RANT: Austerity & Other Nonsense

There is so much talk these days about austerity, austerity, austerity. Governments worldwide are brandishing this word around like financial sabres, ready to cut and thrust at everything and everybody in their wake.

It's been all the talk, nay, all the rage at the G-20 talks in Toronto.

It's all about cut, cut, cut.

And why? Because of the current global financial crisis (read: meltdown), of course. We're all told again and again and again in the media about how bad many developed countries' public finances are and how it is so necessary for austerity measures to be introduced so that the 'deficits' can be brought under control.

It all sounds so utterly convincing - if one hears it enough times (and, boy, don't we just). After all, the finances of a country need to be 'balanced', right?

Wrong.

This current obsession with 'balancing the books' of countries so that debt levels can be somehow 'stabilized' is NOT the only solution to governments around the world. Yet, the way many leaders and 'economic experts' (now there's perhaps the biggest oxymoron of our times...) speak, one would believe that only by slashing away at any public spending are governments going to get out of their current debt spiral.

This austerity obsession, deliriously manic in its 'all-or-nothing' worldview, has taken its grip. And it will not let go. Thus the need to dissect just what all this austerity will actually mean:

• slashed public (read: government) spending on health
• slashed public spending on education
• slashed public spending on infrastructure
• slashed public spending on social services
• slashed public spending on social upliftment programmes
• slashed public spending on single mothers
• slashed public spending on poor children
• slashed public spending on the poor - period
• slashed everything that creates any semblance of a welfare, communitarian state

But there's more. Inevitably, without exception, these austerity measures also mean:

• more selling of public (government-owned) assets
• more privatization, including of public utilities
• more 'open markets' (i.e. to foreign, cheaper imports)
• less trade barriers of any kind - whatsoever
• diminished unionization and union powers
• 'liberalization' of labour laws (as if workers being protected and having minimum rights somehow needs to be 'liberated')
• less restrictions on banks and other financial institutions

Hey, hold on a moment - this all sounds terribly familiar. This sounds just like the type of painful, nation-destroying program (obliquely referred to as 'structural adjustment') that is ALWAYS imposed by the IMF whenever it grants a loan to a country, right? Absolutely. And aren't the IMF and its other Evil Twin, the World Bank, nothing more than the international bank and finance versions of the so-called 'Washington Consensus' - i.e. the wholesale embrace of the Chicago School of Economics and its architect, that most vile economist, Milton Friedman?

Friedman is thankfully dead, but his nihilistic vision of economics is alive and well, i.e. the market always 'knows best', the market should be left completely unregulated, there should be no government interference in the market, etc. That magic 'market' that knows best and will make all of our lives so much better. You know - all that utter neoconservative economic crap that got us into this whole mess in the first place...

The very antithesis of Friedmanite economics is that of the Keynesians, the economic theory that dominated world economics and public financing from the 1930s until Friedman started to rear his ugly, perverse head in the 1970s.

We can thank the brilliant British economist John Maynard Keynes (in the photo) for his brand of 'caring capitalism' economics. Brilliant because the Americans stuck in the nightmare of the Great Depression in the early 1930s can thank Keynes for getting them out of it. The New Deal anyone? Where the hell do people think Franklin D. Roosevelt got the idea to pump money into the American economy with huge public works, thereby creating jobs and new prosperity?

The post-World War II Marshall Plan, not to mention the social welfare-based market economies of Western Europe from 1945 to the 1980s, were entirely Keynesian in theory and practice.

Where the Friedmanite (aka monetarists) cultists dictate that in bad times one should switch off the public spending taps, Keynesians believe that governments should spend, spend, spend. Keynesian theory says that in order to create wealth one must spend money to do so. Pump the economy full of cash, even if it creates more initial public debt.

Friedmanites, cultish to the hilt in their governments-out-of-markets-at-all-times hysteria, say this is madness. Debt is debt and debt is bad, they preach. So, it's slash, slash, slash for them.

Oh, but do make sure that the banks and stock markets remain completely unregulated so that they can run riot like the financial terrorists that some of them wish to be...and plunge us into this crisis all over again.

Yeah, the Friedman approach makes perfect sense.

And so we now live in this surreal and schizophrenic world of contemporary global finance and public spending. On the one hand, governments have pumped huge amounts of public money into the economy. That's Keynesian, whichever way you look at it. Except they've thrown all the money at the speculators and at the rogues (i.e. the banks, investment houses, etc), rather than benefiting the savers and those needing work in the economy. Ummmm, Keynes would not have approved.

On the other hand, governments resolutely refuse to really clamp down on banks, financial institutions on the whole, stock markets, etc. It's all been so wimpish, so piecemeal, so ineffective. And, worse still, now plunged into further debt because of bailing out banks, governments all over now insist on slashing public spending so that they can 'control the public debts'...!!! They simply can't seem to get out of the Friedman horror show that has gripped the world's economic imagination since the 1980s.

Hence the current economic schizophrenia.

It's madness. Just yesterday on the Keiser Report on Russia Today TV, Ellen Brown, who has written the critically acclaimed book "Web of Debt" (which I absolutely must read ASAP), spoke of how ridiculous it was that the new British government have been quoted as saying that they will need to slash spending in order to save the welfare state. She stated that warped logic was akin to "starving the patient even more in order to save the patient." In a word - preposterous.

Governments do NOT need to slash public spending in order to jumpstart ailing and debt-ridden economies. On the contrary - more than ever, they need to inject huge amounts of money into protecting those who save and don't merely speculate and, more importantly, making huge investments in job creation, skills development and other socio-economic programs. Yes, a country will get into more debt. A lot more debt even - without a doubt. Initially, that is. But at least the 'stimulus plan' will be effective in the long run - more jobs actually created, more spending power as a result by all citizens, more sustained growth.

The 1930s New Deal anyone?

AND, most importantly, at least public money will be kept in the public domain for the public good and not handed over to the robber barons just so that they can loudly say NO whenever anyone asks to borrow some of 'their' precious money (which is actually the public's, but anyway)...

Austerity is not inevitable. Austerity is not the only way.

Austerity. It's the 'A' word that should be an 'F' word.

Do you get my point?

RANT: WANTED: Financial Terrorists

This post has been boiling inside me like a volcano for literally months now. You'll soon see why...

Let me say it here, loud and strong: This ongoing global financial crisis has nothing to do with "governments overspending" (the accusations hurled at Greece) or "governments being irresponsible with their debt" (again, the wretched Greece - and ditto at Spain, Portugal and Italy) or "public finances that are too generous and over-exploited by undeserving recipients" (the type of rhetoric coming out of the now-Tory UK) or any other such deceptive doublespeak.

These are just political fluff balls and psychological teargas used by (useless, bought out, corrupt, stupid - take your pick) politicians and economists on a confused and bewildered public. Because folks, the only reason nearly every economy now in 'crisis' with its public finances is in the depths of despair and now swallowing the 'austerity pill' en masse is because PUBLIC MONEY WAS SPENT TO BAIL OUT PRIVATELY OWNED BANKS AND FINANCIAL INSTITUTIONS!!!

Starting with the United States last year, and ever since, country after country has been bailing out banks and financial institutions with literally trillions of dollars in PUBLIC MONEY in the demented hope that by giving all this money to these banks and financial terrorists they would somehow start re-lending money to people and get economies circulating money again and recovering.

The very banks and financial institutions that are privately held, unelected and not accountable to the very public whose money has been given over to these corporate swine on a silver platter. Their only concern are their top management and executives making a killing, along with a few rogue traders and other despicable insiders, and perhaps their shareholders - a crowd of people in this context I dub the 'Three Monkeys Crowd' (you know - the monkeys that saw nothing, say nothing and hear nothing).

The very banks and financials institutions that GOT US INTO THIS WHOLE BLOODY MESS WITH THEIR RECKLESS LENDING, BREATHTAKINGLY RECKLESS RISK-TAKING & ASTOUNDING RATES OF LEVERAGED DEBT!!!

And then people wonder why the hell people like me are so bloody angry!!!

And what's happened with all that bail-out money handed over to these undeserving financial terrorists?
Did they open the taps and lend money to the public? NO.
Did they inject new life into economies with all their new money, i.e. public money paid to them for their own reckless and economically suicidal decisions? NO. 
Did nearly all of them still go out and pay their top executives bonuses at the end of 2009 and already this year, even though they were technically insolvent and were using public money to pay these gigantic bonuses to the very financial bosses who got us all into this mess in the first place? YES, BUT OF COURSE - HOW DARE YOU ASK!

These financial bastards must be laughing themselves sick at how they pulled off what is probably the biggest financial con job of the modern era.

So, now governments like Greece, Spain, the UK and many others are scrambling around with all this public debt due to these ginormous payouts to banks. All because they chose to 'save' these reckless financial terrorist organizations masquerading as 'bona fide' going concerns, rather than telling them that the party is OVER, allowing most of these banks to collapse - kaput. After all, doesn't classical capitalism tell us that when a business is no longer viable it should not be allowed to survive?

But, of course, most of these banks and financial institutions have become 'too big to fail'. Again, how the hell is that stupendous logic reconciled with true free market capitalism?

Adam Smith is rolling in his grave.

This is not free, open market capitalism. This is globalized casino capitalism, whereby reckless and frankly dangerous banks and financial institutions now have the power to bring entire economies to their knees because of their own outrageous risk-taking and market manipulating.

 Or, at the very least, they should have chopped up these financial behemoths into smaller, less reckless and HEAVILY REGULATED banks - oh, and fired every bloody conniving or useless financial terrorist (aka senior executives and top brass) in every one of these failed enterprises. And named and shamed every one of them for the financial terrorists that they have been.

They subvert national economies. They wreck national stock markets and currencies. They destabilize the entire planet. These are financial terrorists.

Yet they continue to thrive, like the devious well-heeled cockroaches that they are. Swanning around in their huge limousines, guzzling down haute cuisine and swilling expensive drink at chichi restaurants, living in their swanky (multiple) homes and even having the gall to appear in the media as 'financial pundits' or 'gurus'.

Uh huh.

What makes these men and women in the financial world who have accepted public money for their own reckless, dangerous acts and threaten to destroy countries' economies any less terrorists than the likes of al-Qaeda? Is it because they wear designer suits and expensive watches? Is it because they obtained their MBAs at prestigious universities? Is it because they look 'more like us' than those crazies brandishing AK-47s and suicide bomb vests?

They're not like the rest of us - at all. They live in a stratosphere of disgusting wealth acquisition and inordinate economic power. They are dangerous. They are a threat. They too are the enemy.

And countries are left broke and unable (or unwilling?) to properly control this plague of arrogant, financial terrorists in our midst. Economies shrink, people lose work and homes and dignity, and these entities that 'simply could not fail' continue to fail all of us again and again and again.

My anger - like so many others in Greece and Spain and Romania and Iceland and countless other countries - knows no bounds.

Do you get my point?

RANT: (Bad) Luck of the Irish

My rant for today is a follow-on from earlier my rants on the financial crises that have afflicted Iceland and Greece of late. Now it's the turn of Ireland.

The Irish, it would seem from the actions of their government, are not that lucky after all.

Last Tuesday, March 30th, was known as 'Bailout Tuesday' in Ireland. Yet again, the Irish government saw fit to bail out the five biggest banks in that country from their 'financial predicaments', i.e. mountains of bad, bad, bad debt. So, once again, taxpayers in a country are having to bail out the bad (read: greedy and reckless) actions of private financial institutions with public (taxpayer) money. Actions that have basically sunk the Irish economy.

So, yet again, the poor and the middle classes are having to bail out the (stinking) rich. Whoever said that robber capitalism wasn't alive and well?

And to what tune is this bailout? Well, no less than an estimated 81 BILLION EUROS is what the Irish government is expected to buy back in bad debt via its own artificially created 'bad bank' known as the National Asset Management Agency (NAMA - or "VietNAMA" as Max Keiser hilariously referred to it on his most recent show!).

That is a hell of a lot of money in public expenditure that was not exactly budgeted for. Especially when one considers that Ireland's total Gross Domestic Product (GDP) was 167 billion euros in 2008. So, in effect, the Irish government is buying bad debt created by banks that is worth nearly one-half of the country's entire GDP! Where's a friendly leprechaun when you need one?

Even the man who set up NAMA, Peter Bacon, has likened the actual debt of the bank in biggest trouble, Anglo Irish Bank, to that of "an Irish Chernobyl". Such is the amount of as yet undeclared debt that some of these banks are still hiding for now. Very reassuring indeed.

As was stated in an editorial in the Irish newspaper, the Limerick Post, "No matter what spin the government ministers attempt to put on NAMA and its decision to prop up Anglo Irish Bank, the Irish economy is in tatters...Well in excess of 20 billion Euros is to be pipelined into Anglo, a bank that contributed more than its share in bringing down the Irish economy...This is the very bank that loaned monopoly money to developers, builders and speculators, with no questions asked. The very people facilitated, and the bank's hierarchy, will, unlike the ordinary Joe Soap, see little impact on their personal lives."

The Limerick Post article concludes, "How much more can the public take?"

How much indeed. Quite a lot it would seem, given that the Irish government is set to prop up these banks (yet again) using public money...and no one seems set to stop them doing just that.

Is this a system of capitalism even worth preserving? Is this robber capitalism, masquerading as 'the free market", really what the Irish and most of us in the world must be content with?

Max Keiser has made the statement that, with this latest bank bail-out, the Irish people are for all intents and purposes currently being "occupied" by investment bankers and financial robber barons. Their economy and their political system has been hijacked by the very economic terrorists who got them into this entire mess in the first place. It is indeed an occupation by a hostile force. And because of it Ireland is in the toilet, demoralized, defeated for now. Kaput, essentially.

One can only hope that the Irish will see fit to eventually overhaul their entire banking system and the financial-political Mafia that is currently strangling their economy.

There has been talk of a 'Revolution Sunday' looming in Sunday. Who knows. But change is definitely needed in Ireland. Without that, it is doubtful if their luck will turn around any time soon.

Do you get my point?

RAVE: Brilliant Image re Iceland Crisis

As a follow up to my rather lengthy rant about the Icelandic vote tomorrow on their 'debt' to the UK and Netherlands, I could not resist raving about this brilliant image I just came across:

It shows a bulldog (synonymous with the UK and, by extension, Gordon Brown) standing over a map of Iceland. Sheer, simple brilliance - it says it all.

Due credit for this image is given to the Debtonation site - a brilliant site that I highly recommend (www.debtonation.org) with insights regarding the current financial crisis.

RANT: Iceland - Please Vote NO

Tomorrow the citizens of Iceland will vote on whether or not Iceland should honour its so-called 'Icesave Bill'. This is a piece of legislation whereby Iceland must pay back the debt it supposedly owes to the United Kingdom and the Netherlands due to the collapse of one of its own banks, Landsbanki, in 2008 and, in turn, the collapse of Icesave.



Landsbanki offered their 'Icesave' brand as an online savings account - the draw being very high interest rates (read: greed) on this savings loan, thank you very much. Hence, the large number of investors who bought these loans - over 400 000 in the UK and Netherlands combined. When Landsbanki went into receivership in 2008, so too did their online savings buckeroo. For 6-8 weeks people holding these loans could not get their money out. A diplomatic row broke out between Iceland, on the one hand, and the UK and Netherlands on the other as to how Iceland would pay out these debts to so many foreign account holders.

But one has to first ask the question: Why did all of Iceland's three biggest banks, including Landsbanki, collapse in 2008? Some analysts have been critical of the way that Iceland's banks were so heavily leveraged (i.e. the amount of debt they had over and above their assets) by international standards. It was estimated that Icelandic banks were leveraged by more than five times Iceland's GDP. Not good economics.

With the collapse of Lehman Brothers in 2008 (beautifully orchestrated by the likes of JP Morgan and those mega-scheisters, Goldman Sachs - more on that another time) came uncertainty as to the solvency of Icelandic banks. There was a rush on foreign accounts held in Icelandic banks and, well, the whole Icelandic banking system went into crisis, their three biggest banks collapsed and, suddenly, the Icelandic government and its parliament, the Althing, were left holding the baby.

The Althing formulated this 'Icesave Bill' as an attempt to bring into law a means by which these foreign account debts could be 'honoured' and it was passed in December 2009 (this after previous similar bills had been rejected by the British and Dutch as unacceptable). The proposed law was highly unpopular with Icelandic citizens, given how much debt Iceland would incur as a nation.

Then, on January 5th of this year the Icelandic President, Olafur Ragnar Grimsson, stunned many by refusing to sign the bill into law. All hell broke loose. The Brits and Dutch threatening that Iceland's plans to join the EU would be vetoed, not to mention threats of international lawsuits against Iceland, and so forth.

My admiration of President Grimsson's refusal to sign into law measures that would be so prejudicial to Iceland knows no bounds. I have included a picture of him in this post. The man showed enormous courage and determination in refusing to succumb to the threats and bullying by the British and Dutch governments.

So, is Iceland really to blame? If you listen to the analysts 'critical' of their over-leveraged banks then, yes, the Icelandic banking system should take the rap. Please note these analysts tend to be of the CNN-MSNBC-BBC-Sky-News ilk, i.e. Wall Street and City of London parakeets to the hilt.

I mean, Iceland should be held accountable for its banks, right? These foreign accounts should be paid back by Iceland, right? Ummm, no.

Why do I scoff at these supposedly erudite analysts? And why do I make the assertion in this post that the Icelandic government and its people should not be held accountable for this debt? I'll tell you why:

1. Because just about every major bank in the world was super-leveraged by the time the global financial crisis hit in 2008, folks! Why the hell do you think so many major banks, especially in the USA and the UK, had to bailed out with government aid packages, i.e. taxpayer money?! They were in hock to the bloody hilt.

2. Because, unlike many other countries, Iceland's government simply did not have the public money to bail out its own banks. The money just wasn't there because international speculators, those economic terrorists from hell, had specifically targeted the Icelandic kroner and it had devalued enormously in 2008. Remember, Iceland is not a member of the EU and so did not have the 'comfort blanket' of the Euro (the bittersweet irony is that now the Euro is itself coming under attack from these speculators! Don't you just love globalized finance?)

3. Because, why must Iceland be vilified for its banking practices, when most banks worldwide, especially most of the big ones in the US and the UK, were being operated along the exact same, unsustainable lines?

4. Because why must, if the Icesave Bill is finally signed into law in Iceland, the country's citizens be okay with the fact that the country's debt will then be the equivalent of 13000 euros for every single citizen? Iceland will become the most indebted nation per capita on the planet. Would you be willing for your country to take on that amount of debt because of the shenanigans of a few of your own country's bankers in full cohorts with international bankers and financiers in other countries? Not to mention the fact that your country's currency had been specifically targeted for obscene speculation by a bunch of economic terrorists?

No, I didn't think you would be happy to do that? So why must Iceland?

5. Because why must Iceland be threatened with being vetoed entry into the EU or threatened with huge lawsuits just because it may choose not to honour a debt that will be so prejudicial to its national debt per capita? Why is it acceptable that the UK and the Netherlands are allowed to be such bullies against such a relatively small economy? Would they do that if the country in question was Italy? Or Spain? Or the United States? Hmmmm, interesting question that...no?

6. Because I hope that a 'NO' vote tomorrow in Iceland will force that country to review its way of getting out of its current financial nightmare. I do believe that being denied a bailout by the IMF, that Antichrist of international government aid, will be a very dark cloud with a beautiful silver lining to it for Iceland. An IMF loan always comes with stipulations designed to further enslave a nation to the whims of international investors and international (Mafia) finance, not to mention the slashing of public spending (read: education, healthcare, etc) and the lowering of labour costs and protections.

Don't let the Chicago Boys in, Iceland!

7. Because, quite frankly, I don't see why there should be any need for a country to 'honour' debt in an international financial system that is obviously so inherently rotten to the core and which it, like most countries worldwide, had been duped into believing was a basically 'honourable' and safe capitalist system. It is NOT honourable and it is not safe - the globalized capital market has become a Mafia domain. Countries are having their economies taken out by economic hitmen in the shape of investment banks and financiers (Greece, anyone?) and being forced (somehow) to have to pay for the mess and debt chaos that these economic terrorists wreak upon their economies. Why be honourable with a bunch of crooks? Stuff them.

8. Because for all the talk of 'innocent' account holders in this Icesave scandal, the majority are nothing but a bunch of middle- to upper-income people and organizations who wanted to make a quick buck with a savings account promising higher interest rates. Understandable, but still an element of greed existed. So, you got burned - I am sorry but, as they say, boo hoo. Welcome to the modern form of global capitalism. There is no level playing field in the markets, you dupes. Nice, isn't it? Time yuppies who love to 'play' the markets thinking they were so clever learned that often all that happens is they get played yourselves by a bunch of economic conmen.

And to all those municipalities who invested in these types of accounts and junk bonds just to try and 'raise more money' - shame on you for playing the markets with public money. You had no right to do so.

Let the UK and Dutch governments have to pay out these debts themselves if they care so much about all these account holders. Maybe then they'll think twice about allowing their own financial systems to become so rampantly unregulated and so at the mercy of international bankers and speculators.

9. Because the current globalized financial system is corrupt, perverse and is not here to serve you or I. It is in the hands of a very few of the mega-rich and the mega-bought-out and they are holding entire country economies and currencies to ransom. THIS is what you get when you allow capitalism to become unregulated uber-capitalism and allow for rampant speculation to become normative.

10. Because Iceland's vote tomorrow is a litmus test for just how much anger there is against the current global financial system. And because this could very well be the starting point of a citizen-led revolt worldwide against this sick, perverse system. This Icelandic vote may yet prove an interesting chapter in years to come about just what led the international uber-capitalist system to be overhauled.

Iceland needs to regain its dignity. And by saying 'NO' to its international debt obligations it will, paradoxically, regain a sense of self and a sense of nationhood. Any nation held hostage to the arbitrary vagaries and collusion of globalized finance should do just that.

Therefore, for all the above, and so much more, I can only hope that Iceland will vote a big, resounding NO tomorrow in the Icesave referendum.

Do you get my point?

RANT: Sovereign Debt - the UK 'Slide' Show

Sovereign Debt - ah yes, my pet economic issue of the day. Here comes another rant on this issue, scant days after my first one on it.

The big talk this past week was about how now it was not only Portugal or Ireland or Greece or Italy or Spain or (the infamous 'PIGIS' group of European countries) that may be in danger of default on their sovereign debt but...nay, wait for it...

the United Kingdom.

Oh, how that particular news filled me with a delicious sense of irony. I did get a big kick out of hearing that the UK's budget deficit could very soon balloon to even larger than that of the much-maligned Greece.

Don't get me wrong: this is not some anti-British tirade on my part. I lived in England for five years, got an excellent degree at a respected English university and made some truly wonderful friends of whom I care about to this very day. My love of British music, cinema, humour and much beside, years and years in the making, know no bounds.

No, this is not some childish tirade against the English, the British or anything Anglo. Rather, it is an all-out assault on that mother of all centres for global financial markets and, therefore, economic terrorism, namely 'The City', as London's financial district is pedantically referred to by many.



And throw in that appalling British government for good measure.

London is, along with Wall Street in New York City, the most important centre for global finance. Much is said and ranted about regarding the obscene bonuses and stock option payouts, etc, being paid in this economic recession to corporate America and, in particular, on Wall Street. However, the City of London and all its British banks, investment banks and financiers are not doing too shabbily either.

The levels of cynical gorging by these 'City' financial rogues at the trough, much of it with the help of billions of pounds in taxpayer money by the British government, are plain S-I-C-K-E-N-I-N-G.

And all of this has been done with the full blessing and collusion of the Gordon Brown government.

Hence, my being tickled pink at hearing that the UK may soon join the likes of Spain or Ireland or even...gasp...Greece as yet another example of a government that is simply too much in debt to pay all of its creditors and domestic obligations.

I snicker at the news because turns out that having the 'financial epicentre' of the global financial scene in your own back garden is no guarantee against having an economy as up to pawpaws as that of Greece. Delicious.

I snicker at the news because that's what you get for racking up billions and billions of pounds for fighting wars that you had no rhyme or reason to get involved in. Yes, Britain, what the hell are you doing having been part of the illegal Iraq war and still stuck in the morass that is Afghanistan?

And I think I'll puke from here all the way to Buckingham Palace if I hear any of that 'our brave men in uniform fighting for our freedom' crap on faux-news stations like Sky News or even the BBC one more time. Your brave men in uniform are tragically losing their lives for nothing. That's tragic. And stop all that patriotic chest-thumping. You lost your empire ages ago. Get over it.

And I snicker hardest because the UK recently tried to bully Iceland into bailing out British investors over the collapse of Icesave, an Icelandic investment fund (this along with those other bullies, the Netherlands). Gordon Brown invoked anti-terrorism legislation against Iceland in late 2008 because of the threat of Iceland defaulting on payments to the UK. Yes, anti-terrorism laws! Iceland was understandably outraged at being considered a 'terrorist state'. Diplomatic relations between the two countries, centuries-long allies, plummeted to all-time lows. All over money.

Even worse, it has even been alleged in some media that Gordon Brown himself is said to have made the OUTRAGEOUS statement that, if need be, the UK would be willing to invade Iceland because of their 'terrorist-like activities' in not paying up. What the hell is going on here?!!

And all of this by Brown with the full-blown pressure and constant braying of and by the 'City of London'. Not to mention that it is those pompous twats in their pinstripe suits and driving their Jaguars and Bentleys to their Home Counties weekend homes that will benefit most if Iceland capitulates and pays out the UK. That is, pays for what was the result of the 'financial shenanigans' (read: economic terrorist activities) of a few Icelandic investment bankers in full cohorts with a whole bunch of 'City' bankers and the like.

The Icelandic President refused to sign the law that would beholden Iceland to 'honour' those debts (all power to him for that) and a referendum on that issue yet awaits the Icelandic people in March. More on that very soon.

So, let's recap:

We have a country's government that has seen fit to terrorize another sovereign European country over a few billion pounds that was largely caused by the badly regulated financial mechanisms and market in its own country.

We have two successive governments that have ensnared a country and its soldiers in immoral and illegal wars that are only strengthening terrorism, not weakening it.

And we have a financial heartland that is at the very heart of what has been and continues to be so horrendously wrong with world economics and financial systems.

And now the warmongering bully that genuflects to 'the City' at every given moment has an economy that is tanking quicker and worse than most others.

Talk about karma.

So, yes, that's why I get a mischievous thrill out of seeing the UK's economy slip-sliding even further down as it rides on the coattails of those City bastards.

I don't wish unemployment or hard times on any of my friends or the people that I love and care about in the UK. Of course I don't. The British people deserve so much better than the corrupt financial masters and their government puppets that they currently have. In fact, the rest of the world deserves and needs better than that, so inflated is the financial clout that the City of London exerts in the world's economy.

What I do wish is for more sanity in British politics - highly unlikely given New Labour's track record to date, not to mention that the slimy David Cameron and his creepy Tories will be even more in the pocket of the City of London. The Tories and the City have been best buddies for ages. Conservatives and fat cat financiers, like really ugly, decrepit birds, always flock together.

Even more importantly, I can only hope that the ongoing economic crisis will somehow metamorphose into a significant and meaningful overhaul of the current capitalism-out-of-control that currently plagues the world.

Uber-capitalism and its equally demented side-kick, globalized finance, must be stopped once and for all and a more rational, equitable and sustainable system of capitalism (or something even better of the ilk) evolve in its place.

The likes of the City of London and Wall Street need to be relegated to nothing more than a sideshow in global economics. If that's at all possible. They've been the Ringmasters of this Three-Ring Circus from Hell for long enough.

For now, the UK economy gets everything it deserves.

Do you get my point?

RANT: The Scam that is 'Sovereign Debt'

'Sovereign debt.' The latest chapter in the mess that is the ongoing financial and economic crisis hitting most of the Western world, and many other countries aside. In short, sovereign debt is supposedly what a country's treasury (i.e. government coffers) has in terms of debt.

And, oh boy, are many countries now on the verge of sovereign debt default, i.e. the inability to pay national debt, whether it to be foreign creditors, pay for social programs at home, raise sufficient capital through treasury bonds issuance, etc. The effect on local economies, not to mention the global economy, if countries start to default on their own national debt, could be quite catastrophic.

Greece is first up.

Greece is on the verge of defaulting on its debt payments. The European Union is freaking out. The Eurozone is freaking out. I mean, countries in Europe don't default on their payments, do they? That's something the likes of Brazil and Argentina and Nigeria did back in the 1980s. Not an EU and euro-based country. Right? Well...no. Greece is on the verge of default. That is fact.

The Greek Prime Minister, George Papandreou, has blamed his country's economic crisis on international speculators (i.e. the likes of Goldman Sachs and their fellow blood-sucking brethren in the international financial world) with their buying up of Greek treasury bonds and, now, dumping of them. Some pooh-pooh that notion (always international financiers or Wall Street apologists, by the way), but don't get analysts like my man, Max Keiser, started on that notion. For him, and many others, the imminent collapse of Greece is entirely the fault of international speculators that are playing havoc with entire national economies.

I, for one, totally believe what Papandreou accuses Wall Street of doing to Greece.

And there are others too who may almost be on the verge of national debt default...

Spain





Ireland





Italy - beautiful land of my ancestors...





Portugal - the other land of my ancestors and a beautiful country I know so well...what a shame...




And don't let's forget about a country that has already defaulted on it's so-called 'debt'...

Yes, Iceland




The land of geysers and volcanoes, the fabled Blue Lagoon, green energy - and, now, the highest debt per capita load on the planet...

Poor Iceland. A canary in the coalmine of what is fundamentally sick - nay, perverted and twisted - about the current global uber-capitalist model.

Sovereign debt is a scam because how can national treasuries be in control of their economies when they are at the mercy of international financial and currency speculators? There's nothing sovereign about this debt any more, hence the total and utter scam thereof.

It's a farce and just the latest chapter, writ HUGE, that demonstrates just how fundamentally flawed, corrupt and outrageously amoral the current neo-liberal, profit-at-all-costs, unregulated financial markets a la Milton Friedman and the Chicago Boys that is world capitalism. It's sick to the core. Adam Smith and Maynard Keynes must be turning in their graves with just how sick the system has become.

Yet, national governments in Europe must also take the blame (not to mention that of the United States, now in debt to the tune of 14 TRILLION dollars, although that endless warmongering is hardly cheap, now is it?). This is what you get when you bail out banks and financial institutions that were reckless and perverse in how they played the stock markets and economies of the world.

Using public money (i.e. the money of citizens) to bail out, to the tune of billions and billions of dollars and euros, the very crooks and scheisters that got us into the mess, was not only madness, but MORALLY BANKRUPT of all those politicians who allowed this to happen. You bloody bastards, all of you.

So what would I like to see? I would like to see the likes of Greece, Spain, Portgal and Ireland DEFAULT on their so-called sovereign debts. And, better still, give the IMF the biggest middle finger ever seen in financial history by saying 'NO! We will not take your loans!' Because these countries should know these IMF 'loans' will come laden with Friedmanite and Chicagoesque preconditions to 'liberalize' economies, slash public spending, 'open up markets even more', and all the other Friedmanite bullshit that got us into this horrific and amoral mess in the first place.

But, of course, I have better chances of seeing pink elephants having a full-scale Grand Prix in the sky than I do of those countries having the courage and the foresight to do just that.

THIS is the perfect time for a complete review and even overhaul of capitalism as we know it. It has never been more perfect - or more needed. I'm certainly not advocating communism or any other 'ism' for that matter. What I am advocating is that we stop this madness where 0.01% of the richest people in the richest economies can hold entire countries to ransom. And, in the process, destroy the very fabric and social and human rights within those countries. I don't want to see European countries like Greece, Ireland and Spain collapse or relegated to economic basketcase status. I'm funny that way.

Stop this obsession with Friedmanite uber-capitalism and the 'Stock Market is King' economic mentality, like some demented mantra. It is NOT working.

Enough is enough. Basta!

Do you get my point?

POLL: Do you trust the global banking system?

Hi there:

Please take part in my POLL. The question being asked is "How much do you trust the global banking system?". You will see the poll and four different responses on the sidebar to this blog.

So, PLEASE VOTE IN MY POLL.

And PLEASE feel free to make any comments of your own to this post with regard to the poll and the whole issue of the global banking system. Go for it ;-)

Thank you very much.