Europe's day of protests
Some headed for the bus stations; others went to the wholesale food market; others sat outside banks and businesses. They were there to enforce a general strike. Those who wanted to work were shouted at and denounced as scabs and there were some scuffles.
Later a larger group of strikers headed down the Gran Via. They demanded that shops and businesses close. In one small food store some items were thrown on the floor until the police intervened. All along the street the shutters came down.
The strikers said that the crisis was caused by the bankers and yet it was the workers who were seeing some of their benefits disappear.
One small group of women opened a window and held up a banner with the word "liberty", insisting they wanted to work. They were met by whistles and jeers from the strikers. One man had to be restrained by police when he shouted that the demonstrators were little better than terrorists.
The union tactics were largely successful. Many of Madrid's main streets were effectively closed. The city's Atocha station was almost deserted. I saw very few buses running, but the early morning traffic was brisk and it was clear many people tried to go to work.
The government said electricity consumption was similar to a weekend.
The police, at one point, hemmed in a group of cyclists who they suspected were out to blockade the streets.
The strike seems to have been well-supported by the 17% of workers who belong to unions.
What's far less clear are the views of the majority of Spaniards, many of whom remain silent. I saw people close stores who clearly wanted to work.
When I spoke to the Economy Minister, Elena Salgado, she insisted the government would not back down. Indeed, if it became necessary to take tougher action to reduce the deficit, further austerity measures would be introduced, but she didn't expect that to happen.
And that is the view of most of Europe's governments - that the deficits have to be slashed. There is simply no alternative. The new orthodoxy is that cutting spending will eventually bolster growth and produce new jobs. Ms Salgado put her faith in job creation and in a leaner role for government.
Watching from the sidelines today are the financial markets. They will want to assess how deep and how widespread is the resistance to the age of austerity.
~RS~q~RS~~RS~z~RS~40~RS~)
I'm 
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Gavin:
I hope that the day of protests across Europe will be able to achieve something for the protesters; Instead of it turning out to be a day of violence & unacceptable day of misbehaviour.
~Dennis Junior~
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To-morrow, and to-morrow, and to-morrow,
Creeps in this petty pace from day to day
To the last syllable of recorded time,
And all our yesterdays have lighted fools
The way to dusty death. Out, out, brief candle!
Protestors but walking shadows, poor players
That strut and fret their hour upon the stage
And then are heard no more: theirs is a tale
Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,
Signifying nothing
And exactly what practical alternative do they offer to get out of the mess their countries are in? What is their solution to the problem their unproductive over taxed over regulated over burdened with government workers over pensioned and now as a consequence bankrupt economies face?
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Muwhahaha, Europe can smell its own death, and the sound it will make rattling its cage will serve as warning to the rest!
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"And that is the view of most of Europe's governments - that the deficits have to be slashed. There is simply no alternative. "
What rubbish. No a single penny needs to be cut. The problem is debt, brought about by the fractional reserve banking system, and it ability to allow banks to create additional money supply out of thin air. They have created too much debt and countries are suffering as a result. The solution is monetary reform, the removal of the FRB system, and placing money creation in the hands of the state. This is not a new idea, but the banks have resisted change since the 1930s. Indeed the chaos being experienced was even predicted.
“Any intelligent novice, first introduced to the workings of the money system, must find the pyramiding of money on the fractional-reserve base incredible. A few of the nation’s foremost economists, led by Henry C Simons and Irvine Fisher, were of the same mind at the depth of the depression when they urgently advocated abolishing the system. The idea was simply to require 100 % reserves for all checking account deposits, so that all true money was government money. Instituting that system would have been little more than a bookkeeping entry, but after it was done all the evils of the fractional-reserve system would disappear. The idea was called the only fundamental creative idea to come out of the depression. But the idea passed into limbo. The best economic minds were in favour of it, but the commercial bankers could be counted on to resist to the bitter end the loss of their money machine, and the people and the legislators probably did not understand what it was all about. Little was heard of the idea in later decades except occasional, and rather inaudible, reminders by a few economists. This complacency would no doubt persist until still another series of disasters came to pass with the substantial aid and comfort of the fractional-reserve system.” P.150 (The Dying of Money Jens O Parsson 1974)
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These workers are right to fight these cuts. They should not pay for the mistakes of the bankers and those in charge of economic policy. The solution of money reform would reduce the banking system down in size from its current bloated state. They only reason the politicians and banker firends are resisting reform is because it is not in their best interets, i.e reduces their ability to make huge profits. Tough. They have been allowed to run the show for two long at the expense of the populas, its time for change. http://www.bankofenglandact.co.uk/
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I live in spain and i feel that the protests are absolutely crazy.
The country is seriously wounded financially, and all that the protests do is to rub salt in the countrys wounds.
You can not have one of the weakest economies in Europe paying some of the best benefits in Europe, it simply doesnt make sense.
Spain has to face the hangover , if not now, then tomorrow.
The only people in spain who really have the right to protest are the self emplyed who live life on a tightrope due to VAT payments, extortionate social security benefits and tax burdens. however they only shoot themselves in the foot by protesting.
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If you enslave your country to financial markets because you don't actually have any real value to add in the process then you will do what the markets require. To be a player you need 'aces' in your hand like oil or gold or uranium or whatever the BRIC countries need to produce. Temporary as these may be, it provides a powerful position. Blackmailing that your economy will fail (no market for the produce of others) and bring others down with action is not going to work. Part of why the EU currently wins - an economy with divide and rule as its management philosophy.
As you can see the euro climbs against the pound and the dollar again. WHY? The answer is this. The U.K. needs a weak currency to balance its books and its agenda to create a weak currency is clear. It is being highly successful in making continental europe pay for its own mistakes by de-valuing once again. When the tide turns, the idea is to make the currency strong. It has never been successful historically in bringing the pound back. Just look at any graph to see that. A hundred years of decline basically.
Got it now? Wealth of Nations.
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All this devisiveness among the working class!
Who wants all this devisiveness among the working class?
Here’s a clue: The strikers said that the crisis was caused by the bankers and yet it was the workers who were seeing some of their benefits disappear. Right on!
So again I ask: Who wants all this devisiveness among the working class?
Turn the people against the people.
Turn the worker against the unemployed.
Turn attention away from the “elite” banking establishment that has brought us to this sorry position. With attention diverted from the “elite” banking establishment that has brought us to this sorry position, people will not be talking about a Tobin Tax, or a tax on all foreign exchange transactions.
The union tactics were largely successful? As measured how - in closed streets, deserted stations, supported by the 17% of workers who belong to unions?
What kind of success is this? Are the union-members better off today than yesterday? Are the unemployed better off?
This is abject misery when you have to measure success in such meaningless ways.
Economy Minister, Elena Salgado, insisted that the government would not back down.
From what?
The “elite” banking establishment that has brought us to this sorry position. With attention diverted from the “elite” banking establishment that has brought us to this sorry position, people will be too busy trying to survive to talk about a Tobin Tax, or a tax on all foreign exchange transactions.
Yes, the deficits must be slashed, BUT THERE IS AN ALTERNATIVE. Since when to we make the innocent pay for the guilt of the guilty? What kind of justice is this. Is the collective leadership of Europe incapable of formulating something better?
With attention diverted from the “elite” banking establishment that has brought us to this sorry position, people will not have the time to talk about a Tobin Tax, or a tax on all foreign exchange transactions.
THERE IS AN ALTERNATIVE.
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" And that is the view of most of Europe's governments - that the deficits have to be slashed. There is simply no alternative".
================================
And yet, in the face of this realisation across Europe within the member states, the out-of-control monster that is the EU insists upon INCREASING its own budget, meaning that those same member states will have to cough up even more money to fund the insatiable appetite of the beast. This really is the recipe for impending disaster and social unrest of a type I had hoped never to see again in Europe. Are the people in Brussels really so far removed from reality that they cannot understand the anger with which the people in countries seeing cuts imposed upon them by their own elected governments regard the waste, profligacy and corruption within the EU institutions? Do they really believe that their own pampered lifestyles at the expense of the ordinary people of Europe are sustainable? Can they really be so blind to the contempt in which they are held? It is this blindness to reality, arrogance towards the plight of the common man and greed for their own luxuries that contain the seeds of the EUs own destruction. Many will say, "Not before time".
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We've heard enough claptrap from politicians and incompetent bankers.
About time the people had their say but what a shame that the British are not protesting. Presumably our university students are playing with their Nintendos and our unions preoccupied with petty disputes with employers.
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I can understand the fustration of people around Europe. Afterall it was not their fault that respective governments within the Eurozone went out on a shopping-spree. However they must realise that while their elected governments were spending this money, it was they who were benefitting.
It would be easy here to quote the IMF reports and other commentators within the international markets, but the simple fact of the matter is that Europe has been living beyond its means for far too long. In addition the European model is no longer economically viable. You can't spend what you don't earn.
The social-utopia created by the EU and, as a result of the European single-currency (Euro), a mentality around Europe that everyone can have exactly what they want; lower working hours; longer holidays; increased social welfare; powerful unions; and early retirement.
Unfortunately what the collapse of the Eurozone has shown is that Europe can no longer afford this lifestyle. This has also been shown by the increase in the emerging markets such as China and India at the expense of European jobs.
The Europeans can go on as many strikes, protests etc. as they want. The simple fact is that Europe can no longer afford to pay for this social 'dream'.
It is time to pay the pîper!
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An excellent example of direct action by Spanish workers who are paying for the 'moral hazard' and greed of casino capitalism of bankers and banks.
Yet in Britain in sharp contrast the TUC and Union leaders do nothing to defend their members' jobs and pensions and go along with the Tory Liberal Democrat Coalition public spending cuts while apparently the bank fraudsters still make 'profits' and pay themselves fat £ multi million pound bonuses while unemployment and jobs are destroyed in the real economy and the Bank of England prints more 'funny money' to help the bankers gamble again.
Time for a change and a indefinite General Strike here too in the UK.
Make the bankers and banks pay for the banking crisis.
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#2 -MarcusAureliusII
"Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,
Signifying nothing".
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"The Europeans can go on as many strikes, protests etc. as they want. The simple fact is that Europe can no longer afford to pay for this social 'dream'.
It is time to pay the pîper!"
And the banking system was only too willing to lend, without any thought of the consequences or risk, as much as people wanted to borrow. The piper doesn’t have to be paid, its called default.
The level of debt is simply too high to be serviced. The only solution is default or monetary reform. The latter would provide a lasting solution, the former a temporary ‘repair’, and give the banks the chance to do it all over again through the fractional reserve banking system.
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To all those questioning the British Trade Unions response, while I agree the response has been thus far lamentable, that must be tempered by the knowledge that thanks to draconian anti union legislation enacted by the Thatcher government a general strike like Spain's would be legally all but impossible, add to that the restrictions on protests enacted shamefully by the last government and a mass media that has fed the country the lie that there is absolutely no alternative and you have a British working class that has been cowed to such an extent that the response to an austerity drive that goes some way beyond what is sensible or required is accepted with nary a whimper of protest.
Whether that will change when the cuts really bite next year is another question, I'd rather hope it does actually, if only to demonstrate that the British worker has not been completely downtrodden.
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I think you will find that most protests against government policy are infiltrated by undercover law enforcement officers and their sole aim to start visable violence giving the "police reason " to clamp down on the protest.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TbLU9tdDwxo&feature=related
just google it it happens alot toronto, london france greece.
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@ Gavin
"The new orthodoxy is that cutting spending will eventually bolster growth and produce new jobs."
No, it isn't new. It's at least a century old. See the UK's acts in the Great Depression (floating the Sterling, roughly equivalent to leaving the Euro, and cutting spending) versus those of the US (The New Deal, massive spending projects). The UK weathered that far better than the US, by the way.
And the Labour Party wasn't Keynesian until 2007, because they spent in the good years, rather than saving for the bad; remember "the end of boom and bust"? Your "old" orthodoxy has barely reached its 3rd birthday in policy terms and now the currency printing is forcing smaller economies to impose currency controls to prevent swamping with this wave of printed money.
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Thanks for some insight into what is happening in Spain Gavin on a day where there are protests all around the Euro zone it would appear. However I notice that not everyone agrees with Elena Salgado's view on austerity in Spain. According to notayesmanseconomics blog there has been,
"a weakening of Prime Minister Zapotero’s commitment to austerity with him publically suggesting that it was no longer as important as before which many saw as a form of backsliding on his promises in this area. This is complicated by the fact that much spending in Spain is undertaken by the regions rather than the central government and some will wonder if Zapotero is sending a message to them."
So perhaps some question Elena Salgado's commitment to her "credo"
http://notayesmanseconomics.wordpress.com
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Many people in the UK are looking for scapegoats to blame for the need for austerity and find easy target with the Bankers and Fat Cats of Business for the Sovereign Debt owed by the UK – however, they miss the one vital fact of the matter - the Northern Rock, Lloyds TSB and RBS banks were bailed out along with provision of Quantitive Easing and other sundry financial help for savers of the Icelandic and Isle of Man Banks but the total bill was a mere £167bn.
The actual Sovereign Debt of the UK is in the region £960bn which was money borrowed in good times to pay for Quangos, Foreign Aid, Two(2) Wars, Immigration and Asylum welfare support, Social Services, the NHS, Trident, the Armed Forces, the list goes on and on. The eventual repayment and interest payments in the interim take the debt to approximately £4.5 Trillion - a debt so humungous that even the current UK Coalition governments plans are not going to make much headway into reducing that debt over the next 4 or 5 years (in fact, the Government’s Emergency Budget plans an INCREASE in government spending of £324bn over the next 5 years – much of it simply to repay some of the interest payments on the UK’s debt!).
The reality is that the UK government is going to spend £1400 MORE over then next 5 years for every man, woman and child who resides in the UK but we are all going to bear the brunt of austerity measures on top of that too - not because of the banker or the mistakes of the Hedge Funds, Sub-prime but because politicians have simply spent OUR money extravagantly, wastefully or downright stupidly without a thought for when the day of reckoning would dawn ... the US Sub-Prime catastrophe was criminal but it just hastened the day of reckoning for all of us and especially those governments who were the worst offenders for spending far, far beyond the national income.
This overspend without true oversight is the same throughout Europe where there has become a dependency on centralised government subsidising a liberal social lifestyle that is frankly unaffordable when set against the actual GNP of the individual states that comprise Europe.
The real criminals are the Politicians and Governments who have spent money like there is no tomorrow to achieve their Utopian Ideals of universal welfare, social provision and redistribution of wealth both within Europe and to the rest of the World.
The truth is that the UK, like much of the rest of Europe has lost its manufacturing excellence and has become a continent of service providers and even that work can be done more cheaply by immigrants or in other parts of the World.
We all, Politicians, government and citizens are not as rich as we think we are, we are all in debt up to our eyeballs (even if not personally owing any money) and the truth that really hurts is that the World does NOT owes us a living and we have to repay that debt or leave it to our children or children’s children and that would be utterly contemptible.
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On the day of 'protests' tucked away in some Danish & a couple of Greek newspapers are brief articles outlining the knife-stabbing of 2 Copenhagen Football fans in Athens, Greece.
Personally, I don't believe it: I've read Aegean contributors on here numerous times explain how 'foreign' people only get stabbed/assaulted in England.
No, my protest is I'm fairly sure some English tourists went to Athens and attacked the Danish Football fans because we've been assured nothing like it could happen involving the fans of a Greek football team.
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Re 315
I'm inclined to agre with Chad on this UK workers' response to the day of protest.
The test for the Coalition Government will come when Chancellor Osborne's wholly 'class-based' & OTT 'cuts' are in-place next year: It will be at that moment the UK workers may show their mettle & their contempt for a Government & Parliament that has chosen to deliberately and maliciously pick on the least culpable (for the Economic collapse) & most vulnerable (to Paying for its Recovery) in order to protect their negligent, wealthy, conniving, avaricious friends in the Banks & Investment Houses.
Like Chad I hope the Workers & Unemployed do finally respond in a severe & bitter manner that will shake this complacent, lazy, shoddy 650 (at least half of whom had their greedy fingers in Expenses pies even as the Economic Collapse was underway) MPs from their contemptuous idleness for the British Public.
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Re #7
'..hundred years of decline..'
'Decline..' of what exactly Frenchliving?
The UK Pound?
If so, then it is the sort of gradual process every former imperial European nation has undergone. There is nothing about the EUro-zone to suggest it is a more likely prospect for the future: A Monetary system with 15 widely differing 'political' & 'economic' backgrounds is more than likely to experience more upheavals in the years ahead.
The UK Economy?
If so, then it is a remarkable decline that sees this non-EUro-zone, non-mainland based Nation as the 3rd largest contributor to an EU of 27: One has to ponder where would the 'Bail-out' package be if the UK had been in the 'zone' with all its present economic-fiscal difficulties? There is hardly any doubt for all its powerhouse activity Germany could never be in a position to countenance a donation to the bail-out which might include having to attempt a 'rescue' of the British Economy.
EU paying for UK?
If so, that must be on one of the Financial pages You alone have been accessing for certainly not even the axis-of-ill-intent at Paris-Brussels-Berlin would claim that was the present Economic-Fiscal situation facing it.
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How many of those marchers in Madrid and elsewhere took out hefty mortgages on the basis of outlandishly exaggerated offers from Banks and Building Societies? Who are the dupes? Who thought an offer "too good to be true" would be true?
OK I agree with those who argue that it's us taxpayers who are having to bail out governments who bailed aout banks, etc. But, let's agree, the blame can be fairly widely shared.
NB no demos in France - we have ours to come on Saturday (no need to lose a day's pay - right!).
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#19. Menedemus wrote:
"The truth is that the UK, like much of the rest of Europe has lost its manufacturing..."
But it does not HAVE to remain like that....
We in Europe need to bring our cost base down to global levels to compete and this can be done.
Consider what benefit a worker actually gets from his/her remuneration: most of it (80+%?) goes on paying for housing so it is simple enough - we need to reduce this and reduce pay to match - the workers will be no worse off if both are done in tandem. What we tried in the last decade was to look at 'affordability' but that has proved to be the worst kind of trap as there was no restriction on loan-to-pay multiples and all that happened was that house prices were inflated.
So a home as proportion of expenditure needs to be reduced back to nearer 20% rather than 80% of present income. This will mean that pay could be halved and the workers will still be better off.
We thus, as is actually happened in the USA, have to gracefully engineer a 50% fall in house prices in the UK and rather less in other European countries. The problem with this is that it will break our banks again so we are scared. We have to break the banks then, as it is by far lesser of two evils. If we don't Europe will die.
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19. At 5:30pm on 29 Sep 2010, Menedemus wrote:
"""The real criminals are the Politicians and Governments who have spent money like there is no tomorrow to achieve their Utopian Ideals of universal welfare, social provision and redistribution of wealth both within Europe and to the rest of the World."""
Even if we take into account the large sums wasted in mal-functioning welfare systems, the reason of financial woes of European countries is not that one. You speak about wasting money but money belongs to a very identiafiable private group of money-creating (out of thin air) bankoinvestors.
You have to go back to the basics of what provides real wealth to people and that are: control of terriroty, control of ressources, control of production, control of traderoutes. If you have your hand on a sufficient combination of the above, you can sustain just any costly welfare system.
"""The truth is that the UK, like much of the rest of Europe has lost its manufacturing excellence and has become a continent of service providers and even that work can be done more cheaply by immigrants or in other parts of the World."""
Ok, drop the wages and bring back the industries. Then what? Little Germany will pleade to buy say some steel from Ukraine but China will enter and say "I buy your future production till 2020". Cost of steel exported at 5000 kilometers at China, 1 euro, cost of steel exported at 2000 kilometers at Germany, 2 euros. Ciao, bye! Do we need to mention oil and gas now? See? The issue is not financial. It is geopolitical. Is there an EU Defense policy? Is there an EU Energy policy? Leave EU aside, do European countries have clearly developed geopolitical policies? No and the worst player is - guess who - Germany, the leading machine of EU. The only one with a more clear strategy is actually Britain, only that this meant it being tied to US and that at the expense of the majority of British people who do not see any particular benefit out of that particular strategy (it is mostly a strategy fitting the oligarchs - note Britain is not alone in this particular trait, evidently!).
"""We all, Politicians, government and citizens are not as rich as we think we are, we are all in debt up to our eyeballs (even if not personally owing any money) and the truth that really hurts is that the World does NOT owes us a living and we have to repay that debt or leave it to our children or children’s children and that would be utterly contemptible."""
No. Say you lent me some money. Am I in debt to you? You say yes. Really? I say no. Come and get it if you like. Your only hope to get your money by me is getting someone else along with you (the law or a local mafia guy, i.e. threaten me, my family etc.) so as to leave me no alternative.
So?
You understand that when you are free you cannot get indebted. You can TAKE as you wish. You canNOT BORROW. When you borrow, this means that you are already enslaved even prior to your need to borrow!
That said, if countries are indebted that means that they were not free in the first place and were dragged into borrowing money from "people" that have the power to destroy them if they wish to avoid paying back or even to refuse borrowing!!!!
So?
So where do we concentate dear Menedemus? In taking our waste from the toilet to make it biscuit and eat to economise and pay back? Should we seek to play in this vicious circle? Or should we restructure yourself in such a way that "creditors" find it more difficult to blackmail us to get mingled with their "services".
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I see the Labour party has re-invented itself once more offering the UK public a glimmer of hope for the bleak future. Nothing different to what goes on in every 'democracy' really. One of 2 Parties is always there at the right time to inherit a mess and pick up where their partners in crime left off. The reason there is no long term solution to this instability is due to this economic system being unsustainable. Even at its best days it relies on the impoverishment of the forever 'developing' world and the destruction of the earth's natural character. Words like freedom, social justice, and choice have become increasingly insignificant in today's world. We have allowed the few to take away all our initiative, cretivity, and land, which has created u level of dependence on them that is greater than that of a child to its parent. As long as we rely on Capitalists, Politicians, and Religious figures for our salvation, we will never realise freedom, progress, and solidarity amongst people.
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@20, cool_brush_work
In fact, football hooliganism, if that includes killing people and attempting to kill people in and around major football games, is something that the English give themselves the credit of inventing although they didn't. In spite of that, many good European friends are too ready to agree.
There's at least one continental country that has until recently claimed a friendly, family environment in its grounds, though the there have been people killed in their most famous stadium since more than half a century ago.
Getting closer to topic:
@19, Menedemus
Excellent post.
I'll add an example: The Lockheed F35 Joint Strike Fighter.
It seems it doesn't work (at least not very well yet). It's costing a fortune. We are getting little out of the project. There are other options. When we are all up to our necks in debt, why are so many European countries, including the UK, buying it?
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What a disapointment! After all the hype, I spent an hour walking to work through the centre of Madrid at midday (via the Castellana and Plaza Castilla) and you could have been forgiven for thinking that it was a Saturday! There were no signs of strikers, protests or problems. Buses were running, the Metro was open for business and shops all along the route were open for busines.
From what I saw and have heard, this is just a disaster for the sindicatos - but then what do you expect when you are protesting at measures which are already laws!
Just like the Unions back home, it feels to me that the "Bark is worse then the bite".
Heres to a peacful bus ride hom tonight!
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in response to 12 Maxone, perhaps you should come to Spain and see this "Action" you mention. Is your idea of action by workers is people from the Basque region picketing outside the department store "El Cort Ingles" (a true symbol of Spain)? Or perhaps, barricading the entrance to a Burger King in downtown Madrid, with the workers inside?
I didnt see any mass demonstration outside the government buildings on the day the austerity measures were passed - or perhaps thats because on that day, most of Spain was on holiday! Maybe you should take a look back at the reason this day was chosen and see how you feel about it then!
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John_from_Hendon @#24
I could not agree with you more. Reduce the actual cost of living to a manageable level and then, so long as the workers receive a fair remuneration for their work and earn enough to subsist then they could work, earn and live reasonably comfortably. It almost sound Utopian.
Unfortunately, the only people who would wish to reduce costs, reduce wages and thus see a return on investment are the Employers. Their workers and their Unions would, generally speaking not accept reductions in their income, standards of living and they do – now they have grown accustomed to the taste – expect governments and the politicians to feed them by the teat!
You have Politicians wanting to enrich themselves, Unions who want to see 'their workers' get remuneration increases, shorter hours, better working conditions, etc. and you have a general public who want more money, more choice, free healthcare, welfare if they are sick or ill or unemployed, pensions, home help, holidays, and more luxuries all of which induces inflation, increases wage demands and creates a spiral of unaffordability and a wedge to drive businesses to go elsewhere.
If that happens, government revenue falls.
And then, to cap it all we have the spectacle of our potential future Prime Minister, Ed Miliband, advocating high rates of taxation rather than reducing government capital expenditure ... the problem with that is that if the UK puts up its tax rates and keeps them high then the rich and powerful will simply go elsewhere - they did so under Wilson and Callaghan, they would so under Miliband - and they take their companies and employment opportunities with them.
Yesterday one of our large companies, Wolseley, announced it was going to the Channel Islands and Switzerland to get away from UK tax rates and the Inland Revenue. It follows Shire and Ineos, and various investment businesses who are also taking their businesses elsewhere.
That is the epitome of why it is our politicians who are the fail and the real cause of the demise of manufacturing, affordability and the humungous debts we are all having to deal with throughout Europe.
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What percentage of these striking workers are NOT in the public sector?
Probably minute.
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MaxSceptic @#31
John wrote at #28 that he thought it was quite and like a Saturday in Madrid today - that's probably a reason why the public sector workers were not there ... they definitely knew it was a Saturday and Saturday IS their day off!
You know how the public sector week goes: Monday to check in and see what needs doing, Tuesday is day off to attend Trade Union meetings, Wednesday on a course, Thursday sick (Got to do the 5 weeks of sick days remember!), Friday is casual day (do some work in the morning but go home early because it is POETS day), Saturday off, Sunday to recover ... it a bit of a grind pushing all that bureacracy around and filing it!
It must be worse for the EU Workers because they probably have to spend Monday filling in their expense claims!
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20. At 5:39pm on 29 Sep 2010, cool_brush_work wrote:
On the day of 'protests' tucked away in some Danish & a couple of Greek newspapers are brief articles outlining the knife-stabbing of 2 Copenhagen Football fans in Athens, Greece.
Personally, I don't believe it: I've read Aegean contributors on here numerous times explain how 'foreign' people only get stabbed/assaulted in England.
No, my protest is I'm fairly sure some English tourists went to Athens and attacked the Danish Football fans because we've been assured nothing like it could happen involving the fans of a Greek football team.
------
Just because it rains less in Greece than the UK, that does not mean that there is no rain in Greece at all.
I don't get you point, are you takling about football violence, racial violence, both or the type of violence (stabbed you coz I don't like your face and/or I want your money/mobile phone/shoes) that you see in London?
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@4 averagejoe
"What rubbish. No a single penny needs to be cut. The problem is debt, brought about by the fractional reserve banking system, and it ability to allow banks to create additional money supply out of thin air. They have created too much debt and countries are suffering as a result. The solution is monetary reform, the removal of the FRB system, and placing money creation in the hands of the state. This is not a new idea, but the banks have resisted change since the 1930s. Indeed the chaos being experienced was even predicted."
As much as I agree with you that the FIAT-System is just a big lie, the rest of your writing is simply wrong.
Banks cannot "print money out of thin air", only one bank - the reserve bank - can increase the money supply. As these institutions are not independent, they follow orders from the sovereign - or rather those who hold a sovereign mandate.
Also, increasing the money supply does not increase national debt in any way.
This system has nothing to do with the fact that most western nations have piled up massive amounts of debts over the last decades.
For most European nations as well as for the USA, it`s a problem of overspending. But at least the big industrial nations have something of value to balance the equation to some degree (and even there cuts are inevitable).
The PIGGS, upon entering the EU, basically went on a sudsidy % cheap credit frenzy. All their growth is built on this and not on real value.
A government cannot finance growth.
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#32. At 8:34pm on 29 Sep 2010, Menedemus,
Don't worry about the UK, Red Ed will solve all ills, just like all his Socialist predecessors, unless the recent arrival on the National Executive Red Ken kicks him out first and takes his place, as is his history from the early 70's.
As for the poor, desperate workers who marched today and complain about their lot, I have never understood why the people they work for don't replace them with those who want to work. Oops, I forgot, they probably either don't work or their employers are so scared of the union they keep stum.
As for those who blame the bankers, I simply ask one question, are they so foolish to have ever believed the bankers are any better in ability that a civil servant. Granted there are occasional exceptions but it shows the intelligence of the politicians that they did not realise the last person you ask for financial advice from is a banker.
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@35 Buzet23
"As for those who blame the bankers, I simply ask one question, are they so foolish to have ever believed the bankers are any better in ability that a civil servant. Granted there are occasional exceptions but it shows the intelligence of the politicians that they did not realise the last person you ask for financial advice from is a banker."
The best part is that those politicians asked experts associated with banks and bankers as to how fix the problem. Fantastic.
Our political leaders are nothing but technocratic idiots who are not willing to take any responsibility whatsoever.
Instead, they participated in the greatest foray in the history of mankind, usually called "bailout".
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Euronomics doesn't work. Fueled during the cold war by America's largesse and then on credit, now that it has neither available it is in a state of collapse. The European lifestyle was a pipe dream that is over. The European governments caught in a squeeze between their populations that won't accept reality and credit markets that won't accep their promises any longer they are between a rock and a hard place. And the US is just making things worse by keeping credit tied up in its banking system.
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"The new orthodoxy is that cutting spending will eventually bolster growth and produce new jobs."
EUpris: At one time the fashionable Bull Product was that the "EU" would create jobs. Unemployment amongst young Spaniards is 40%. So has it worked?? We have had an Amazon of Bull Product from "EU"-lovers for almost forty years. You cannot believe a word they say.
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I belong to a union--but we can't strike, because its a government workers union--but
Have fun you strikers...when you are in a crowd, is it hard to think about big pictures?
It makes one less fearful being in a crowd, somehow, I'm thinking.
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33. At 9:18pm on 29 Sep 2010, ptsa wrote:
" ...I don't get you point, are you takling about football violence, racial violence, both or the type of violence (stabbed you coz I don't like your face and/or I want your money/mobile phone/shoes) that you see in London?"
EUpris: We have a lot of disgustingly violent people around here in Sunny England. Some of those are home grown and we really do need to be doing some things differently.
Some are from continental Europe.
We don't need two lots of thugs and criminals. One lot is enough.
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What now for David Miliband?
Some nauseatingly overpaid job in the "EU"-Dictatorship which cynics* might interpret as being his reward for his role in the imposition of the disgusting, sick, anti-democratic, megalomaniac Lisbon Treaty?
*How awful!
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Political parties get voted into government by offering what they cannot afford to give . However in a crooked system of being hand in glove with politicians , they are able to borrow the money , to provide the goods and services promised . In return the banks are given a free reign to make money in anyway they can , even unscrupulously .
If something goes wrong in the system , as with the housing market and mortgages recently , the whole economic system fails .
The cost of living is vastly inflated in European countries , because of their very expensive social and welfare sevices . For example the British national health service is very weak on preventative medicine , but offers bypass operations . A national health should provide preventative medicine , keep people basically healthy , for the good of the nation , not provide very expensive operations .
If the General Strikes and mass demonstrations can put another nail in the coffin of the EU , Well Done .
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#41. At 03:26am on 30 Sep 2010, EUprisoner209456731,
You're probably quick correct about that, after all it seems the modus operandi to offer failed politicians a job in the EU, usually as a commissar, although maybe he'll have to wait until one is found passed away in his chair. They'll have to get the EU civil servants to check regularly whether they are still alive when they're in their chairs or just asleep.
#36. At 11:09pm on 29 Sep 2010, DurstigerMann,
Quite so, the blind leading the blind. The bailout was for purely political reasons to save their baby (the Euro), all rational thought and logic went through the window in their desperation. It was not even a surprise that this would happen one day as during the introduction of the Euro it was always accepted that it was not a question of 'IF' but rather 'WHEN' a crash would happen. The central banks knew this very well as I spoke about this to the accounting staff of a central bank during the introduction of the Euro as I was working there for a while on the IT part of the introduction.
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Banks cannot "print money out of thin air", only one bank - the reserve bank - can increase the money supply. As these institutions are not independent, they follow orders from the sovereign - or rather those who hold a sovereign mandate.
Also, increasing the money supply does not increase national debt in any way.
..............
Evidently you know nothing about the fractional reserve banking system then. The quote I gave from Jen O Parson's Dying of money was not invented by me, but someone with considerable understanding of the failings of our monetary system. I suggest you have a look at the articles on http://www.prosperityuk.com/prosperity/prosperity.html That will fill you in on the details. Our money supply, 97% of it is created out of thin air as loans, through the fractional reserve banking system. Astonishing but true. The banking system is little more than a pyramid scheme. Once you understand this, you will understand why it needs reformed.
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"As for those who blame the bankers, I simply ask one question, are they so foolish to have ever believed the bankers are any better in ability that a civil servant. Granted there are occasional exceptions but it shows the intelligence of the politicians that they did not realise the last person you ask for financial advice from is a banker."
.......
I would suggest the bankers have had plenty of opportunity to demonstrate their abilities and failed to a point where they needed us to bail them out! And I had no opportunity to vote them into the position either.
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ptsa
Re Your #30 & "..don't get the point.." about my #20
Not surprised: #20 was my personal, fairly pointless & inane dig at a couple of Greek contributors on here who constantly label all things 'English' as awful & blame everyone but especially UK/England for everything that is wrong or unfortunate about Greece.
Cheers.
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GH: "The union tactics were largely successful."
Zapatero's Socialist government has reversed its decisions?
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19. At 5:30pm on 29 Sep 2010, Menedemus wrote:
..............
What about the massive drop in tax receipts as a result in the recession caused by the failure of the banking system, you seem to have forgotten about that. What about the fact the banks fueled a massive unsustainable boom based on easy credit (the increase in housing being the obvious result), which loaded the population with unsustainable levels of debt. Did they not think to assess the risk more carefully? Private debt in this country is way bigger than the government's debt. If it wasn't then we could afford to pay the tax necessary to fund the public services. We are in a situation where debt has reached a level we can never repay. We have a choice, default, or reform the monetary system. The latter will prevent this situation arising again.
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"As you can see the euro climbs against the pound and the dollar again. WHY? The answer is this. The U.K. needs a weak currency to balance its books and its agenda to create a weak currency is clear."
U.S. Treasury is also printing more $ notes.
Good for both: U.S. trade imbalance and U.S. national debt.
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This was posted be someone else but helps to illustrate why cutbacks are unlikely to work;
"The total amount of debt created to date is understood to be in the region of:
Public sector debt £927.4 billion
Private sector debt £1456 billion
Total £2,400 billion
Based on an average interest rate of say 5% (after defaults have been taken into account), the total debt at the end of next year would need to be £2,520 billion.
In a debt based monetary system such as ours, contraction of debt means less money and less money means more defaults.
If the government and private individuals start reducing their overall respective debt, defaults will rise and we may again face the insolvency of banks.
To keep a debt based monetary system functioning, the total amount debt in a given system must rise. And if it rises past the level at which the debtors can service the debt, the system must collapse.
So for Mr Osborne, he can’t reduce overall government debt, unless there is a corresponding + 5% rise in private debt.
However given the consummate torture that private debtors are currently being subjected to, their appetite for more debt may well be rather limited.
I suspect that over the course of the next few years we will find out whether (as a nation) we have reached the tipping point in a compound debt trap. "
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"Make the bankers and banks pay for the banking crisis."
One of the top world famous economists has observed that "the protesters don't seem to realize where the money is coming from and how is it made".
To which I will add: they don't seem to realize that many a EUSSR member states' financial problems were not caused by the banking crisis, but by those states spending for decades much more money they could possibly take in, in order to maintain an illusion of "welfare state forever".
And now the chichen have finally come home to roost.
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"Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,
Signifying nothing".
Mcbeth, or the latest speach by comrade Barroso?
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"NB no demos in France - we have ours to come on Saturday (no need to lose a day's pay - right!)."
About 2 months ago I've asked a Greek cab-driver in Athens why he and his comrades were not on strike.
Are you crazy? -he replied.
- We'll strike in winter, during the dead tourist season.
[btw. he overcharged me by 15 euro for a ride, as I found out only later]
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"The Lockheed F35 Joint Strike Fighter.
It seems it doesn't work (at least not very well yet)."
It does pretty well for a new design.
Unlike ejection seats in Eurofighters which don't eject.
P.S. Don't worry: Saudi Arabia opted for 90 combat proven F-15 Eagle. :)
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@44 Averagejoe
"Evidently you know nothing about the fractional reserve banking system then. The quote I gave from Jen O Parson's Dying of money was not invented by me, but someone with considerable understanding of the failings of our monetary system. I suggest you have a look at the articles on http://www.prosperityuk.com/prosperity/prosperity.html That will fill you in on the details. Our money supply, 97% of it is created out of thin air as loans, through the fractional reserve banking system. Astonishing but true. The banking system is little more than a pyramid scheme. Once you understand this, you will understand why it needs reformed."
You really think that with say a gold standard we wold not have public debt and overspending?
The only difference would be that the loaned money would be backed up by something. The government would owe real value, e.g. gold, to the banks and investors.
Of course there is not enough gold to sustain a credit expansion like we see it nowadays. The whole system would have been collapsed already.
@45 Averagejoe
"I would suggest the bankers have had plenty of opportunity to demonstrate their abilities and failed to a point where they needed us to bail them out! And I had no opportunity to vote them into the position either."
You don`t check a free horse for its teeth. Most people would take public money, should it be offered to them.
Bankers also have a strong lobby. Admittedly, this is a huge advantage.
However, the fault lies with our political class filled with technocrats.
They told us that the bailout was without alternative.
Of course that was a lie. A business that fails has to vanish and make place for new ones. People who run their business into the ground don`t have what it takes to run it.
Just imagine: they did not link bonus payments to success. Is that how a successful business concept should look like?
Finally, bailout _completely_ turned any principle of reason around.
Instead, unbelievable amounts of tax money were literally burned in order to feed that black hole. And to save who?
A few normal blokes who invested their money? So banks could keep granting credits to small and medium businesses?
I could write down a dozen better ways they could have done that without a bailout on the spot. Would have been a lot cheaper.
They only saved the big capital, that`s all.
It`s no surprise to me that the number of millionaires in Germany has even increased during the crisis.
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55. At 10:18am on 30 Sep 2010, DurstigerMann wrote:
However, the fault lies with our political class filled with technocrats.
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
How about a definition:
Noun 1. technocrat - an expert who is a member of a highly skilled elite group
If you think the political class in the UK is full of highly skilled experts, then you are, I am afraid, seriously mistaken. Most of our MPs are skilled at one thing, and one thing only- advancing their own career. Most have no expertise whatsoever in anything to do with the real world outside of politics, in fact many if not most have been full time politicians since leaving school.
Personally, I wish parliament was stuffed with technocrats. Then our MPs might command a bit of respect.
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I've been living in Madrid for the past year and have to say that the strikes had little actual effect on most offices. Everyone I know said that their offices were full and that it was just another normal day. Even the metro was running quickly.
Apart from all the posters slapped everywhere I'd not have noticed the strike at all.
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#44. At 09:16am on 30 Sep 2010, Averagejoe,
Regarding your reference to the Prosperity site, I had a look at the article on how the Fractional Reserve Banking System works and found its example about £100 being deposited and re-lent until there was £1000 somewhat simplistic. It takes no account of the fundamental principle that whilst in theory it is the £100 being lent out, that £100 belongs to any mix-match of the deposits within the bank and it is in fact referring to £100 within the average balance of deposits rather than a specific deposit, since on a daily basis money is deposited and withdrawn. The example also left out the fact that on a loan there is interest charges and a repayment schedule.
Taken those to omissions into account I am therefore a bit sceptical about the accuracy of their claims, I may be wrong but they are rather important omissions for such a subject.
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"The Lockheed F35 Joint Strike Fighter.
It seems it doesn't work (at least not very well yet)."
What's the difference? Europeans weren't going to use it anyway. They only buy them to "send a message" to their adversaries. When attacked, all they know how to do is talk. In fact even when not attacked all they know how to do is talk. Besides, it would have been a lot more expensive if we sold you guys one that actually worked. And you might hurt yourselves with it. Believe me it's better this way. F35s for Europe, F22s for America. Sounds about right.
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The beauty of the strikes is that every manday of work lost on this utterly futile effort only makes Eruope's financial plight that much worse. If that labor is of no value, then they shouldn't be working at all anyway. And if it is, that impacts the productivity of society as a whole. Europe is a lost cause. How fascinating to watch it collapse. I don't think it is coming back. America on the other hand has survived worse even on its own, much worse in fact. I've been predicting this for a long time and it seems to be happening.
In another of BBC's utterly Alice in Wonderland programs about business, some of its guests used the old "delinked" argument again saying the world's economy is no tied to America's. We've heard that tired old song so many times. They said it in 2000 when the US economy was slowing down. "Europe will not be affected by the recession in the US." in the 20-20 mirror of hindsight, Europe took forever (except for the UK which used the Anglo American model) to recover long after a relatively brief and mild recession in the US was ancient history.
Some Europeans have called for a perpetual strike in Europe. Good, that will take Europe out of the worldwide competition for what's available that much faster.
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"You really think that with say a gold standard we wold not have public debt and overspending?
The only difference would be that the loaned money would be backed up by something. The government would owe real value, e.g. gold, to the banks and investors.
Of course there is not enough gold to sustain a credit expansion like we see it nowadays. The whole system would have been collapsed already."
Obviously you have not read anything on the web site link I sent you. You can lead a horse to water……… Monetary reform has nothing to do with a return to the gold standard. Currently the state issues 3% of our money supply interest free; it’s the paper cash and coins (debt free money supply). The rest, 97%, is created by banks as loans, say to purchase a house. This is created as debt (debt backed money supply) on which interest is due. Monetary reform proposes the state will issue all money and spend it through the public sector. The fractional reserve banking system would be dropped and their assets would have to match their liabilities, similar to how a mutual building society operates. This means that all money in the economy would be created by the state. The current arrangement requires the debt based money supply to constantly expand in order to service the interest on the outstanding debt (at the same time eroding its value), which is simply to sustainable. If its does not you get defaults and there is simply insufficient money in circulation to service the debt. The fractional reserve banking system is the cause of the so called business cycle. For further information I would refer you to the web site http://www.prosperityuk.com/prosperity/prosperity.html. It is worth the read.
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frenchliving wrote: "As you can see the euro climbs against the pound and the dollar again."
Some might think that your use of the word climb is a bit of an overstatement. The one year low of the £ against the Euro is 1.06 and the high is about 1.25 so the current rate of 1.16 is just about the mid-point for the last 12 months.
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Re #59
Potential buyers come to air show. Look at Eurofighters, Grippens, Rafales.
And then they opt for modest F-16 Falcons.
Which sit there humbly with a small carboard under their front wheels:
"COMBAT PROVEN".
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http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-11441473
Oh dear, austerity does not seem to be helping.
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@54, powermeerkat wrote:
"The Lockheed F35 Joint Strike Fighter ....
.... does pretty well for a new design.
Unlike ejection seats in Eurofighters which don't eject."
Well that’s another problem and even more delays for the F35 as it has the same ejector seat.
Not that it matters, as MarcusAureliusII explains @59, the F35 is not intended to operate. Apparently, it’s function is purely cosmetic.
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Averagejoe #48
Did the banks knock on everyone's doors in the USA or other parts of the Western World and force people to borrow mortgages or use credit cards or take out loans? Codswallop if you think they did. They would have been criminal if they offered free money and gave it to us without strings but your excuse is to blame the banks when it is our collective fault for borrowing too much and for voting successive governments into office to continue government spending beyond a point of affordability.
It is the consumerism in us all that means that if someone offers us credit we take it and on every single form that I have ever signed when borrowing money - be it for my mortgage, taking out a credit card or signing up for a bank loan - I have always read the small print which firmly puts the onus upon ME as the consumer to have been honest about my income and expenditure, be responsible for repayments and understand that, where my house is the collateral, that default could result in the house being seized as an asset.
What successive governments have done is spend, spend and spend more then, when the GNP was insufficient, they borrowed and spent and even resorted to devaluation and Quantitive Easing (printing fiat money) as a means to create more money to spend.
It is our collective responsibility that the Western World has spent fiat currency to the point where we have borrowed so much that we really cannot afford to repay the debt unless we cut our cloth to match our lack of prosperity or we are all at risk of losing our homes, our so-called First World living standards and above all else lose the safety net of welfare and social provisions that no one outside of the Western World enjoys but we, as First World citizens, presume is our right and owed privilege from the moment we are born to the day we die.
Welcome to the world of reality! The people of Europe are no more wealthy or rich than the citizens of sub-Sahara Africa - we just created the illusion that we were rich by fiddling the books and falsifying the accounts to make it look like we wealthy enough to provide a social safety net for all.
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Interesting news this afternoon, the Anglo Irish bank will need 30 billion Euro's to stabilise it and Allied Irish may also need help. An Irish minister said that the bankers have been spending their time trying to hide these failings.
Second news was that Spain's credit rating has been downgraded by an agency.
Anyone recall all those EU politicians claiming that the Euro crisis was ended and everything was recovering well.
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"the F35 is not intended to operate. Apparently, it’s function is purely cosmetic."
As far as "our NATO allies" - probably.
As far as U.S. is considered - no quite.
BTW. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GW2Hvu_mUdU&feature=related
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59. At 11:42am on 30 Sep 2010, MarcusAureliusII wrote:
Besides, it would have been a lot more expensive if we sold you guys one that actually worked. And you might hurt yourselves with it. Believe me it's better this way. F35s for Europe, F22s for America. Sounds about right.
------------------------
Your government currently plans to purchase over 2000 units for a cost of about $320 billion, making it the most expensive defence program ever. Pretty stupid to create a flawed design when your government will be the largest customer.
Pure genius Marcus, even for you...
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Typical left wing types. Terrorists at heart.
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68. At 2:30pm on 30 Sep 2010, powermeerkat wrote:
"the F35 is not intended to operate. Apparently, it’s function is purely cosmetic."
As far as "our NATO allies" - probably.
As far as U.S. is considered - no quite.
---------------------------
Vindictive much?
Nothing like knowingly selling flawed aircraft to increase your market share. Those boys down at Lockheed are brilliant.
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@61 Averagejoe
"Obviously you have not read anything on the web site link I sent you. You can lead a horse to water……… Monetary reform has nothing to do with a return to the gold standard. Currently the state issues 3% of our money supply interest free; it’s the paper cash and coins (debt free money supply). The rest, 97%, is created by banks as loans, say to purchase a house. This is created as debt (debt backed money supply) on which interest is due. Monetary reform proposes the state will issue all money and spend it through the public sector."
I have read your link.
But I just don`t think that it has anything to do with public debt.
No matter how flawed the FIAT system may be, there is nobody with a gun pointed at you forcing you to borrow money.
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70. At 2:41pm on 30 Sep 2010, Illogicbuster wrote:
Typical left wing types. Terrorists at heart.
---------------
Thank you for sharing that brilliant and enlightening piece of analysis. Are you part of a think tank or did you come up with this yourself?
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Buzet23 @#67
The really bad side of the Allied Irish Bank collapse is that Germany and the UK Financiers are both creditors to the tune, each nation, of over £200bn - if Allied Irish is not rescued, the Financiers in both Germany and the UK will take a really serious hit and of the magnitude of the Bank Bailout that is costing us dear from 2008.
How the hell the London Financiers got us into subsidising Allied Irish I can't imagine ... oh yes I do - corporate greed yet again!
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Bro_Winky wrote: "Thank you for sharing that brilliant and enlightening piece of analysis."
---------------------------------------------------------------
Hardly all that. Stating an axiom is just doing the routine.
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#69
"Your government currently plans to purchase over 2000 units for a cost of about $320 billion, making it the most expensive defence program ever. Pretty stupid to create a flawed design when your government will be the largest customer.
Pure genius Marcus, even for you..."
Haha, yeah, another one for the Hall of Fame.
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#59
"What's the difference? Europeans weren't going to use it anyway. They only buy them to "send a message" to their adversaries. When attacked, all they know how to do is talk. In fact even when not attacked all they know how to do is talk"
So says this blogs number one cyber warrior. What unit were you in again Captain Flatfoot? Its fine trash talking and making threats on behalf of your country when you know you are too old and not fit for service isnt it? Pfft internet hard men, why are they always Yanks?
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#74. At 3:45pm on 30 Sep 2010, Menedemus,
Are you sure that it's Allied Irish rather than Anglo-Irish as it's the latter that needs 30 Billion at the moment. They said today that the former needs some help but if you're right then the Irish ministers are telling porkies.
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But I just don`t think that it has anything to do with public debt.
No matter how flawed the FIAT system may be, there is nobody with a gun pointed at you forcing you to borrow money.
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...................
People's income has been falling in real terms for decades (compared to prices which are rising faster due to inflation). THis is because companies are constantly seeking to reduce costs, in order to increase their profitability, and the only easy means of this is to increase the productivity of staff, which results in the need for less staff or lower wages, or outsourcing to China etc. In order to make up for this people have been borrowing more to enable then to continue to spend. This is what fueled growth up to the credit crunch. Low interest rates and cheap loans caused house prices to rise rapidly inflating them well above the long term average. If the money supply had been issued by the state, this would have not happened. Interesting house prices did not take off until the early 80s. But that was when the high street banks, using the fractional reserve baking system got into the housing market. Before that most mortgages were provided by mutual building societies, and the availability of credit was more limited. The FRB system, causes bubbles, by rapidly increasing credit during periods of growth.
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58. At 11:38am on 30 Sep 2010, Buzet23 wrote:
#44. At 09:16am on 30 Sep 2010, Averagejoe,
Regarding your reference to the Prosperity site, I had a look at the article on how the Fractional Reserve Banking System works and found its example about £100 being deposited and re-lent until there was £1000 somewhat simplistic. It takes no account of the fundamental principle that whilst in theory it is the £100 being lent out, that £100 belongs to any mix-match of the deposits within the bank and it is in fact referring to £100 within the average balance of deposits rather than a specific deposit, since on a daily basis money is deposited and withdrawn. The example also left out the fact that on a loan there is interest charges and a repayment schedule.
Taken those to omissions into account I am therefore a bit sceptical about the accuracy of their claims, I may be wrong but they are rather important omissions for such a subject.
..................
Have a read of the Mystery of Banking by Murray Rothbard available for free just google it, this expains Fractional Reserve Banking better than I can. THe key point to get your head round, and I agree its not easy, is that a bank only has to have a fractional reserve of assets to liabities. It used to be 3% but now is 7% I believe. So for every £100 it loans it only has to have £7 in assets to back it up. This is a ratio of 14 to 1. So to loan out £14million they only need to have deposits or assets of £1million. SO if they only have £1million where do they get the other $13million from to loan out to people and businesses? They create it, merely by punching it in a keyboard. This is additional money to the economy, and once spent and placed in another account is treated not as a loan but real money. Our economy, the same as others has reached a stage where 97% of the money in the economy has been created as loans. Now once the money is repaid, it disappears again, only the interest remains. This is why in an economic boom you get a massive increase in the money supply, and in a bust a massive contraction, becuase virtually all the money supply is created as loans. Only the cash is created by the Bank of England. In the 1940s the economy was about 50% cash, so the impact of the expansion/contraction of credit was not a problem. THe trouble is the expansion of the money supply creates inflation and the contraction causes deflation. The problems today are a lot worse than the past as a result. The only solution is a money supply issued by the state, interest free, and the dropping of fractional reserve banking: monetary reform.
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#80. At 8:39pm on 30 Sep 2010, Averagejoe,
I've located it and will have a read through some of it tomorrow as I'm curious to see what he said 27 years ago when it was first published, I suspect that some points may not be quite accurate these days since regulations etc have changed somewhat. However the principles he espoused would still stand.
One curious thing I'm wondering is where this virtual money gets accounted for, is it in the balance sheet book or in the off balance sheet books, judging by the way the bankers have been hiding their loses I suspect it is accounted for in the off balance sheet books. Maybe that's something that needs looking at as well.
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Nonsense offramp;
"Your government currently plans to purchase over 2000 units for a cost of about $320 billion, making it the most expensive defence program ever. Pretty stupid to create a flawed design when your government will be the largest customer."
You get the export version. That's the one with the nerf guns and the CDs that go "rat-a-tat."
http://www.hasbro.com/nerf/en_US/
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I know one thing is true. I want to live!
All other things are debateable. So, I do believe that all other people want to live, too..sometimes more intensely or less intensely than other times (no one has experienced death and can tell us about it therefore...)
And that there is the problem. How DO we keep everyone happy?
But suicide bombers...um....Because of my belief in the above how do I understand that?
And therefore, suicide banking, career suicide, umm, brain diminishment leading to an end for the brain (brain suicide?)
Chronic Suicidal behavior...
Its true that people will do the ...stupidest things...leading to their own eventual deaths.
And THEN BE NAMED AS NOBLE. I do not understand these behaviors...
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-
Generalissimo Happy Birthday!
All hands on deck!
Seven feet under the keel!
Russia loves Bulgaria!
I love you and you only! (as already discussed :o))))))))))
Please be healthy, wealthy and wise!
xxx
Alice
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Happy Birthday Gen. Franco
And hopefully, you will have many many more birthdays!
:0))))))))
I won't sing--that is my gift to you--but I will suggest to Web Alice:
Recite a song for him...trust me, he will thank you so much.
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awww love im not gonna call it puppy love...thats insulting
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There are some interesting contributions on this thread concerning the property market, disposable income and the influence over government policy by the owners of banking enterprises. It makes a nice change from the way this blog has been headed lately.
I would not bother to disagree with comments from John from Hendon, Humaik, mendemus, durstigerman and some others. They all make sound points. But it seems to me that they all identify the symptoms of the problems, but fail to prescribe remedies. Now that is to their credit, because you can't prescribe a remedy for an ailment by simply responding to the symptoms. You need to isolate the causative factor that generates the symptoms, and cure it.
It seems to me that most of us agree that the owners of banks have far, far too much influence in politics. It seems most of us also agree that public money is being taken, one way or another, from those who work for wages and gifted to those who own banks. Now whether that is done through a massively inflated housing market, or through the bail outs, or through working class greed and stupidity being exploited by rational bankers.. all these are interesting cases to be made. No doubt there is an element of legitimacy for them all, a sharp point on each arrow in the quiver.
But for my taste, the discussion runs dangerously close to becoming counter productive in a typically marxist fashion. We run a risk of pointing all our arrows at the banks, when in fact the banks behaviour may be simply the symptom of the underlying causative factor that has distorted and deranged our political and economic world.
Let us be clear about one thing: we want banking. We want privately owned banks, and we want them to be able to make a profit in a free market.
Anyone who can't put that on the table as an agreed point of order needs to go away and have a think about what happens when you have no banks, or when the goon squad from some political party run the lending in the market. This is North Korea time, or worse. It is about stepping so far back into the middle ages that double entry book keeping is no longer viable, 99% of the population are utterly illiterate, and the burning of witches by superstitious mobs is the way of moral and legal righteousness.
And this is why I say that the general arguments against banks are dangerous. We all know that the bank owners are doing exceptionally well when the vast majority of working people are doing exceptionally poorly, but do we know WHY?
And if we do not understand why, are we in danger of reaching a solution to the inequity on display that involves a simplistic amputation of the offending limb, rather than an informed cure of the inflamed tissue?
I'd like to see more discussion in the press regarding WHY the banks have become such brilliant business models, and how that environmental scenario came to pass.
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Averagjoe @#79
I entirely agree with the first part of your summation regarding the existence of pressure to deflate wages and and seek more productivity but you miss out mentioning the one vital ingredient to that pressure: Inflation.
Inflation is the enemy of us all as it increases prices being charged on raw materials through to finished product. When inflation exists then so does the need for the workers to seek higher wage demands in order to simply mark time and pay for their current standards of living.
It is inflation of cost that makes companies seek to achieve greater revenue/profit so they then inflate their prices, seek greater productivity and/or, as has been the case for much of the manufacturing base of the United Kingdom and the rest of the Western World, move manufacturing to other parts of the World where the can have workers manufacture the same product (albeit with less quality) for a mere fraction of the costs of employing British, European, American or other First World residents.
Where your theory goes wrong is the phrase, "... If the money supply had been issued by the state, this would have not happened..."
Governments do not create money, they don't own money but the own the currency. Traders - be they people, companies or small businesses - make profit and from profit we all benefit. Profits create returns on investment for shareholders, profit pay the wages of the worker involved in the profitable enterprise, the government takes a share of the profits by taxation and finally, what is left of profit can either be reinvested to create growth or taken by the entrepreneur who is actually the person taking all of the risks as if he/she makes profit then all is good but if the business fails to make a profit then all is bad.
What you suggest is that the government own money but what they actually do is regulate the conditions that manage profitability - they control the currency rate of exchange, they try to control the interest rate chargeable on lending, they try to regulate the lending of money and they control the rate of taxation. For the most part the politicians do get that side of thing right but they also get things dreadfully wrong.
What they get wrong repeatedly is that they presume that, as they receive so much taxation revenue - literally billions of shekels, rands, pounds, dollars, and roubles, or whatever - they can go spend it all (and some!) on social benefits, the welfare safety net and providing increasing numbers of public sector jobs that are not profitable activities but merely service provision.
The real failing of government within living memory was that they deregulated the banks to allow greater profit so as to enable greater tax revenue (Gordon Brown being one of the major architects of that fail!). The governments of the WOrld have continuously spent government revenue and, because of inflation, have found their revenue was not great enough so both created new revenue streams (taxes on Pensions, insurance, air passengers, the motorists, the list goes on and on) or they borrowed money on the open market. The UK has borrowed huge amounts and those borrowing will hurt us all in about 12 years time when they become due for fianl repayment.
The problem that we all now face is that with the credit crunch none of us can borrow any more - at a personal level people are having to tighten their belts and try to pay off their debts without the luxury of deferring the debt or else go bankrupt, lose their homes or become destitute. Companies cannot borrow against profits to invest and generate growth and greater profits so businesses are in stagnation and finally, governments throughout the Western World have realised that their social and public sector investment using tax revenue and borrowed money has had to come to a grinding halt and, because they are the biggest borrowers their debts are the most toxic for the Banks to have connection with they are finding the cost of borrowing MORE expensive and the amount borrowed to great a burden as the repayments required take up to great a proportion of tax revenues.
For example, in the UK, despite all the rhetoric about ‘Cuts’ (previously called ‘Efficiency Savings’ by the former Labour Government) the Coalition government is increasing government spending by £324bn pounds over the next 5 years – all of that £324bn will be going on debt repayment and interest charges but it is not government money it is OUR money as it is raised by taxes WE pay on the wages, salaries and pensions accrued by working diligently to generate profit.
AveragJoe @#79
I entirely agree with the first part of your summation regarding the existence of pressure to deflate wages and and seek more productivity but you miss out mentioning the one vital ingredient to that pressure: Inflation.
Inflation is the enemy of us all as it increases prices being charged on raw materials through to finished product. When inflation exists then so does the need for the workers to seek higher wage demands in order to simply mark time and pay for their current standards of living.
It is inflation of cost that makes companies seek to achieve greater revenue so they then inflate their prices, seek greater productivity and, as has been the case for much of the manufacturing base of the United Kingdom and the rest of the Western World, move manufacturing to other parts of the World where the can have workers manufacture the same product (albeit with less quality) for a mere fraction of the costs of employing British, European, American or other First World residents.
Where your theory goes wrong is the phrase, "... If the money supply had been issued by the state, this would have not happened..."
Governments do not create money, they don't own money but the own the currency. Traders - be they people, companies or small businesses - make profit and from profit we all benefit. Profits create returns on investment for shareholders, profit pay the wages of the worker involved in the profitable enterprise, the government takes a share of the profits by taxation and finally, what is left of profit can either be reinvested to create growth or taken by the entrepreneur who is actually the person taking all of the risks as if he/she makes profit then all is good but if the business fails to make a profit then all is bad.
What you suggest is that the government won money but what they actually do is regulate the conditions that manage profitability - they control the currency rate of exchange, they try to control the interest rate chargeable on lending, they try to regulate the lending of money and they control the rate of taxation. For the most part the politicians do get that side of thing right.
What they get wrong repeatedly is that they presume that as they receive so much taxation revenue - literally billions of shekels, rands, pounds, dollars, and roubles, that they can go spend it all on making things happen and providing public sector jobs which are not profitable activities but merely service provision (and don't be fooled into believing that Public Sector Tax Revenue makes a jot of difference - public sector workers pay tax but it is money that was given to them by the government from taxes raised on the profits and labour of people working in the private sector in the first place.)
The real failing of government was that they deregulated the banks to allow greater profit so as to enable greater tax revenue (Gordon Brown being one of the major architects of that fail!), they government have continuously spent government revenue and, because of inflation, have found their revenue was not great enough so both created new revenue streams (taxes on Pensions, insurance, air passengers, the motorists, the list goes on and on) or they borrowed money on the open market. The UK has borrowed huge amounts and those borrowing will hurt us all in about 12 years time when they become due for repayment.
The problem that we all now face is that with the credit crunch none of us can borrow any more - at a personal level people are having to tighten their belts and try to pay off their debts without the luxury of deferring the debt or else go bankrupt, lose their homes or become destitute. Companies cannot borrow against profits to invest and generate growth and greater profits so businesses are in stagnation and finally, governments throughout the Western World have realised that their social and public sector investment using tax revenue and borrowed money has had to come to a grinding halt and, because they are the biggest borrowers their debts are the most toxic for the Banks to have connection with they are finding the cost of borrowing MORE expensive and the amount borrowed to great a burden as the repayments required take up to great a proportion of tax revenues.
For example, in the UK, despite all the rhetoric about ‘Cuts’ (previously called ‘Efficiency Savings’ by the former Labour Government) the Coalition government is increasing government spending by £324bn pounds over the next 5 years – all of that £324bn will be going on debt repayment and interest charges but it is not government money it is OUR money as it is raised by taxes WE, the people, pay on the wages, salaries and pensions accrued by working diligently to generate profit.
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In an effort to steer the debate about the causative reasons behind our currently dominant model of political economy, I'd like to offer some presumptions.
The first is that we need to be careful about describing abstract groups and political organisations as sentient beings. It may be interesting to discuss the conflicts of nations, and it may be enthralling to believe that membership of a party grants one access to a cohesive and rational group mind, but for my own taste the tendency to anthropomorphize, to ascribe the characteristics of an individual human being to groups, is the father of all irrational political discourse. We ought to respect what is almost certainly the greatest wonder in the known universe: the individual's capacity for reason and thought. That is to say, sentience. If we ascribe sentience to things which are not sentient, we perhaps devalue this wonder, and the value of the individual accordingly. Horrors follow from such devaluation with alarming predictability, as the doctrines of class war, race hate and nationalistic bigotry demonstrate clearly.
The second presumption I'd like to table is that Hereditary nobleman Ulyanov travelled to Russia from Zurich to begin the October revolution, and that in Zurich he met with the owners of banking enterprises and secured a business proposition that was to be honoured by the bolsheviks and their heirs until 1992, when the Soviet Union first defaulted on its financial obligations.
My point here is that politics IS a business, and that the term political economy is not a throw away phrase that means nothing.
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Further to my #88
It is very easy to blame the Financial Sector for being the cause of what has become a global predicament but the problems in the banking sector were the trigger for the bursting of the bubble of debt that was intrinsically the fault of people, business and governments. We all want to lead productive lives and enrich ourselves so we often borrow for the short term pain to acquire enrichments in the long term.
People throughout the world are no different - to be acquisitive is to be human.
The problem with borrowing is that it can get out of hand.
Banks have been criticised for being the cause of the Bubble of Debt nut they are (or were) merely responding to the customer requirement. The fault line, in my view, is that the politicians, in an effort to create more profit for the banks and thus generate more tax revenue, deregulated the banks so that they, the banks felt compelled to lend more and did so, after they became deregulated, to the wrong people - they lent money to people, businesses and governments that did not have the means of capability to honour their debts.
Because it is so easy to blame the banks we run the risk of throwing the dishes out with the dishwater.
The UK used to have excellence in manufacturing but alas those days are long gone. The manufacturing base of the UK economy is about 20% of the contribution to the UK's Gross National Product. The biggest contributors to the GNP are banking, the financial Sector in general and the private sector Service Industries.
The London-based International Banks contribute about 30% of the gross tax revenue for the UK government alone.
Not for one minute do I suggest that the UK Financial Sector should NOT be regulated more closely but we have to be very careful that we, as a nation, do not tax or otherwise penalise the Banks that are based in the UK out of spite or misguided belief that they are entirely to blame for all our current woes. If we tax or penalise the London-based International Banks too harshly (in their view) they will up-sticks and migrate their business to areas of the world where the inhabitants will be only too happy to have the opportunity to share in their profit streams.
The UK government and the citizens of the UK could not stand a 30% reduction in tax revenue. Overnight we would need to suffer austerity measures the like of which the current prospects for UK Coalition government capital expenditure savings would seem like small beer.
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#90
"The UK used to have excellence in manufacturing but alas those days are long gone. The manufacturing base of the UK economy is about 20% of the contribution to the UK's Gross National Product. The biggest contributors to the GNP are banking, the financial Sector in general and the private sector Service Industries."
Germany aside, the relative size of Britain's manufacturing base is better or at least no worse than any other western power. Britain is a hi-tech component, IP, and intermediate and semi-finished goods manufacturer.
You wont see a British iPOD, nor a British "Intel" chip, but Apple and Intel both use ARM IP to design their chips, for example. Airbus manufactures its planes wings in the UK and uses Rolls Royce engines. Nissan, Honda, Toyota, Ford, JaguarLandRover and many others all assemble in the UK, and some 4000 companies are involved in Formula 1 and other motorsport, Britain being the worlds technological hub.
I barely need to mention aerospace where Britain is the biggest player in Europe, and second in the world, exporting $35bn alone last year. In pharmaceuticals , Britains market share is greater than all the other European competitors combined, with exports at $18bn with a trade surplus of $5bn. We arent the workshop of the world anymore, and clearly our economy is service dominated, but to suggest we dont have an "excellence in manufacturing" is way off base.
Dont let the Americans tell you that the only worthwhile products are those that drive people to queue down Oxford Street in the middle of the night.
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#90. At 08:03am on 01 Oct 2010, Menedemus
#80. At 8:39pm on 30 Sep 2010, Averagejoe
#87. At 07:20am on 01 Oct 2010, democracythreat
What has to be remembered is that banks are in theory little more than middlemen, at their most basic function they borrow at x% and lend at x+y% thus making a profit, now they offer value added services like insurance etc that hopefully for them make more profit. Intrinsically though their expertise is not too great, but their ego's increasingly large, thus they foolishly considered themselves expert enough to venture into speculation and investments that were at best risky and at worst foolhardy. For that I consider the senior managers who gave the green light to the fund managers etc that they could invest and speculate were culpable, and it is those senior managers who have been long promoted beyond their level of incompetence. If they had stayed with basic borrowing and lending then they were safe, but they were too ambitious and fell foul of the various sharp operators waiting for them to show their nativity. Remember a fool and their money are soon parted, and the bankers are especially prone to that.
In DT's post he mentioned that it is the cause that needs addressing and I agree with that, one part of the cause of the recent crises has been the incredible naivety of the senior bankers and their overblown egos. By their being in place, and ready and available for exploitation by the ruthless operators, they have been a cause i.e. cause and effect as in a fool and their money are soon parted.
What is the solution, good question, regulation stifles and under regulation exposes so logic dictates a balance if banks are to be stable and make the profit that much depends on in terms of government revenue etc. My gut feel is that banks should be prohibited from risk taking as it is beyond their level of incompetence, and that they should stick to what they do best, local banking with related services, and leave the risk taking to specialised companies that will never be bailed out if their investments collapse.
I also have held a long time beef that fund managers should be held responsible for their actions, as it is they point to the markets and say it was not their fault and walk away with their high salaries and pensions no matter how appalling their investments were. For those who were not speculators but rather had pension funds or assurances their [the fund managers] ability to charge management fees no matter what yet diminish the funds is criminal. If you are a director of a limited company in the UK you cannot trade if you know that you are not viable, that is a legal obligation, and you have to go into administration, but fund managers just carry on no matter what. Whether fund managers are a cause or symptom of the crisis I'm not sure but they also need looking at.
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commonsense_expressway @#91
Yes, indeed the UK makes things but do have a look at your list of manufacturing names: Many of those companies are foreign-owned and much of the tax revenue goes offshore. They use the UK because we are still a reasonably low tax regime with a reasonable well-educated workforce and, perhaps, more importantly, we are offshore from the EU providing both a gateway into Europe but also a nation prepared to opt-out of some of the 'red tape' generated by the EU that would strangle the profitability of those foreign-owned companies.
The UK was pre-eminent in ship-building, coal-mining, textile production and my family history going right back to the Industrial Revolution was industry related to steel manufacture and raw material extraction - there are no such jobs that exist in the UK for my generation or any of my descendants.
The fact is that old technologies and manufacturing have declined and the profitability rests (for the UK) in services provision and finance with less reliance on manufacturing such as pharmaceuticals, chemicals and suchlike where global patent laws have been eroded to the point that China can produce copies of the UK's very best but expensive (because of research cost) medicines and drugs for a fraction of the cost (albeit with serious risk that the Chinese product may not be efficacious) and all but eliminate the UK as a leading supplier of medicines of quality.
I entirely agree that the UK can be compared for manufacturing capacity with the rest of the Western World bar Germany and the USA but the truth is the Western World has seen a decline in their share of the Global Manufacturing market as base costs such as employee wages are so much less costly in the Developing World and where there are no liberal democratic pressure to provide welfare, a social safety net and where human life is expendable and acceptable risk - Europe cannot compete with those lack of costs and social norms in the Third World or the Developing Nations ... at the moment!
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DemocracyThreat,
Economics is your button, is it? You and other great minds
slip and slide down that slope of morals, yes?
Change the subject, quickly, before,
this thread turns into one more vicious back and forth exchange
helping no one, except far-right-wingers. You already have your
choir, so please lets turn back to a historical debate. The
revitalization of left wing political vision and successful follow-thru
IS at stake.
:)))
I DO Believe in the Left, I do, I do, I do!
No offense, because...
Speaking of, history, there IS a New debate where the Communists are being equated ..**by LAW**..in the Baltics and other East European govts (Hungary..) with the Nazis..
The Holocaust... which was unfortunately helped along by some East European nation peoples'... enthusiastic involvement, is,
by new laws, in these East Euro states, being officially EQUATED with Soviet Oppression during the aftermath of WW2.
All this is to spare East Europeaners feelings of guilt (not including Russia) of helping along the Holocaust..Volunteers, as it WERE.
This new Legislation takes away the goodness of Russia's liberating E Europe of Nazis And erases E. European war crimes guilt.
It's the newest thing..according to the Guardian website..
I shiverrrr for the future of European mindsets in these dire economic times. And
I could care less about these "poor strikers." Times are tough enough.
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#93
"Many of those companies are foreign-owned and much of the tax revenue goes offshore. "
UK based companies, whereever they are HQ'd surely must still be liable for corporation tax, capital gains, employers NI. Nissan, for example, has been the most productive car plant in Europe for 26 years. Their JIT suppliers are British as are their 4000 employees and management, upto board level. All their thousands of employees are charged income tax and NI at source as well, and they then spend their wages in UK stores, incurring VAT. Repatriation of profits and the tendency for parochialism is a different issue. There are few corporate HQ's in a place like the North-East anyway, so if you are going to have a branch plant economy then whether the parent company is based in the south-east of England or in Japan is irrelevant to me.
Yes, the old industries have gone forever. My paternal grandfather was a Northumberland miner , now there are no mines. Call centres are the new mines and shipyards.
Just a minor correction if I may...the UK manufacturing sector is bigger as a percentage than the US. Of course we have been dwarfed by them for a hundred years but the principle still stands, there is enough of a hi-tech industrial base still there to build on, if the will is there. Unfortunately, for some bizarre reason, because we dont make consumer electronics ,people seem to think we dont make anything! As you say, if we lose all those foreign bank jobs and revenues overseas, we will be forced to diversify, which may be no bad thing...in the longer term.
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IN OTHER WORDS,
DONT BE FOOLED BY THE NEW ADAGE IN E EUROPE
HITLER = STALIN
There are less benign forces at work, there.
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#96. At 10:09am on 01 Oct 2010, DavidStvn,
The two have always been synonymous to me and were at least equally as bad which is one reason I often comment on those here who criticise people as fascists and forget communists are no different. If you wish to look at the Eastern European countries attitudes, it is probably more pertinent to wonder at the sudden conversion of Communists to Democratic (sic) Socialism in order to stay in power. This also makes me very dubious of the credentials of many who now have positions of authority within the EU, after all these countries even supply judges to the ECJ.
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81. At 10:33pm on 30 Sep 2010, Buzet23 wrote:
#80. At 8:39pm on 30 Sep 2010, Averagejoe,
I've located it and will have a read through some of it tomorrow as I'm curious to see what he said 27 years ago when it was first published, I suspect that some points may not be quite accurate these days since regulations etc have changed somewhat. However the principles he espoused would still stand.
One curious thing I'm wondering is where this virtual money gets accounted for, is it in the balance sheet book or in the off balance sheet books, judging by the way the bankers have been hiding their loses I suspect it is accounted for in the off balance sheet books. Maybe that's something that needs looking at as well.
............
Its not an easy read but I urge you to give it a go, it will open your eyes to the truth behind the banking system, although I don’t agree with his suggested solution of a return to the gold standard. The first book I read was the Dying of Money by Jens O Parsons 1973. This excellent book lays bare the failings on the banking and monetary system, and what needs to be done to fix it. Despite being written in 1973, economic policy and the monetary system has changed little since. He actual foresaw the current crisis happening as a result of the fractional reserve banking system. Its difficult to find but Wall Street bankers are paying up to £400 to get hold of this book! Once you read it you understand why. Once understood you realise the banking system is little more than a pyramid or ponzi scheme and the banks have been resisting reform for about 100 years. That’s why I support monetary reform. Without it, the problems we are facing will never be properly solved. I would add I have nothing to personally to gain from these postings, but I simply seek to help others to understand how the system works, so they can make their own minds up about the ‘fairness’ or ‘appropriateness’ or the current system.
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Buzet, for you synonymous, for me not.
I don't see 3rd ww starting because of Pol Pot, because of whoever it was/is in N. Korea, because of local vulture dictators eating up own people.
In Stalin's case it was own empire people (we are spread out).
20 yrs was not a convincing time for Stalin to forget that the three Baltics and Poland were Russia.
As far as I hate to step up for vultures, esp given the difficulty :o)))))))) they murderers can be defended in any court :o)))))))))) - the fact is the 2nd ww didn't began because of him.
And a minor thing like a 2ndWW caused by Hitler ambitions and? I don't know, in my modest view far out-weighs any Stalin "achievements".
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#95
CE,
your point is not totaly correct, a real estate agent or a call center employee or a hair dresser or a banker for sure create economic activity but they don't produce "something" that we as a nation can exchange with other nations in order for us to get "something" that we need (most likely we want, not need) from them.
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#87
DT says:
"Let us be clear about one thing: we want banking. We want privately owned banks, and we want them to be able to make a profit in a free market."
True statement, but in today's banking that is a dream at least in part! The "free market" component is missing!
We need regulation that ensures there are credit unions, building societies & banks, not just banks. All those things existed in the past but in the early 90's they rules changed to allow banks to eat most credit unions & building societies, so now we have more something like a controled market rather than a free market.
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WebAlice
Re #99
Welcome to the club of those resisting 'revisionist' History.
Only a week ago You were counselling me to not 'worry too much' about this trend of rewriting History to suit the new Political Correctness in which everyone shares the blame equally for past events/wrong-doings.
I noted then how You restrained Yourself when MHoward promptly a contribution completekly at odds with the reality of the USSR's experience at that wartime period.
Let us be clear: Dictator Stalin was not a good or even reasonable leader of the supposedly communist USSR.
That said, the clear, major, overall factor for the Red Armed Forces ending up dominating Eastern Europe in 1945 and the Democratically led USA-UK Armed Forces dominating Western Europe is because the Fascist Dictator Hitler, another not good or reasonable leader of Nazi Germany viciously aggressed almost all of Europe circa 1939 to 1945.
Now sit back and await the onslaught of the 'revisionists' who loathe the inconvenient and so annoying factual reality of why Europe was as it was post-May 1945.
Cheers.
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#100
Indeed. I wasnt suggesting that shutting mines, shipyards and iron and steel plants down and replacing them with insurance or banking call centres was a good idea. Not at all. I was simply stating that that is what has happened and at least those thousands of people arent on the dole, instead they are spending money in their local economies and paying tax. Those people are at the mercy of the free market, like most of us are. I wonder what planet public sector workers are on sometimes and I say that as the husband of a teacher.
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Bro_Winky wrote:
68. At 2:30pm on 30 Sep 2010, powermeerkat wrote:
"the F35 is not intended to operate. Apparently, it’s function is purely cosmetic."
As far as "our NATO allies" - probably.
As far as U.S. is considered - no quite.
---------------------------
Vindictive much?
Nothing like knowingly selling flawed aircraft to increase your market share. Those boys down at Lockheed are brilliant.
Nothing like folks who can't produce anything even remotely comparable criticizing somebody else's product's alleged flaws.
Rather than sticking to killing seal puppies with baseball bats.
P.S. Here's wondering why Canadian military are buying and using our flawed (as everything else)F-18 Hornets.
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Re #102
Methods used by a certain occupying power in Caucasus are dissmilar to Nazi technics?
And if so, how?
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Re #103
As long as workers toiling for 1 US$ per hour churn up at assembly lines products patented (as well as technologies behind them) in the US, with countries which enslave them paying royalties to American inventors, I would not be so concerned about a future of the United States.
Which I would if we suddenly run out of those inventors.
Which is not very likely.
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Re 104
So to summarize, we've been able to deduce that you're not only vindictive, but are unable to recognize sarcasm.
Good job.
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107 Re vindictive...
So let's talk those small seal puppies.
And Canada vindictively retaliating against Europeans for them refusing to buy Canadian sealskins.
"Oh, Canada" :(
P.S. Of course, I'm just being sarcastic. :)
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Re 108
Yes, lodging a complaint to the WTO was very vindictive of us. Maybe we should have taken a queue from the US and simply re-labelled arbitrary European foodstuffs with the prefix "freedom" to get back at them for crossing us. That would've shown them...
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Canada, the other N. Amer white meat.
They call us the Excited States of America.
And they kill baby seals awwwww how mean!
Didn't you know we imported the ideas of "multiculturalism" from Canada which equals the new/old "separate but equal."
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Buzet,
Yes, we consider it that way, because we spent so much money trying to defend against what we saw as expanisionism by USSR.
But, this is the past which is a present that has to be opened by East Europeans. To say that gulags equal genocide is soooo stuupid.
Temporary Enslavement is not as bad as being killed after NOT being fed.
I do not know the eating conditions of gulag prisoners (not good prob), but something tells me also but they did get to live and be released ...the writers and records of these Gulags?
That the E. Europeans had willing Communist volenteers from within their own nations should also be a big consideration.
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Hope I wrote the above right.
Slaves who were mass killed is not the same as Gulag prisoners whose enslavement was possibly (1/2 or more cases) temporary. (until other nations could negotiate their releases.)
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Terror Was Stalin's method in his own homeland for sure. But, were the peoples of E. Europe in Soviet gulags? And were the ones in E Europe if there were any to match as bad.
I do know of "the Doctor Purge" which was horrific but it WAS in Soviet Russia, yes?
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#99. At 2:20pm on 01 Oct 2010, WebAliceinwonderland,
#102. At 3:56pm on 01 Oct 2010, cool_brush_work ,
For me I hate extremists, whether they be Hitler or Stalin, and you're right that it was Hitler that started WWII, but in another scenario it could have equally been the other way round. That's why I equate fascism and communism as being equal, in that both are more than capable of creating a disaster and they have, many times. Don't forget political ambition means creating an empire in these peoples minds as they believe they are perfect.
As you know the Russian peoples suffered a great deal under Stalin and so did the member states of the USSR, and I would hate to see Europe have to suffer either of those types (Hitler & Stalin) again.
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Well Well, some news on Yahoo,
"A planned strike by thousands of BBC staff during next week's Conservative party conference has been called off after unions received a "significantly improved" offer on pensions. Journalists, technicians and other broadcast staff had been due to walk out on October 5 and 6 when the Tories were gathered in Birmingham, threatening disruption to the keynote speech by Prime Minister David Cameron."
Having endured at least 15 minutes of the brain dead Socialists on the Labour party conference each news conference it is no surprise that the BBC has shown it's colours, and we are supposed to thank Robinson and Paxman that it has been cancelled for fair play, rofl, rofl, rofl, rofl etc.
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#104
Still cant produce a workable jumpjet 40 years after the British made a COMBAT PROVEN one? Awww diddums.
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#111. At 8:25pm on 01 Oct 2010, DavidStvn,
I'm totally confused by your comments, you seem to assume that killings only happened by Hitler as you talk about gulags and genocide. Have you not heard of what actually went on from Stalin, both during and after WWII, and I'm not criticising the ordinary Russian people in this or their courage during WWII.
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Buzet23
Re #114
Entirely agree on the threat from 'fascism' & 'communism'.
Not entirely onboard with the idea Stalin was ever considering or in an economic-military position to wage the type of warfare Hitler's Nazi regime's policies intended from January 1933.
Mwanwhile: Circa 2010 it is bad enough under the EU-Brussels' yoke, but obviously nothing compared to what my parent's 1930s-40s generation had to endure.
The only pity being they went through all that muck, bullets & grief just so UK & Continental Europe could blandly give away all the Freedoms & Democracy to those over-mighty, conniving, duplicitous apparatchiks!
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cool_brush, @102 - Cheers! ;o))
You see; after I preached tolerance all over :o))))) - my hands were tied!
couldn't say a sharp word; wanted - but couldn't!
you are very wise - haven't cornered yourself - as I very un-wisely :o)did.
I will take note for the future. Limiting fighting position! :o)))) - ugh! nah ;o(
:o)
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Buzet. could. but fact is - haven't.
facts count :o). at times :o)
I, of course, cherish the idea (which may be foolish) that Russians would be a limiting factor to Stalin, should he undertake a ww adventure.
Lazy, you know! relaxed.
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That is me..lazy...in producing my statements ..
BUZET23,
I was just commenting on an article or column in the Guardian website concerning a historian who ..trapped (?) himself..when saying something..
You have to read the column about revisionist history at the Guardian.co.uk website.
It just brings up questions of lucidity and study and the idea of history as being a state controlled informational idea..
Not much better than what came before :)
Sorry, so vague. It should all be re-visited ...the facts of that era from time to time...just to get it ALL Correct in FACT.
Not in theory or emotional response.
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Buzet,
Remember the Great Famine of the 20's ...LENIN, not Stalin, was responsible.
So, there, yes there, were killings. And "there will be blood" was true back then.
But I was talking of E. Europe and I guess, I probably made too broad an analogy and/or a too broad a brush stroke ...
But for a Cold War survivor (like yourself) ...do you not concern yourself with historical accuracy? As opposed to propaganda?
Films are Art--"Burnt by the Sun" is a great example...but there are also strange unlikely good things occurring in Russia or the USSR during those days
Remember Ayn Rand, she who said, "if they are smiling (in a photo of USSR people), they must not be in the USSR." That is emotion, not informational revelation.
Kruschev (sp?), Yeltsin-tho not of that calibur, different leaders meant different approaches?
I'm fascinated as a survivor and do not want to forget -- that is all.
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Re #102
Methods used by a certain occupying power in Caucasus are dissmilar to Nazi technics?
And if so, how?
___________
powermeer it is un-elegant to be so openly jealous :o))))))
You do, then, aknowledge your defeat?
Next time you're undertaking sponsoring someone (Georgia Georgia etc.) (in fact - not a bad idea. to check the w.map - what if there are more name ? similarities? - scary to think! o:))))))))) You might recognise something! on the map! Like - "Aha! I've got it!" :o))))))))))))
anyway, next time you're sponsoring a country - take care to check if they share money with their provinces. and how they go about their minorities. kind of "equal rights, no?" question.
otherwise unpleasant surprises, basically, guaranteed. your military base may appear to be neighbouring one another :o))))))
door-to-door, so to say, immediate neighbours to an un-awaited in the area companion :o))))
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111 David writes:
"To say that gulags equal genocide is soooo stuupid.
Temporary Enslavement is not as bad as being killed after NOT being fed.
I do not know the eating conditions of gulag prisoners (not good prob), but something tells me also but they did get to live and be released ...the writers and records of these Gulags?"
Oh David, I suggest you read Alexander Solzhenitsyn "One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovitch" set in the gulag in the 1950'! I remember it made a harrowing television series some years ago.According to the latest figures it is estimated that 12m people perished in those camps. Good old 'Uncle Joe' Stalin - what a wonderful ally he made! I have heard that many Russians still revere him and erect statues of him. Imagine if the Germans did that with Hitler!
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I'm totally confused by your comments
Buzet, David probable wanted to tell you that many, way too many! served 25 year terms in Gulags, but no one in Oswentsim.
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I stand "corrected" But remember "it is said" is by always by people whom are given great amounts of money here in the USA to further "the cause."
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I guess the difference was in the objectives.
One thing is when you grabatise everyone left and right, who will only vaguely pass for a political or an ordinary criminal - because you are hungry for FOC labour to build dams, roads, railways, cities, obtain salt, coal, uranium, whatever (unfortunately a lot always waiting to be obtained beyond Urals)
another thing when you want nothing from these people. human skin lamp-shades? if only.
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And another huge plus, in grabbing innocent citizens left and right is, of course, that all your subjects get absolutely terrorised scared witless and won't attempt at the leader's power.
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6 rye? what is it in English. like, grass - 1 "grass"-inka?
six pieces of rye in the field - stolen home from kolkhoz field - was enough to get 5 years in Gulag. the lowest limit - 6.
while a big bag of potatoes stolen home - why! that will guarantee one whole 10!
this shows the span, the range, the comb that was used, combing out people.
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my own granfather barely escaped. I told it before, in the blog.
was warned, that in the morning they will come after him, and ran for his life.
spent couple of years beyond the Polar Circle (we call so our Northern areas, beyond certain geography points)(where ground never un-freeses)
, hopping from ship to ship (using friends among the sea-men) and then it cooled down and the order on his arrest was called back. possibly, the chap who wrote a report on him, was arrested in his turn, and thus all that he said before was deemed wrong. or something else happened. anyway wheels of fortune changed, and grandad returned back to his dacha :o) Where I am in now :o) He was packing and ran away from here :o)
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grandad was warned, by the way, by a very very KGB lady :o)
my grandma's friend. Only grandma didn't know she is KGB :o))))
And when she? how David says? "came open" :o)))) - there were no time for exclamations and discoveries, as she told grandma she saw grandad's name in the list in the office 'for the night", that he has to run.
so apart from "thank you" - I don't think my grandma had time to say anything :o)
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Ekaterina Nikolaevna, was her name. I remember this babushka, grandma's friend. When I grew up a bit I was explained she saved grandad's life. most likely, grandma's as well, as wife of a political criminal - high chance to be grabatised later on as well. Then, read :o) life of my father's, and - indirectly - mine.
As minimum, Ekaterina Nikolaevna saved our family heaps of troubles.
She was very slim, dry, sat in the kitchen, chatted with grandma, and smoked awful cigarettes, without filter, men's brand - "Belomorcanal"/White Sea Channel (connecting a couple of seas here, for ships' traffic. built, accordinly, by Gulag inmates).
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As you understand, she was not turned away from our home - the opposite.
I was very sad when she died.
And my mum were.
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A friend in need - is a friend indeed. And I suppose by telling us - she risked her life as well.
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I also have a friend Kate.
She is not KGB.
Well, :o)))))))))))) if only , M16 :o))))))))
I think Kate-s are good for our family.
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Generalissima you missed my congrats with your birthday in the chatter place :o). I saw you enjoying what others have said :o), but my address
was in the early morning hours of your birthday beginning :o)
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I apologize to Web Alice for taking as entertainment about what is real and what is not real about the Cold War era.
Otherwise, thank you for your comments Alice, very appreciated.
You know? I had an aunt who wrote a book. It was homey and actually well written as an autobiography and she wrote for it only for her family and it did include photographs.
You Could actually write your memoirs, Alice ..in Web Wonderland (if anyone loves the internet it IS you Web Alice....)
What a cute name ...I picture a spider "sitting down" beside ya.
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That is an interesting story, Alice.
But you know, the lawyer in me wonders a little.
I wonder...... I know I should not, and of course everybody's mother tells the truth.
But sometimes their friends do not. And of course, everybody's mother has a friend, and every female friend of your mother is somebody else's mother. So the whole thing can become very complicated, very quickly.
Very soon you realize that all women can be mothers, and a lot in fact are, and so everybody is telling the the truth all the time, even when totally opposite things are being said, and for a mere male it can all become overwhelming. Sometimes, as a male, you have to sit down and stop thinking about the complexities of mothers and the truth, and I suppose sometimes a fellow needs to run off to the northern provinces and hide on ships with friends. I've been tempted myself, I must admit, from time to time. On account of getting confused by the great complexity of mothers, truth, and story telling generally.
Which, as I mentioned earlier, is one of the difficult things about being a male. Folks tell you stories, and being naturally muddle headed you just don't know whose mother is involved, or what your own might think, or who might benefit, and the like.
So I wonder about your grandpa, alice. I close my eyes and I see him fleeing north across the frozen land, with just his belongings that he can carry, and a note to introduce him to folks who will swap some bread and perhaps some vodka in return for his labour. Perhaps he is happy, as he looks around and sees the beauty of the forest, and perhaps he feels free of his work and of his routine. Sometimes men feel that way, in the same way as cats tend to enjoy looking through long grass for surprises.
And I wonder about your grandmother and her friend, too. Clearly they were politically involved, which of course was the great defining feature of the Soviet communist party. Women were involved all over the place, at every level, and almost certainly more than men.
I suppose that for a working lady, perhaps someone with a lot of paperwork and a lot of party business to attend to, having a man about the house could have become something of a needless distraction. Oftentimes women need a little more space for themselves and their duties. Sometimes they need all of it, in fact, and men who contest the fact generally pay for their foolishness sooner rather than later.
The territorial urge of women to dominate THEIR home is perhaps something that works in cycles, in fits and starts of varying intensity. Sometimes the urge to dominate the home is limited to a draconian "cleaning regime" and a few intermittent tantrums. Sometimes the will to power in the home extends to hiring lawyers and transferring title.
Now usually the transfer of title co-incides with a younger, ambitious woman skirting around the male who thought he might have some claim to title, and so of course I do not question the good sense and legitimate defensive position of women who assert their claims, but nor do I dismiss the fact that this transfer of title often, indeed generally, is accompanied by the man leaving the house for a time. Sometimes he will travel south, and stay with friends in a city apartment. Sometimes he may go west. Sometimes he might even go north, and stay on boats. The chinese advise us that there are ten directions, if and when four is not enough. I think one of these is that special direction a man takes when he sets off away from the house he formerly occupied. Usually his mistress does not accompany him, as mistresses tend to be sedate and just as interested in real estate as wives. It is a hell of a thing, the female connection to real property. I suppose that is why we call her "mother earth". If it were "father earth", you'd never know when it was going to rise up, throw off its buildings, and move north.
So I wonder about your grandfather, Alice, and the political circumstances of his temporary sojourn.
I have no reason at all to doubt the official history, except that in my own travels in the former soviet union I have been extensively entertained by old women who have told me the most incredible stories about what happened in the past. Being a male, I get the political version, for of matters of state, police, official drama and female frailty.
I don't usually get the strictly female version of the same history, which tends to focus more on who was with whom, and in what sense and to what depth, and how that all sorted itself out in the end, and what the priest did about it, and whether the other woman did well in life some time later, and so on and so forth.
But I do understand that stories state politics and official intrigue are very exciting, and far more dignified for couples than public histories of their various infidelities. And who can question such stories? Everyone knows that the state, like the good lord, is all powerful and all knowing, and that it can do absolutely anything at all.
That is why it is such an excellent tool for the explaining of things which cry out for a general and dignified explanation.
I mean, I don't suggest that we should be deceived by the idea that religion and state politics are business models involving the buying and selling of convenient myths by sexually occupied householders.
Clearly god and the president are all about important things. Very important. And dignified.
I mean, look at Sarkozy. He's the president of France. Of FRANCE, mind you. When you have a role like that to play, it is often difficult to know where the boundaries of dignity lie, or whether the dignity of the french state extends of like an endless sea, and whether god has, in fact, created the perfect man in the form of an Hungarian dwarf.
You would have to talk to Ms Bruni about that, and I'd need to talk to your grandfather before discussing the transfer of title in your own family over the past century.
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WebAliceinwonderland,
An interesting story about your grandfather and the story of the anticipated knock on the door to be carted away for re-education rings all too true for living in a dictatorship. The thought police are a perpetual sign of all forms of dictatorship and one only has to look at the various countries of South America for that and consider the number of 'disappeared' people. For that Stalin was no different, in that he was very ruthless, as to how many perished as a result of him no one can really say as evidence was probably hidden or destroyed. Certainly I'm no fan of revisionist rewriting of history as I've said before, but in some cases, like Hitler and Stalin, I think both were very bad for their respective countries, and it's just a matter of conjecture as to what they actually did.
Alice, was this the grandfather who worked with the Navy?
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Yes. He was an engineer, "Ingener-korablestroitel'"/Engineer-Ship-builder" :o), as was written on his bronze plaque on the door :o)
Headed our navy ship-yards in Leningrad for 30 years.
He wasn't the Director, but what is called here "Chief-ingener".
In charge of the technical side, while a Director answers for administration and all, personnel.
Evaded joining the communist party :o), despised them, deliberatey avoided. Now on one nice day a report was written on him, by a colleague, that he heads country's ship-yards, defence matter, and is an un-reliable escapist :o)))), not a com party member.
democracythreat, my grandma had no interest to manipulate granddad being grabatised away :o))))))), she hasn't worked a single day in her life, well, apart from 2 months at school age being a telephone girl connector to Lenin :o))))), and after that only married well, and depended on granddad income entirely. Which decreased a lot after the run, as he couldn't come back to the old place, ever after he kept a low profile, teaching ship-building, a lecturer, only.
What concerns grandma - she'd rather have him joined the Comm. party and 10 times on the knees if needed :o))))), in order to keep the job.
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An interesting thing is that unpricipled absolutely grandma :o))))))) was a how granddad said "rotten bourjoisie",
while granddad was absolutely proletarian from Volga region peasant family, a nobody. A self-made man :o), after he arrived to Petrograd from a village and studied and all.
He was initially appointed to the high position only because there weren't any ship-builders :o)))))))) yet, of the "new crop" (post-revolution graduates). Since he was the best in the cohort, the first issue of Soviet ship-builders, the new generation graduates :o) - simply by marks in the Diploma.
The old ones didn't fit to head any thing :o), as were wrongly and tsar-time taught :o))))
He himself said it many times, "not because I was any good, I knew nil, stared at ship-yards I am to head at the age of 23 like at some wonder, never saw any in my life before :o) - I was appointed only because I was politically correct, class origin - a peasant poor family."
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So granddad owed absolutely everything to the new communist power, possibility to study and to make a career and to work.
But he kept his reservations, how to say, about them. As a practical down to earth peasant :o)
Was a bit, how to say, feeling, that things are not clean. And one can dirty hands very easily, by close association with the new power.
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#142. At 11:28am on 02 Oct 2010, WebAliceinwonderland,
Your grandfather sounds like a real 'salt of the earth' type of guy and quite clear of thought since he kept his independence whilst being able to work at a good level. The existence of a vindictive colleague who writes a report on him is typical of an obsessive control freak government and atypical of communism. It's also why in the UK many were complaining about the number of CCTV cameras as the UK has become a surveillance country under Bliar and McClown. It is also why many in the UK are taking issue with councils spying in their bins to see if they use the right bin for the right rubbish. I also take issue with the UK in that on the TV I perpetually hear people being told to spy on their neighbours and report benefit cheats, fly tippers, etc etc, this is a short shift to what happened to your grandfather, Alice.
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yeah, Buzet, this reporting is a plague. that must be resisted by citizens at all costs.
we know, because we had a sharp example, in communist rule. it may look innocent when it ends by money and fines, as in your case, but it does not look innocent when reporting ends by Gulags and death as it were in the Russia's case.
So we got a very good ? inoculation? what's the word? against the spread of the disease :o)))
you simply haven't. when it's just fines it's not scary and noone learns quick :o)
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We are inoculated to excellent degrees :o)
I think a neighbour here won't report on neighbour even seeing a murder in the day-light :o)
to say nothing of minor violations
school children here don't report on other school children when they see that they are cheating at exams.
state and various "powers" , how to say, "intrinsic enemy of the people"
I saw a chap awful angry in the bus yest., because we waited an hour for a bus to the dacha, they simply brazenly skipped 2 buses on schedule.
so the whole crowd willing to get to the dacha-s stood an hour in the open wind btw 11pm and 12pm, at +1.
Meanwhile, the 2 buses in question have arrived and nicely parked nearby :o) Drivers walking around and chatting, not willing to start their trips at all :o))))), simply saving on fuel, waiting for the crowd to get collected sufficiently enough to have 1 full bus finally loaded (the 3rd on schedule).
I got angrified :o) to swell degrees as well, waiting. Even, memorised plaque numbers on the 2 "resting" buses, full of mean-est intentions to write and phone and report and complain and demand and I don't know what.
Well, when we all finally got loaded into the 3rd bus, at midnight, an angry man made a scandal to the bus driver, calling their whole company names and promising reporting on them and what not.
You know what? The whole bus took side of the driver :o)))))), quieting the desperate chap, reprimanding him! Like, come on, it is understandable, would you yourself wish to go all the way with a poorly filled in bus :o))))))), 25 kilometres extra :o))))), "do you need it most of all? everyone is in the same boat and no one complains here - only you!" :o)))
and none of his shouts "but this is their work!" :o)))) have helped.
Excellently incolulated, as I said. To the extreme opposite degrees :o)
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hopeless place. in terms of possible improvements :o)
not any time soon :o)))))))
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The plate numbers are AP067 and AHH266! Here! So that you know! :o))))))))))
I had an hour, pacing around :o)))))) to memorise.
Route 211, St. Petersburg.
I think I will still report. Dog freezing in the garden, waiting for me back from the city, stubbornly, by the gates.
why should Roger suffer?
OK if it were summer. but now it's cold!
monsters.
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And the 3rd bus driver brazenly said "we don't have vehicles, all broken".
Oh yeah. The two "broken" ones actually went in front of us :o), all the way, we went like a convoy :o) of three - duly and nicely returning to their base in the suburb.
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Another thing is, as was summarised later, that most who reported on others were also taken, in their turn.
Stalin had a very queer sense of humour :o))))), set the style.
So, initial Russian observations "don't report on others" were confirmed double :o)
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Buzet, yes, grandpa was realistic :o). Brainy.
But, must say, on the few photos I've got :o), of his early ship-yards career - he can be told from the crowd at once :o))))))))
The most shy and modest and excusing looks :o)))
One of those later days, when/if :o) out alive of the dacha season - I'll post on Picasa or something - you will tell at once where is Alice's grandad ;o).
He said the last worker in the ship-yards knew about shipbuilding more than him, when he began his chief engineering career :o)))))
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Devocracythreat,
"bread, vodka potatoes", "wandering frozen forests" :o)))))))))))))
No. You've read too much Doctor Zhivago :o))))))
And it was far later time, post war but before Stalin died.
No, no. Comfort of a soft "Pullman wagon" :o) - at least, as regards the beginning of grandpa's run.
He master-minded himself travel documents in the office at night, put all the needed stamps, arranged himself an urgent call an invitation for an urgent business trip, like some huge ship's screw got broken, or something, at Northern ship-yards, that requires immediate Chief Fleet engineer attention :o)))))
It was and largely stilol is a police state - without travel documents you couldn't go anywhere. Not just the train ticket - but papers, papers, explaining checks on the way where are you going and what for and who sent you. An idea of self-travel was absolutely void in Stalin times. All transactions? travels? of citizens monitored. To babushka, for holidays, for work search, on a business trip - the state wanted to know what's you are up to.
So the beginning of his run was set quite in style, so that no one would even think he knows he has to be running, an ordinary thing, some disaster at ship-yards, requiring his expert attention.
Then he naturally went in another direction, once on the sea-shore, by another "business trip" papers, trying some device in action, en route - Northern route - Murmansk-Vladivostok, on board a ship, and they must have thought alright, when they anchor in Vladivostok we'll grab him there.
But he didn't "anchor" :o)))))) changed ships, and made his tracks as complex as possible. Engineered his trip :o))))). brilliantly, I would say :o))))))
So the beg was alright; the continuation not so, as even good friends in the fleet to cover you up have own limits of possibilities, and then yes it got to quite dire conditions, as he was effectively absent in the North at sea for 2 years. Polar pole whereabouts. I know at some point he worked as? those who throw coal into a ship's? eh? stove? engine?
was fixing things in ships for captains and what not.
I think in the last year and a half travel his conditions beyond the polar circle were not much different to Gulag :o))))) should he have surrendered :o)))))) However - still own master, freezing but at free. This counts.
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The great advantage of our Northern seas is it is state-free. Or was, as minimum. Still largely is I think.
There are no police stations on ice-floes :o)
State hands are short for those areas.
All the state could do is radiogram a ship Have you got such and such on board if so proceed to the nearest harbour.
If the Captain takes a deep breath :o), and tells his radist - tell them back - we don't" - that's it.
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The interesting thing is that the UK media back in late Victorian times and later made international stars of explorers. The glory and money went to explorers who planted the UK flag in
Unexplored places such as the South Pole, Antartica, the Arctic Ocean and other unknown places. I did not know that. (tho sh/have/bn obvious) Great deeds made stars back then of these people on the order of Hollywood stars today (I know, maybe bigger and more accomplished) and they were UK people.
So, that Kenneth Branaugh story is good on film and so is Master and Commander, the movie. But, you talking about your north sea is interesting. That is so exotic--swimming in the water between Finland and Russia...quite exotic.
And M. Howard, do you really dislike British history or are you just being devil's advocate...no offense, ...remember you find me charming. :)
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138 democracythreat
Thank you. I have read your little narrative three times and am still chuckling 36 hours later. Pure Mark Twain (I hope I have the right author here). Mind you, I think your efforts were slightly wasted here! Never mind, you made my day. Much superior to my usual S Times reading!
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105. At 6:22pm on 01 Oct 2010, powermeerkat wrote:
"""Methods used by a certain occupying power in Caucasus are dissmilar to Nazi technics?"""
There is no "occupying power in Caucasus". There is only your total direspect for other countries frontiers and for other countries citizens lifes' and your interest to have your ridiculous Nabucco project passing from there and if it needs you set up fire to kill just everyone for it, you could not care less.
Do you have presonally invested on gas projects or something? One wonders what is your motivation behind.
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MargaretHoward
Re #138 from "...cats tend to enjoy looking through long grass for surprises.." to "..form of a(n) Hungarian dwarf.." & Your #154
"..Mark Twain.."? More like Mark Twaddle!
If that made You 'chuckle' You really need to re-read Tom Sawyer whilst getting out a whole lot more!
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156 CBW writes;
"If that made You 'chuckle' You really need to re-read Tom Sawyer whilst getting out a whole lot more!"
One man's meat.... I have just read it again and am still laughing.(I could do with some after an uncomfortable encounter with my dentist this morning - a little lady from Bilbao who has joined our dental practice, and although only about 5ft nothing and weighing probably less than a hundred pounds nevertheless packs the punch of a 16-stone boxer). Compared to some of the humourless hot air produced on these pages he is a gem - annoying at times but he doesn't take himself too seriously. You must admit it was a brilliant parody of Alice's unlikely tale of her grandpapa - a family tale of obvious fiction yet believed by all. Priceless.
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Re #157
"..he doesn't take himself too seriously.."
Oh dear: On that point, I withdraw lest I 'rage, rage against the dying of the light..'.
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Looks like Europe's day of protests is over. Back to the routine grind of pretense.
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"There is no "occupying power in Caucasus". There is only your total direspect for other countries frontiers"
Sorry, Nik; I have at least as much respect for borders of Chechnya, Dagestan, Georgia, Ingushetia with Russia, etc., as I have for borders of Greece with Macedonia and Turkey.
And I recognize Russia's 200 year occupation of Caucasus as legitimate as 500 years of occupation of Greece by Ottomans.
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"Belomorcanal"/White Sea Channel (connecting a couple of seas here, for ships' traffic. built, accordinly, by Gulag inmates).
What a memory, Alice.
I remenber an old Russian joke that Belmorecanal was built by folks who told politcal jokes, while Volga-Don Canal by those who listened to them.
P.S. Do they still make "Kazbek" (awful) cigarettes?
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"Another thing is, as was summarised later, that most who reported on others were also taken, in their turn.
Stalin had a very queer sense of humour :o))))), set the style."
Stalin used to call Bulkhakov (whom he persecuted) at 3 AM and ask:
"Do they give you a very hard time, Mikhail?"
-Yes, Comrade Stalin, they do.
-Hang on, Mikhail, hang on!".
And hang up.
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If Europe's social model was that bad, why would Germans succeed economically and the French or Greek's fail ?
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#163. At 7:31pm on 13 Oct 2010, RK Now,
Lies, Damned Lies and statistics, just forget the statistics part as in this case it doesn't apply.
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