Friday, 31 August 2012

IS MITT ROMNEY ON OR OFF-SHORE?

LETTER TO THE GUARDIAN – TAXING THE RICH

TAPEWORMS SECRETLY FEED IN HUMAN GUTS

The Lib-Dem's vague, ephemeral, seasonal, mystical, unfocused, uncosted, thoughtless calls for taxes on all our homes* and UK savings, without regard for the very damaging consequences, are lazy, myopic and deeply flawed. (“Nick Clegg and the big questions for all of us” – Guardian Letters 31 AUG 12).

Such taxes would drive half the cash-starved population into greater debt and have them pay twice or thrice for investing in our national fixed assets.

The political elite and their ivy-league school chums have hidden all the surplus money offshore. Does this include Mitt Romney? There is $21 trillion in tax-havens. It is growing by $1 trillion a year. The tapeworms who suck our economies dry, then lend it back to us, are laughing all the way to the Funny-Money-Banks. Most of this “International-Free-Market” river of tax-free liquidity is siphoned from our pockets by false invoices from pretend companies on potty little islands and in bent jurisdictions such as Delaware. We give tax-relief (20% to 40%) to these back-to-back, fraudulent, sham, illegal transactions. By definition the off-shore wealth is surplus to the needs of the alleged owners.

Who, in the UK, US and EU governments and Courts, hides their family wealth off-shore? It could and should all be repatriated and invested in useful jobs for our children.

YES – tax the rich, but do not, you deluded dummies or creepy conspirators, tax those who invest their wealth in building up their home nations; that is like consuming your own vital organs.

Noel Hodson

(Mr) Noel Hodson OXFORD, UK

* NB - It is nonsense to say that "Homes increase in value and confer surplus wealth without effort". Prices of UK homes rise no more rapidly than Shares, Cars, Food, Laptop Computers, etc etc. A typical UK family invests up to 80% of their after-tax wages into their home (purchase price, 25 years mortgage interest, business overdrafts lost, personal secured loans, repairs, maintenance, improvements, local taxes, death-duties etc). Because they are fixed - and because debt-free homes are mostly owned by defenceless pensioners - and because taxing homes seems a simple, lazy way to pay for government - they make an easy target. The real economic consequences of a significant tax on home values would be catastrophic for any OECD economy. Deny people the value of their homes and it would de-motivate a major part of the economy. Dumb, dumber and dumbest thinking. Get your minds working.

Thursday, 30 August 2012

STOP LOAN SHARKS

“Above all, the rates charged by high-cost credit companies often do not reflect any economic rate, meaning one that reflects competition in the market or the cost of lending. That is why rates vary so substantially, from 4,500% with Wonga to a mere 2,500% with Uncle Buck, 1,700% with Kwik Cash or 1,200% with PaydayUK. There is simply a lack of competition in the market to drive the price down in the way Ministers expect.” Stella Creasy MP – House of Commons - UK: on Loan Sharks, May 2012

To free oppressed families caught in debt traps, support a global 5% Cap, now, today. The financial sector is the most overmanned and inneficient industry of all; using 1/20th of the entire workforce to do what 5 IBM mainframes could do. Thus, the price of money is far too high - from 16% -30% credit cards upwards to 4,000% on pay-day loans. The money-economy is as expensive as all national health (private and state) services.

The loan-sharks BUY money at 0.5% and SELL it at up to 9,000 times the cost. The borrowers earn less than a living wage and so are locked into inescapable debt. This is indentured slavery. It is immoral. It is evil. It is against all world religions. It mocks natural justice.

Reducing interest to fair levels will reduce all prices of all goods by 25% and boost the global economy.

Sign our Avaaz global petition for a 5% per year Cap on interest & charges.

5% per annum cap on all interest rates & charges

Tuesday, 28 August 2012

DON'T LISTEN TO YOUR MOTHER - ON MONT BLANC

Growing Up - Evolution

I watched a TV documentary on climbing the North Face of the Eiger. Since 1900, incredibly brave men (mostly men) have climbed that precipitous, 4,000 metres (13,000 feet) sunless, icy wall and triumphed or died. Many have died. Typically they formed teams, spent weeks at base camp – a five star hotel – and took 3 to 18 days to make the ascent. They slept on The Face; they froze on The Face; they despaired in the terrible weather and snowfields on The Face; they were rescued from The Face – and some triumphed over The Face; and were filmed from the 5 star hotel by the world’s media.

Coming down is far easier; there are two relatively safe, relatively gentle ridges on the south side. No-one HAS to climb up and overcome the terrors of The North Face. But many do. Over about 90 years, wise, grizzled, heroic patriarchs of the mountain climbing world have mapped the way – defined the methods – built up the laws – scorned the ill-prepared – and they have lived. For nearly a century they passed on their hard won, received wisdom.

Until 2008. In 2008 a lone Swiss climber, a carpenter from Interlaken called Ueli Steck, who clearly hadn’t been to mountaineering school, knew nothing of the ninety years of painfully learned experience, and who never listened to what his mother told him – ran up the North Face. He ran up, from the base, alone, with a little knapsack, a coil of rope, spiked crampons and an ice-axe in each hand. He ran up the North Face in 2 hours and 47 minutes. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xdHlyjM_8_E

Ueli Strek - 2012 - Swiss Mountaineer
who did not listen to his mother &
ran up The Eiger in 2 hrs 47 minutes.

Ueli did not know that he could not ascend The North Face, alone, at speed; starting after breakfast, after a civilised 9am breakfast – and getting back for afternoon tea. He did not know that the learned experts knew it was impossible. So – SURPRISE - he just ran up the mountain. What can you just do?

This tale has many lessons for the human race and every individual person. “They” are not always right. Tweak a few molecules in the space before your eyes – and things do change. The impossible becomes possible. Soon, everyone is doing it and seeing it differently. This is evolution.

Is it coincidence or synchronicity that in the same years, dreamers, cartoonists, film and image makers, reared on the a-sexual, androgynous, fiercely bachelor and spinster, solo, lonesome, and improbably muscular Superheroes of the Marvel Comics – from 2008 to 2012 have infused their childhood heroes with adult passions – including kissing? I think not. This too is evolution. Teens and Adults enjoy sex. It is inspiring. And can be fun. Ask Prince Harry.

Monday, 27 August 2012

NOAH'S FLOOD - 2012-25

Mrs Trellis of North Wales tweeted to challenge the science of my forecast of flooding due to a sea-level rise of 300ft (113 metres). Politically cautious scientists in 2008, using data collected in 2007, calculated in Scientific American magazine, partial melting as 231 feet (64 metres). I do not need to be so politically cautious, so I calculated the main Greenland and Antarctica land-ice masses - which comes to 300 feet. So, unless the World immediately installs our FOODTUBES transport to save 16% of global warming gases, and takes other major measures, you are strongly advised to move to higher ground.

Mrs Trellis lives safely at 1,200 feet in Snowdonia.

http://www.noelhodson.com/index_files/foodtubes-sponsors.htm

LONDON FLOODS

NO TAX OFFSHORE.

Economists seeking the $21 trillion Offshore

Your view guardian.co.uk, Friday 24 August 2012 23.00 BST

It is surprising that none of the economists proffering advice to UK Chancellor George Osborne reflected that the Real Economy has never been more productive or created more wealth; nor that $21 trillion of the liquidity missing from the Money Economy is withheld in tax havens by a fraction of 1% of the OECD populace, and could be quickly repatriated by applying existing back-duty tax laws. There is no shortage of goods or cash. The essential problem is fair distribution. The offshore rich must be persuaded or forced to invest in their home economies. We live in interesting and dangerous times.

Noel Hodson, Oxford

TAX AND ECONOMICS ARTICLES 29TH APR 13

Friday, 24 August 2012

FLOOD ALERT

The only practical urgent question we need ask about global warming is “Are the ice-caps melting?”

Who or what caused it, how, why and when? are interesting questions for leisurely academic research, analysis and discussion.

The answer from the latest news today is YES. The ice-caps at the North Pole are melting, at an unprecedented rate. More precisely, the Arctic sea-ice (ice already floating on the sea) is disappearing rapidly in the summer melt. This melting will not make the sea-level rise. But, the sea-ice acts as a brake on the slippage of land based ice glaciers from the mountains in Greenland, Alaska, Canada, Siberia and Russia. On these land masses the permafrost is melting. Under the glaciers, which in Greenland for example are up to a mile deep or high, water is running at an unprecedented rate. The ice slides on the water – down to the sea – and as the glaciers thin out and break-up the sea-level does rise.

None of this was supposed to happen for another 100 years. It is happening now.

What it means for people living on the coastal margins, 80% of the world’s population, is an unplanned retreat up to higher land. How high and when?

I calculated the first question for my book Out of the Depths, “…when the 2.2 million square kilometres of snow and ice, rising up to a mile high on Greenland melts, sea level will rise dramatically. When the 13.8 million square kilometres, rising up to 3 miles high on Antarctica also melts – the sea will rise by about 300 ft (113 metres).” The North Pole land ice, on Greenland, will melt first and contribute about 1/7^th of the increase – that is 43 feet (16 metres). Adding in the Canadian and Russian Arctic glaciers, the rise will be higher.

My novel tracks families in London and New York escaping the rising waters – and how they do or don’t survive. Read an Amazon E-copy now.

http://www.amazon.co.uk/OUT-THE-DEPTHS-future-ebook/dp/B007MB9ZHY/ref=sr_1_3?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1332506674&sr=1-3

To check your district, download Google Earth (free) and zone in on your neighbourhood map; at the bottom of the screen is a tiny Height above Sea-Level measure that varies as the cursor moves across high and low land. It will show you your home's height above sea-level.

When will the waters invade? I have tracked the scientific reports for 20 years. The forecasts have gone from rises of millimetres in hundreds of years to metres in tens of years. I think the sea is rising faster than any forecast yet published. Ask your local mayor what the contingency plans are.

Though the novel Out of the Depths is pessimistic, the follow up novel AD2516-After Global Warming tells us that the chaos and changes were all worthwhile. AD2516 looks back at the course of global warming and forecasts a great future for mankind and womankind. They are both enjoyable dramatic readable tales – based in scientific and socio-economic reality. I really do think this is our future.

Thursday, 23 August 2012

BIG BROTHER IS WATCHING YOU

John Kampfer, Google’s new adviser on freedom of expression, writes in today’s Guardian and warns of covert machinations at ITU – The International Telecommunications Union, Geneva http://www.itu.int – that could usher in intrusive Internet surveillance and censorship by repressive governments. His warnings should be taken seriously. http://www.jkampfner.net/profile.html

These cautionary warnings are reinforced by Jerry Brito, founder of WCIT-Leaks, who is a senior research fellow at the Mercatus Center at George Mason University. WCITleaks.org (no relation to Julian Assange) publishes “secret” papers being discussed at ITU – by China, Russia, Uzbekistan, UK, USA and many others. http://wcitleaks.org/

My direct experience from 1988 to 2000, of European based political co-operation for telecoms, was only good. I witnessed the European Union knitting 20 or 30 countries together, sweeping aside hundreds of national and corporate boundaries and local cartels, and enabling Joe Public to auto-dial from Reykjavik to Rome at low cost. Previously, calls from e.g. Lyons to Manchester had to be booked hours in advance via awkward operators, routed via New York, and cost a fortune. The original Internet governing body is USA based ICANN that has freely authorised our Internet addresses for decades; making it open to all comers – even to evil world dictators. http://www.icann.org/

However, bureaucrats and lunatics the world over are utterly determined to censor free speech and to impose their narrow or insane philosophies on us all. This month, UK politicians and civil-servants are hell bent on snooping on all the tele-communications of every citizen – and storing them indefinitely. As the arch-bureaucrat Cardinal Richelieu said “Give me six lines written by the hand of the most honest of men and I will find something in them which will hang him”.

Governments and rules change and old files are unforgiving. How do you feel about globally enforced Sharia Law ruling the Internet?

So what precautions can we take against the inevitable grinding oppression of bureaucratic control of our e-lives, as governments intercept satellites, cables, main-frames, routers and switches? It is NOW and immediately that the major commercial beneficiaries of internet technologies, some of them the richest companies ever created, should invent and commission the next internet, the free-internet, INTERNET-TWO. It needs to be wireless, cell organised, locally powered, truly networked with a million alternative loops for every blockade, and it needs to be repairable by nerds, anoraks and school kids. The countervailing forces of intelligent freedom are currently just as powerful as the sullen oppressive mad-bad institutions. It is now these free-agents and we must act. Bring on the electronic innovators and geniuses – before the world’s creativity is strangled by paranoid, hostile, anti-life surveillance and censorship, taking us into the Dark Ages of the 22^nd Century.

http://wcitleaks.org/

http://www.itu.int/en/Pages/default.aspx

http://www.itu.int/

http://www.indexoncensorship.org/tag/john-kampfner/

http://www.jkampfner.net/profile.html

http://www.icann.org/

Tuesday, 21 August 2012

BULLIED ON NEWSNIGHT - JULIAN ASSANGE

I rarely write on subjects that I have not studied for at least a few decades and that I have no informed opinions about, such as the Julian Assange case, which I have not followed.

Sofia Willen - Anna Ardin

But in the interests of honesty, sanity and reassuring myself about my powers of incidental recall – I just checked my memories of what really happened in the beds, in Sweden, in August 2010, because Joan Smith, for the prosecution, aided by a finger wagging accusatory Gavin Esler, the BBC TV Newsnight presenter, (who both seemed to have been in those sinful crime soaked beds, closely observing every move of Mr Assange’s privy parts, so certain were they of their grounds) accused and silenced mild mannered whistleblower and former British ambassador to Uzbekistan Craig Murray, of “NAMING RAPE VICTIMS” as if he himself was there and then raping the alleged, up till then anonymous virginal Swedish victims. Mr Murray protested that most political whistle-blowers, including himself, are shortly after blowing the whistle falsely accused of heinous, publicly hated crimes, such as paedophilia, rape and jay-walking. In this case Ms A & Ms B had been named, on TV and interviewed many times – and therefore he was blameless of causing them stress or hurt; which is what I recalled. So I checked.

http://dissenter.firedoglake.com/2012/08/20/assange-accuser-named-by-former-british-ambassador-supporter-on-bbc-show/

And as the silver haired mild mannered Craig Murray averred, the two ladies had continued their friendly relationships with Mr Assange after the alleged offences and only one or two weeks later had they got together to lodge complaints - which at the time triggered wide media speculation that the ladies were CIA plants. They are, as Mr Murray claimed, all over the internet.

Will Gavin Esler apologise?

DNA STORES YOUR LIFE

UPDATE 16 Jan 2016 - New Scientist - Karin Ljubic Fister, University Medical Centre, Slovenia has encoded messages into the DNA of plants and seeds - which can be read-back. She foresees "A simple tree could provide all the educational data a child anywhere in the world could need".
I ask - Does DNA already carry the archive of all life, since the beginning? If DNA can carry so much data, and bearing in mind the persistent legibility of very weak signals from outside our solar system, is it possible that our, indeed all, electromagnetic signals are archived and encoded in wave form, across the universe?

Do read this TIME MAGAZINE report (below) in full. Harvard Medical School has data-stored a book on a strand of DNA – the unimaginably small biological living double-helix that stores and transmits your and my life patterns and the patterns for all living things from bacteria to plants to whales. Made of just four chemicals, classified as acids, Deoxyribonucleic acid, or DNA is the ultimate compact life seed. The two helical strands separate to enable reproduction and thus new life, conferring unique identity on each life form – and on us humans.

Wiki-Answers say a strand of DNA, weighs 6.5 picograms (one trillionth of a gram) per cell and we humans have 6 grams to 60 grams of DNA each. The Harvard scientists calculate one gram of DNA can hold 455 billion gigabytes of data. A modern laptop or desktop PC holds about 500 gigabytes – on a 4 sq inch disk metal-coating weighing 2.4 micrograms (2.4 millionths of a gram) or 208 gigabytes per gram; So – in gigabytes per gram – DNA 455,000,000,000 /PC 208 = 2,187,500,000 or DNA is 2.1 billion times more efficient. And it lasts for 3.5 billion years.

Living DNA is not fixed. It is now known to constantly change, to alter its sequences, in response to external pressures. It survives legibly in criminal cases, Egyptian Mummies and ancient rocks for millions of years. We may not need to look any further for a dynamic medium capable of faithfully recording our every thought and motion throughout our existence. We exchange DNA and its mass of data in crowds, in our breaths, in water, in food, in waste at all times. It is minuscule and ubiquitous.

And yet the equally legible and coherent electro-magnetic signals, the stuff of the universe, that underlie all matter, including DNA, are orders of magnitude smaller, longer lived, greater travellers and even more packed with data. We and all things continually contribute to and receive this in-formation data at all times – until the End of Days. Beneath DNA is the Aether-Matrix, the electro-magnetic field, which holds the ever-evolving ultimate dynamic seeds of life, the universe and everything.

Time magazine.

http://newsfeed.time.com/2012/08/20/the-first-book-to-be-encoded-in-dna/

“Part of DNA’s genius is just how conspicuously small it is: so dense and energy efficient that one gram of the stuff can hold 455 billion gigabytes. Four grams could in theory hold every scrap of data the entire world produces in a year. Couple this with a theoretical lifespan of 3.5 billion years and you have a revolution in data storage, with wide ranging implications for the amount of information we could record and store.”

Saturday, 18 August 2012

WHO “LOST” $3 TRILLION?

The £90 million a year spent by The City of London on lobbying seems to reach deep into Westminster. The Treasury Select Committee, chaired by an ostrich-like Conservative MP with severe memory loss, has the brass-neck cheek or outright stupidity today to shoot the Governor of The Bank of England for withdrawing support from Barclay’s top directors and ousting Bob Diamond. Apologists planted in government still have the gall to say “The City is a Major Asset for the UK”.

YOU LOST THE LOT – YOU DUMBOS! They parrot this deception despite the fact that The City in 2009 lost £52,000 for every household in the UK; totalling $1.3 trillion – in one year. If UK.Gov had not guaranteed ALL bank deposits, The City would have happily squandered all the savings of everyone, seen banks go bust – and would start up again with the same repetitive lies. A similar level of loss was suffered by every household in the USA. Where did those trillions of dollars go? Every Debit entry has an equal Credit entry. Who benefitted?

Is it coincidence, cock-up or conspiracy that the vast River of Off-Shore funds, the Free Markets, rose by $3 trillion from 2009 to 2012 - from $18 trillion to $21 trillion? Is that where our money has gone – via The City and Wall Street?

We have had enough of being managed by morons. Sack every City grandee who operated from 1980 to date – and track and repatriate our money from the tax-havens. Do it now - and invest it in the real economy to create jobs and industry.

Thursday, 16 August 2012

HOW HEAVY IS THE HIGGS BOSON?

THE HIGGS BOSON

I have been asked several times "What does a Higgs weigh?" Here's my attempt to measure it in normal, everday terms.

HOW SCIENCE SEES IT - The Higgs Boson is thought to be the unit of energy in an approximately atom sized sphere of 70 trillionths of a meter.

The Higgs boson weighs about 115MeV/C² to 125MeV/C². In English, these are 115 million electron volts to 125 million electron volts each divided by 90 thousand trillion (the speed of light squared).

HOW COOKS SEE IT - In ordinary kitchen units, grams, each Higgs Boson weighs:

From 0.000,000,000,000,000,000,000,205,010,000 grams

Up to 0.000,000,000,000,000,000,000,222,830,000 grams

(about 2 thousand, billion, billionths of one gram)

...so not very large or heavy. In fact, very, very, very small. But the Higgs are about 134 times as large as protons (which are at the heart /nucleus of atoms alongside neutrons). All the “Higgs Bosons” in the entire universe link with each other to make “The Higgs Field”. A field has no parts so each Higgs Boson permeates the whole universe. Remember that a boson is in the super-light-weight photon and electron family. Remember that light (photons) and electricity (electrons) are of the same electro-magnetic spectrum, along with Infra-Red, X-Rays and Microwaves etc - all of which we amateurs refer to as LIGHT. Visible light (rainbows) is a small part of the whole spectrum.

IN ORDINARY MEASURES - Let's say to make some sugared donuts to eat weighing 125 grams (about 1/4lb, 4.5 ounces, of delicious, deep-fried and sugar coated carbo-hydrates) would need the equivalent weight of

560,965,758,650,092,000,000,000
Higgs Bosons. That's 561-Thousand-Billion-Billion Higgs Bosons will weigh the same as your plate of donuts. And, YES, the Higgs would be in there, making up the weight of the donuts. If it is confirmed to exist, The Higgs is in or around every atom.

WILL THE HIGGS FIELD SUFFER HEAT-DEATH?

HIGGS FOR KIDS - MORE HIGGS BOSONS

HIGGS TO HOUSE-BRICKS

HIGGS BOSON DIES

HIGGS BOSON EXPLAINED - 2

www.noelhodson.com/index_files/Life-Universe-Everything-8Mar2011.pdf

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7dmvCsQly2c

Science further reading

http://www.lightandmatter.com/html_books/lm/ch36/ch36.html#Section36.3

HIGGS BOSON AND CUSTARD

GRAVITY AND IMMORTALITY

THE HIGGS BOSON & MRS TRELLIS OF NORTH WALES

HOW HEAVY IS THE HIGGS BOSON?

NEVER PAY TAX EVER AGAIN!

Tax planning is now open to all UK (and USA, Pacific Rim & EU) taxpayers; to the employed, self-employed, corporate, charities, family-trusts and everyone. All you need do is spend £100 to buy a limited company, John Smith (Guernsey) Ltd, (see Exchange & Mart) and a £10 brass plaque on the wall at Trafalgar Court, St Peter’s Port, Guernsey, appoint one of Guernsey’s 65,000 people as your agent for ½ hour a year for £20 – and that’s it – you need never pay UK taxes again.

Then we all just pretend. If for example you are John Smith, employed at BMW-Mini, Cowley, Oxford on £38,000 a year, you make up a piece of paper saying your services are provided by John Smith (Guernsey) Ltd and the employer pays you in your off-shore bank account. No VAT (sales tax), no PAYE income tax deductions, no national insurance deductions, no pension deductions – ever again. You spend £120 and get tax-free income. You get your salary (Oops sorry, I mean Fees) gross. All you need do is pretend you make business decisions in Guernsey (or the Isle of Man or State of Delaware – whichever you prefer). Get some pals together – ten or twenty of you and share the company. With a hundred people the tax-free "fees" would be £3,800,000.

In the bad old days – before The Free International Markets – some pedantic, old, miserable, class-envious tax inspectors would call it False Accounting, or Fraudulent Conspiracy; or argue that the transactions are Not Commercial, Not at Arms Length, Insider Dealing, Not Necessary for The Business, A Sham, an Employment Contract By Any Other Name – and therefore should be ignored for tax purposes and taxed in the UK. Your pretences would trigger a very costly Back-Duty-Tax-Case that you would lose. You might go to jail.

But in this liberal age – the knowledge society – the international era, it is, as every TV, newspaper and magazine journalist* repeatedly says – “All Perfectly Legal”. If you have any doubts, watch the Channel 4 Dispatches 9^th July 2012 film, Secrets of the Taxman, and see that everyone is doing it – even the members of the Board of The Inland Revenue (now HMRC). If you get a tax demand, just take Dave Hartnett, Head of HMRC, for a drink – and the demand might mysteriously diminish or even vanish. Ask Harry Redknapp or your local MP or Judge or TV presenter how its done - it's magic - and brush up on your acting skills – its really, really, really simple.

http://www.channel4.com/programmes/dispatches/articles/secrets-of-the-taxman-clips

(Most off-shore schemes are legal in the tax-havens but NOT in the UK /USA etc. Off-shore banks, agents, lawyers etc may abscond with your money. *Most media journalists and politicians haven’t a clue about tax-law and parrot their views because they fiddle their own taxes off-shore. Money can go down as well as up. Follow this advice on your own responsibility and at your greatest peril. I personally think it is a massive, pervasive fraud and advise all to “move your money on-shore” before the tax-collectors get you)

http://www.channel4.com/info/press/news/hmrc-directors-connected-to-potential-tax-avoidance

HMRC directors connected to potential tax avoidance

Friday, 10 August 2012

BANKERS' I.Q. - WHOSE THE DUMMY?

UPDATE - 8th October 2014.

Rather than learn to add-up and take-away or take any responsibility whatsoever, despite their mega "rewards", senior HSBC bankers Alan Thomson (Audit Committee) and John Trueman (UK Deputy Chairman) have resigned; in fear of new rules of conduct from the UK's financial regulators the PRA and FCA, which include possible prison sentences for "reckless conduct" (gross stupidity) that might crash London's banks again. How can they afford to give up work? The phrases "obscenely overpaid" and " rats leaving a sinking ship" leap to mind.

10th August 2012 - Banking Clowns:
“Hello! You will find this hard to believe, but my name is Mr Totally Utterly Stupid and I’m an International Banker in charge of trillions and trillions of transactions and thingamajigs and suchlike, every day, all over the world; I’m paid huge amounts of money, so much that I don’t bother to count it. I’m one of new Masters of the Universe, the cash aristocrats who run the world.

That’s not the bit that’s hard to believe; Oh No! What most of you whining wage earning peasants find difficult to believe is that I haven’t a clue what’s going on. But it is true. I don’t know anything about global finance. I don’t have a clue what position my hugely important international transborder bank is in; and justifiably so. Our Balance Sheets are very, very, very complicated. You just try reading one – and you tell me what it means. I think you’ll admit it needs a lot of adding up and subtracting, some of it in one’s head, to comprehend. Very hard work. You’d have to pay me much more money; a huge, huge, huge bonus to take one of those home as bed-time reading. Very rich people like me don’t expect to have to work.

And thus, you can see that it stands to reason that I can’t have the faintest clue what other international very, very, complicated banks are doing, either. And as for the BIG PICTURE… Well! Who is going to even try to read all the numbers of all the banks, at the same time, altogether. There’s no need. We know when its OK when we get our massive tax-free rewards at Christmas – and we know it’s not OK when the global system collapses, dopey old taxpayers stump up a few more trillion, and we still get our bonuses; with a bit of a ticking off from the jolly strict Regulators. Cue my colleague:”

“Thank you Totally Utterly Stupid and Hello everyone. I am Mr Reprehensibly Stupid, a fearsomely alert national regulator of the financial system. You pay me not very much, less than a million a year, for keeping things in order. But I was brought up in the same school as all the bankers – and told it is rude to point – and even ruder to ask pointed questions. I am not a rude man; so I don’t ask any questions. I don’t like to look at any banks’ Balance Sheet, without an invitation – and I would never look over the fence at what is happening in other countries. How rude would that be! And what hard work! I know that everything is ship-shape when my banker friends tell me it’s alright. I know things have gone wrong when nations collapse and millions of the hoi-polloi lose their tedious little jobs and mobile homes and so on. Then my bosses smack me on the wrist with a wet flannel, wait a month, then give me a hug and a bonus. In brief – I know nothing. It’s all very secret and confidential. And long may it stay that way.”

This pantomime is my reaction to the announcement in New Scientist, 11 August 2012, Page 6, Special Report/ Global Finance, The Meltdown Forecasters, that contrary to what I have assumed for 30 years, really, really, really is not so. NOBODY compiles the global financial positions on a daily basis in real-time and uses them to forecast crises. NOBODY is looking. The world of finance flies blind – through the storms and fogs without instruments. And guess what? They crash. What the F*** are we paying them for if they can’t even do basic bookkeeping and cash-flow forecasts. Why are we employing these sanguine clowns at immense cost to “manage” the Money-Economy – and our lives?

The NS article ends with “Someone needs to keep track of the big picture”, says Laura Kodres, chief of the IMF’s global financial division. Until then another financial meltdown could be just around the corner.”

How about you Laura? Get the damned data onto those IBM main-frames and start compiling. Publish the Global Daily Balance Sheet next month. It isn’t rocket science – just plain old simple bookkeeping. Get on with it! Or pay Google to do it. NOW!

MONEY WARS
END OF LOAN SHARKS?
MARK CARNEY - MONEY-WARS
ECONOMIC REFORM ARTICLES