Nick Clegg Rewrites History.

Nick Clegg has desperately tried to breath life into his stalled political career by rewriting recent history. Conveniently forgetting that it was his coalition partners, the Tories, who deregulated the banking industry back in the early 1980's, he has claimed that Labour was single-handedly responsible for the world-wide banking collapse in 2008. Apart from the obvious fact that the collapse began in the United States where, as far as this writer knows, Labour was never in power, he has also ignored the total support offered to the finance industry not only by all three political parties in Britain but by all political parties across the world. The problem, which Clegg also ignores, was that the banks were not only utterly reckless they also lied about it. Essentially the entire finance industry was turned into one giant Ponzi scheme by the bankers themselves in a concerted criminal conspiracy and then they tried to hide the truth for as long as possible to avoid the inevitable consequences. Yet you can understand Clegg's dilemma since, in cooperation with that other criminal organisation, the Tories, he has consistently told us all that the perpetrators of this crime are safe and warm in intensive care while the victims, you and me, have been apprehended, tortured and then flung into the prison of austerity. Taking a leaf out of the bankers book Cameron, Osborne and Clegg have pedalled an outrageous lie in order to postpone the inevitable consequences of the bankers crime spree and save their own wealth. Clegg has done nothing more or less than pile a political conspiracy on top of a financial conspiracy for completely selfish reasons. Clegg is a liar and a coward, hiding behind the Nasty party as he blithely helps them punish us for the crimes of their wealthy backers. The man is a scoundrel in every sense of the word and, hopefully, will soon see his less than illustrious political career put out with all the rest of the garbage.

Economists Re-Discover The Keynes Boson.

In a parallel discovery to that at CERN it is reported that economists have rediscovered the fabled Keynes Boson - the particle that imparts integrity into the banking universe. Named after the economist John Maynard Keynes, the Keynes Boson has always been known to exist but was replaced, in theoretical economics, by the Hyek Boson in 1979 in order to release the immense energy contained within the criminality nucleus. Theoretical economists have long known that the Hyek Boson has no foundation in reality but presented it as an alternative to wealthy politicians looking to avoid the black hole of taxation for themselves and their rich mates. Heralded as a great success when introduced by Margaret Thatcher, the Hyek Boson not only dispenses with the need for integrity in banking, it also completely dispenses with the need for fairness. Unfortunately the Hyek Boson also has the disastrous side effect that has been largely ignored for 30 years - it unravels economic reality and turns banks into super-massive black holes from which nothing can escape - especially light. The rediscovery of the Keynes Boson has not been universally welcomed and we asked George Osborne, an enthusiastic believer in the Hyek Boson, for his reaction; "Its a bleeding disaster. How the hell can I protect my money from the taxation black hole if fairness is restored to the economic universe? What is needed is a new meeting of the G20 so the Keynes Boson can be undiscovered once and for all."

Neoliberalism Comes Of The Rails.

The idea of neoliberal economics seems to have run its course in Britain as the system it created is submerged under a tide of scandal and criminality. People are getting really, really tired of being pissed on and being then told its raining. The catalyst for the change in thinking that has taken place was the sheer criminal greed displayed by the banks who shouted loudly for deregulation and then indulged themselves in a law-breaking and common-sense-defying gambling spree that wrecked the world economy. The present scandal over the Libor is simply the tip of a very dirty iceberg and demonstrates quite clearly what the "News in Shorts" has been saying for some time - these people are criminals and should be thrown into prison where they belong. Despite the mounting evidence, however, the present government has tried to forcefeed the country with ever more unpalatable and ultimately self-defeating neoliberal nostrums. Fortunaterly there are growing signs that the tide is beginning to turn at last. After decades in which the Labour party seemed as much in thrall to the likes of Margaret Thatcher as the Tories themselves, socialist principles such as fairness and regulation are making a comeback. In London the council in Islington has refused to take advantage of Eric Pickles offer to allow them to hike council-house rents up to the astronomical levels charged by greedy private landlords and deny tenants any security of tenure. More telling still is that the Labour party is actively considering a renationalism of the railways, removing the private companies, who have plundered the transport system in their quest for ever-growing profits, once more from the equation. Only two years ago, under the shadow of Thatcher and the neoliberal economic nonsense, that would have been unthinkable. Hopefully it will only be a matter of time before the same sea-change happens with regard to the utilities - water, gas and electricity. Meanwhile the Tory party is descending into complete chaos as right-wingers continue to feed Cameron with soundbite policies that both terrify and disgust the electorate and George Osborne completes his latest u-turn, while the Chancellor now has a new nickname amongst Tory backbenchers - "Bastard."

Spain: What's The Difference?

So Spain has been "rescued" by the European Bank, but the question is why no austerity package? The experts tell us that the difference is that the debt in Spain was that of its banks while that in Greece was sovereign debt caused by government overspending. Essentially, therefore, Spain was able to tell the European that they could save Spain's banks or not as they pleased, but that the government was not going to accept pauperising its own citizens further in order to facilitate a deal. The rest of Europe was handed a stark choice - bail out the Spanish banks or watch the Eurozone collapse completely. The truth is that the Spanish government chose not to borrow the huge amounts of cash that were coursing through the Spanish banks until 2008 whereas the Greek government did in order to subsidise the living standards of its citizens. There is no doubt that the Greeks were reckless and are now paying for it in spades. But the Greeks have a choice as to what they can do about it. They can leave the Euro, re-issue the Drachma and devalue like crazy to reduce their debt and give themselves a fighting chance of recovery. That they have chosen not to do so shows that they prefer to cling to the Euro's apron strings rather than face the uncertainty of going it alone. But, at the end of the day, what has all this support for Greek and Spanish banks actually achieved? Essentially taxpayers money has been pumped into the banking system to fill the black hole in liquidity caused by their reckless gambling on the property bubble. By shoring-up the banks governments have managed to keep property prices artificially inflated but this cannot solve the paradox of millions of empty properties on one hand and millions of essentially homeless people on the other. What our leaders are doing is not a solution it is an attempt to continue the problem and, worse yet, to breath more life into it. Not only are ordinary people being forced to pay for the mistakes of the banking system they are also being effectively barred from any reward for doing so. Our money is being used to save the banks but our children will still not be able to buy a home of their own, while rents continue to rise to feed the insatiable greed of a minority. All in this together? Don't make me laugh.

Bankers Are At It Again.

If you thought that the world's major banks learned anything at all after the recent financial crash, dream on. J.P.Morgan, one of the United States "too big to fail" banks has managed to lose yet another $1 billion in dodgy investments. Not that that put a brake on management "bonuses" or, as the rest of us would call it, plunder. We asked the company's chief executive, Jamie Dimon, for his comments; "Who cares? Whats $1 billion to me? Its not as if we have to worry about loses when we have access to US taxpayers money. However, I am still surprised at the loses. We have consulated some of the world's most famous astrologers and they told us we couldn't lose. I suppose in a way they were right, but they led us to believe that reckless and idiotic gambling was actually a dead cert. We've learned a valuable lesson though. We've given up on the astrologers and decided that, from now on, we will only consult with soothsayers and phrenologists"

Philip Hammond Blames The Victims Yet Again.

In an outrageous example of disingenuous Tory twaddle Philip Hammond, the Defence Secretary, has claimed that those who borrowed money from the banks must shoulder their fair share of the blame for the financial meltdown. Ignoring the fact that the banks have actually been allowed to get away with their criminal behaviour scot-free by this bunch of posh boys and, indeed, have continued to steal money on a multi-national scale, what exactly does he mean? Well, most of the bad debt was associated with property - sub-prime mortgages that were offered to desperate people so they could at least purchase a roof over their heads. The point is, why were they so desperate? Because the banks, believing they were on to a good thing, deliberately forced up property values in order to increase the size of loans and the profits that could be made from this eagerly helped by estate agents and governments who loved the tax returns on all this. As prices skyrocketed ordinary people saw their dream of being home ownners evaporating before their eyes and grew increasingly desperate to get on the property ladder before it was too late. Seduced by mortgages that were easy to get, they clutched at the straw that was offered to them, calculating that if the world economy continued to grow then so would their wages and that the mortgage would become increasingly easy to service. The banks knew this wasn't true but had come up with a wizard wheeze that meant that they at least could avoid the consequencies. They bundled good and bad mortgages together and sold them on, buying other bundles from other banks that they figured weren't as smart as they were. Unfortunately, when the whole rotten dance ground to a halt and the banks examined what they had bought from each other, they discovered that they had all been engaged in the same confidence trick and had happily been shafting each other all along. Nice try Mr.Hammond, but the old Tory trick of blaming the victim won't wash here and is nothing more than sheer hypocrisy.