What if - by Richard... Thursday, December 29, 2011

What if - by Richard... Thursday, December 29, 2011

… the euro collapses?

Swiss wealth manager Sarasin reckons the impact will be a meteor striking the earth. Not pretty.

But will it wipe out the dinosaurs?

Slow on the uptake - by Richard...

Brazil was this week listed as sixth in the world economic league table, with a GDP of $2.5trillion, easing the UK into seventh place with a GDP of slightly less than that amount. So wealthy has the country become that BMW is rushing to build a new car assembly plant there.

Yet the Department For International Development admits to a current £730,000 aid programme to Brazil, in the form of a "large emerging economies programme" to "develop a shared agenda and promote global poverty reduction objectives". Furthermore, Brazil is not on the list of countries, to which it is planned to cease aid.

Bizarrely, through the IMF, Brazil is supplying aid to cash-strapped Europe, having already contributed $10 billion in loans to the fund since 2009, and has indicated a willingness to lend more from its $350 billion reserves, becoming one of the ten most influential members of the IMF.

Readers will nevertheless be comforted to learn that the EU is ahead of the game. Unlike the British government, the EU commission has recognised the new status of Brazil and has marked it down for the cessation of aid in its 2014-20 budget.

Referring to "mutual interests" that promote "European values" and issues of global concern (climate change and food security), counties such as Brazil are considered "more like partners of the EU in facing these global challenges", says EU development commissioner Andris Piebalgs.

Perhaps someone should tell Andrew Mitchell this. He seems to be a bit slow on the uptake.

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Why we must leave - 5 - by Richard...

We congratulated the Grauniad the other day for only being three months behind. So what do we make of the Daily Wail being more than five year behind the curve as it highlights a "loophole" in EU law which is allowing thousands of immigrants into the UK via a back door?

We first identified this problem on 4 May 2006, the source being Directive 2004/38/EC. We gave it more detailed treatment in 2007 and again in 2008, keeping up our commentary to this current year.

It is, of course, a weakness of this blog that we speak to such a small audience, but that is nothing by comparison with the MSM which seems to be totally detached from reality, taking years to find out what is happening on its own doorstep.

The delay is also a reflection of the limited range of sources used by the MSM - here we see the newspaper relying on an MP as a classic "comfort zone" source. Despite certain blogs being ahead of the game for years, the ostrich-like behaviour of the MSM does not allow them to acknowledge their presence. They would rather live in ignorance.

This extends to the current story, where the newspaper fails to identify the offending directive or properly to explain the situation. But it does inform us that, "officials admit there is little they can do to curb immigration from the EU, because free movement of labour is a fundamental principle of the single market".

That is similar to the very point we made in 2006 ... although this has nothing to do with the single market. It is one of the "freedoms" enshrined in the Treaty of Rome and carried over into the Lisbon treaty, a "fundamental objective", as we wrote, of the European Union.

And that is another reason why we must leave the European Union.

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A perfect storm - by Richard...

Thomas L Benton, in The Chronicle of Higher Education (via Small Dead Animals) comments on the dire situation in undergraduate education. Although addressed to an American audience, it has a considerable resonance here, this following passage catching my eye:

... many tuition-driven institutions struggle to find enough paying customers to balance their budgets. That makes it necessary to recruit even more unprepared students, who then must be retained, shifting the burden for academic success away from the student and on to the teacher. Faculty members can work with an individual student, if they have time, but the capabilities of the student population as a whole define the average level of rigor that is sustainable in the classroom. At some institutions, graduation rates are so high because the academic expectations are so low. Failing a lot of students is a serious risk, financially, for the college and the professor.

Some years ago, I experienced this personally when I helped out my PhD supervisor, doing the preliminary marking for first year honours degree dissertations. Applying basic rules of literacy and logic as my measure, I "failed" more than 60 percent of the papers.

Very much in accordance with the above, my supervisor reinstated all of them. The motivation was entirely economic. Keeping a course running is entirely about "bums on seats" and failures make the courses economically unsustainable.

Thus, first year students who should not pass are kept on. By the time they are in their third year, they cannot then be failed for inadequate work. Questions would be asked (not least by the students) as to why they had been allowed to continue. Thus, not only do we have second-rate degrees, we have second-rate students passing them, debasing the degree qualification as a whole.

A major part of the problem, in my view, was the destruction of the polytechnic system, turning well-founded vocational diploma courses into substandard degrees. Students who otherwise might have emerged with useful skills instead come out with something not half as good, yet with an inflated sense of their own worth and importance.

Yet, for all the volume of discourse on higher education, there seem to be few if any politicians who are prepared to address the fundamentals. There are too many degree courses that should not exist. Turning good polytechnics into second-rate universities has been a disaster, and needs to be reversed.

And, while university degrees might continue to be provided on a fee-charging basis, many vocational diplomas would attract employer subsidies, providing a secure entry for disadvantaged students into gainful employment.

However, one need not expect change. Modern politics is not about solving problems, but about perception – a miasma of belief systems designed to attract a following and garner sufficient support to gain office … where, of course, the system is run by former second-rate students with second-rate degrees.

I won't say we are domed, but it is difficult to see a way out.

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Standing up for Britain? - by Richard...

In trying again for a minimum price of alcohol, The Boy must have something up his sleeve as he can't be this stupid, can he? As Boiling Frog notes, even the Failygraph is being up front about the EU involvement, to an uncommon and highly suspicious degree.

Furthermore, the provincial government suggested minimum prices for alcohol almost exactly only a year ago, in January 2010, then to have the ECJ rule in March that minimum pricing on tobacco would violate EU law – in circumstances exactly analogous with alcohol minimum pricing. The EU problem is, thus, well known.

However, it looks as if The Boy might indeed have a cunning plan, relying on raising taxes on alcoholic drinks, based on the number of units of alcohol in a drink.

Such an option would be permissible under EU law and would also be highly attractive to the Treasury, raising about £700 million in extra revenue in a full year. Justified on health grounds, this would escape the opprobrium of a straight tax hike, and since it will hurt the plebs most, The Boy might think that the political fallout for him would be minimal.

It is still a puzzle though as to why he should make the announcement now, and whether increasing tax revenue is the main motivation, rather than the health benefits. After all, considerable doubtshave been raised about the effectiveness of price increases in curbing consumption.

One groans inwardly, therefore, at yet another political stunt. Clearly there are complex sociological reasons for the extensive and very public alcohol abuse that we are seeing, and the epidemic of binge drinking that is doing so much damage to health, and especially to young women.

There can be few responsible people who would not like to see these problems solved and none of us want our taxes spent on dealing with alcohol abuse or, for that matter, having our hospital casualty departments cluttered with drunks, our streets soiled and our police wasting time with inebriates.

Thus, had The Boy come up with a range of measures which might have some real effect on the problems – such as getting pubs back in the loop, where binge drinking is more easily controlled – he might get some real applause from a wider audience.

But perhaps this "standing up for Britain" malarkey over his fantasy veto has gone to his head. With the publicity over the EU link (possibly deliberately highlighted by the Failygraph) he might think that side-stepping (but not confronting) EU law will add to his "eurosceptic" credentials. Looking to strengthen the adoration of his party faithful, his idiot party is so easily pleased that the right spin would easily get them on board.

But surely he must realise by now that, in order to get elected, he must not only satisfy his party, but also attract a majority amongst that diminishing band of electors that is prepared to go out and vote. And, even if he does position this as "standing up for Britain", I can't honestly see it being a vote winner.

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Slaves to the media - by Richard... Wednesday, December 28, 2011

I wrote this yesterday – and then a forum member refers me to this by William Bowles:

The old Anarchist cry of "Do not adjust your mind, there's a fault in reality" takes on an entirely new kind of import given the power of the media to determine what's "real" for us.

What this means is that the media effectively acts as an agent provocateur for the state and big business as it decides for us what is actually going on in the world. In turn, progressives make decisions based not on what needs to be done, but as a reaction to the "news" in a weird political version of the Heisenberg Effect.

The media is something of a pre-occupation of this blog, or so it would seem. Actually, ours is a greater concern: democracy. And the media is essential to the proper functioning of a democracy, or so it is said – hence the interest.

The Bowles piece chimes absolutely with some of my own pieces. The ultimate ambition of the contemporary media is (for whatever reasons) to set the agenda. Ours is to realise this, and to render those attempts futile. A free man decides for himself what he thinks. Slaves go for their instructions – and in this society they get them from the MSM.

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Home for the stupid - by Richard...

Reporting on the recent Conservative Home survey (open to anyone who clicks the buttons), theIndependent tells us that: "by a huge margin of 92 percent to 5 percent, Conservative 'members' believe Mr Cameron was right to veto the treaty".

Some 70 percent "regard it as his best moment since becoming Prime Minister. More than half (52 percent) think it was as big a moment as Margaret Thatcher winning the rebate on Britain's EU contributions in 1984".

One should not mock the afflicted, but this is self-deception on a heroic scale. The applause is for a man they so desperately wanted to be a "eurosceptic", a group which agonised over Cameron's refusal to give them a referendum on Lisbon but who now has redeemed himself in their eyes by "standing up for Britain".

If anyone conducted their normal daily lives in such a miasma of fantasy, medical intervention would probably be thought wise, but in politics it seems, psychotic behaviour is not only acceptable but, for a huge group of people, is the norm. However, it is comforting to know that they have ahome to go to, where they can share their opinions and feel good about themselves and each other.

The great concern, however, is that it is not going to be the meek that will inherit the Earth … but the stupid. If this contagion spreads, there is very little hope for us.

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Why we must leave - 4 - by Richard...

The picture above is no more in the UK. More than 80 million battery hen spaces have been upgraded as a result of EU law. Almost all British egg producers will be compliant with the law that comes into force on 1 January. Others are not.

Spain, France, Poland, amongst others – eight in total, including Belgium - are not ready, and will continue producing eggs from battery cages, despite having had 13 years to prepare for the new law, one which introduces standards the British would have adopted, with or without the EU.

This, says the Independent, has led to fears that cheaper, illegal eggs from the Continent will flood into UK wholesalers, manufacturers and caterers – undercutting British egg producers, who say they feel "let down" by the Government's refusal to unilaterally ban eggs from non-compliant EU states.

These eggs are not going to be on sale in supermarkets, but will feed the processing trade, where they will form ingredients of made-up foods, the source unidentified.

Such is the structure of the egg trade, with perilously narrow margins, that processing eggs often comprise the profit in a business that often just breaks even on its core production, or even delivers at a loss.

When it comes to regulation, therefore, producers are reliant on uniformity of misery – every competitive country being treated the same. When some major competitors are unencumbered, this can have a disastrous impact on business.

Yet, despite the importance of this issue, the EU is once again found wanting. No doubt the commission will suggest that it needs more enforcement powers, the doctrine of "more Europe" being the answer to every problem.

But a cheaper, quicker and more effective answer is for compliant countries to ban non-compliant produce. But that, under EU law, is not allowed, thus penalising countries which obey the law. Which is yet another reason why we must leave the EU.