From the crystal ball ...
From my email newsletter of 6 July 2007, 10 days after Gordon Brown became Prime Minister:
"If I were Mr Brown, I'd be keeping a very close look at the property pages. Because if house prices start tumbling, he's going to be in big trouble. Interest rates go up (and, of course, there's nothing he can do about that any more, since he gave the Bank of England full independence over interest rate policy), property prices go down ... result: tens of thousands of very unhappy voters. If their pockets start feeling emptier than they have been for the past decade, they'll stop buying so many giant flat-screen TVs and cheap flight holidays. And before you know it, the economy will be stalling. And whom do you think they'll blame?"
© MMIX~RS~q~RS~~RS~z~RS~40~RS~)
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Who will they blame? Who do they always blame? President Bush. The devil made me do it. Why should Gordon Brown feel concerned if housing prices tumble? If he's been as smart with his own money as he says he's been with Britains, by now he should have more than a tidy nest egg put away and could trade up to something much larger and better than he now owns....for when he has to leave number 10.
Who should worry about Brits, Americans, Spaniards, not buying flat panel TV sets? Among others the Chinese. But they are too busy trying to keep a million angry Beijingers from getting in front of Western TV news cameras complaining about how their homes were stolen from them to make way for the Olympics. For all they know, a few of them might even speak English...or Spanish.
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Blame Collateralized Debt Obligations aka: Toxic waste, the triple 'A' rated Ponzi scheme, sub-crime.
Here's Danny Schechter:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7qCu_cMECZw
Max Keiser of Karmabanque, Al Jazeera English, France 24 and Resonance 104.4 in London had also predicted the sub-prime meltdown, but, as Danny said, all mainstream pundits acted like it didn't exist.
Goldman Sachs sold a lot of this "toxic waste" to the greedy and the gullible then, short sold, that is made negative bets against what they had sold, knowing full well that it was junk. Hank Paulson was heading Goldman Sachs at the time now he's United States Treasury Secretary going on bended knee to the Chinese begging them not to dump the dollar.
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Sounds to me Goldman Sachs have some smart cookies. They decided what they had was junk, got rid of it, and bet against it all before the roof caved in. That's because they did their homework. A double whammy of profits. I say, go with a winner.
BTW, as far as I am aware, they didn't originate any of those loans. I never heard of anyone getting a mortgage to buy a home from Goldman Sachs. I don't know if they underwrote some of them but if they did, it was probably based on lies told to them in the applicants. They are strictly an investment bank.
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Did I say "originate", no, packaged them as AAA rated debt and played pass the parcel maybe? Nice...
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Goldman Sachs does not rate bonds. I think Moody's does that. There is a lot of investigation going on now into the rating services to see whether or not criminality was involved. Probably what will come out is just incompetence and laziness. Also lots of lawsuits. We'll see if there is any criminal prosecution by the DOJ. If there is, it will be a doozy.
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They will blame THEMSELVES!!! Because our leaders are good, moral, thoughtful, considerate, scrupulous; there isn't one Western leader you wouldn't trust, even in an otherwise compromising situation, eg in the pantry with your naked wife! Thank and relentlessly praise the quality of our leaders.
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Who isn't enjoying watching Labour burn?
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#7 power_to_the_ppl
'Who isn't enjoying watching Labour burn?'
Me, as the alternative is far worse. Frying pan and fire!
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8 john_from_Hendon,
Alternative to what?
I heard Alistair Campbell say on Ken Livingstone’s LBC-love in that he thought that George Bush was an intelligent guy.
This, after “Red Ken” gave me, a regular caller, 30 seconds to outline this bombshell to the London listeners:
http://www.democracynow.org/2008/6/13/citing_iraq_war_renowned_attorney_vincent
Alistair Campbell made some crass remark about the context of the time. The context during “that time” was not just one incident of fabricating evidence to justify an illegal war but many.
There’s been a global campaign some 9 years now to use the markets to monetize dissent by shorting Coca-Cola stock; the short sell is no longer viable as we’re heading for a major recession, however, £1 boycotted from Coke takes £5 of its share price and you can vote with your money every day, instead of getting sucked in to this vacant acceptance, get smart, don’t vote, boycott.
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#9 straightchris
'Alternative to what?'
Alternative to a Labour government.
And yes, I know that both Labour and Conservatives are following Conservative policies - but I have little time for Latin speaking Etonians and their fellow travellers. I basically trust them to only support their friends at the expense of the rest of us, as usual.
I will always credit Labour for creating the NHS. But it pains me to see them abandon their roots. The Conservatives haven't abandoned theirs, but they put on the pretence of having done so.
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#10 John_from_Hendon
Then why not vote for a party that supports electoral reform? You might eventually have a chance to vote for someone you approve of.
And are you a Brit or English? If you're English, vote Labour as they are doing their best to break the union. If you're a Brit, the Tories just might be prepared to save it.
Or if you're ant-EU why not vote UKIP?
There must be a leastworst resting home for your vote. It would be a shame to waste it completely.
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#11 Brownedov
"
Then why not vote for a party that supports electoral reform?
"
I take it that your contribution was intended to be humorous? Talk about wasting votes! Why not a third party candidate in the US presidential elections this fall?
In the age of 'first past the post' and the 'hanging chad' the act of voting for most people is not much about democracy at all. How can you pick between a donkey and an elephant when both, like Labour and Tory, present themselves as competing for the middle ground when in truth that are enthral to special interest groups, be it big oil, big farming, the landed gentry, or organized labour/labor.
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#13 John
If voters allow themselves to be trapped by the political parties who like people to think TINA to the 2 party system, then they only have themselves to blame.
If you cast your eyes a little further north, you'll see a country which has broken those party imposed shackles.
Latest YouGov poll in Scotland shows voting intention for Westminster as
SNP 36% : Labour 29% : Conservative 18% : Lib-Dem 13%.
This in a country where the Tories took 50.1% of the vote in 1955, and Labour took 56 of the 72 seats in 1997.
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Re #12 John_from_Hendon
Sorry it took me a while to get back to this. oldnat expresses admirably what has happened in Scotland over the past half century, and a substantial move away from NuLab in Wales has not benefited the Tories.
Whatever changes from here on in, the Tories are likely to win outright in England unless NuLab pull a Bliar Mk2 from an as yet invisible hat.
So your choice next time is to back them in the hope that they will be less awful than NuLab or to vote against them in the hope that there will be enough opposition to Thatcherism left to prevent Cameron having another "18 years of Tory misrule" that Labour used to moan about before NuLab turned them into Tories.
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Here’s another one!
"The Way of the World: Ron Suskind on How the Bush Admin Deliberately Faked an Iraq-al-Qaeda Connection and Undermined Diplomacy, Democracy in Pakistan and Iran"
http://www.democracynow.org/2008/8/13/the_way_of_the_world_ron
This is the scoop ladies and gentlemen, never mind party political affiliations there some war criminals hacks need to go after, it was on Labour’s watch, who are guilty?
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#14 Browndov
I always recall that Churchill wanted to scrap the NHS when he came back to power so voting Tory is out of the question! (Even without the Thatcher years!)
The question is how to get the Labour party to fix itself in time?
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#16 John_from_Hendon
Labour is beyond fixing in its present form. It is inherently centralist and therefore cannot give its Scottish and Welsh sections the powers they need to survive in their own arenas thanks largely to the way NuLab botched devolution in the first place.
Their only hope would be some sort of electoral pact under a new leader with the LibDems on the basis of electoral reform but they're such damaged goods that I'm not sure Clegg would be interested, and who could he possibly believe?
The NHS was designed by a Liberal, and would be pretty safe in LibDem hands.
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#17 Brownedov
"Their only hope would be some sort of electoral pact"
Or SDP Mark 2!
"inherently centralist"
For this to work I think you need English regional government and the abolition of the House of Commons at west minister (perhaps keeping a small UK Senate ( aka the present House of Lords.) Maybe an elected UK President? Split most of the civil service and disperse it as well.
Basically, as long as UK Government is stuck in London there will be no proper regional government in Scotland, Wales, NI and the English regions.
(I thing two English regions the South (Parliament at, say, Winchester) and the North Parliament at, say, York.)
Likelihood - 1 million to 1 against!
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#18 John_from_Hendon
That could certainly work eventually, and a Wessex based on the old capital would certainly be less London-centric. Not sure about York as the Northern capital - I doubt it would be popular West of the Pennines. There might have to be a new Mercia, too, to cover the central belt, and the fiefdom of London could be extended to include Essex, Kent and Surrey.
It's the civil service who are the arch centralists - their "success" cannot be measured in any meaningful terms except head counts of minions and quangos.
A Federal UK would need very little central government - a Ministry of Defence and Foreign Office would be all that would be essential, plus, perhaps, a Treasury until we join the Euro. Not too many jobs for the civil service boys there.
It's unlikely to happen any time soon if either NuLab or the Tories have any say in it.
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#19 Brownedov
North vs South
Did we not have football leagues with North and South division in the past?
I would see no more than a couple of dozen MRAs in each of the 5 regional assemblies and stop them sitting for more than two 4 or 5 year terms - as too for the President. That is I think something that the USA (and indeed Russia!) has right. There are too many career politicians who can't do anything else.
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#20 John_from_Hendon
In an ideal world, maybe, but it's gone too far for that. I doubt you'll find many Scots agreeing to reclassify the Scottish Parliament as a regional assembly and the Welsh Assembly is already asking for more powers. Northern Ireland is a special case because half their population wants to be part of the Republic anyway but even so they seem to agree to the extent that devolution is less awful than direct rule from Westmidden.
It's sad because both Tories and NuLabour seem to be in much the same state of denial as the powers in Belgrade around the time of Tito's death. If they retain the same attitudes, we're likely to see something very like the break-up of Yugoslavia but perhaps without the bloodshed.
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7."who isn't enjoying watching Labour burn"?.
a.Fans of Tax Credits.
b.Fans of devolved power.
c.Fans of doing the right thing (domestically).
d.Fans of doing the right thing (internationally - even if it does prove to be long-term wrongheaded).
e.Good people.
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#22 evenmorelovely
a. Maybe
b. You're joking - Tories to reconquer Soctland & Wales?
c. You're crazy
d. You're a warmonger
e. You should up the dose of your medication.
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23. e.Already have.
I never thought I'd be so flattered by wall-to-wall abuse. 'Crazy warmonger':not bad for a left-of-centre puppy.
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#24 evenmorelovely
"e.Already have"
Glad to hear it.
As an old Liberal I find it hard to see anything left of centre in the actions of NuLab and a "What's Left?" campaign is even more needed now than it was in the '60s. Obviously Hain, now a disgraced right winger, could no longer lead it.
I'd take what you say in your #22 more seriously if you would justify some of your outrageous beliefs.
For example. What do "Fans of devolved power" have to fear from NuLab losing? Are you seriously saying that the Tories would try to re-introduce direct rule from Westmidden for Scotland & Wales? Or do NuLab have secret plans to remove the asymmetry from their devolution and create a democratically elected English Assembly or Parliament?
I would say that there is no chance of the former outwith a Balkan-style civil war and no chance of the latter short of a hung Parliament where either NuLab or the Tories might offer it plus electoral reform generally as a way of getting LibDem support. If you're talking about English devolution, NuLab and Tory policies seem identical and neither wants change to the quaint 1872 plurality system that has given them Buggins' turn at making a mess of things for the last 80 years.
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In case anyone's still looking at this thread, it doesn't look as though Gordon is going to be helped in his decision by the now pending Glenrothes by-election. There's quite a bit of comment around like the BBC's Don't expect an early by-election, but nobody seems to be publishing any figures yet.
Anyone interested in what might happen may be interested in the following, already posted on Brian Taylor's Blether with Brian.
To make the first cut prediction of the result, I have simply used the changes from the 2005 GE result implied by the latest YouGov poll for the SNP to Scottish Westminster seats.
The YouGov figures of SNP 36%, Lab 29%, Con 18%, LibDem 13%, Other 5% translate to the following changes to party allegiance since 2005: SNP +101.78%, Lab -26.14%, LibDem -21.23%, Con -18.68%, Other -1.17%.
Taking the Glenrothes GE results of Lab 51.91%, SNP 23.37%, LibDem 12.65%, Tory 7.09%, Other 4.98%, if we apply the national change percentages we get a first cut prediction of Lab 36.12%, SNP 44.42%, LibDem 9.39%, Tory 5.44%, Other 4.64%.
If my prediction of a turnout no higher than 47.7% is right that would give the SNP a majority of about 2,700.
Remember, this does not take into account the quality of the candidates, local issues or any squeeze effect we often see at by-elections, but enough to believe that "Duff" Gordon really doesn't want the by-election early, I think.
Feel free to copy this post but if you want me to respond you're more likely to get a quick response on the Brian Taylor blog.
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