A parade of Polish dragons

See World Voices for the Dragons of Krakow.

Nick Drew on energy market distortions

See The Energy Page for Nick's piece on why helping little energy companies compete isn't doing them or us any favours.

Bilderberg, Max Keiser, Alex Jones and Nigel Farage

Some comments on Max Keiser's latest piece indicate discomfort with Alex Jones' performance on Andrew Neil's Daily Politics show. My two cents' worth:

Jones' performance has been described as in "meltdown" (e.g. by the normally shrewd Guido) - but that's a serious misreading. This wasn't John Sweeney exploding impotently at the Scientologists.

The British approach is that you can say what you like because it makes no difference, so you may as well be cool about it, too, maybe even ironic, and we expect the usual ending: "Thanks for your input, it'll be interesting to see what happens".

Jones was pushing through that in forthright American style and when he (in effect) accused Neil of supporting the status quo I heard a little bell ring. Neil's "loopy" hand gesture suggested some frustration that he hadn't been able to dominate and kebab his guest as he had with Chris Mounsey of the Libertarian Party.

Some say of cars, "Drive it like you stole it"; this was "Do politics like you mean it." We've had mealy-mouthed twisters up to here (gesture: hand parallel to chin); I think Keiser is right to suggest that we're ready for brash. Keiser himself acts gonzo but is nobody's fool, and when you see what he's criticising you begin to perceive that reality has become so bizarre that the Oxford common room debating style just isn't up to the challenge.

All original material is copyright of its author. Fair use permitted. Contact via comment. Nothing here should be taken as personal advice, financial or otherwise. No liability is accepted for third-party content, whether incorporated in or linked to this blog; or for unintentional error and inaccuracy. The blog author may have, or intend to change, a personal position in any stock or other kind of investment mentioned.

Womanly care

 Heaven knows what taste the lieutenant could boast of, but even he noticed one characteristic peculiarity about the whole place, which no luxury or style could efface--a complete absence of all trace of womanly, careful hands, which, as we all know, give a warmth, poetry, and snugness to the furnishing of a room. There was a chilliness about it such as one finds in waiting-rooms at stations, in clubs, and foyers at the theatres.

 Anton Chekhov – Mire (1886)

Do we say such things today? Or if we do, is it with a hint of embarrassment or defiance? Or like the fabled file in a prisoner’s cake, is it better to slip them in as Chekhov quotes?

I’m sure nobody is unaware of what Chekhov meant by the chilliness of public spaces. As to why they are chilly - moderns are not so likely to borrow his domestic ideal as an evocative contrast.

Yet our homes are not the private and highly personal spaces they were in Chekhov’s day. Corporate and government interests have seen to that.

All original material is copyright of its author. Fair use permitted. Contact via comment. Nothing here should be taken as personal advice, financial or otherwise. No liability is accepted for third-party content, whether incorporated in or linked to this blog; or for unintentional error and inaccuracy. The blog author may have, or intend to change, a personal position in any stock or other kind of investment mentioned.

The PRISM Scandal: it gets worse

The ten o' clock news is full of distraction and non-denial denials from the Prime Minister and Foreign Secretary. The PM is vapouring on about the importance of the role of the intelligence services; and the FS is denying that GCHQ is breaking the law without denying that we have all our telecommunications spied on, thus confirming that the law here already permits what the Americans are doing.

I am not surprised, but I am disgusted. Caught with their pants down and without the courage to tell it like it is.

If only libertarians could leave off their trivial consumer obsessions and tackle the subject of the full-scale tyranny in front of us.

Gedankenexperiment

Caveat: I am not an economist, I just like playing with numbers.

Consider an economy with 3 classes of people.

Class C: 50% of the population, earning an average of $50,000 per year, and spending all of it.

Class B: 49% of the population, earning an average of $100,000 per year, spending $95,000, and investing $5,000.

Class A: 1% of the population, earning an average of $1,000,000 per year, spending $300,000, and investing $700,000.

Assuming equal rates of return, class A will receive 74% of any gain in wealth.

Take modest growth of 3.03% per year for 60 years. The total wealth W has now grown to 6W.

Even if they started with nothing, class A now has 3.7W, almost 2/3 of the total wealth.

Smoking: a question

Are we to give up smoking because it "causes fatal diseases", or welcome it because it provides much-needed tax revenue?

As Peter Cook said about his smoking, "I risk my life for my country on a daily basis." And it was liver disease that killed him.

Plain packaging for alcohol, anyone?

Costa permanence

Consider this Santayana quote on the deceptive desire for permanence

That the end of life should be death may sound sad: yet what other end can anything have?

The end of an evening party is to go to bed; but its use is to gather congenial people together, that they may pass the time pleasantly. An invitation to the dance is not rendered ironical because the dance cannot last for ever; the youngest of us and the most vigorously wound up, after a few hours, has had enough of sinuous stepping and prancing.

The transitoriness of things is essential to their physical being, and not at all sad in itself; it becomes sad by virtue of a sentimental illusion, which makes us imagine that they wish to endure, and that their end is always untimely; but in a healthy nature it is not so.

George Santayana - Some Turns of Thought in Modern Philosophy

If we extend the idea, it is easy enough to see how a deceptive yearning for permanence may be used to justify all kinds of authoritarian trends. There are some curious byways one might explore with the idea too.

Take Costa coffee shops for example. After much vehement local opposition a new one has opened in Bakewell, Derbyshire. Bakewell is in the Peak District National Park but it made no difference in the end. Veni, vidi, vici as usual.

There are other factors of course, but do huge corporate bodies provide the illusion of beneficial permanence? Do we cosy up to the illusion via a cup of Costa’s second-rate coffee?

All original material is copyright of its author. Fair use permitted. Contact via comment. Nothing here should be taken as personal advice, financial or otherwise. No liability is accepted for third-party content, whether incorporated in or linked to this blog; or for unintentional error and inaccuracy. The blog author may have, or intend to change, a personal position in any stock or other kind of investment mentioned.

Will fracking help us - or hinder us?

AK Haart asks the more penetrating questions about the benefits of shale oil, over at The Energy Page.

I beat Hitchens: Clegg to collect his reward as an EU Trojan Horse?

Peter Hitchens tells us today that he has long predicted the LD/Con spat and that it will result in Clegg getting the lucrative post of EU Commissioner.

Three years ago - long before Hitchens - I reminded readers of Clegg's early stint as a student at the College of Europe, and predicted the EU job for him:

"It is, I think, significant that Clegg's postgraduate learning included a spell at the College of Europe in Bruges, an outfit whose purpose was described by postwar Euro-idealist Henri Brugmans as "to train an elite of young executives for Europe." I read that as a sort of McKinsey for pliable idiots. Other British Isles alumni include former Tory MP Nigel Forman, Neil Kinnock's sprog Stephen, LD stiff Simon Hughes, ScotNat MEP Alyn Smith (how a nationalist and a federalist? explain!), and Irish-born ex-Gen Sec of the European Commission David O'Sullivan.

"Now, for a short spell, Clegg's playing with the big boys, and they're going to have his marbles and the bag they came in. [...]

"The best that can be hoped for by Nick Clegg, I think, is to do a Blair: sell out to powerful interests who will springboard him into some position less vulnerable to the people's franchise. Perhaps the reward for his long service to Europe will be a seat on the European Commission (maybe he still speaks to David O'Sullivan and friends - see above). He, and ultimately his descendants, will be accepted into that modern equivalent of the Hapsburg dynasty that is the nascent power support structure of the EU."

As with Peter Mandelson, doubtless Clegg's putative position will mean that he cannot criticise the EU (even if he wished to), because to do so will result in the loss of his pension.

I'm not sure whether these days, selling out to a foreign power that wishes to infringe or abolish our sovereignty could in theory provide grounds for a prosecution for treason. I also don't understand why there has been so much done since 1998 to water down or abolish the relevant legislation and punishments.

All original material is copyright of its author. Fair use permitted. Contact via comment. Nothing here should be taken as personal advice, financial or otherwise. No liability is accepted for third-party content, whether incorporated in or linked to this blog; or for unintentional error and inaccuracy. The blog author may have, or intend to change, a personal position in any stock or other kind of investment mentioned.