Collateral Damage Sincere condolences go out to the victim’s family. This Bloomberg Businessweek entry is remarkable. Particularly the way pedestrian is portrayed as acting of their own free will and not as collateral damage in the war on humans. The car, the company, and the other human who was supposed to be supervising the “autonomous” […]
PLEASE WATCH THIS 5 MINUTE VIDEO Bloomberg has just shown that the May Government’s proposals to shut the Serious Fraud Office are part of the UK’s post Brexit offer of Corruption-as-a-Service. UK territories already include tax havens like Jersey and the Cayman Islands, so why not go the whole way and get rid of fraud […]
The Telegraph is going big on the story that George Soros is against Brexit. Theresa May’s former Chief of Staff, Nick Timothy, gets a byline for this “news story”. With Osborne running the Remain supporting Standard and Timothy operating out of the Brexit-backing Telegraph it is no wonder there has been an erosion of standards […]
“So you self-identify as a conspiracy theorist?” asked the Masters student disparagingly at a protest in 2015. I was 37 at the time. I thought I knew what I was doing. But quite obviously, I was mad. What was I doing there, outside the German Embassy, near Mayfair, aged 37, surrounded by students, taking photographs […]
Do we live in a truly decadent age? Can anyone get away with anything? These are questions I feel compelled to ask after watching just a few minutes of Howard Davies and Ross McEwan, of the taxpayer-owned Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS), giving evidence before last Tuesday’s Parliamentary Treasury Select Committee. To not, as a society, […]
The FT says Theresa May won’t endorse the Chinese Belt and Road initiative. Theresa May declines to endorse China’s Belt and Road initiative https://t.co/XGMRb1NHhh via @financialtimes — Ranjan Balakumaran (@financialeyes) January 30, 2018 The BBC: Here’s HSBC’s website HSBC has been named Best Overall International Bank for Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) in the inaugural […]
Davos In the third series of House of Cards, the President (played by Kevin Spacey) decides to create a New Deal-type jobs programme. A Keynesian stimulus — just like America First. This week’s Davos World Economic Forum is the perfect chance for Trump to talk up his protectionist programme: Trump’s only attending to stop President Xi […]
Those whom the gods wish to destroy, they first make mad. Under normal circumstances the transfer of €1 trillion of public money to ANONYMOUS BANKERS with no meaningful audit trail would be representative of a society with corruption tolerance levels so staggeringly off the charts that they be as palpable as they be endemic. Just […]
Those whom the gods wish to destroy, they first make mad. Handing €1 trillion of public money to ANONYMOUS bankers with no publicly available audit trail would be corrupt on a scale so staggeringly as to be virtually beyond comprehension. Yet this is what the European Central Bank (ECB) and the European Union (EU) have […]
It was Trade-Related I first heard the term Endocrine Disruptor three years ago while researching the Transatlantic Trade & Investment Partnership (TTIP) also known as the EU – US trade agreement. US firms wanted to dismantle EU safety standards and make big money selling toxic food and chemicals to 500 million EU citizens. The agreement […]
A.L.E.C. operative Mike Pence, & Tim Scott on the Tax Cut Republicans are ecstatic about this tax cut. It’s interesting to hear what Pence has to say about America’s place in the world. He talks about ISIS but not about Russia or China. As for Tim Scott, time will tell how much extra money from […]
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 Chemical firm Bayer are buying US-firm Monsanto and so Germany just voted through the 5 […]
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 tortures rival billionaires we call him out. But when Saudi Arabia do it ..
The Polarizers: Postwar Architects of Our Partisan Era–out in Dec, avail. now for pre-order. Stuff those stockings. https://t.co/FTG2giKggz — Sam Rosenfeld (@sam_rosenfeld) September 17, 2017 Polarizers by Sam Rosenfeld After WW2 Democrats and Republicans agreed on most issues. Each party was a broad church — there was diversity on both sides. But in the 50s […]
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 recently agreed that Naomi Klein’s latest book No is not Enough appeals less to Brits than […]
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 his situation with future sexual partners. He disclosed his circumstances on a dating site and […]
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 https://t.co/hKjzvQ6yy9 — Ranjan Balakumaran (@financialeyes) November 16, 2017 Some Neo-Nazis are losing their blue tick status in a Twitter purge Richard Spencer and others lose Twitter verified status under […]
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 to frighteningly reinstate capital punishment. I would like to think John Redwood himself might be […]
Brexiteer @johnredwood warns investors to get their money out of the UK, then tells the UK to go for hard Brexit. #disasatercapitalism https://t.co/Akjfu4ytI2 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. I. Realised. But the pre-meditated, agenda-pushing, social engineering nature of this message may not be […]
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 as outright Communism. All subtext in the USA! And why is the Virginia drawl so […]
Booming back at ya, Wanna reach out and grab ya, How I wonder where she’s AtRa, Comes back at you twice as hard
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 Brexit https://t.co/l1uBxkscO1 pic.twitter.com/jjhhZCo5d4 — Sebastian Payne (@SebastianEPayne) September 22, 2017 So why do Tories love […]
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 the market that were once served by those very same big banks. Ham-fisted banking rules […]
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 Oliver Letwin’s Behavioural Insights or “Nudge” unit. Here Letwin, a former Thatcher adviser who wrote […]
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 foreign staff on their books. This policy was a disaster – but the Government don’t […]
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.
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 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.
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 […]