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?
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…
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…
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…
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.
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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,…
In-Formation. Sing-Chronised. Articles. Periodicals. Pay-Peer-(Re)View. Proper Telly-vised
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…
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…
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…
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…
Bins financial regulation & consumer protection Extreme Vetting, But Not for Banks – Rolling Stone — Matt Taibbi (@mtaibbi) February 3, 2017 But there is some hope, Government Sachs are facing some resistance outside their offices. .@GoldmanSachs security &…
Shelves could be full of cheap American meat in UK supermarkets within two years. What does the meat industry think of the UK-US trade deal. — Oscar Rousseau (@OscarRousseau) 3 February 2017 Was the Brexit vote a vote for growth…
I came across Transatlantic Aliens in the bookshop today. The blurb referred to the cultural contribution made by Europeans who moved to the US in the 1930s and 1940s. By looking at how celebrated outsiders such as Theodor Adorno, Simone…
