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somali_pirate_SP500

Listed below are comments made by somali_pirate_SP500 between Saturday, 2nd May 2009 and Wednesday, 6th May 2009.

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An offer Jag can refuse 9:11pm on 06 May 2009 ahhh you've pulled my comment #2; I really did mean the corridors of the Houses of Westminster, and the other connotation would be exceedingly crude; they do have a lot of corridors there in Westminster and they are used for briefings........

I'm beginning to like this blog again
An offer Jag can refuse 7:33pm on 06 May 2009 blimey strike a light I'm gobsmacked! it's a car industry story from Robert and he's so pleased that he's posted it twice!

ahem, anyway, hardly a surprise there is no trust between Tata and HMG when Mandelson is the main negotiator!

making the wrong move on both Jaguar and the Post Office in the same month would look very reckless
Brown's right royal dilemma 6:49pm on 06 May 2009 #75 kingloneranger just remember that all of your emails, social networking, this blog etc, may be logged, tagged, read, mulled over and analysed by GCHQ, Jacqui Smith and her ilk; what happens if you have something private you want to tell somebody; a private letter is still a useful thing and might even come back into fashion
Raising the retirement age 6:37pm on 06 May 2009 hmmmmmm there is one much less unpalatable way to cut the projected debt, and that is by putting a big effort into stopping the vast amount of private and corporate tax avoidance that goes on in the UK

tens of billions per year get stashed elsewhere untaxed, whether by wealthy individuals or big corporates like Barclay's SCM, as extensively reported upon by the Guardian in March

aside from that we are in a bit of a bind, as you say

but it is easy for the well-paid elite to contemplate working until age 75 or so - ie when it is somebody else doing it or a nice, high-paid job in academe etc; for ordinary folk doing hard graft, then I'm afraid that the idea of a bunch of economists (who themselves no doubt presume to make lots of money and retire early!) proposing this 'solution' makes me laugh

where, pray, are all of these older workers going to work? at check-out tills, in offices etc etc! and in every case they will prevent or make it harder for a young person or school-leaver to get a job; perhaps make it impossible in a low-growth, stagnant economy like the UK; old people should generally step aside for younger workers; if they don't, then overall pay will be forced downwards and it will also cause widespread part-time working or under-employment; some employers might like it, but it would only have a real economy-wide positive impact if we assume that total employment rises significantly through economic expansion; is an early retirement age artificially holding our economy back? I doubt it and I am sceptical of this idea from the brainiacs. What isn't paid out in pensions would simply be paid out in increased social security, housing benefit and unemployment benefit

it could make working in a large office or call-centre interesting as we could be finding elderly workers slumped over their desks every morning

PS: where did you get that lovely photo of the typical Tory voters?
Brown's right royal dilemma 12:50pm on 06 May 2009 I hear that someone has nicked David Cameron's bike

Or as NewLabour would say, it has been 'part-privatised'

It wasn't me honest; I only nick stuff on the high seas

Cheered me up though!
Brown's right royal dilemma 12:31pm on 06 May 2009 morning mullerites

I had sworn off posting on this blog any more, but the whole Royal Mail part-privatisation thing makes me so angry that I can't stop myself

It is an outrage that Labour Mandelson/Brown would do this; the Royal Mail has been crippled by govt neglect and negligence; tell the regulator to let them charge a sensible price for a stamp!

I can only pray that the 100+ Labour backbencher creeps vote against this and don't backslide like they did over the invasion of Iraq; there is no point in having a right-wing Labour party; let the Tories have a go (they will deeply regret being in govt for the next few years) and try to build a new centre-left party without the Blairites, Brownites, Mandelsonites etc etc

As for Peston and his whole false presentation of 'they could do this or that blah blah blah' I also have complete contempt; go talk to your Labour peer daddy about it and your friends in govt

If this appalling govt is willing to contemplate the privatisation or bankruptcy of the Royal Mail then it truly reflects their utter failure to do right by the UK; can you imagine the US govt allowing the US postal service to get into this situation?

As for TNT, as many others say here, they will quickly get the rules changed to charge triple or whatever; but if things go wrong they will simply threaten to walk away, like the train operating companies etc

Yet again the potential profits are privatised and the losses/risk remain firmly in the name of the taxpayer

Only 4 days now until I'm off to Canada and I will not be sad to leave the UK in its current state
Remembering 1931 11:33am on 06 May 2009 GLOOM BUT NOT DOOM

.... hardly likely to be a winning election slogan for 'smiler' and David Cameron has little to look forward to if he does become PM - I doubt his heart will be in making the savage cuts that must come

So I would generally agree with Mr Tweedy's and Glanafon's conversation above - we are in for a long-term slump/decline; but I wouldn't go nearly as far as the doomsters like XCAnderson; we already have massive part-time working and many friends of mine have had to accept 5-7% pay cuts this year to keep their (admittedly well paid) white collar private jobs; but people will buckle down, tighten their belts; cut back on spending

Which means that the current stock-market 25% bounce is a dead cat bounce; I would contend that it is largely manufactured by the wealthy, professional investor, who has dived back into the market and made a lot of money; they will leave the market again at the first new sign of trouble

I am not wealthy but have shares and have applied the 'sell in May go away' saying; so I have sold up - my gamble on the RBS shares has allowed me to take a healthy profit thanks to HMG propping up the zombies

I have also sold my car to a very nice Romanian bricklayer who assures me that no matter how sad things may get here they will be a lot better than back home, and that he is definitely staying, working hard and paying his taxes

Good on him!

Britain feels tired to me; it hasn't had any genuine growth in years and recovery will be weak; the inequality of British (and US) societies will hold both back (read 'The Spirit Level') and a lot of national and global growth is clearly no longer sustainable anyway

Of course we are much better off than in the '30s, so this long slump may not feel so bad, though I wouldn't fancy trying to survive on £60 sterling a week and a lot of people are far less self-reliant now than then

Ultimately global standards of living etc have to even out - water finds its level - this will take another 50 yrs+, but the long-term trend has to be that the BRICs continue to grow but countries like UK, US, France etc stagnate; small, highly-educated countries like the Scandavians might buck the trend; I can't see any way that the UK can fit into that group

Personally, I'm off to Canada for the summer; a one-way flight to Montreal is currently available for £9.50 + tax! yes honestly
Busted 11:22am on 05 May 2009 ahoy there Stephanites; an interesting post from Stephanie and the graphs illustrate well the inherently mendacious nature of economic analysis.

Like most, I would tend to see the 2nd graph as being a bit more reasonable, but I would believe neither.

Since economics, whether at the personal or governmental level, is largely about confidence (subjective), greed and fear, self-deception etc etc (all those human frailties), it is no surprise that we have the set-up we have and that the dips and dives of the roller-coaster get larger over time.

Turkeys can't vote for Christmas, so of course the US and UK administrations can only desperately try to reinflate; get the Ponzi back on the road asap! Ponzi schemes are everywhere if you look for them, but short-termism dictates that we look the other way: from the housing we live in through to the latest antics from FIAT (traditional acronym being Fix It Again Tony), cheekily saying they will 'buy' up all other failing car makers (no cash involved of course) to form one huge conglomerate of failure. I admire their Bravado (or was it a Punto?)

It is interesting to look at the graphs of Japan for their so-called 'lost decade' and ask ourselves: How was it lost? Are the Japanese poorer, less well-educated, less healthy than the British at the end of this decade (when the UK allegedly had 16 consecutive years of 'growth')? Of course not?

We really need to begin moving away from the growth myth, which as we all know, is entirely unsustainable anyway.

#121 libertariankurt makes a very good point about pyramids and the GDP measurement of useless things

#135 tufftimes the obvious answer (to me anyway) of what could be more useless has to be Trident; 2 new aircraft carriers are close but competition would be tough indeed, as ID cards and many other govt programmes would make a top ten of 'uselessness'

There are lots of ways of measuring the 'growth' resulting from our marvellous advanced economies. We could include a factor for housing, for the contribution of hard-working immigrants (who accounted for a lot of the alleged 2% growth in some years) etc etc. We could discount things we dig up and other non-sustainable elements of the economy. Looking at ancient economies, there are interesting aspects to the study of the huge impact of slavery - M I Finley's 'The Ancient Economy' is worth a read; then think about the influence of the hollowing out of advanced western economies by the movement of more and more industrial production to v. low wage Far Eastern countries and compare it with slavery as a part of the ancient economy of say Rome

One message, I suppose, is that all Empires and systems fall or fail sooner or later
Cleaning up bankers' mess 10:43pm on 04 May 2009 This blog has surely reached a nadir, judging from several of today's posts. Rather like Robert's ability to provide an original or insightful report, it is sadly diminished from the glory days of last summer and autumn.

And no, Peston is never going to make the effort that would be required to report on a non-banking story like the automobile industry. Some of us have been asking him for months, but as he doesn't read the comments on here he is probably blissfully unaware of the requests.

Only 5 days until I'm off to the Canadian side of the pond for the summer to do a bit of Great Lakes piracy, so I think I'll leave you all to it.

On balance, Britain and the British may not suffer as badly in this economic downturn as many countries out there, but the refusal of a lot of British people to be anything but terminally negative will no doubt make up for that! If you can't have a real economic depression then just have one inside your heads. Combine it with a poisonous concoction of arrogance, class prejudice, closet racism and good old whingeing whilst you're at it, and don't even bother trying to be witty, entertaining or informative.

Alas, for me, it leaves this blog of no piratical use, at least until it shows some green shoots itself!
Cleaning up bankers' mess 8:10pm on 02 May 2009 #149 angloscotty #158 jericoa and #173-5 bobrocket

ahoy there me hearties; I don't think we'll be getting any answers from the bankers as they've all gone off to their 2nd homes or tax-havens for the long weekend; nevertheless here is another question for those who believe in 'growth' as defined by our govts and banks:

What was so bad about this 'lost decade' that we keep hearing that the Japanese suffering in the 90s and noughties? It is meant to be so horrible as to scare our children and make horses bolt from their barns. But all the Japanese I meet seem healthy, well-educated and relatively prosperous. Certainly on a par or better off than the British, who allegedly enjoyed 16 years of unparallel growth in the period 1991-2007.

We need to think differently. As you've said the obsession with annual 3% growth is unsustainable environmentally and is doing us no good socially, morally or anyotherally.

It's perfectly understandable that the poor in LDCs, the indentured farmers etc all hanker after growth providing them with the passport to a better life in the nearest city, but in Western Europe, NA, Japan etc we need to move on to something a bit more responsible and sensible. And it shouldn't be seen as the reserve of the well-off eccentric to want renewable energy and membership of a local co-op.

Fair trade not free trade!

Speaking of which, I've come into the possession of 35,000 tons of soya and would be happy to swap it for various items........

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