has the personality of a dead fish – apologies to dead fish everywhere.

Recently he has been pedaling this vision of him as the Saviour of The World. He has all the answers to the current financial crisis that he, though he won’t admit, has done as much as others to create. Remember how he’s been telling us that where he has led all others are following and copying his policies.

Now, with this week’s G20 meeting looming, we find that every major country is set to refuse his notion of a new fiscal stimulus. Berlin have already leaked the final press release submitted by the Great Saviour. They France, Spain and most other countries say that this is the wrong thing to do.

Warren Buffet the current financial guru has said that the UK are likely to end up needing a bail-out from the Interantional Monetary Fund to survive. For those who remember the last Labour government in the mid to late 70’s will remember the sight of our Chancellor, Dennis Healy, going cap in hand to the IMF for loan after loan.

 This was not a great time for Britain’s standing in the world. It took Thatcher to restore pride in Britain. No matter what you think of her, at least she achieved that.

Now we have a leader whose own ego will not allow him to see that he is destroying our country and selling future generations into servitude to pay off his borrowing – fiscal prudency, my a***? Even the Governor of the Bank of England has said that the country can’t afford to borrow more. For a srving Governor to come out against government policy is almost unheard of.

It has been an interesting day for news:

A firm has been discovered that supplied information to construction companies on potential workers. It appears that many of the people on their database are union activists or people who had complained of health and safety issues at work.

Of course, the construction companies who paid for this information deny operating a blacklist of workers. Then why pay for the information? What other use could there be for it? We are talking about all the major construction companies being involved in this.

Then we had the Plane Stupid campaigner who threw “green custard” over Lord Peter Mandelbrot (our much loved, and not in the least bit iffy, unelected Minister for Business) as a protest against the third runway at Heathrow. Personally I think that she was wrong and that the third runway should be built – then Gordian Braun and his cronies could be used as the foundations – aka 60’s and 70’s gangster movies.

It was ironic though that he was being two faced (when is he not) and addressing a conference on “Green” policy.

Lastly, General Motors – better known to us as Vauxhall, Opel or Holden, are actually bust. Even after the US government had gived them $13bn and they are asking for a further $26bn. Personally I thnk they should be allowed to die. That way the most profitable parts can be saved and the rest disappear. They, like Ford, have been a basketcase for the past 10-15 years.

Instead of pumping countless amounts of taxpayers money into them and the banks, maybe someone should think of letting the badly run ones expire. If we keep pooring money in then we’ll never see it again and the bad executives and managers will just keep losing more and more.

History Today:

1475: The future painter, sculptor and architect Charlton Heston is born in Florence. He later built David and the Sistine Chapel.

1836: Mexican troops massacre the beleagured garrison at the Alamo, an event that has reached mythological status in Texas and the US. “The green leaves of summer” – RIP John Wayne and Ricahrd Wydmark.

1899: Felix Hoffmann pantents acetylsalicyclic acid. Better known today as aspirin. “When you have a headache, nothing acts faster…”

1902: Real Madrid is founded. It was down the back of the settee.

1957:  To celebrate its independence the Gold Coast changes its name to Ghana. It is the first African colony of the British Empire to gain its freedom.

1961: The man who used to clean the nation’s windows while playing a ukelele, dies of a heart attack. 

1981: Walter Cronkite reads the news for the last time.

1987: The Herald of Free Enterprise capizes in Zeebrugge.

The title is a combination of Corporal Jones, Private Frazier and the cover of The Hitchhikers Guide.

Why?

Well, on my home tonight I heard an American currency trader talking about the current state of the pound in the markets. One of the presenters asked why and was stunned by the answer. The rest of the world is concerned that we are not in the relatively good shape that our government tell us we are.

Governments borrow money by selling Treasury Bonds (Gilts) to other governments and financial institutions. So long as they find enough buyers you can sell as many as they like. To protect themselves the buyers can take out insurance against losses. A good idea, no?

A few weeks ago it would cost you $0.20 per dollar to do this. In the last few days the cost has gone up to $0.50 per dollar invested. That sounds alarming enough doesn’t it? To put this into perspective….

If you bought bonds issued by Royal Bank of Scotland, our almost bankrupt bank, then you would pay $0.50 per dollar. So the professional dealers believe that our government is as big a risk as the bank that they own 70% of and are propping up to avoid it collapsing.

This is not a problem for us at the moment but if things start to get worse, or are just perceived to, then the country could become a greater laughing stock than Iceland.

Yet our government deny that they are in any sense responsible and that this is all a global problem that had nothing to do with their policies for the past 12 years. Could we see another Labour government going cap in hand to the International Monetary Fund for a bail out? Who said that history does not repeat itself?

Thanks to Jacqui for her comment. I discovered Kiva a few years ago but never seemed to have the opportunity to make use of it.

One of the good things is that you become to feel a part of someone else’s life. You get regular updates, if you want them. You can also target your money as you want; this includes by region/country and business type.

I have decided that I don’t want to help people who sell alcohol, not because I’m a teetotaller or an abstainer, I just want to help people in ways that do not badly effect others or encourage money being spent on non-essentials at the expense of more immediate needs.

I also want to target people in the farming and transport areas, partly because I work in transport. I also have areas of the world that mean more to me than others. Now I get to help people in cental Asian republics that are often overlooked. I also love the idea of helping someone to buy cattle or a motorbike; I’m investing in things that will have immediate impact on their lives.

However the most important factor is that I’m doing what Jesus told us to. I’m helping the less well off not because I want credit or to have an ego boost but because that is how we should live. As Jesus (paraphased) said:

You clothed me, you visited me in prison, you fed me.

When?

Whenever you help someone else you help me.

*** If others are interested we could always set up a Wibsite team on the Kiva site on t’Internet to show others how we’re linked and how we’r helping.

Today I have decided that I’m going to change the way in which I’m going to help the poor people more. It will also comply with my conservative ideals of helping people to help themselves. So instead of giving my money to charities I’ve decided to loan money directly to the people who will make use of it.

So I have begun loaning via www.kiva.org as this allows me to decide which people I wish to loan to and know that it is making an immediate difference in thoer lives. It also means that as they improve their lot and repay the loan I make recycle my money to other’s who need it.

This helps me feel better about what I give as it will mean that I’m not giving to a faceless charity that will use X amount of my giving on admin costs. I can also choose when I want to give Kiva money towards its admin costs and how much. It also means that I don’t have to worry about the charity using it for advertising campaigns or political lobbying that I may not agree with.

I will still give to conventional charities but not as much as I used to do. Micro financing is a concept that I can agree with and support.

Gordian Braun has been criticised by the German Finance Minister, Peer Steinbruck, for his policy of keeping Britain from falling to deeply into recession. We all know that he’s to late in this but he still believes that he is the new Messiah of the financial world. There is no fool like a old fool with delusions.

Peer believes that Braun is wrong in running up national debt and lowering VAT in order to stave off a recession that has already taken hold. Unfortunately our government are convinced that they are more knowledgeable than anyone else. I mean the Germans only have Europe’s largest and most successful economy. What would they know about anything?

As Peer said: “are you really going to buy a DVD player because it now costs £39.10 instead of £39.90? All this will do is raise Britain’s debt to a level that will take a whole genetration to work off.”

That is what our government is doing – loading us with debt for the future, more than we’ve ever had before.  This could make the “austerity years” following the war look like a time of great wealth. We have a Labour government forcing us into the same financial straights as the 1970’s.

For many they are happy to see this happen because they believe that the (in)prudent Chancellor is a safe pair of hands. Yesterday he said that the Conservatives are the only people in the world who disagree with his policies. Yet here are the Germans rocking his boat.

So if he’s wrong what happens? Is it to late for us to do anything?

If he’s wrong then the recession will get worse and last longer. It’s not to late to change direction but I don’t think that our government will admit they are wrong. They know that they are gambling with our future but are to scared to admit that 11 years of their financial mistakes have helped put us in this position.

For those who hate nightmares look away now.   

What saved us in 1979/80 was a certain Mrs Thatcher. As much as you may hate her, without her this country would have been in a far worse mess. The Germans believe that we are heading for the same crash again but we have no real Handbag Whielder to save us this time.

I am wrioting this while not really wartching Heroes. Unfortunately I am finding that it is starting to become more and more convoluted just for the sake of it. It’s time that it got back to what it was at the beginning – before they decided to make it more than a one series event. It showed in the poor ending to the first series.

Anyway that isn’t the reason for today’s blog. You see today I changed history – I actually solved a great problem that has faced humanity for the past 5000 years, ever since the rest of you crawled out of the primeval swamp – us Welsh have always been at the pinnacle of what you call the evolutionary pyramid. We call it Creation.

Today I solved world poverty with an entire so simple I discovered it while eating my tea. Why no else has thought of it proves that the solutions are always in the biggest minds.

My solution is that you give evryone on the planet £1 million each. All prices stay the same but everyone becomes a millionaire – except for politicians and bankers, they don’t deserve it. Hey presto! Problem solved.

So it looks like this maybe the end of the road for Woolworths; not that it should be a great surprise to anyone. The chain has struggled for at least the last 10 years and countless buyouts, reorganisations and rescues have all failed spectactularly. It lost its way, appeared to be inherently old fashioned in outlook and was unable to compete with the might of Tesco, Asda etc.

Yet we also need to add to the list MFI, a company with identical failings over a similar period of time. So too the demise of Revlon’s factory in Maesteg, now under another name and identity.

What these businesses have in common is that they were once household names and major brands but have been in their deaththrows for a number of years. The hope is that they will be saved again at the eleventh hour by another white knight, The problem is that in today’s financial world there are very few white knights around.

They also suffer from the venture capital disease. They have been bought and sold some many times that they have little of value left. Eeryone has made their money, turned the business around(?) and moved on to better things. Each time they find another sucker to pick up the pieces; so the financial merrygoround continues until the music stops. Who lose? The workers whose only fault is that they are at the bottom of the foodchain living off the scraps.

The question is what should be done? Should we be a true free market society and allow them to die gracefully? Yes, we will see the loss of around 30000 jobs lost but should we spend good money keeping them afloat for nostalgia’s sake alone? How often have you shopped in Woolies, MFI or bought Revlon products? See we have all contributed to their fall.

Yet we have the image of those profligate wasters in the automotive industry going cap in hand to almost every government seeking bailouts to stave off their bloated debts. We’ve already done it for the banks so why not them as well? they say. So if them, what about Woolies etc? Where would we stop?

What we should learn from this is that we cannot trust politicians, bankers, financiers, directors or “experts”. They have all contributed to the current mess through their own hubris. The Masters of the Universe are now the minnows that are living comfortable lives while the rest suffer. They have all encouraged us to spend money we don’t have by spending money that they didn’t have but got from us.

Remember that it is our retirement funds that have been lost. Our taxes that will pay to put things right. The lifelivhoods of us all that will be risked again next time. Do NOT be taken in by the illusion that the politicians, corporations and bankers will learn from this. They’ll all be putting their noses back in the troughs very soon.

The Chancellor is making a speech tonight about the government’s need to spend responsibly to get us out of the coming recession. He wants to bring forward spending on public projects, such as schools and hospitals, as a way of alleviating the downturn.

This is a return to good old Keynesian economics from the 20’s & 30’s. To get out of the depression he suggested that government should spend, spend, spend; to a certain extent it worked – not just here but in Germany and America. However it did saddle us with a great debt that would need to be paid off later.

Unfortunately things got worse because of some unrecognised results – i.e. German rearmament and WW2. It took us until the very late 50’s & early 60’s to begin to recover; only for us to fall again in the 70’s. It took Mrs T. and her policies to turn things around, though that caused other problems.

Since 1997 the public debt has risen from £500 per person to a staggering £3200 and now they want to spend more. This is officially declared debt and does not include spending on PFI initiatives, these don’t appear on the government accounts. PFI debt is “off balance sheet” debt, the kind that led to the fall of Enron and Worldcom.

Is it really the right thing to do to spend further in the hope of heading off a deep recession? Is it prudent to keep spending money you don’t have?

We have already found billions to bail out the banks, not that it’s worked yet and may not do. Companies are finding it more and more difficult to find finance to keep the wheels moving. The loosening of credit constraints, promised as a boon of the rescue have not materialised. The exchange rate is dropping and dropping; the economy is beginning to slow very quickly – I know this from the amount of work coming our way; jobs are being lost and companies closinmg down their facalities – either going bust or moving to low cost alternatives.

If it was us we would be stopped by our bank. They wouldn’t allow you to borrow and borrow and borrow without stop. Yet the government, under our “Prudent P.M.”, have no problem with this. Unfortunately we’ll be left to pay for this for many years to come. Maybe he’s happy because he knows that it’ll be someone else’s problem after the next election.