Mummy, what’s a #BreitbartBrexit?

We in the middle of a #BreitbartBrexit: US to Colonise EU via Ireland & #Brexit via @financialeyes #Marr — Ranjan Balakumaran (@financialeyes) December 10, 2017 CETA+++ David Davis is championing CETA+++ which means Britain copying the Canada-EU trade agreement…

“Good that UK Completely Caved-In…” says Citigroup’s Global Chief Economist, Willem Buiter — But in Reality US using Brexit to Colonise EU via Ireland

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…

Torturing Saudi PR Machine Schmoozes Trump & New York Times

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

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…

Who’s Regulating the post-Brexit Conversation?

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…

Culture Wars: When ‘Consent’ means Rape

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…

Thursday 16th November 2017

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…

A Hundred Years Ago Traitors Like John Redwood Might Have Been Hanged

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…

Liam Fox claims to be a Free Trader

  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

The Infinite Meaning of Meaning

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.…

Post Charlottesville Democrat Victory in Virginia

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…

back ‘atcha

Booming back at ya, Wanna reach out and grab ya, How I wonder where she’s AtRa, Comes back at you twice as hard

Accidence & Incidents: Aurobindo, Koestler, Oakeshott

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…

Gillian Tett: Burgeoning Shadow Banking Sector dependent on Regulatory Arbitrage

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…

Sir Oliver Letwin used Nobel Prize winner’s ideas to torture innocent Brits

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…

Tory Confusion over Brexit

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…

Social Cleansing Silicon Valley Style

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…

Neymar, Al Jazeera, Sky Arabia & the Weierstrass Function

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…

German Hip Hop, Serial Killers, Jesse Owens, Hitler, und Hardfloor

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…

Trump to address opioid crisis

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. …

Germany’s Fossil Fueled Decarbonisation

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…

God Save our Unforgettable Mall

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 –…

No Drought – Trump Shorts Marijuana but Vets Already Blaze

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.  

Vulture Capitalists, Potash Mining, GM, Fertilisers, Brexit & UK Food

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 →…

Explosives & Explosions : The Haber Process

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…

Writing the Wrong’un

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…

When will London’s Social Cleansing reach Peak Cleanse?

  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…

Lendlease in Haringey 

  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.

Gove claims to embrace Anti-Austerity Politics & “Green Brexit” in Desperate Bid to Charm Voters

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…

When The Facts Change >> Corbyn dramatically cutting Tory Lead

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…

Theresa May decriminalises Bribery, Fraud & Election Rigging

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…

Macron says Buy European

  How is this going to play out? Seeing as protectionism is in fashion maybe the EU will now be more upfront about its priorities.

Tough on Corporate Crime and on the Causes of Corporate Crime

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…

 Function Creep: Indian ID Card Expanding in Scope

Real Media have been looking at the links between UK, US and Indian National Database and surveillance systems. Here are two highlights:    

Tory Education Cuts

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…

The Judge’s Mum, The Law, & Client Earth

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…

Breaking: Corrupt Money Launderers HSBC bankrolled Corrupt Cameron & Corrupt Osborne’s Trips to Davos

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…

British media prefer Marine Le Pen to Jeremy Corbyn DESPITE ALMOST IDENTICAL ECONOMIC ARGUMENTS

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…

PFI Fraud: Labour need to debate Solution

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…

Head of NHS England Simon Stevens may be prosecuted by the Department of Justice for defrauding the US taxpayer of hundreds of millions of dollars

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…

Is recent UK Care Home Fraud case similar to multimillion dollar USA fraud perpetrated by Simon Stevens, CEO of NHS England?

  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…

Ex-EU Boss José Manuel Barroso to speak at FT Business of Luxury Conference in Lisbon

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…

All data is credit data

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…