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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 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 […]
Bins financial regulation & consumer protection Extreme Vetting, But Not for Banks – Rolling Stone https://t.co/yX3YCCTBLY — Matt Taibbi (@mtaibbi) February 3, 2017 But there is some hope, Government Sachs are facing some resistance outside their offices. .@GoldmanSachs security & cops using excessive force against activists protesting #doddfrank. #GovernmentSachs @OccupyWallStNYC pic.twitter.com/NfeU1sWSm8 — Government Sachs (@Govt_Sachs) […]
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.https://t.co/u0fvmiFw0n — Oscar Rousseau (@OscarRousseau) 3 February 2017 Was the Brexit vote a vote for growth hormones, genetically engineered food and cloned meat?
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 de Beauvoir and Vladimir Nabokov experienced American life, Will Norman celebrates their transformation of alienation […]
Max Keiser says Trump’s Infrastructure Plan Seduces Unions Max Keiser tells how Trump is seducing unions with his infrastructure plans and dropping TPP. Max Keiser to run in North Carolina In mid-January Max Keiser said he will announce his official candidacy for Congress in March. Trump the Autocrat David Frum, author of George W Bush’s […]
Special Relationship with Trump At yesterday’s press conference May talked about NATO and ISIS but chose not to mention the bonfire of rights and regulations and the deeper privatisation of NHS services and imminent entry of GM food, pesticides, cloned meat and growth hormones in UK supermarkets if Britain increases trade with America. The Prime […]
This is their way of helping UKIP Leader Paul Nuttall destroy the Labour party in the North. Could this backfire on the entire country? The election is on February 23rd. It had been rumoured that the Tories would field a feeble candidate.
Tories to join forces with UKIP, say Huff Post sources The Conservative Party has struck a deal with UKIP and won’t field a candidate in the upcoming Stoke by-election, it was alleged yesterday. The story, reported by Martha Gill of the Huffington Post, has not yet been fully picked up by bigger media outlets. John […]