Loop, scoop & plenty of poop
What links the 222 million Euros Qatari-owned Paris Saint Germain paid Football Club Barcelona for a footballer by the name of Neymar with unconventional oil, gas, and monetary policy, and an obscure mathematical function derived by a 19th Century German Professor named Weierstrass? Market manipulation
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 ago – and of course hearing this on old mixtapes: Jesse Owens So what did […]
According to the Wall Street Journal Donald Trump plans to combat the US opioid crisis. It was only the other day that Janet Yellen, Chairman of the Federal Reserve, mentioned that the opioid crisis was undermining the US labor market. How funny that a hundred years after the British imposed the opium war on China […]
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 car https://t.co/d4BLcSv1kO via @FT — Ranjan Balakumaran (@financialeyes) August 2, 2017 But where are these […]
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 – what would he have made of Amazon?
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 → https://t.co/8tDPWyfycT pic.twitter.com/YvuWVlSrFZ — BHP (@bhp) July 17, 2017 When Vulture Capitalists start talking about ousting […]
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 population explosion.
Just as Ian Fraser says that his book Shredded about the Royal Bank of Scotland is not just about RBS but really a prism through which to interpret lapses in UK financial regulation, nor is Donald Trump’s presidency really just about Trump the man or even the office he finds himself in but how a […]
Plaque to honor the original Alms Houses on which the Hermitage Street development is built I wonder if the new development on Hermitage Street in Paddington, Westminster, where this picture was taken has any affordable or social housing. And has the ongoing social cleansing of London reached Peak-Cleanse? The Dutch had a policy in […]
Telegraph business section covering the Heygate and Haringey controversy today. Real Media were at last Monday’s protest and will be releasing further interviews and a join the dots on the taboo topic of geographical displacement this week.
Michael Gove, Minister for Environment Food and Rural Affairs, twice referred to a five year parliament as he started to backtrack on the Government’s austerity programme during this morning’s Andrew Marr politics show. At no point did Andrew Marr pull the Gove up on his error. This could have just been a double oversight on […]
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 of the Times refers to the increasingly decreasing gap between Tories and Labour. There’s no […]
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 I interviewed David Whyte of the University of Liverpool about various aspects of corruption last […]
How is this going to play out? Seeing as protectionism is in fashion maybe the EU will now be more upfront about its priorities.
I came across this book whilst researching an interview with David Whyte who has a new book called The Violence of Austerity which he edited with Vickie Cooper. It’s straight-talking and more relevant than ever given the ongoing collusion between the state and corporations.
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 a backward Tory deskilling agenda which maximises inequality and cuts UK competitiveness. Even the PM’s former colleague […]
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 about some of this in Lawyers James Thornton and Martin Goodman’s new book, Client Earth. […]
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 a day before the massive Iceland Crisis that wiped billions of pounds off the balance sheets […]
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 a protectionist. This is the same direction opportunist Theresa May is now taking when she […]
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 by New Labour on a grand scale. Overcharging on PFI projects has meant the British taxpayer has given away […]
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 to the US Department of Justice’s investigation into US Health Insurer United Health’s pilfering of the American […]
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 in its Medicaid programme. The man who ran the Medicaid programme when UnitedHealth allegedly overcharged the […]
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 as Chairman of the UEFA Foundation for Children, designed to help underprivileged kids around the […]
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 this from Douglas Merrill:
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 https://t.co/dMYmHZJnmz — Ranjan Balakumaran (@financialeyes) April 1, 2017 The Government says immigration is set to […]
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 Bring Down the Most Wanted Man on Wall Street, is all about the way the […]
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 referred to as a problem. Migration Watch Samuel Jackson recently said American producers and directors […]
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 nothing happens. — Mr Ethical (@nw_nicholas) March 17, 2017 In Praise of Sound Money […]
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 Standards In the tenth minute of this 40 minute interview Farage asks Le Pen if […]
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 be forced to pay for services they will never use and no-one should be allowed to […]
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 problem. In a recent book – Trust, Power and Public Relations in Financial Markets, Dr Clea Bourne – refers […]
Every society has its customs. Harvest seasonally celebrates good weather and a community’s ability to feed itself. And mating rituals, often hierarchical, involve male displays of physical excellence and material resourcefulness to attract reproductive females. But when societies code their rules using abstract tools like language then inherent ambiguities and opportunities for conflict undoubtedly emerge. in 2015 Feminist Germaine Greer was ‘no-platformed’ for her […]
I don’t remember many calls to scrap the National Living Wage before the Brexit vote. Maybe the government think such a policy might come in useful when we have to negotiate with the EU. But Brussels doesn’t seem keen on letting Brexit Britain sell Banking Services to the Eurozone. This FT article’s comment says it all: […]
Donald Trump’s Administration has taken another step toward becoming a full dictatorship by banning the BBC and several other ‘dishonest media’ from the White House’s daily briefing. The President’s favourites far-right Breitbart, Rupert Murdoch’s Fox Network, and even Turkish State Media were allowed to attend yesterday’s off-television briefing. Which means Trump now respects Turkey’s press more than Britain’s. Will […]
Going round the room this morning I asked people where they were from. Krys, from Poland, said he had lived in South America for 24 years. I asked him if he was an Engineer. “No, I am a missionary.” Christ, I thought. “Does that make you a Catholic Priest?” “Yes. I have been here in […]
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Harrumph. Given that no-one actually reads this blog it will come as no surprise that my attempts at conventional blogging are to be abandoned in favour of a more relaxed stream of consciousness perhaps in line with whatever I was doing a couple of years ago when I first started posting blogs on this website. I […]
How can the Chief Political Correspondent and Deputy Political Editor of The Telegraph put their names by this muck? Desperate stuff to get UKIP Leader Paul Nuttall into Parliament.
In September the Radical Housing Network revealed that government money originally earmarked for protecting vulnerable tenants from unscrupulous landlords is being used to fund deportation raids. The following pieces appeared in RT and VICE. This is how the Daily Mail spin it: Below is how Capita are profiting — by selling councils the Rogue Landlord Database for them to […]
The President was rude to Jewish and African American reporters yesterday, uttered untruths about his election results, and was combative when asked about about his campaign’s contact with Russia. He also contradicted himself over the sacking of senior adviser Mike Flynn. Trump accuses all journalists of issuing fake news — consistent with his senior advisor […]
According to Dale Purves what we hear is often determined by our Darwinian programming which filters out sounds that don’t help us reproduce. Purves points to the McGurk Effect: How does this apply to modern politics? As mentioned in a previous post Lord Ashcroft has released Hopes and Fears based on polling he did in the US 2016 Presidential election. In […]
