Banking on the bankers?

"It's a technical breakdown, Mr. Mainwaring," said the hapless Pike. "But don't worry, we're flushed with liquidity!" You can just imagine the retort of "Stupid Boy!" coming back, as a befuddled Mainwaring tries to work out the true meaning.

Barclays Bank have said that a "technical breakdown" in the UK's clearing system forced it to borrow £1.6bn from the Bank of England. Apparently, it is the second time this month that the bank has tapped into the central bank's emergency credit line, sparking fears it is facing a cash crisis. Is it really a technical breakdown or could it be human error? What machine has owned up to being so careless? Mr. Micawber would have given some advice to these bankers, who basically allowed borrowings to become greater than their reserves at the end of the trading session.

"Annual income twenty pounds, annual expenditure nineteen nineteen six, result happiness. Annual income twenty pounds, annual expenditure twenty pounds ought and six, result misery."

A Barclays spokesman said "Had there not been a technical breakdown, this situation would not have occurred. In these challenging times the dramatisation of such situations is of no help to markets, their members or their customers." So just let it be swept under the carpet, then?

I just love these corporate types. They take the bonuses and the lifestyle, but babble away in obfuscation the minute a problem arises. They'll get a shock if customers come in telling them they too have had "technical breakdowns" in becoming overdrawn overnight!

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Sub-prime? More like sub-second!

The so-called sub-prime market, whereby money lenders seek out the less well-paid and seduce them with "attractive" mortgages to buy houses, has taken a tumble. Now the Securities & Exchange Commission in the USA is investigating troubled sub-prime mortgage lender New Century, a company that is in more trouble than most.

What I don't get is that the SEC must have seen this coming. Or maybe they have the ostrich syndrome, just like those who saw Hurricane Katrina coming, then cleared out of town, leaving the poor and the destitute to fend for themselves.

George Bush says "Recent disturbances in the sub-prime mortgage industry are modest in relation to the size of our economy". Well, that's right, but it's cold comfort to those struggling to keep up. Bush has left all traces of his Episcopalian Republican politics behind to take up with a born-again credo that delivers precious little to those less fortunate. My, my! And he bears the name given to him by his family in honour of George Herbert!

When the Statue of Liberty went up overlooking New York Harbor, it was seen as the greatest symbol of liberty for the oppressed and the poor. Nothing about applying for sub-prime loans or being cast adrift in a stinking mudswamp due to poor levee maintainance!

"Keep ancient lands, your storied pomp!" cries she with silent lips. "Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, the wretched refuse of your teeming shore. Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me, I lift my lamp beside the golden door!"

Pity she can't get down from that giant plinthe and hurry on down to the SEC to tell those guys what's what!

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Promises, promises.............

Labour promised a referendum on the EU Treaty. Admittedly that was when Blair had one arm firmly placed up his backbone by public opinion. Now the spin merchants of Gordon Brown's entourage are dissembling like crazy. They say the "Treaty" is nothing like the "Constitution". Are there fairies at the bottom of the garden at No.10?

If the leaders of the major countries in the EU say there is not much difference, why do our fatuous leaders gainsay them? Angela Merkel reckons there's only a 5% difference in the wording! Was that why she was looking at her watch during the football friendly the other night? Gordon Bean getting her down?

Thankfully some Labour MPs are seeing sense. Even that ardent European Union crawler, Keith Vaz, is considering the matter. Now around 120 Labour MPs are likely to press for a refereundum. In all fairness, it's the only thing to do.

For all those wanting to say it out loud there's a Pro Referendum Rally. Let's hope Brown's got his antennae tuned to the right direction that day!

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Labour election landslide predicted

Can this country be so foolish as to give the Labour Party yet another term in office? One based on only a fraction of the electorate giving whole-hearted support. Labour has governed, if that is the right word, but is leading us into a financial mire without much hope, it seems.

Remember, this is a party with the likes of Tony Blair, spinning and spivving. Gordon Brown and his stealth taxes. Geoff Hoon and his apologies for the Iraq War. John Prescott heaving and grunting on his office floor. Jack Straw, the ever-oily wordsmith, who could prove black was white just by outtalking you!

The lacklustre abilities of that frightful man, Des Browne, who has no clue as to what the fighting in Iraq is all about. Yvette Cooper and her HIPS! Oh, and not forgetting Tony McNulty who appears to have taken instructions in prison management from Will Hay.

Today YouGov says in a poll that Labour is maintaining its eight-point lead over the Tories, by 41% to 33%, from last month. Who on earth are these people? Wait till they want to get their hands on a decent pension, only to be told there isn't one? I could go on, but the list is endless.

Labour is not fit to run the country. Never has been and never will be. The trouble is that, with all three main parties now trumpeting a corporate economy, the incumbent party more or less has to begin destroying the country before it can be shifted.

Incompetence no longer registers on the electorate's radar!

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David Cameron on YouTube

Having watched this little vignette (great sound including natural wind noises in the Welsh countryside!), it shows how far we have come in politics. Can you imagine 50 years ago Harold Macmillan standing in a field talking to a young American in heaven-knows-where?

I think Cameron has hit on the best way to communicate. Let's see if Gordon Brown can come up with a few tricks of his own? On second thoughts, maybe not!

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Humbug Indeed

The Electoral Commission wants to stuff UKIP good and proper. Don't you just love it? These quango queens said absolutely diddly-squat about the corrupt goings on with regard to New Labour's financial set-ups and peerage gifts. But UKIP can be brought to task, it seems.

A judge has ruled that UKIP should only repay £18,481 from a donation of £363,697. These vindictive pen-pushers now want to appeal the decision. Rather pompously an official says "We are disappointed that the court did not order forfeiture of all the donations in question which, by UKIP's own admission, were impermissible." The impermissable bit was that Mr. Alan Bown, the donor in question, was not on the electoral register at the time of the donation. It's not as if Mr. Bown is a foreigner or a man seeking privileges behind closed doors. It's all a bit different from Tony Blair's reckless manipulation of his own laws inspired by a desire to do down the Tory Party.

Blair was a walking talking fully-fledged hypocrite when it came to party funding. The Electoral Commission should have gone after the big fish and left the smaller fry to digest this one-off clerical error.

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Wal-Mart renders unto Caesar?

Wal-Mart, like most corporations, has tax-avoidance schemes in place. These are definitely not tax-evasive, which would be illegal. Wal-Mart executives limply say that they have a duty to pay as little tax as they feel they should in order to maintain low prices. The State of Wisconsin has other ideas. The Revenue Department feels that Wal-Mart is not paying its fair share of taxes that support public schools, local police and fire departments and the highways it uses to transport what it sells in Wisconsin. Seems a fair point.

If Wal-Mart had a fire break out in a Wisconsin store, I'm sure they would expect the manager to call the fire department. Sam Walton would never have employed the likes of Nero in such circumstances.

As consumers we are being brainwashed into believing that "ALWAYS LOW PRICES!" is a beneficial thing. In fact it devalues the actual worth of many product lines, which can be sold at below cost (thereby distorting the market) or be manufactured with increasingly inferior quality materials.

Those that think up the tax-avoidance schemes for Wal-Mart may take time out to consider whether the public schools of Wisconsin have enough money to educate children to a level that offers business the prospect of having well-rounded employees in the workforce. Wal-Mart is keen to employ those with at least bachelor degrees for many management roles. A poor start in an underfunded school may make future recruitment a difficult task!

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As the Newsreader said to the Bishop

I haven't heard this yet, so can't comment, but it was on this morning. Gene Robinson, Bishop of New Hampshire, describing his choices in life on The Choice. He explains his own choice to become the first openly gay Anglican bishop. You can hear it here!

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Prescott Bows Out!

I heard on the radio that John Prescott was resigning as an MP. My heart leaped with a certain joy at the prospect of another by-election. But no. He's hanging on until the next general election. Can't think what for. They say he has been a good constituency MP. Probably he has, but as Deputy Prime Minister he was a total disaster.

The only thing he did well was standing (physically at times, apparently) between a twitchy Blair and a morose Brown. A bit like a sleeping wildebeest being awoken by an upstart jackal only for them both to be confronted by wandering hippopotamus. Animal magic indeed!

John Prescott left office with the country decidedly worse off for the fact he ever got his hands on a ministerial job. I'm waiting for the lot to go before the country rises from its stupour and mayhem ensues. I really cannot believe any sane person would vote for this lot.

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Episcopal woes

The Bishop of Virginia seems to be a rum sort. He rubs along with those that make up new doctrines on a daily basis, but takes umbrage when 21 priests in his diocese wish to adhere to traditional Christian teaching.

"There will come a day when those who kill you think they do God's will". That (in the meaning of killing the soul) is precisely what the New Episcopal Church is all about. What a sorry state it has all become.

http://www.thediocese.net/press/pressroom.shtml
http://www.acn-us.org/archive/2007/08/bishops-will-continue-in-ministry-with-virginia-priests.html

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On being English

An excellent article in the Daily Telegraph by Frank Field MP. Required reading, I suggest!

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When in Rome, or Scotland, or wherever!

Some of the people who run our instititutions should be in an institution. For the criminally insane. We need a place where these buffoons can get some much needed lessons in how to be somebody with common sense, not politically correct nonsense. The latest wheeze is that doctors and health workers have been banned from eating lunch at their desks in the Greater Glasgow and Clyde area - in case it offends their Muslim colleagues.
Health chiefs believe the sight of food will upset Muslim workers when they are celebrating the religious festival Ramadan. All nonsense, of course.

What about Lent? Will these priggish penpushers give just as much respect to those giving up chocolate, say, as a lenten discipline. The sight of Mars bars strewn all over a lunch trolley could deeply offend a Christian desperately trying to maintain a 40 day observance. These "health officials" could waste more time drawing up a list of "approved" products that must be kept under lock and key in the canteen. Of course, hot cross buns would out, but then again there is a possibility they might get through as they are now sold all year round.

Haven't we got better things to be thinking about? Such as not wasting millions of NHS pounds through crazy initiatives and definitely not giving the patients life-threatening bugs such as MRSA!

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An Englishman's Home......?

It used to be said that an Englishman's home was his castle. Under New Labour most of the government departments have become money-making outfits masquerading as "agencies". One such is the reborn Land Registry. I didn't know that it is now perfectly OK for anyone (for a small fee, of course!) to delve into the private affairs of everybody else. The BBC has unmasked this predatory cash cow.

Why is it possible? A spokesman prattled on about helping to speed up conveyancing. Another spiv in the New Labour pantheon, dedicated to spin and mischievous myth-making. How this could conceivably help I do not know. It is a busybodies charter, but then New Labour are congenitally programmed for such activity.

I shall not be paying a small fee to snoop on my neighbours. Good grief, with such sensitive information freely available, are we going sit back and let these clowns run an ID system? Anybody can check how much of a property is mortgaged. It is outrageous!

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Holiday absence

I've been off air having a break. Not so much a holiday in the sense of flying off to foreign parts, more a case of going up the M42 to the East Midlands. One thing these new regions do is give a sense of artificial separateness. Although it seems most East Midlanders are not aware of the actual boundaries, as most look to the Derby, Leicester and Nottingham triangle as being the eastern part of the Midlands.

Whilst away, lots seemed to be happening. Being away from the computer is a break in itself, but a blogger always keeps thinking of things. I'm not so determined as to sit in a corner of Starbucks tapping out messages, but the internet offers us 24/7 access as much as constant involvement if we want it!

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