Purported UK Cave-In (08/12/17) Brexit Jihad designed to weaken the EU & UK at all costs Why would the City of London Corporation (The UK’s Foremost Financial Services Lobbyists) or the European Commission care about EU or UK citizens? German…
Trump meets Saudis and all hell breaks loose The Saudi Ritz Carlton’s CEO had this to say about the effect of Trump’s Muslim ban: Interesting how the Saudis manage to get the New York Times on side. When Putin…
The Polarizers: Postwar Architects of Our Partisan Era–out in Dec, avail. now for pre-order. Stuff those stockings. — Sam Rosenfeld (@sam_rosenfeld) September 17, 2017 Polarizers by Sam Rosenfeld After WW2 Democrats and Republicans agreed on most issues. Each party…
For in the hand of Yahweh there is a cup, full of foaming wine mixed with spices. He pours it out. Indeed the wicked of the earth drink and drink it to its very dregs. Subliminal A friend and I…
Adultery just made an appearance in the NYT Ethicist Column: The reader claims although he and his wife love each other, she’s been very ill and has said he can have affairs. He’s agonising over whether to be honest about…
US beefs up its presence in Asia according to WSJ Backstory to Trump in Russia – Luke Harding writes well. How Trump walked into Putin’s web — Ranjan Balakumaran (@financialeyes) November 16, 2017 Some Neo-Nazis are losing their blue…
Asking investors to abandon the UK goes against the UK’s interests. No amount of debate can change that. Yet that is what Parliamentarian and Brexiteer John Redwood has done. How can he be forgiven? Brexit would allow for the UK…
Brexiteer @johnredwood warns investors to get their money out of the UK, then tells the UK to go for hard Brexit. #disasatercapitalism cc @FlipChartRick — (((FrancesCoppola))) (@Frances_Coppola) November 12, 2017
Some people see meaning when it just isn’t there. But maybe it is – just not in the way you think. And who am I to presume what you’re (not) thinking? Start again. There is meaning. Perhaps more meaning. Than.…
Virginia Acceptance Speech No outright mention of Charlottesville — but still a big speech in Virginia. The comments section is split with some calling it an Obama speech. Any reference to White Nationalism, Healing Wounds, or Affordable Care Act interpreted…
Booming back at ya, Wanna reach out and grab ya, How I wonder where she’s AtRa, Comes back at you twice as hard
Those with the most to say feel least constrained in the current climate. But how much of what they say means anything at all? I struggle to find anything of worth in the printed press. Might everyone be so reeling…
Plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose FT political leader writer, Sebastian Payne recently referred to the Conservative Party’s pre-eminent post-war philosopher — Michael Oakeshott. In quoting Michael Oakeshott, @ProfTimBale nails why there’s something conservative in being sceptical about…
In the FT today Gillian Tett points out that while the media glare falls on the big banks that are currently reporting their third quarter earnings, the real story is the Shadow Banking sector’s continued colonisation of those sections of…
Nudge Richard Thaler has just been awarded the Nobel Prize for Economics. He’s best known for co-authoring the bestseller Nudge with Cass Sunstein in 2007. Sunstein went on to become President Obama’s Regulatory Czar while Thaler provided the ideas for…
The Pound looks likely to collapse during the upcoming Tory Party conference Financial Markets are looking for reassurance. Instead they have been treated to David Davis. Amber Rudd will remember her speech about companies having to report the amount of…
Today’s FT has an excellent piece on Social Cleansing in Silicon Valley. The great Silicon Valley land grab via @FT — Ranjan Balakumaran (@financialeyes) August 26, 2017 It made me think of Jamie Bartlett‘s BBC Show, The Secrets of…
BSMG German Hip Hop band BSMG have just done a tune called Jesse Owens. I don’t speak the language. But the name Owens reminds me of: Robert Owens I recall seeing Robert Owens out and about in London 10 years…
German car firms have been hit by recent emission fraud scandals Carmakers’ troubles shake Germany’s national psyche — Ranjan Balakumaran (@financialeyes) August 2, 2017 and the appearance of the electric car: Tesla reveals Model 3 cost in its first attempt at affordable…
Here we are crawling the cracks between walls of church state school & factory, all the paranoid monoliths. Cut off from the tribe by feral nostalgia we tunnel after lost words, imaginary bombs. If Socrates was against writing –…
Jamaica is only allowed to legally grow Marijuana now that it is already well established in US law. US firms have been granted licence to grow and experiment in Jamaica.
For some reason Food and Brexit doesn’t get discussed in the news but as many of us will wind up eating food from fertilisers I think it’s worth a mention. What is potash? Learn more in our blog, Prospects →…
Roughly forty minutes into this great podcast, Tim Harford talks about the significance of the Haber Process. The Haber Process revolutionised the world of explosives in World War One before being used in many of the world’s fertilisers — fueling the…
The dark side of basic income. Parasites need hosts.
Is this a truce between President and Press?
With no TV Debate – Manifestos do the Talking Embed from Getty Images When the facts change I change my mind. What do you do, Sir? J.M Keynes. In a time of Information Overload, the Info-Arbitrageur is King. Tim Shipman…
The American satirist HL Mencken famously quipped that no-one ever went broke underestimating the taste of the American people. But here in Britain we have a different maxim: No Tory ever lost out overestimating the gullibility of the British Voter…
How is this going to play out? Seeing as protectionism is in fashion maybe the EU will now be more upfront about its priorities.
Real Media have been looking at the links between UK, US and Indian National Database and surveillance systems. Here are two highlights:
Now that we are living through an age of automation and underemployment, technical skills should be our passport to competing on the post-Brexit world stage. Tories hell-bent on Education Apartheid But Tories are up-front about being the anti-immigration austerity party. Selective Grammar Schools and pricy uni fees reflect…
Trump’s appointment Neil Gorsuch is the son of Reagan’s EPA Head Anne Gorsuch. She did her best to destroy it. But apparently her gutting of the EPA led to major developments in the field of environmental law. I’ve been reading…
Corrupt Money Launderers HSBC bankrolled David Cameron and George Osborne’s trip to the World Economic Forum in Davos in 2009, it has emerged. The controversial lender lent the gaffe-prone billionaire bookie and former Tory Treasurer Michael Spencer £200 million pounds just…
Rupert Murdoch prefers Marine Le Pen to Jeremy Corbyn as she is, like himself, a racist anti-EU campaigner. But if you forget about race and look at international trade and financial markets — her views are much more like Corbyn’s than Murdoch’s. She’s…
Jeremy Corbyn’s Labour Party needs to have an urgent debate about how to resolve billions of pounds of New Labour’s Private Finance Initiative (PFI) debts, according to a leading PFI research expert. PFI was conjured up by John Major’s Government but deployed…
Defrauding Families in the UK The following story about overcharging at private care homes appeared on page 2 of yesterday’s Daily Mail – before the announcement of the ‘snap election’: Similar Strategy in the US This story has many similarities…
The following story about overcharging at private care homes appeared on page 2 of yesterday’s Daily Mail: This story has many similarities to the US Department of Justice’s investigation into US Health Insurer United Health’s pilfering of the American public purse…
Next month former President of the European Commission José Manuel Barroso will speak at a Financial Times conference on the Business of Luxury in Lisbon (see bottom of image below). Barroso’s Lisbon speech will be in stark contrast to his role…
I tried to engage my 16 year old students’ interest with talk of LinkedIn and job hunting. I then bored them to death saying that Facebook is basically a Credit Rating Agency I mentioned that all data is credit data. I got…
So we’re losing EU membership rights, destroying the NHS, increasing immigration and getting rid of financial services — and breaking up the UK via another Scottish independence referendum. Theresa May admits £350 million pledged to NHS by Vote Leave isn’t happening…
What do these two stories have in common? Looks like George Osborne, Jolyon Maugham, Tony Blair, Nick Clegg and Alistair Campbell are all on the same deregulation and war side. Meanwhile former Remain flag-waver Amber Rudd wants more snooping powers:…
What is going on with Wall Street White Collar Crime in the Trump era? Hedge Fund Managers Never Die Sheelah Kolhatkar wrote an excellent article in The New Yorker this January. Her book, Black Edge: Inside Information, Dirty Money, and the Quest to…
Riz Ahmed says British directors, producers and writers aren’t hiring non-white British actors. That’s why so many have to try their luck in America. Plenty of white British actors feel they have to base themselves in the States too. But this is never…
Billionaire ex-KGB spy Alexander Lebedev has just hired George Osborne to edit London’s Evening Standard newspaper. The move has triggered concerns about media bias and conflicts of interest. This from HSBC Fraud whistleblower Nicholas Wilson. Every single day there is another jaw dropping corrupt appointment. And…
Before Brexit Nigel Farage wouldn’t have been seen dead with Marine Le Pen. But since “quitting politics” he’s already backed Trump in the US election and now he’s doing the same for the leader of the French National Front. Double…
Are all Americans deserving of the right to healthcare? Yes — Universal healthcare systems should mean free access for all at the point of delivery, focused on protecting public health, and funded via general taxation. No — No-one should ever…
If you want to know what makes Britain tick, take a look at the Bank of England. Interlocking directorships and the Old Boy Network still dominate public life as its recent appointment of Charlotte Hogg reveals. But few media commentators ever refer to this as a…
