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Written by Toxik
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Friday, 28 November 2008 |
Cull is signing off in the midst of a ‘global financial crisis' that emerged fully formed from the subprime securitisation frenzy and the banks' general mania for risky assets that could be lied about to the accountants, sorry, marked to market. Capitalism will eat itself, if states allow it, which they can't as that would generate an even deeper nadir and, oh, would put the very livelihoods of swathes of decent people (and lots of bankers too) on the brink.
But that won't mean proper regulation is coming back.
To recap, during a few crazy early Autumn weeks, Bear Stearns bit the dust, Lehman Brothers effectively went bankrupt and the good bits went for sale, AIG went to the FED for a bailout, the Fed said it's going to create a Toxic Bank to deal with the shit (which is probably not going to happen), and there was flurry of UK banking recapitalization from the govt and merger and acquisition activity, which may well not happen either (Northern Rock excepted, but it would be worth £288 for every person on the planet, according to freesheet Metro). And now Iceland, Citigroup, Woolworth's, Dubai - you name it - all the borrowers who pooh-poohed capital adequacy are fucked. All this downturn finally affected global demand, in turn dropping prices - crude at $55/barrel now when it was $147/barrel in July - so the complacent have at least ruled out inflation and postponed the end of history for a bit.
So blind leading the blind, govts have to step in not really knowing what they're doing as it has been official practice to practise Greenspan light-touch regulation for some time.
"The stock of regulations must be reduced: we should trust people to make their own mistakes and learn from them. And the flow of new regulation from the EU must also be reduced: our aim should be to take back control of employment and social regulation"
D Cameron, 2005
Or as Gerrald Nicksen of Surety Management put it: "The FSA are simply jealous of us City boys and the genuine benefit we bring to ourselves, while EU regulation is there to stop Britain from being the Britain we know and cream, sorry, care about."
We were always told we should trust banks and financial wizards to make their own mistakes (How foolish of the ill-informed public. Unfortunately these mistakes have been massive and the majority of new regulation from the EU is there for a reason. Betting/hedging/speculation/offsetting is never a secure, risk-free way to make money.
Now we're in a situation where the governments really have to generate indigenous wealth rather than rely on very offshore capital and the services industry - Darling's rejigging of the numbers in the PBR will only do so much - and with the emphasis now on tax cuts, it's going to take them a lot of time to relearn.
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Written by M Double U
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Wednesday, 30 July 2008 |
White straight-A grade Ben Kinsella's killing generated more moral outrage and celebrity opprobrium but no substance to the debate. Bloggers and columnists have been notably silent on the rush of stabbings and shootings that are mainly inflicting the under-20s, and mainly in London, dovetailing with the clear lack of political direction on the subject. Too scared to speak out? Too entranced by the sensationalist headlines? Or just too shocked to offer the usual lessons by rote? Perhaps the media's rack ‘em up approach - now with handy maps of all the postcode beefs - is a suitable response to a nihilistic development.
This is a development in youth relations that - as presented the media - is very difficult for the oldaz to get a handle on. The lack of noise betrays and portrays a generational gap, and a chasm of socio-cultural difference. Yes, we liked hip-hop G-talk and some played around with knives, had fights with rival schools and all the rest but there was no desire to take things to a grim conclusion - death and killing simply weren't in the worldview. But then there was no way of bigging a ‘soldier' up across the internet and the mobiles straightaway (or filming it), no ‘just-for-fun' stab your rival hames syndicated via Facemask, no way of mythologising what are essentially petty scraps between hormonal boys. What could be called turf wars if fighting for a shitty end of town you have no stake in wasn't such a pathetic proposition. Whatever, the stakes, even in pure notoriety terms among your mates, are much higher.
US rap, computer games, on-pitch football violence - activities played out in a virtual reality but ones where we happily suspend our disbelief have had an influence not necessarily in there direct wield but in their complete submersion in society. People double their age have known a time where all these elements were not a permanent part of life, the youngaz haven't, It's too easy, glib and simplistic to ‘blame' all or any of these for the problem; as always we have to look at the wider societal factors. One-parent families will also prove convenient scapegoats (and Jacqui and co now promise to invest in them) but clearly the phase we're going through is attracting a wide cross-section of youth, and they're not all going to be thug-life, no-father-figure stereotypes people would have us believe.
London it seems is like New York in the 70s or Rio forever - a metropolis that, but for the old pockets of conspicuous wealth (generated by gambling in a suit), is on the slide, where the drugs game is rife, districts feed off neglect and people look to monetise any opportunity, the disconnect with areas even a few miles away is acute and where kids cultivate a rebellion that is more than just posture, or just a pose. But much of this doesn't directly affect a 14-year-old and a lot of the incidents are not caused by little big men doing deals or running poverty-induced numbers, but people caught up in normal situations.
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Last Updated ( Wednesday, 30 July 2008 )
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Written by Jaspers Lee
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Wednesday, 27 February 2008 |
The Church of Camewrong calls time on tolerance...
The Archbishopric of Canterbury is peopled by a person of no small cunning. The Conservative Party has itself inserted a wriggling little pish geyser in its Godhead. Bear with me dear readers, for this is a tale of reactionary symbiosis that even Freddy Forsyth would think twice about eating, regurgitating and eating again.
PAVING PSALM 3.9.6 (g) (Book of Aspirunt, Chapter 9): And highly lowly, Davidoff Camerung will use the Sharia winds to trade with the Fearmonger of Ludichrist, Chief High Docker Rowing Willyums. Meek listeners will be denied the bread in his basket but will be fully entitled to bespoke bigot reverie about strangers in the street and sensationalise the content of the Gourd of Diversish.
PAVING PSALM 4.12 (09) (Book of Pillockian, Chapter 0.3): Mildly did the gowned ponce in the glasses claim that he be a-feared of the House of Saracen taking sheep from his flock and not paying. Hardly will the words be out than the pantomimus patheticus will begin again and the barbed Melon of the Phillips will be thrust in the jaxonius canal of all who ignore this perilous one.PAVING PSALM 7.7.7.77 (Book of Quotas, Chapter Fun): And half of the Lord will judge this pastoral scene of institutional hectoring as a tale from the annals of the modern Churchie of olde Englandleton, to help divest in the market of the future that the other half of the Lord is loving with his right hand. Then a play with soldiers will be commissioned by He that is Starkey and spaken will it be in flowing languages of Gillinghamia.
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Last Updated ( Wednesday, 27 February 2008 )
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Written by Trenta
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Wednesday, 20 February 2008 |
...is a uniquely defamiliarising term to ascribe to the killing of five prostitutes, putting distance between person and place.
Ipswich was intrinsic to all of the ‘The Suffolk Murders'. While they may have all been buried in a radius around the town, the defendant lived in the town and all the dead used to. And also unlike the Yorkshire Ripper or other serial killer the agent is depersonalised to describe a collective incident. Why not the Ipswich Killer? Or if it turns out strangulation was the mode d'emploi, we could have the Ipswich Asphyxiator. Or, if you must go county, the Suffolk suffocator. Is this too sensationalist for our prudish press?
In our imagination East Anglia is an untouched Arcadia and Ipswich full of 'tractor boys' and maybe we don't want to urbanise the killings - putting the place in the bracket of all those horrible conurbations: let the wider county take the strain. Maybe it serves the purpose of many in Ipswich to broaden out the blame - nothing bad goes on in our county town; let's disperse the mess, sweeping it under our ignorance carpet while we're doing so. It's deceptive, and knowingly so.
Inadvertently, the mnemonic seeks to reaffirm other quaint notions about Suffolk. It may be the refuge of choice for many a succeeded mature professional (far out of London as they have no need to commute everyday), but we don't like outsiders here, particularly our own outsiders. They had to go, etc. And the outsiders see the same thing, and as Fiona Bruce tells us the latest from the court sigh with relief that they should never have reason to go there.
The commingling of place with nasty event defamiliarises in other ways too - putting it in pulp literary wonderland and again therefore issuing further distance from the facts. It insinuates meta terror like the Dunwich Horror - Dunwich also being Suffolk littoral - or sounds like an MR James short story with the county as a key character. This anti-empirical Suffolk is the Suffolk of the hyperreal, coastal imagination, rural fantasy.
Other than the phonetic facility with which the term rolls off the tongue of media people who need to work to the same phrase (like weapons of mass destruction or ‘palestinian gunmen'), it's unclear why this term is so unchallenged in relation to these killings, but it does its best to ignore a ghost in the room.
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Last Updated ( Wednesday, 20 February 2008 )
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The false idol of nepotism |
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Written by DSM
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Tuesday, 29 January 2008 |
Dashing Dave Cameron withdrew the tory whip and expelled nepotistic Old Bexley & Sidcup MP Derek Conway from the party as the row over his invisible researcher son deepened with allegations that public money also went to his older son to do bugger all too. After early support, this is an early indication that Dave buckles easily under media pressure, perhaps.
As the public learn to bankroll struggling banks in Brown's desperate struggle to avoid the semantically challenging ‘nationalisation', prepare to foot BAE projects and recost their lives to cope with the franchised and fucked rail network, it's grimly comforting to know we still fork out for political machinations on a micro level too.
Conway was accused of "at worst, a serious diversion of public funds" and suspended from the Commons after the standards and privileges committee upheld a complaint that he paid his son Freddie to work part-time for him as a researcher while he was studying at university.
The committee ordered Conway to repay the 'overpaid bonus sums' and pension contributions received by Freddie and recommended Conway make a personal apology to the commons. "There appears to be no evidence, independent or otherwise, of any aspect of FC's work for his father," said the committee. He thought it might be left there, but it wasn't and now those inner Kent constituents will be keen to select another candidate for the next election.
As an aside, the complaint was made by Michael Barnbrook, a retired policeman who stood against him as a candidate for the UK Independence Party, and is now a member of the British National Party.
The loveliness continues. We'll be able to thank stout yeoman of the bigots Mr Barnbrook during the London Mayoral elections in May - he's the BNP candidate.
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Last Updated ( Friday, 15 February 2008 )
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