SEA-LEVEL AND MELTDOWN

photo by IAN JOUGHIN

UPDATE: 27 OCT 2017.

Antarctica "Sea levels forecast to rise 1.3 metres unless coal power ceases by 2050."

Alexander Nauels, University of Melbourne, published in Environmental Research Letters.

2013: One heck of a big ice-cube: There are at least 22 million cubic kilometres of land ice on Antarctica, about 2.5 million cubic kilometres on Greenland and another 2.5 million cubic kilometres on the Arctic polar margins of Siberia, Northern Canada, Alaska and Asia. This is a total of about 27 million cubic kilometres of land based polar ice.  A cubic metre of ice weighs about 900 million tons /tonnes. So, the land based polar ice is at least 27 million cubic kilometres that weigh 24,300,000,000,000,000 tons /tonnes. In English that is 24.3 million, billion tons.    

FLOODS, POLAR ICE CAPS - BLOG ARCHIVE

The latest technical reports in Science, analysed by journalists at Time, National Geographic, ScienceMag,  The Irish Times and most major news media say that is now accepted that the polar ice is now, 1951 to 2011, melting twice as fast as it did from 1900 to 1950, due to global warming. This has two impacts on the sea-level:

First – The higher global temperatures in the oceans expand the water because warm water is less dense than cold water (and rises to the surface).  In  the 111 years from 1900 to 2011, this expansion has increased sea-level by about 0.23mm per year – 25mm, about 1 inch in 111 years.

Second – The land based ice reduction through melting in the past 20 years is estimated to be 255 cubic kilometres weighing 230 billion tons. This has added a meagre 12mm, about ½ inch to the sea-level.

So, not much to worry about, then? “…Well not exactly Mr President.” National Geographic quote reports saying that by year 2100, sea-level will rise by the lowest estimate of 2 metres (6.5 feet) or by the higher estimates of 7 metres (23 feet). The news and analyses of New York’s devastating Hurricane Sandy woke us all up to the fact that storm-surges grow far larger as sea-level rises. The next batch of storms will do more damage.

OUT OF THE DEPTHS – sea level rising.

Forward

The oceans have a surface area of 335 million square kilometres. Antarctica has an area of 13.8 million square kilometres which is 98% covered in ice, with a depth of up to 5 kilometres. Greenland, in the Arctic, has an area of 2.2 million square kilometres, with an ice cap of up to 2.6 kilometres. Should both the Antarctic and Arctic land based ice caps melt, the sea-level would rise 113 metres, or 370 feet.  Eighty percent of all the people in the world live below 300 feet, on the coastal margins. Greater London is all below 300 feet. Florida’s east coast urban areas are below 30 feet.  Manhattan Island rises just 36 feet above the ocean. The infamous settlement of Monmouth Junction in New Jersey is built at 135 feet above sea-level.  The centre of Oxford, England is 200 feet above sea-level. SW2000 Telework Studies 1994.

  

While I don’t want to worry readers unduly, I think all the current published calculations are too conservative and too slow on time scale – by at least ten times. In 1994, long before my interests included polar-meltdown, I was asked to look at polar ice statistics for an environmental transport conference in New Zealand – near’ish to Antarctica. The data showed that if all the polar ice melted, sea-level would rise 113 metres (370 feet). It hasn’t all melted in millions of years, so it is unlikely to all melt now. How fast it is melting is a question with answers that have changed by a factor of 1,000 times in 20 years. I think, from reading scientific reports that the meltdown is happening far, far faster than responsible scientists are publicly reporting.

To set out possible scenarios we have to shift from scientific fact to fiction. The possible futures are scary for all except young, tough, rugged survivalists. The best advice at present for less gymnastic and non-military people is:

MOVE TO HIGHER GROUND.

https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B007MB9ZHY/ref=rdr_kindle_ext_tmb

THE TAXMAN COMETH - NO MORE MR NICE GUY

...TO BE TAKEN TO A PLACE OF EXECUTION
AND HUNG BY THE NECK ...UNTIL DEAD.

The Guardian editorial 29 Nov 12, When bad money drives out good, cites British Virgin Isle (BVI) sham companies, directors, property owners and transactions then repeats the now familiar mantra “…It should be stated clearly that tax avoidance is perfectly legal”.

Before the Guardian is sued by naïve readers from their HMRC or IRS prison cells, who have blithely accepted this oft repeated journalistic nonsense, you should add a legal warning.

A very few tax-haven schemes are, as you imply, for Russian Oligarchs who are not breaking USA / UK laws (they are probably breaking Russian tax laws); BUT most tax-haven companies are owned and controlled by ordinary persons (individual and corporate) tax-resident and tax-domiciled USA/ OECD /UK  and even Greek citizens, in order to evade taxes. The owners twist themselves in knots to pretend they have no control over the assets, to hide their identities, to hide their real addresses (their tax-residency) and to create wildly imaginative transactions that siphon taxable profits, gains, income, salaries, bonuses, dividends, etc. via management charges, loan interest, transfer-pricing etc. And to siphon masses of capital from real, source, commercial activities (in London, Paris, New York etc) to the tax-havens.

TAX AND ECONOMICS ARTICLES 29TH APR 13

These currently commonplace paper-work pretences always were and still are “false-accounting” and where several players are involved become “fraudulent conspiracies”. Trading under a false name can be “fraudulent misrepresentation” (people have a legal right to know who they are dealing with). These offshore arrangements are illegal, criminal acts. If challenged by the tax or money-laundering authorities – the owners are usually heavily penalised financially – but they can also be and sometimes are given prison sentences.

The Guardian and its advisers have, I suspect, fallen into the familiar error “…well everybody does it – so it must be alright”.  Since Reagan & Thatcher, tax schemes have become like speeding offences – everybody does it but only those few who are caught are deemed to have broken the law and are punished.

My professional reading of the tax-planning runes is that 30 years of lax application of the tax-laws is over – tax collectors are chasing the $21 trillion stashed in tax-havens – and the pace of collection and penalties from all OECD countries will rapidly increase. $21 trillion is too much evasion, is too big a prize, for  global Treasuries to ignore.

You are correct in assuming that these re-empowered international collectors will not be tracking down innocent Guardian readers who have bought ISAs or Pension Top-Ups, for licit Tax Minimisation or Avoidance.

Noel Hodson

Founding Partner

McVeigh Hodson Blackstone Franks

Accountants and Tax Experts.   

 GLOBAL ECONOMY - BLOG ARCHIVE

END OF LOAN SHARKS?

Congratulations to Stella Creasy MP for Walthamstow, London, UK, for lobbying successfully to cap loan shark prices. She has won cross-party support including the newly appointed, fast-tracked Archbishop of Canterbury, Lord Justin Welby, (once a senior financier now a saint – UK bishops are elevated to The House of Lords – “My Lord Bishop”) and some assurance from Treasury Minister Lord Sassoon, who hands the poisoned chalice to the newly minted Financial Conduct Authority – FCA; which replaces the Financial Services Authority (FSA). The FSA, originally the TSA, could not find a single fault in the City of London over 20 or 30 years of supervision, not a single naughty person was ever criticised by the FSA – which proves just how saintly are UK banks, brokers, Libor setters and credit-insurance salesmen. Private Eye Magazine dubbed them “The totally supine authority.”

THE GUARDIAN - Sharkstoppers: the consumer activists curbing the excesses of payday lenders

“The Government” fought hard to stop Ms Creasy. I assume the relevant government department is packed with anonymous, sociopathic lovers of money-lenders or close friends or relatives of money-lenders, or, packed with strange economic-philosophers who believe that loan-shark victims, paid less than a weekly Living Wage, freely choose to borrow each weekend from Pay-Day lenders at up to 4,500% - to buy food or transport to work.  Why are the supporters of cruel, villainous money practices never named? They seem to lurk in the shadows and always have many evil friends in low places.  

The rate of the CAP has not been fixed. My recommendation is a loan interest and charges CAP of 5% per annum. This is ten times the Base Rate, which most banks borrow at. Ten times means 90% profits for the lenders. Most UK home mortgages are at or below 5%. Those who might lose out include credit card lenders (16% to 32%), Business Overdraft /Loans lenders (5% to 12.5%), and a few higher priced commercial mortgages. Most Hire Purchase and Lease Purchase rates are now set by the suppliers of the goods – often at 0% and mostly below 5%.

The benefits of a 5% CAP on all loans will be:

1) Few bad-debts - in the lenders’ books; with massive savings of debt enforcement, court costs and family misery.

2) Counter-inflation - A 25% reduction in the prices of most goods, which carry financing costs at 10 to 15 points in the supply chains from mines and farms to factories to shops to consumption.

3) Price of Money – A major reduction in the ridiculously high costs of the Money-Economy, which in the UK employs as many as does the Health Service, about 1.2 million people. The whole money-system, The City and Wall Street, will eventually be operated by one large laptop computer – or maybe an IBM mainframe – releasing millions of bright people to boost the real-economy.

4) A huge reduction in the costs of most poor households and therefore less pressure on wage increases – which is also counter-inflationary.

A 5% CAP is a good thing. Sign this petition:

http://www.avaaz.org/en/petition/5_per_annum_cap_on_all_interest_rates_charges/?sbc

GLOBAL ECONOMY - BLOG ARCHIVE

MARK CARNEY - MONEY-WARS

HONEST, BOLD, DEPENDABLE

47 year old Canadian, Mark Carney, will be gearing up, at least doubling his power, from running the Bank of Canada, the world’s 15^th largest economy with 34 million people, to a 5 year contract from July 2013 at the Bank of England – responsible for the money-economy of Britain’s 62 million people, and the world’s 2^nd largest financial centre; in the 7^th largest global economy.

He is a traditional banker, with a traditional Wall Street and International banking CV, with a typical conservative Canadian background, who studied at Harvard University, then in Oxford, UK. Whether Mark is in the pockets or clubs of Wall Street and The City of London – who between them “lost”* about $3 trillion of OPTM (Other People’s and Taxpayers’ Money) in 2008/09 – will become evident as he exercises his new powers. The first worrying signal is Mark’s insistence on a 5 year, not 8 year contract in London.

Lack of continuity and executives ducking and diving rapidly between institutions to escape responsibility for and the impact of their decisions – while always collecting massive Golden Hellos and Diamond Severance pay and Pension Pots regardless, simply for turning-up wearing a tie – is one of the primary causes of today’s chaotic Greed, Grab and Hide, and screw all friends and neighbours, financial culture.

It will be interesting to examine Mr Carney’s UK contract – which MUST NOT be offshore via tax-havens. If the Governor of the Bank of England won’t pay his full UK taxes – who the Hell will?

GLOBAL ECONOMY - BLOG ARCHIVE

WHAT’S THE MONEY-ECONOMY TASK FOR MR CARNEY?

The OECD nations make an average surplus of about 1% GDP every year. The UK’s Gross Domestic Product (all the work and goods we in the UK transact) is about $2.5 trillion. The 1% surplus over and above consumption this generates is ($2,500,000,000,000 divide by 100% = $25,000,000,000) or $25 billion. 

Globally the combined GDP is called GWP – it is about $80 trillion a year or $11,500 per head of World population (7 billion people x $11,500 = $80,500,000,000,000).  1% surplus – over and above what we eat and consume, in other words our savings – is $800 billion. In the 30 years since Thatcher & Reagan’s Big Bang (loosely controlled financial markets) our savings should be (30 years x $800 billion = $24 trillion). The “Free Markets” have cleverly enabled all the past 30 years’ surpluses to be “monetised” or turned into cash-liquidity, so our banks and treasuries should be stuffed full of money, namely $24 trillion of capital.

WOW! WHAT AN AMAZING COINCIDENCE!

BUT – We are continually told by whining bankers and Ministers that “There is no money. We need austerity. We are all in this together. We must cut back”. 

So where is the $24 trillion from the past 30 years – and the previous 2,000 years’ surpluses from all our human efforts, ingenuity and sacrifices? Is everything we do worthless – do we never create anything of lasting value – are we, the 99.95% of workers all completely useless?

ANSWER – The money is in the tax-havens, which we are asked to believe entirely coincidentally hold $21 trillion in off-shore (outside of our economy) assets. Tax-haven bank accounts now grow by $1 trillion a year – which, coincidentally is about the annual world surplus from all our efforts. But we are not supposed to ask about off-shore funds; or count them in our business plans. They are “Free” and unfettered – as free as the wind – and are or might be urgently needed to buy planes, yachts, fourth homes, private islands and pink-gins for 0.05% of the world’s population – the new aristocrats.

This frozen capital – this surplus from all our work – is therefore not invested into creating jobs for the future. The “owners” don’t need to invest it – they have about one-million times more than they could ever spend – and so are happy to sit tight on their sunny little islands or Swiss mountains – and watch the world starve. They have “acquired” our seed-corn and refuse to replant it.  The capitalists are on permanent strike.

WHY ON STRIKE? They are skilled and experienced capitalists and as such cannot abide to see their wealth reducing. Globally, there is too much surplus cash competing for unearned income, they are all chasing risk-free homes for their ill-gotten gains – so global interest rates are realistically very low. This should mean the value of “cash” paper money, declines – and to counter price inflation, the “money-economy” aristocrats will eventually invest in the “real-economy” – and get the world turning again. Except that – they have come up with another cunning plan. By restricting the availability of capital – by consciously and deliberately hoarding liquidity – by insisting that the trickle of Treasury quantitative-easing only feeds back to themselves – and insisting that governments go bankrupt rather than invest in their communities – and by refusing to allow banks to lend to small businesses (the engine rooms of 60% of all jobs) – they starve the world of cash – and drive up their own buying power. Their capital becomes more valuable compared to Labour /work hours – and the rest of us are increasingly impoverished.

It is this selfish, destructive, insane cycle that Mark Carney and his governing global colleagues have to break – without pitching Britain and the World into a civil war in which the Have-Nots root out the Haves and tax their bank accounts; and without descending into a dark spiral of despair and depression. Is he “one-of-them” or “one-of-us”? The patient, polite British and OECD global citizens will wait and see – but not for long. We have waited long enough already.

With 50% of youngsters jobless – with infrastructure and social services crumbling – with no leadership, vision or hope for the near and far future - polite citizen patience is running out.  Repatriate the tax-haven funds via Back-Duty-Tax-Assessments to homeland banks and Treasuries.     

DO GET ON WITH IT, MR CARNEY.

 LOVEABLE LOANSHARKS     LOANSHARK'S 2018% FOR 17 YEARS     WHAT WORRIES BRITONS - BRIEFS  

CHRISTIANS WITH MORALS - SHOCK      PROUD TO BE BRITISH!    MONEY WARS      END OF LOAN SHARKS?

  

* The allegedly “lost” $3 trillion that we are all paying via our taxes back to Wall Street and City of London (about $75,000 per household) coincided with tax-haven funds increasing by $3 trillion. The “losses” might simply have been back-to-back transfers, with tax-relief claimed on the supposed losses. The question to ask is – If Wall Street (the whole of America) and the UK, lost $3 trillion; then who made the $3 trillion on the other side of the DR / CR transactions? Where did the contracts go and who benefitted?

TAX EVASION - YOUR "HOW-TO" GUIDE

"You won't be feeling so confident, my dear Sir, when you
are clutching the bar at the Old Bailey, under
cross-examination"

LETTER TO THE GUARDIAN - SHAM DIRECTORS - SHAM TAX RETURNS -

- SHAM PRISONS?

Congratulations on your expose “The sham directors – Guardian 26 Nov 2012” who “…conceal the movement around the world of trillions of dollars.” But, to protect innocent, trusting, naïve, tax-paying Guardian readers, do please check your tax-lawyers’ erroneous advice.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/

Your report wrongly implies that inserting nominee directors “…is not illegal under UK law”; and you use “tax avoidance” instead of “evasion” which also implies legality. Only a great fool, or a rogue, would say that the real owners of the trillions of dollars, which are, necessarily, gouged from major (high tax) economies, actually hand cash-asset-control to nominees – though they have to claim to give up control. Most real owners conceal their identities and falsify their tax-returns to evade (illegal) not to avoid (legal) paying tax.

The professional tax-planning test for individual or corporate clients’ protection is simple: “Have you been advised to lie to tax authorities – e.g. I have no control over these funds – Or, I really do live in Malta not London?” If so, you have crossed the line into evasion and crime. Hiring a nominee as an alias for your directorship (you are legally “a director by whatever name called”) might possibly slither onto the legal side of the crime of Fraudulent Misrepresentation, in the opinion of a bent UK judge who also uses tax-havens, but unless you declare the trillions of dollars of transactions on your accounts and tax-returns – you are guilty of lying, false accounting and of tax-evasion. GO DIRECTLY TO JAIL. DO NOT PASS GO. DO NOT COLLECT £200 POUNDS.

The good news for the major economies is that all tax-evasion (false accounting /fraudulent conspiracy) is legally reversible without time-limit and evaders are in law Guilty Until Proven Innocent, so the “trillions of dollars” can be rapidly repatriated to their source nations, via Back-Duty-Tax-Assessments. IBM computers (used at almost all banks), Military Intelligence and the Secret Services know where the assets are and who really “owns” them.

Noel Hodson

Founding Partner,

McVeigh Hodson Blackstone Franks,

Accountants and Tax-Experts       

NB - All good tax-planners guarantee their advice and if it proves incorrect can repay clients' taxes and costs via their professional indemnity insurance - PII.

PS - To avoid prison: avoid incontinent lying and gross falsification; which for example includes:

1) Outrageous Transfer Pricing - Since 1910, staging-post-invoices that dump profits in your tax-haven company have been "false accounting" and hence criminal. e.g. If you buy micro-chips in Korea for $2 and sell them in New York for $22, it is illegal to create false invoices claiming you buy them from (your own bearer-bond off-shore firm) in Cayman at $23 each and lose a dollar on every sale in New York - which gives you a US tax loss and entitles you to gouge $23 from New York's working capital. Any variations on such schemes requires two sets of books - (1) the real business that makes profits (2) the pretend business. THIS WAS, IS AND WILL ALWAYS BE ILLEGAL, FALSE ACCOUNTING.

2) Back-to-Back Transfers - These are popular in commodity broking, banking, loans and investment etc. transactions, enabled by an International Bank or Market; where your New York transaction is a purchase of Greasy Wool Top Futures for $500,000, sold at $1,500,000, but, the gain is suddenly wiped out by a second purchase via your co-operative broker for $2,000,000 which, through bad luck, bad timing or gross negligence visibly seems to be sold via the Market for $100,000 - losing overall $900,000 in New York - which you claim US loss-relief on; while, in a faraway land, in a tax-haven company run by your friend (you actually) - the $100,000 contract sells on the New York market for $2,200,000 making an off-shore, non-taxable profit - enabling you to pick up a fat tax refund from your US neighbours and to gouge out another $2.2M of New York's fast dwindling capital. A WHOLLY ILLEGAL FRAUDULENT CONSPIRACY.

3) Your salary disguised and tax free - Payroll taxes are onerous on employees and employers. As an owner/director, paying yourself is particularly galling in tax terms. So, for your New York restaurant chain you accept invoices from a Bermuda Company (Pssst... its actually you again) for interior design for $1 million. The extra $1 million is paid annually to a Bermuda bank, such as HSBC, which issues you with a global DEBIT card in your Bermuda Design Company Name - which allows you spend it anywhere on Earth - including New York. ALL VARIATIONS ON THIS THEME ARE ILLEGAL. The same constraints apply to false dividends, paid to an offshore "holding company" with shares in your business - or "management charges" from your alleged HQ full of "managers" in Jersey, Channel Islands - or paid to your allegedly estranged wife, child or pet dog living in Switzerland or Monaco.  The $1M is gouged out of New York's capital base; plunging your country deeper into debt. The siphon of capital is beginning to add up, isn't it? However - your nation can always borrow from The Free Markets, can't it? - Whoever they are? Oh - but that's you again - now an offshore Bond's investor.

4) Once you embark on false accounting - as ENRON did - creating a maze of funny-money corporations under coconut palms on tinpot islands that pretend to be staffed, manned, crammed with high powered executives, allegedly providing goods, services, Brand Names, Patents, Loans, etc etc (the list of clumsy bad obviously bent silly ideas is endless) - you not only deprive your country of tax revenues needed to build and maintain the infrastructure that your genuine real commerce relies on for its survival - but you siphon off, gouge out massive amounts of capital that ought to be recycled, reinvested, utilised in your home town - to create jobs and new industry. Some villainous bankers, brokers, lawyers and accountants will charge you massive fees for helping you with all the false accounting. The "expert advisers" will disappear the moment the IRS or HMRC seriously call (the unbribable, heavy revenue officers) with searching questions. WHAT YOU INDIVIDUALLY OR CORPORATELY ARE DOING IS ILLEGAL. IT IS NOT ONLY VERY EXPENSIVE WHEN YOUR SCHEMES ARE REVERSED AND RETROSPECTIVELY TAXED - BUT YOU MIGHT GO TO PRISON.  

GLOBAL ECONOMY - BLOG ARCHIVE

POWER HUNGRY and POWER MAD

We seven billion Earth people can have all the energy we want for our industries, homes and hobbies AND we can eliminate pollution.

As from about 1850, just one hundred and sixty-two years ago, mankind has taken the first blundering steps towards understanding and applying the beginning of the electrical and electronic revolution; swiftly followed by the birth of The Information Society – computer science.

Read ELECTRIC UNIVERSE by David Bodanis:

http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/2803.Electric_Universe

Electricity brings us convenient and immense raw power to drive machines. Electronics introduces printed circuits, solid state wiring and ever accelerating, labour saving automation. Computers give us the power to collate data and to communicate worldwide - and across the universe. We are just at the start of humankind’s journey out of the darkness.

We like electricity, we need electricity, we will need more and more and more electricity. How on Earth can we make as much as we want, without wrecking the planet?

RULE ONE – Stop burning things. Grass, sticks, logs, trees, peat, coal, oil, bitumen, gas, nuclear fuel, garbage, etc. – all disintegrate into smoke and ashes as we burn them, to heat the water, that makes the steam, that drives the turbines that make the electricity.

RULE TWO – Use natural energy. We have about fifty years experience of driving the turbines that make the electricity, by using natural, clean forces. These include volcanic-thermal heat (its dirty but we can’t stop it and so should use it); solar power (on a human scale, almost limitless) which heats brine-pits, hot water pipes, solar panels (soft and rigid), solar arrays of lenses and mirrors focused on high-pressure vessels (Germany has designed a large Sahara Desert array that will power all Europe); wind power – which we have used efficiently for thousands of years; two-thirds of our planet’s surface is water, thus hydro-electric power from rivers, dams and rainfall;  tidal-power, the almost limitless, immense power of the oceans rising and falling as the Moon lifts the seas, making tides of up to six or ten metres (an energy we have barely yet used); wave power, which we well understand and have begun to use to generate electricity; ocean-currents, which carry huge amounts of energy we can tap into; heat-pumps, runs of pipes which, like your home refrigerator in reverse take heat from water and earth at low energy cost; gravity, on which can store vast amounts of energy and release it when needed – for example by pumping liquids uphill to storage tanks; and one day we will harness the movements of plate tectonics; and etc, etc. (have I missed any?)

STOP MONKEYING ABOUT: There is millions of times more energy in our local solar system – the Sun, Planets, Moons, Asteroids etc. than we can ever use. Most of it is clean, green, lean, low-cost, non-poisonous and is extremely powerful. We have learned how to harvest a little of this free, God given energy bonanza without destroying ourselves. In the next five-hundred years, we will have as much energy as we require – for survival, work and fun.

Let’s stop grubbing around like primitive children to find mucky things to burn – and get on with the next exciting phase of evolution. It does require “global intelligent co-operation”.  But, hey! NIL DESPARANDUM.

Read AD2516 - After Global Warming to learn how mankind can and will create a clean energy, money-less Utopia from today’s political and economic chaos.   

FLOODS, POLAR ICE CAPS - BLOG ARCHIVE

LAGARDE-LIST 2,059 GREEK TAX SAVERS

Curiosity prompted me to see the infamous Lagarde-List of  2,059 Greek tax payers who have or who had opened bank accounts at HSBC in Switzerland. It is freely available on the Internet, courtesy of Greek's Hot Docs magazine - here is a copy:

http://www.noelhodson.com/GREEK-LAGARDE-LIST-2059HSBC.pdf

I do not recognise any of the names. There is no indication of the transactions or balances, so we must assume all the funds are legitimate, tax paid and play no part in the fiscal and commercial deficits that require the European Union to bail-out this nation.

The sky is dark here in Oxford UK; it is late in this working day - so I will leave any analyses of how many dollars, thalers or euros these 2,059 accounts hold, until another day. In the meantime stay-at-home and ex-patriate Greeks may be interested to see who is named - and decide if any of these accounts could be repatriated to Athens, to become contributions to financing their nation in its hour of need.

GLOBAL ECONOMY - BLOG ARCHIVE

It probably was not the UK's Commander James Bond 007 who broke into the Swiss banks' computers to obtain this vital data; it was more likely either French or Greek Military Intelligence - but it makes the point that, as President George Bush Senior said when he considered the Internet and the World-Wide-Web, "Forget Privacy! Privacy is Dead!" They do indeed KNOW WHERE YOU LIVE.

MI5 & SABOTAGE - ACTION THIS DAY

NIL DESPARANDUM - I don't know the Greek equivalent to this courageous Roman advice to - Never Despair. But anyone, Greek or Roman, who has paid for and applied exotic tax-planning that goes wrong - can recover their costs and losses under the advisors' Professional Indemnity Insurance; so keep the paperwork.   

Liberate loan-shark victims  LOVEABLE LOANSHARKS 

LOVEABLE LOANSHARKS

LOAN-SHARK CHAMPION
AL CAPONE.
UK LOANSHARKS ARE LICENSED BY
THE GOVERNMENT

A HAPPY AND A HOLY CHRISTMAS TO ALL FAITHS - CHRISTIANS, MUSLIMS, JEWS, BUDDHISTS, HINDUS, TAOISTS, HUMANISTS, AETHEISTS, OR SIMPLY HUMAN BEINGS. YOUR RELIGIONS OR YOUR ETHICS ABHOR BULLYING AND USURY – SO HELP TO STOP THEM -

HOW? Sign our AVAAZ petition, or start one of your own, and support Stella Creasy, MP, who is pressing the UK Parliament to ban loan-sharks.



ANTI-LOAN-SHARK CAMPAIGNER
STELLA CREASY MP

 UK Payday lenders, licensed by Prime Minister David Cameron’s coalition Conservative and Lib-Dem government* to charge whatever they like e.g.  2,000% to 4,500% (there is now no legal UK limit) trap poor people into inescapable revolving debt – backed by the UK’s “Justice” system of County Courts, which pursues about 92,000 debt victims a year into bankruptcy, homelessness and ultimately into prison.

STELLA CREASY MP – CAMPAIGN AGAINST LOANSHARKING.

http://www.workingforwalthamstow.org.uk/

YOU MIGHT APPROVE OF THESE “FREE MARKET” LOANSHARK PRICES – ONLY MADE POSSIBLE BECAUSE THE VICTIMS (CUSTOMERS), THE POOREST FAMILIES IN THE LAND, EARN LESS THAN “THE LIVING WAGE”; FORCING THEM TO BORROW EVERY WEEK TO BUY FOOD FOR THE WEEKEND. IT’S A GREAT BRITISH BUSINESS MODEL. MONEYLENDING IS WHAT THE UK EXCELS AT NOW IT HAS NO INDUSTRY, PRODUCTS OR COMMUNITY ETHICS. WE LEARNED THE BASICS FROM THE US MAFIA – AND THEN RAMPED IT UP; LONDON CITY STYLE.

(Future citizens in a fully automated economy will all be as rich as today's millionaires, and have no need for "Money" - read AD2516 - After Global Warming )

GLOBAL ECONOMY - BLOG ARCHIVE

In 1960 my UK Manchester firm was asked for tax advice by a “Journeyman” or back-street door-to-door moneylender. Pre-Thatcher he had to keep his charges under 30% or risk a prison sentence. He confided that he always got paid by his “customers”, mostly housewives while husbands were at work, because on first default - “I NAIL HER HAND TO THE DOOR” – before getting really nasty about subsequent defaults. Today the UK County Court system does the enforcing for him. We turned him away.

Compared to today’s loan-sharks, “The Nailer” was hugely underpriced. Read Suffolk Mike’s 17 year entrapment tale below – at a mere 2,018% per annum. What clever, admirable, monetarist Capitalism.

HAPPY CHRISTMAS – PEACE ON EARTH TO MEN OF GOODWILL.

UK PRIME MINISTER, DAVID CAMERON
WHO WILL CAP LOAN CHARGES
AT 5% AND FREE 1.5 MILLION
FAMILIES FROM CRIPPLING DEBT.

There are reported to be 1.5 million UK homes in these debt-traps, borrowing an average, say, of £500, which is £750 million in total. If PM David Cameron bans all loan charges above 5% APR next week, the Bank of England* could pay-off all the loan-sharks balances and refinance the victims at Base Rate 0.5% APR. Of the UK’s consumer debt of £1.3 trillion, £750 million is 0.5%, which would not rock The City one jot. Making all debts repayable at 5% or less will kick-start the economy from the grass-roots upwards – and reduce ALL prices by an inflation beating 25% as the 15 stage multilayer on-cost price  process is limited to 5%. Ten times Base Rate is still good business capitalism.

*Under the Consumer Credit Act 1974 lenders must have a licence from the Office of Fair Trading (OFT)

It will also give the Prime Minister a “Go to Heaven Free” card. Its time we re-introduced the Plenary Indulgence system for sainted public figures.

Write to your MP, Congressman/ woman and all your media contacts.

A Happy and a Holy Christmas.

STELLA CREASY MP – CAMPAIGN AGAINST LOANSHARKING.

http://www.workingforwalthamstow.org.uk/

http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2012/nov/20/mp-demands-apology-tweets-wonga

The MP and anti-payday loans campaigner Stella Creasy has demanded an apology from the online lender Wonga after a Guardian investigation uncovered evidence that an employee of the firm has been using an anonymous Twitter account to publicly attack her, calling her mentally unstable.

Wonga's slogan and adverts promise "straight talking money", but company computers appear to have been used to post anonymous comments on blogs critical of its practices and there is evidence that a second Wonga employee has deleted criticism from its Wikipedia page

***********

SIGN THE PETITION FOR:

A 5% per annum cap on all interest rates & charges

http://www.avaaz.org/en/petition/5_per_annum_cap_on_all_interest_rates_charges/

***********

“Suffolk Mike” – Loan-Shark Victim. There are 1.5 million UK families trapped like this. You can free them this Christmas.

EARN 2018% ON YOUR SAVINGS

BRITISH JUSTICE:  When just 20 years old, “Mike” in Suffolk UK borrowed £250. In the next 17 years he paid back £90,000 (2018% interest a year), losing his house, job and his health. Mike sought help only when the loan-shark threatened his wife and children. The loan-shark was imprisoned for 8 months (4 months served) for being unlicensed. If he had applied, he would be entitled to suck the lifeblood from his victims at twice the rate. Legalised WONGA can charge up to 4,500%. Four months jail isn’t much to suffer for £90,000 and blighting a family’s life for 17 years. (Jill Insley, Guardian 27 June 12, “Loan shark’s victim wins award”)

For Heavens Sake! – Sign the 5% CAP petition and eliminate these evil “financial services” FSA authorised tapeworms.  5% is ten-times the UK Base Rate. Making 10 times Base Rate is enough for any lender.

Sign: http://www.avaaz.org/en/petition/5_per_annum_cap_on_all_interest_rates_charges/

		Mike of Suffolk - Loan & Debt	repaid
Years	Interest	£                                        250
1	2017.6%	£                                        250	£ 5,294
2	2017.6%	£                                        250	£ 5,294
3	2017.6%	£                                        250	£ 5,294
4	2017.6%	£                                        250	£ 5,294
5	2017.6%	£                                        250	£ 5,294
6	2017.6%	£                                        250	£ 5,294
7	2017.6%	£                                        250	£ 5,294
8	2017.6%	£                                        250	£ 5,294
9	2017.6%	£                                        250	£ 5,294
10	2017.6%	£                                        250	£ 5,294
11	2017.6%	£                                        250	£ 5,294
12	2017.6%	£                                        250	£ 5,294
13	2017.6%	£                                        250	£ 5,294
14	2017.6%	£                                        250	£ 5,294
15	2017.6%	£                                        250	£ 5,294
16	2017.6%	£                                        250	£ 5,294
17	2017.6%	£                                        250	£ 5,294
			£        2
		Total Repaid	£90,000

Loan-Shark operations are as active in the USA as in the UK. Stop them.

GOOGLE Search 21 Nov 2012 “PAYDAY LOANS” gives 9.1 million results.

The Annual Percentage Rates (APR) here, are boldly advertised by the lenders. 

PaydayUK APR 2,090%

https://www.paydayuk.co.uk/?p=PUGE4&aid=payday%20loans&pid=1t1&pubid=e&gclid=CJ3S76X237MCFePHtAodpRoAvA

Payday Express APR 2,670%

http://www.paydayexpress.co.uk/index.aspx?source=google&p=PEXGL1&gclid=CKjk36f337MCFe7MtAod-hMAaw

KWIK CASH APR 1,737%

http://www.kwikcash.co.uk/PL/Main/default_pl_ms1.aspx?ref=g5_PLM_pls&gclid=CJ2-_-b337MCFYXLtAodZHEAhg

Polly’s Payday Loans APR withheld (US firm)

http://www.pollyspaydayloan.co.uk/

Payday Loan-Quick APR 2,120%

http://paydayloan-quick.co.uk/

WONGA.com APR 4,214%

https://www.wonga.com/?A=46&gclid=CKrxp-r537MCFSnJtAodbE8A_g

THIS ARTICLE HAS ATTRACTED 70+ ADVERTS FROM LOAN-SHARKS (BELOW), WHO ARE SELF-PROFESSED USURERS WHO LIVE OFF THE POOREST AND LEAST PROTECTED OF OUR NEIGHBORS. THESE ADVERTS ARE FROM BLOOD-SUCKING, USELESS, SOCIOPATHIC PARASITES.  ARE YOU RELIGIOUS? READ ABOUT LOAN-SHARKS IN YOUR BIBLE OR OTHER SACRED TEXTS. ALL OECD GOVERNMENTS SHOULD IMPOSE A CAP ON ALL INTEREST RATES OF 5% PER ANNUM - AND JAIL ALL TRANSGRESSORS. THE MONEY-ECONOMY IS 95% TOO EXPENSIVE, SUPPORTING TOO MANY EMBEDDED TAPE-WORMS IN THE GUTS OF THE REAL-ECONOMY. THIS IS THE ERA OF THE ELECTRONIC REVOLUTION - THE INFORMATION SOCIETY. THE MONEY SYSTEM (BOOKKEEPING), THE PAPER ECONOMY, COULD AND SHOULD BE RUN ON A FEW GLOBAL, TRANSPARENT SUPER COMPUTERS AT 1% OF PRESENT COSTS.

Unlicensed payday lenders using religious organisations to tout for business

5 June 2013 3:00 pm | By Paul Thomas

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Unlicensed payday lenders and personal loan companies are targeting people on the internet purporting to be affiliated with religious institutions.

Money Marketing’s sister title Mortgage Strategy has learned of a lender called St Paul’s Cathedral Finance which claims to be headquartered at the same address as St Paul’s Cathedral in London.