POOR record for blogging in September I'm afraid and I put that down to the demands placed on me by Freedom (as I always do) and the current financial crisis.
Almost every morning I sat down at my computer and opened the 'new post' page on my blog but after looking at the blank screen for five minutes, closed it and decided to get straight on with working on the British National Party's monthly newspaper.
Here's an exclusive for the visitors of this blog, the first showing on the front page of the October issue of Freedom.
The coverage of the financial crisis has been riveting especially on Channel 4 News and Radio 4's Today programme. At last some of the commentators are discussing the excesses of Wall Street and the City in real terms and not with the fawning tone that has been the norm over the past sixteen years when talking about finance.
There is an interesting solution to the current financial crisis being put forward by one lobby group for bankers. They want all the 'toxic debt' taken out of the system to 'free up liquidity' so that banks can start lending again and people can start spending again and all in order, so they say, to safeguard jobs.
Now I quite like this idea because I have a toxic debit which needs to be taken out of my system so that I can start spending again. Last year we went on a ski-ing holiday which we couldn't afford and paid for part of it on a credit card. For the past nine months I have been paying this debt off and as such have no money left to pay the deposit for my 2009 ski-ing trip. Now if the Government removed this debt and freed up my credit, I could then book my holiday which I shall claim is helping to safeguard jobs at Inghams, the ski travel firm.
But sadly, no one is going to write off my toxic debt so I'm just going to have to pay it back
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Thursday, 2 October 2008
Still here!
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3 comments:
Trouble is, Martin, that your debt is only a miserable couple of hundred. Now if it had been a a couple of hundred million.......
Nice to have you back Martin, a week is a long time in politics and you have had two weeks off from blogging, we have missed your input.
I am in favour of NO wall street bailout. In the short term it may get bad in this country because of the fallout, in the long term prices will become more realisable. What is the point of starting boom and bust all over again. This loan is merely going to paper over the cracks also I feel.
I wonder if the house of representatives will hold their nerve and say no to the bailout this Friday.
Quite a few VoFs have been handed to residents in 2 wards here on Teesside currently being contested for by-elections.
They appear to have been well-received.
Re: current financial crisis, I don't understand it because high finance, i.e. banks, investment etc., I simply don't understand.
As a chemical engineer (ret'd) I do understand basic process economics and plant costing but not the stock market.
But in addition, I do understand that if you keep watering with a watering can and you don't or can't top it up, it will eventually empty out.
I'm not sure that our high-flying financiers do, or if they do, they think they are somehow above the law of conservation of mass, which is as certain as gravity (or death and taxes) - and can be applied to cash, as much as to chemicals.
Interesting that the wealth of the US stock market before the crash of '29 was built on a solid foundation of profits from mining, railroads, oil drilling and refining and heavy industry etc.
The trouble arose (I think) when greed-fuelled speculation far outstripped industrial capacity to sustain further genuine economic growth and prosperity.
Which is sort of unnerving, when you think about the US and UK manufacturing bases now.
I am reminded of what St Paul near the end of his life wrote to his protege Timothy, 1 Timothy 6:9, 10:
"But they that will be rich fall into temptation and a snare, and into many foolish and hurtful lusts, which drown men in destruction and perdition. For the love of money is the root of all evil: which while some coveted after, they have erred from the faith, and pierced themselves through with many sorrows"
But of course that is not 'Gospel' for the City.
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