A major Wall Street bank has released a piece of research which [inter alia] warns that the advent of a Corbyn-led Labour government in the UK would potentially have a more calamitous impact on London share prices that would 'Hard Brexit'. The markets have balanced out the 'risk' arising to future profits from firms if the government totally cocks-up the Brexit negotiations with the actual fall in the pound among world currencies and the day-to-day performance of the listed companies. The level of the stock market index would fall in the event of failure; but the possibility is factored in to buyers' calculations. On the other hand, the imponderable impact on the market of Corbyn actually becoming prime minister is inestimable. How far he would cling to his lifelong Marxist dogma [and how far his party would follow him there] cannot be predicated on any known basis of probability. Thus, the bank argues, there might be no 'floor' below which British stock prices would fall. Consequently, the Wall Street Crash of 1929 might be replicated, or even exceeded, once panic sets in among dealers who have no precedent for such a change in government to be assessed against.
The very worst case is a catastrophic Brexit followed by a collapse of the present government and the anointing of Mr Corbyn to preside over the chaos, while John McDonnell would try to enact some of his socialist plans. This is no longer an impossibility, with Dr Fox, Mr Davis and Boris Johnson working so hard to achieve the disaster that they cannot understand.
Meanwhile, the vicious charade of bitcoin continues. The 'price' of this nonentity is continuing to rise, giving strength to some of the unknown number of hundreds of other cryptocurrencies that are now on offer. An ever-wider range of investors, fearful of the very high level to which the world's leading stock indeces have climbed, have 'diversified' some of their holdings into these fanciful 'assets'. Some expect that [whatever they may say now] the central banks might have to buy cryptocurrencies to prop up the market: as they have propped up derivatives and other bets that existed before the crash in 2008. If the central banks do shore up the whole rotten fantasy, the real-world economy will be hammered even harder than it has been since 2008.
The prospect for Britain, host to the London market, is especially hazardous. Warren Buffer called derivatives 'weapons of mass destruction' but they have have been protected and the market in them has continued to grow. The traders in, and owners of, those assets remain complacent: that is what gives confidence to the cryptocurrency speculators. Real people have good cause to be worried; and Corbyn's communist-inspired views give no reassurance at all.
Showing posts with label Davis. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Davis. Show all posts
Tuesday, 28 November 2017
Thursday, 5 October 2017
What Brexit? What Price?
The future of Mrs May as the Prime Minister is being much discussed this morning, while her distress in delivering her conference speech yesterday was so awfully exposed on television and excessively discussed on all the media almost as soon as the coughing began. She was 'escorted' from the platform by her husband, and one could pause to ask how she would have been able to walk without his immense support. The scene was one of extreme [and most unfortunate] personal stress, exacerbated by the security failure that allowed the 'prankster' - as the media all-too-quickly dubbed him - to hand her a sheet of paper. Boris Johnson could have secured his future as leader by grabbing the man by the collar and frogmarching him towards the exit, but in the stress of the moment he merely [weakly] tried to wave him away.
The whole episode was sad.
But it was also shameful.
If Mrs May and Mr Hammond have agreed to spend £2 billion on more social housing [of what kinds, where, when?] they must have an idea how much they are going to offer to the European Union in the next round of Brexit talks. Mrs May should have told us. Just as she should have made her 'Florence speech' in the House of Commons last spring, she should have regarded her speech yesterday as the very final chance to share her thinking with the electorate on the uppermost issue of the day. The reaction of the EU Commission, Council and Parliament to the imprecision of the Florence proposition should, surely, have impressed even on Johnson and David Davis [though perhaps not yet on Liam Fox] the understanding that waffle never had its day, and is now deeply irritant to the rest of the European Union.
It is legitimate to say that resolving the question of the Irish border is inseparable from the resolution of the question what sort of economic border it is going to be; which can only be decided when the question of Britain's membership of the European Economic Area is determined. But the Irish question would be much easier to set aside until a later stage in negotiations if the British government would clearly articulate its hopes in that area.
On the other two questions that the EU insist must be close to resolution before the wider issue of trade is discussed, the answers must be simple. Davis has implied his acceptance of the two-year transitional period, Johnson has specifically agreed to his version of that, and Philip Hammond has advocated it consistently and strongly.
For two years after March, 2019, the existing rights of EU citizens in the UK will remain as they are, with the European Court as the ultimate arbiter. After March 2021 a new relationship must be agreed; and here Mrs May - as a 'failed' Home Secretary - apparently has a serious hang-up. The UK has been willing to make laws which allow US courts to require the extradition of British citizens to the United States to stand trial for alleged offences committed while the Brit [usually, but not always, a geeky young male who has developed perverse software or algorithms] was safely located back home; usually in the back bedroom. This has always seemed to me to be an amazing concession, which puts the British courts in the role of part of the supply chain to the US Justice System. Surely, something similar can be devised for EU citizens in the UK, and for UK citizens in the EU, after we leave the political union?
This then leaves the most basic issue. Does Brexit automatically mean that the UK MUST leave the single market, and must leave the customs union, and must leave all the agreements on drugs, nuclear control, civil aviation,. research co-operation and a long catalogue of other working agreements whose abrogation would desperately hurt the UK [and which would take decades to replace, once abandoned]? These issues were not specified in the referendum question, which referred solely and specifically to membership of 'the European Union'. The extreme Brexiteers who have taken up the negative position are relatively few in number; and for that very reason, as empty vessels, they are making most noise. They will be opposed massively in the House of Lords; but the Commons is the forum in which the debate will be focused in the end. And here one man can ruin the country on his own: Jeremy Corbyn has been viscerally against the 'club of capitalist states' for decades; and although his party has adopted a sensible stance, he could undermine it on the basis of his antediluvian Marxism. He must be corralled.
Meanwhile, Mrs May's total failure of leadership is now apparent to all. Let the agony end, soon.
The whole episode was sad.
But it was also shameful.
If Mrs May and Mr Hammond have agreed to spend £2 billion on more social housing [of what kinds, where, when?] they must have an idea how much they are going to offer to the European Union in the next round of Brexit talks. Mrs May should have told us. Just as she should have made her 'Florence speech' in the House of Commons last spring, she should have regarded her speech yesterday as the very final chance to share her thinking with the electorate on the uppermost issue of the day. The reaction of the EU Commission, Council and Parliament to the imprecision of the Florence proposition should, surely, have impressed even on Johnson and David Davis [though perhaps not yet on Liam Fox] the understanding that waffle never had its day, and is now deeply irritant to the rest of the European Union.
It is legitimate to say that resolving the question of the Irish border is inseparable from the resolution of the question what sort of economic border it is going to be; which can only be decided when the question of Britain's membership of the European Economic Area is determined. But the Irish question would be much easier to set aside until a later stage in negotiations if the British government would clearly articulate its hopes in that area.
On the other two questions that the EU insist must be close to resolution before the wider issue of trade is discussed, the answers must be simple. Davis has implied his acceptance of the two-year transitional period, Johnson has specifically agreed to his version of that, and Philip Hammond has advocated it consistently and strongly.
For two years after March, 2019, the existing rights of EU citizens in the UK will remain as they are, with the European Court as the ultimate arbiter. After March 2021 a new relationship must be agreed; and here Mrs May - as a 'failed' Home Secretary - apparently has a serious hang-up. The UK has been willing to make laws which allow US courts to require the extradition of British citizens to the United States to stand trial for alleged offences committed while the Brit [usually, but not always, a geeky young male who has developed perverse software or algorithms] was safely located back home; usually in the back bedroom. This has always seemed to me to be an amazing concession, which puts the British courts in the role of part of the supply chain to the US Justice System. Surely, something similar can be devised for EU citizens in the UK, and for UK citizens in the EU, after we leave the political union?
This then leaves the most basic issue. Does Brexit automatically mean that the UK MUST leave the single market, and must leave the customs union, and must leave all the agreements on drugs, nuclear control, civil aviation,. research co-operation and a long catalogue of other working agreements whose abrogation would desperately hurt the UK [and which would take decades to replace, once abandoned]? These issues were not specified in the referendum question, which referred solely and specifically to membership of 'the European Union'. The extreme Brexiteers who have taken up the negative position are relatively few in number; and for that very reason, as empty vessels, they are making most noise. They will be opposed massively in the House of Lords; but the Commons is the forum in which the debate will be focused in the end. And here one man can ruin the country on his own: Jeremy Corbyn has been viscerally against the 'club of capitalist states' for decades; and although his party has adopted a sensible stance, he could undermine it on the basis of his antediluvian Marxism. He must be corralled.
Meanwhile, Mrs May's total failure of leadership is now apparent to all. Let the agony end, soon.
Tuesday, 12 September 2017
Brexit: Farce Slides Into Disaster
I voted for Leave, on three grounds:
1. I was sure the Remain side would win; but if a strong minority voted to Leave that would provide a check on the political class in the UK and in the EU,
2. The Cameron-Clegg-Osborne policy of austerity was ruinous, economically and in its effect on social cohesion: so a strong opposition vote might cause a rethink;
3. In a despairing sort of way, I wanted to register my opposition to a European super-state.
When the result was announced, I was far from ecstatic: I then began to wonder how a post-Cameron government, inevitably to be led by Tory Remainers, would package the obvious outcome of withdrawal from the political EU institutions while remaining in the safety of the Economic Community. When Mrs May won the leadership, my hopes of any sensible outcome were smashed by her idiotic mouthing of the phrase 'Brexit means Brexit'. It was her job to suggest what Brexit might mean, in sensible political terms, and to lead her party to persuade the country of that proposition.
Instead, she blundered into the destructive notion that the vote implied complete withdrawal from all aspects of the EU. Which was soon to be modified by the recognition that from the daily business of air travel to the essentials of nuclear controls and commerce, there had to be continuity. Meanwhile, she appointed three ministers who were Levers to make and execute policy: Johnson to talk political waffle [his forte], Davis to 'get us out' and Fox to chase the chimera of compensating trade deals with the rest of the world as we left the EU.
Johnson has continued to talk nonsense, and has progressively diminished what reputation he had for intelligence behind his 'wit'. Fox has had very little to do, except propagate his fantasies, latterly helped by an imported 'negotiator' from New Zealand who expresses extreme isolationist views [based on the very different experience of New Zealand, which was cut adrift by Britain's slide into the EEC, then the EU: and saved by the rise of China as an importer country] that have no relevance to the situation of the UK in 2021.
Davis, meanwhile, says that the British people did not vote for confusion: but that is what now faces us. I have assiduously read the largely off-beam papers prepared by hard-driven civil servants for dim, obsessed ministers, that collectively do not add up to a coherent guide to anything. Britain has no recognisable policy.
And now, the Commons has voted for the bizarre power-grab of the Bill that they passed last night; by a clear majority.
Failing governments in failed states take up the power to rule by decree; then become increasingly dogmatic in their assertions of their rectitude as freedom is circumscribed and the economy collapses. This is the situation in Venezuela: so Mr Corbyn will understand what is going on as aspires to take over in the United Kingdom.
There is a slim chance that Tory Remainers - surely, still a majority of the party's MPs - will recognise the need to revolt; otherwise, the last hope for democracy would have to be fought out in the House of Lords early next year.
My vote was insignificant in leading to this outcome: but I do share in the post facto responsibility for the irresponsibility of the government that has followed it.
1. I was sure the Remain side would win; but if a strong minority voted to Leave that would provide a check on the political class in the UK and in the EU,
2. The Cameron-Clegg-Osborne policy of austerity was ruinous, economically and in its effect on social cohesion: so a strong opposition vote might cause a rethink;
3. In a despairing sort of way, I wanted to register my opposition to a European super-state.
When the result was announced, I was far from ecstatic: I then began to wonder how a post-Cameron government, inevitably to be led by Tory Remainers, would package the obvious outcome of withdrawal from the political EU institutions while remaining in the safety of the Economic Community. When Mrs May won the leadership, my hopes of any sensible outcome were smashed by her idiotic mouthing of the phrase 'Brexit means Brexit'. It was her job to suggest what Brexit might mean, in sensible political terms, and to lead her party to persuade the country of that proposition.
Instead, she blundered into the destructive notion that the vote implied complete withdrawal from all aspects of the EU. Which was soon to be modified by the recognition that from the daily business of air travel to the essentials of nuclear controls and commerce, there had to be continuity. Meanwhile, she appointed three ministers who were Levers to make and execute policy: Johnson to talk political waffle [his forte], Davis to 'get us out' and Fox to chase the chimera of compensating trade deals with the rest of the world as we left the EU.
Johnson has continued to talk nonsense, and has progressively diminished what reputation he had for intelligence behind his 'wit'. Fox has had very little to do, except propagate his fantasies, latterly helped by an imported 'negotiator' from New Zealand who expresses extreme isolationist views [based on the very different experience of New Zealand, which was cut adrift by Britain's slide into the EEC, then the EU: and saved by the rise of China as an importer country] that have no relevance to the situation of the UK in 2021.
Davis, meanwhile, says that the British people did not vote for confusion: but that is what now faces us. I have assiduously read the largely off-beam papers prepared by hard-driven civil servants for dim, obsessed ministers, that collectively do not add up to a coherent guide to anything. Britain has no recognisable policy.
And now, the Commons has voted for the bizarre power-grab of the Bill that they passed last night; by a clear majority.
Failing governments in failed states take up the power to rule by decree; then become increasingly dogmatic in their assertions of their rectitude as freedom is circumscribed and the economy collapses. This is the situation in Venezuela: so Mr Corbyn will understand what is going on as aspires to take over in the United Kingdom.
There is a slim chance that Tory Remainers - surely, still a majority of the party's MPs - will recognise the need to revolt; otherwise, the last hope for democracy would have to be fought out in the House of Lords early next year.
My vote was insignificant in leading to this outcome: but I do share in the post facto responsibility for the irresponsibility of the government that has followed it.
Friday, 30 June 2017
Textures of Brexit
I am deeply suspicious of whether the three 'Brexit Ministers' - Fox, Davis and Johnson - have a shared view as to what a 'soft' or a 'hard Brexit' means; or even implies. I am certain that even if the three were to be agreed on this, their mental picture does not match that of Mrs May or of Philip Hammond. Just looking at what those five individuals have said, and trying to discern what they have not said, it is apparent that not all of them want Britain to make a 'hard Brexit', were that term to acquire a reasonably precise definition.
There is clearly open debate within the Parliamentary Labour Party, where the Corbyn-McDonnell line appears to be in favour of some sort of 'hard Brexit', characterised by formal departure from all the European institutions [but somehow staying attached to them] and a group of at least 40 MPs who favour a 'soft Brexit' that would leave Britain within the institutional framework of the 'European Economic Area' but not in the political structures of the European Union [the Commission and the Parliament and all their subsidiary bodies]. The 'hard' and the 'soft' supporters are left high-and-dry on the question of the European Court of Justice, for which a residual role would probably remain under any form of Brexit at least in respect of EU citizens in the UK and vice-versa.
In the nineteenth century there was much debate, much of it of a frivolous nature, about the 'Schleswig-Holstein Question'. Schleswig-Holstein was the southernmost region of Denmark, which Prussia took over in the same sort of way as Putin recently took over the Crimea; though the Danes made more of a fight over the issue than did the present corrupt Ukrainian state over the Crimea. There was endless debate about the historical veracity of Prussia's claim to the territory and [as with Crimea today] in the end the argument that 'might is right' won the day. Lord Palmerston, the British prime minister dismissed a discussion of the rights and wrongs of the case with the remark on the lines that "Only three people have ever understood the answer to the question: the Prince Consort, who is dead; a German professor, who has gone mad; and me: and I've forgotten the answer."
Would that any of us could be so flippant about the texture of Brexit that Britain needs, or can afford!
It is quite clear that a government of highly fallible people has no settled idea of how 'hard' or 'soft' a Brexit the British people wants, what sort of Brexit parliament would accept [after how many more elections]; or what sort of Brexit the European Union will let us have. Meanwhile, the clock is ticking down to the two-year deadline in March 2019.
Whilst ignoring the nuances summarised above, the glorious Tim Martin the creator of JD Wetherspoon and his pub chain uses the forward of his Summer Magazine to make a simple, true and alarming point. The majority of Brits voted to leave the EU, but the remoaners don't want it to happen. The opponents of any Brexit are Oxbridge graduates and other categories of citizens who separate themselves from the 'real' ethnically-sound British people. Martin does not use the term, but he refers to 'the Establishment'.
There is a widespread fear that if the discussion haver on for two years without any conclusion and with a hung parliament that is heavily weighted towards a 'soft' Brexit, the 'Establishment' - a term that has not much been used for the past generation - will stitch the nation into a sort of relationship of helotry to the European Union: like the Helots in ancient Athens, we will be a subject people of the EU without the rights of full, free citizens of the EU. You just watch!
It will suit the 'softies' to prevent any conclusions being reached within the time frame, in the hope that the EU will then close down the discussion with an offer of terms that the UK will not be able to refuse. Meanwhile, uncomprehending quibbling politicians will take us nowhere.
There is clearly open debate within the Parliamentary Labour Party, where the Corbyn-McDonnell line appears to be in favour of some sort of 'hard Brexit', characterised by formal departure from all the European institutions [but somehow staying attached to them] and a group of at least 40 MPs who favour a 'soft Brexit' that would leave Britain within the institutional framework of the 'European Economic Area' but not in the political structures of the European Union [the Commission and the Parliament and all their subsidiary bodies]. The 'hard' and the 'soft' supporters are left high-and-dry on the question of the European Court of Justice, for which a residual role would probably remain under any form of Brexit at least in respect of EU citizens in the UK and vice-versa.
In the nineteenth century there was much debate, much of it of a frivolous nature, about the 'Schleswig-Holstein Question'. Schleswig-Holstein was the southernmost region of Denmark, which Prussia took over in the same sort of way as Putin recently took over the Crimea; though the Danes made more of a fight over the issue than did the present corrupt Ukrainian state over the Crimea. There was endless debate about the historical veracity of Prussia's claim to the territory and [as with Crimea today] in the end the argument that 'might is right' won the day. Lord Palmerston, the British prime minister dismissed a discussion of the rights and wrongs of the case with the remark on the lines that "Only three people have ever understood the answer to the question: the Prince Consort, who is dead; a German professor, who has gone mad; and me: and I've forgotten the answer."
Would that any of us could be so flippant about the texture of Brexit that Britain needs, or can afford!
It is quite clear that a government of highly fallible people has no settled idea of how 'hard' or 'soft' a Brexit the British people wants, what sort of Brexit parliament would accept [after how many more elections]; or what sort of Brexit the European Union will let us have. Meanwhile, the clock is ticking down to the two-year deadline in March 2019.
Whilst ignoring the nuances summarised above, the glorious Tim Martin the creator of JD Wetherspoon and his pub chain uses the forward of his Summer Magazine to make a simple, true and alarming point. The majority of Brits voted to leave the EU, but the remoaners don't want it to happen. The opponents of any Brexit are Oxbridge graduates and other categories of citizens who separate themselves from the 'real' ethnically-sound British people. Martin does not use the term, but he refers to 'the Establishment'.
There is a widespread fear that if the discussion haver on for two years without any conclusion and with a hung parliament that is heavily weighted towards a 'soft' Brexit, the 'Establishment' - a term that has not much been used for the past generation - will stitch the nation into a sort of relationship of helotry to the European Union: like the Helots in ancient Athens, we will be a subject people of the EU without the rights of full, free citizens of the EU. You just watch!
It will suit the 'softies' to prevent any conclusions being reached within the time frame, in the hope that the EU will then close down the discussion with an offer of terms that the UK will not be able to refuse. Meanwhile, uncomprehending quibbling politicians will take us nowhere.
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