Categories: uncategorized
Date: 23 September 2008 19:45:32
Gordon Brown has announced that this is no time for a novice to take over the leadership of the country. I mean wouldn't it be atrocious if someone else ruined the country?
He is feeling full of himself at the moment. On the weekend he announced that he was a great success at managing the current crisis. No mention of Northern Wreck, the collapse of the money markets, no access to mortgages, rising government debt, falling tax returns and other such calamities.
Of course none of this is specifically his fault. It's all down to the world market, nothing to do with government policy or a failure to regulate the money markets. Even after the collapse of Northern Rock the government has told us that the market will take care of itself, that the system is perfectly safe.
The entire system has been based on recirculating debt - whether private or government. Everyone knows that you can't have more debts than money in circulation. Ok, so I failed A level Economics twice but even I learnt that. At some point the market breaks and down come the banks.
Have you noticed that they are now switching focus onto the bonuses that bankers have awarded themselves? They've also focused on people who speculate by short selling stocks they don't own. Did you hear the governments and regulators complain and urge action? No, you didn't.
They were too busy letting them discover new ways of creating profits and avoiding taxes. After all they contribute so much to the economy and too political parties, opposition and rulers alike. Politicians seem to be too engrossed in listening to bankers tell them how much more they understand the economy and financial markets.
What everyone forgets is how the economy works. It's not the whizkids in the investment banks, stockbrokers, politicians or shareholders that make a difference to our wealth. Everything depends on "sentiment" and rumour, not physical or financial. A rumour can destroy a company quicker than anything else. No matter how much evidence they can provide if enough people believe then down she goes.
History Today:
480BC: The Greeks defeat the Persians at the naval battle of Salamis, thus avenging the destruction of Athens.
1112 : The Papacy and the Holy Roman Empire settle their differences when Pope Calixtus II and Emperor Henry V sign the Concordat of Worms. I'd have used ink.
1779 : The U.S. ship Bonhomme Richard defeats the British ships Serapis and Countess of Scarborough off the east coast of England.
1806 : Lewis and Clark return from the first recorded overland journey from the Mississippi river to the Pacific coast and back. No word on the early journey by Daffydd Jones and Bronwyn Williams 200 years before.
1846 : Johann Galle, a German astronomer, discovers Neptune - it was with the old mints and furry sweets down the sofa.
1932 : Saudi Arabia is formed.
1942 : The 'Manhatten Project' to deliver an atomic bomb begins under the command of US General Leslie R Groves.
1955 : Barbara Mandell becomes the first female newsreader on British TV.
1980 : Bob Marley performs his last concert in Pittsburgh.
2000 : Rower Steven Redgrave wins his fifth Olympic gold medal in consecutive games, the first person to do so.