Wednesday 30 November 2016

TRUTH, TRUMP & HITLER

International journalist George Monbiot writes in The Guardian today, 30 November 2016, about the money, behind the money, behind the fascists - in Europe and the USA. He has been following the maze of opaque, secret threads from Big oil, Dirty coal, Big Pharma, Tax-evaders, Media, KKK, Armament makers and other major industries for 20 years; threads that lead to the lobbyists (by whatever name called) who bribe, bully and bulldoze our democratically elected politicians to swear that black is white, white is black, two and two make five - and that it is perfectly OK for Donald Trump to win, based on 560 crass, cruel or base lies. Underneath the lying, prevaricating monster he depicts himself to be, they tell us, lurks a really nice man who loves his children and all Americans.

Any sane, cautious voter will take Trump at his word. At his fascist verging on Nazi statements, rather than on the naive dream that he might turn out to be a "really nice guy".

Do you believe in fairies?

WILL THE REAL MR TRUMP STAND UP, PLEASE. TRUMP AT THE NEW YORK TIMES

Read this Monbiot article - and be very afraid. Read it alongside The Rise & Fall of the Third Reich by William Shirer - and with Mein Kampf (My Struggle) by Adolf Hitler - and be utterly terrified. History is repeating itself.

The big money and aristocratic families in Germany who opened the path for Hitler in the 1930's were certain that they could use "The Little Austrian Corporal" to quieten the agitated masses, and then toss him aside. The big money in America and the Russians, assume that the same applies to Demented Donald. He was also a joke to the ruling classes, like Hitler was. Now, Trump is already a shocking reality, enabling casino and fairground gangsters to take over the political system and spew all their bigotry and bile into the media. The media, in turn, is owned by offshore tycoons. Like peroxide-blonde Trump they pay no taxes and siphon the capital to tax-havens. "Only Little People Pay Tax". They, the 0.5%, intend to keep it that way.

Like Adolf, Donald loves his children and his close relatives. Like Adolf, Donald is deeply paranoid and has no conscience about lying - then lying about his lies.

He is probably insane. The masses like the simplicity of insane leaders; of men who make the trains run on time - before wrecking the entire nation in the biggest train-crashes in history, and committing suicide, when their crazed dreams unravel.

This time, like in Germany before World War 11 - the powers behind the lobbyists have elevated the wrong man. Donald will not do their bidding. He does not even know the rules of the game - never mind how to play by those outdated Ivy League rules.

In January 2017, as Trump takes power, he might well say to the powerful, complacent souls who own America "You mocked me. But you are not laughing now. Are You?" Which is what saboteur BREXIT leader Nigel Farage said to the European Parliament after the UK voted to leave.

These are very dangerous times.

Tuesday 29 November 2016

WILL OLD SILVERBACK TRUMP GO NUCLEAR?

WASHINGTON POST - 17 NOVEMBER 2016

Energy and Environment

The North Pole is an insane 36 degrees warmer than normal as winter descends

By Chris Mooney and Jason Samenow November 17

This story has been updated.

Political people in the United States are watching the chaos in Washington in the moment. But some people in the science community are watching the chaos somewhere else — the Arctic.

It’s polar night there now — the sun isn’t rising in much of the Arctic. That’s when the Arctic is supposed to get super-cold, when the sea ice that covers the vast Arctic Ocean is supposed to grow and thicken.

But in fall of 2016 — which has been a zany year for the region, with multiple records set for low levels of monthly sea ice — something is totally off. The Arctic is super-hot, even as a vast area of cold polar air has been displaced over Siberia....

*****

See my new science sci-fi and global warming web-blog

My old English friend, John, agrees with elderly Donald Trump, blustering Boris Johnson and the youngster Sarah Palin that this type of news - alarmist warnings of Polar meltdown - is a Chinese or even an Alien plot to destabilise American industry; to depreciate Trump properties, many of which are at sea-level; and to upset Chinook of The North and other loyal Alaskans in Sarah Palin's northern territory, which borders the Arctic sea. John relies for his facts exclusively on the US website Armstrong Economics, which, in this Post-Truth era include predictions of a coming Mini-Ice-Age, like the period when the Thames River in London froze and supported Ice-Fairs. This next Big Freeze, they claim, will afflict all of northern Europe and North America, and will descend on us in 2032. Global Warming is a hoax - they say.

Mr. Armstrong has written his own computer models that predict economic and climate cycles. But, six hundred climate scientists have other models, data and far more powerful computers that disagree with Armstrong. At today's 400 parts per million of carbon-dioxide in the atmosphere, science says that the Earth's average temperature will rise above the critical +2C degrees (of warming since about 1850) and cause Polar meltdown of the vast ice-mountains, 3 km high on Greenland and 5 km high on Antarctica, which will melt and raise the sea-level.

President Elect Trump's summer retreat, Mar a Largo (Sea-to-Lake), in warm, wet Florida - a beach-side property - will be beneath the surface of the ocean as the sea-level rises. As a smart business man, he should invest in snorkels.

"Florida and the Rising Sea

By Ben Strauss

Note: First published in the Miami Herald

: Mar a Lago - Trump's Florida home. 4 ft above sea-level

"Florida is in the crosshairs of climate change. Rising seas, a population crowded along the coast, porous bedrock, and the relatively common occurrence of tropical storms put more real estate and people at risk from storm surges aggravated by sea level rise in Florida, than any other state by far.

Some 2.4 million people and 1.3 million homes, nearly half the risk nationwide, sit within 4 feet of the local high tide line. Sea level rise is more than doubling the risk of a storm surge at this level in South Florida by 2030. For the hundreds of thousands of Floridians holding 30-year mortgages, that date is not far off in the future."

Mr Trump's beach properties will submerge long before our major cities and farms go under, and his empire will be bankrupt. But, unless global-warming is stopped - unless we hold at 400 parts per million of CO2 in the upper atmosphere - most of the coastal margins will also be flooded and the whole human race will have to adjust. We might move to higher-ground, migrate to newly liberated, ice-free polar lands, or build floating cities, but we cannot live underwater. We are not adapted to it.

One of the least pleasant traits I've noticed in some Senior Citizens, particularly in old men who were once dominant silver-backs, is a desire to have the world come to an end, preferably a day or two before they die, to give them two days to gloat. My wife's grandfather, Harold Bailey, a "Trouble-up-at-th'-Mill" northern-England boss who, rising from deep Victorian poverty, made a fortune in electric-switch-gear, was elated by the prospect of nuclear-war, which he thought would be triggered by The Suez Crisis. "Sod the grandchildren. If I've got to die - we'll all die". I see the same megalomaniac trait in Trump.

The dangerous difference is that Harold Bailey didn't have his finger on the nuclear button. Trump will have the nuclear trigger. Is he sane? My misguided friend John and his infallible guru Mr Armstrong are also, statistically, in their last decades. As am I.

But let's pray that the button won't function underwater at Mar-a-Lago, Florida.

Monday 21 November 2016

LIARS, DAMN LIARS, POLITICAL LIARS & TRUMP - RIGGED ELECTIONS

THE GREAT DECEIVER SAYS "THE POLLS ARE RIGGED"

TRUMP SAYS "Polls are rigged" 9 NOV 2016. ...Oh! What did I just say? What a great idea. Call the Russians, to rig the Rust Belt results.

WHY AMERICA AND THE WORLD SHOULD FEAR WAR-MONGERING TRUMP. 13 Dec 2016.

13 DEC 2016

Dear John

Re-your email (below), I don’t think the majority are correct very often if at all. In these cases Brexit and Trump are dangerous and deeply stupid mistakes. Until we have universal higher education, your sudden surprising conversion to simplistic "Democracy" would demand (1) Fair Wealth Sharing (2) Death Penalties and Torture.

Farage & Trump, like Hitler, have mobilised the mob. The mob will turn on them when (1) The mob's version of Brexit is seen to be undeliverable (by anybody) and is bankrupting Britain (2) Trump abandons his IQ challenged disaffected Alt-right (Nazi) American supporters, who he will try but fail to control via his belligerent fascist cabinet.

It is Trump who pre-election day denied majority voting and said the US elections are rigged. It seems that he was instrumental in rigging it. (Who stole the cakes? ...What cakes?) He is a lewd, lying, insulting, bullying, sociopathic, flashy, gold lame, blustering, peroxide-blond, elderly, groping, tax, debts and draft dodging, spoilt trust-fund-babe and he is demented. He is now stirring-up nuclear war with China. He must never have political or military power.

My only interest in this incontinent incoherent fairground performer is that he craves (and fears) the most powerful job in the world, which affects us all.

If I can see that from 3,000 miles away - Americans must be truly petrified.

Be Very Afraid & Stop Trump

Noel

Denial of Service - DNS - an avalanche of website visitors - is not what the computer investigators are looking for. I'm told that ALL the NSA defences have been breached.

AD2516 - After Global Warming

Out of the Depths - Inundated London

-----Original Message-----

From: John

Sent: 12 December 2016 17:10

To: Noel Hodson <noel@noelhodson.com>

Noel

A newspaper article in favour of getting on with life in a positive manner.

It is time to accept the democratic process: - John

If 2016 has taught us anything it is that people define democracy as getting what they want. If they win an election, it was fair. If they lose, it was rigged. Democracy is in crisis, says the Left, because, from America to Britain to Italy and beyond, the people keep making the wrong choices.

Take the United States. Donald Trump's victory was a surprise - we get that. It was narrow, for sure. And it was controversial - no doubt. But it happened. What ought to obsess the Democrats and the media is what he intends to do next. His cabinet choices suggest Trump will govern the way he ran, from the Right, and that he isn't afraid of confronting the consensus on everything from climate change to relations with Russia. There's so much to scrutinise.

Watch | Anti-Trump protests continue across US

00:45

Unfortunately, the Democrats and the media would prefer to engage in a ceaseless critique of his victory in the hope that it'll go away. The latest claim is that Moscow swung the election. The CIA has apparently concluded that Russia hacked into Democratic email accounts with the specific intention of embarrassing Clinton and helping Trump win. Many liberals are convincing themselves that the election was fixed. The debate was distorted by "fake news".

The Republicans stole votes in the rust belt. And Clinton actually won the national popular vote - so can we re-run the election?! The answer is no, of course; but that won't prevent millions from refusing to regard Trump as the genuine democratic choice.

The Republicans have every right to be angry about this. Perhaps Russia did try to affect the election, and that ought to be investigated and exposed. But there's no evidence that they succeeded. WikiLeaks did not play a big role in 2016 - its revelations were small fry.

Rally

An estimated crowd of up to 10-thousand people march through downtown Los Angeles Credit: UPI / Barcroft Images

The FBI, which resurrected claims that Hillary did something wrong with her email account, had far greater impact. And all that WikiLeaks and the FBI did was reinforce decades-old suspicions that Clinton is a liar. Her approval rating in October 2015 was about -19 per cent. By election day it was about -13 per cent. The scandals had very little impact.

Also, didn't the Democrats employ a few dark arts themselves? Did they not stack the primary process to Hillary's advantage? It's surprising, too, that the Democrats suddenly care so much about the transparency of the voting process, having rejected Republican warnings about potential fraud for years.

But the Left isn't big on self-awareness. Consider the campaign of Jill Stein, the Green presidential candidate, to recount votes in the states that swung it for Trump on the rather rude assumption that because he won he must have cheated.

Trump won Wisconsin by a margin of about 27,000 votes; Stein got 30,000 votes there. Trump took Michigan by 11,000; Stein got 50,000. So there are at least two states that arguably were lost not because of a conspiracy by the Right but because of divisions on the Left. It was an old-fashioned political cock-up.

The militant Remainers are playing a similar game in the UK. They question not only the referendum result but the referendum itself. It doesn't count, they say, because the Leave campaign lied. Leave would dispute that - but so what if they did? Have you ever known an election in which a politician didn't fib? It's up to the voters to play detective, and most of them are smart enough to sort the fact from the fiction. I have yet to meet the sucker who voted Leave to save the NHS.

A man with a placard

Thousands marched in central London to Parliament Square in a pro-Europe rally Credit: AFP/Getty Images

"The referendum was only advisory!" cry the Remainers. The legal arguments against this are mountainous and they boil down to "no it wasn't." But even if it was, there's still a moral imperative to accept the result.

If the referendum had come out for Remain and Parliament had a Eurosceptic majority that decided to plan for Brexit anyway, what would the Europhiles be saying then? That the referendum result was holy writ. But because they lost, they bring their lawyers and their peers and they invoke - of all things! - the importance of Parliament, because there they hope they have a majority for Remain.

Enter Tim Farron's Liberal Democrats, a party whose very name is an oxymoron. Liberal? Maybe. But Democratic? The two no longer mix. The Lib Dems have been banging on for decades about the importance of electoral reform only in so far as they thought it would get them more seats. Now that the exercise of democracy has produced a result they don't like, they suddenly despise the exercise of democracy.

Their shameless hypocrisy is shown in their fluctuating support for an EU referendum. First, they demanded an in/out referendum. Then, when it looked like a plebiscite might actually be held, they opposed it. Having lost it, they now want another one. "Let the people decide," said Farron, knowing full well that they already have.

The chutzpah doesn't end there. Having labelled a democratic outcome as somehow anti-democratic, they also insist that the Leavers - like Trump in the US - are dangerous authoritarians. Theresa May, Nigel Farage, and the populist Right want a Putin-style police state, apparently - and democratic support for them is a sad turning away from democracy.

If you're struggling to follow that logic then it's because the word "democracy" is losing its meaning. Many liberals are quite happy for the state to be powerful so long as they are in control of it, and elections go their way. A democracy ceases to be a democracy when it moves to the Right. Then we need Jill Stein or Tim Farron to clean up our mess and restore order.

Let's not be naïve: conservatives play these word games, too. Trump had said that the presidential election was rigged before he'd even won it. Farage said he'd continue to fight for Brexit when he assumed that he'd lost the referendum. Perhaps our politics would be more honest if both sides admitted that they want power and don't care as much about process as they pretend to. But this means that the process is sadly diminished.

Some people are at risk of forgetting that democratic elections are wonderful, splendid human achievements - even if you don't win them. And critical engagement with the victors is far, far more valuable than being a loud, sore loser.

HACKING NOTE - 12 DEC 2016. An international computer systems expert told me last week that Russians did hack the NSA computers in June/July, and copied ALL the protective anti-hacking keys, 45 years of work, which leaves back-doors open into ALL state computers - CIA, FBI etc. and the election-counters. NSA are equivalent to our GCHQ – they design and oversee all US Gov networks. This is why Obama has authorised emergency investigations before Trump’s inauguration.

THE GUARDIAN - 25 NOV 2016 - Jill Stein, the USA Green party’s presidential candidate, is preparing to request recounts of the election result in several key battleground states.

Stein launched an online fundraising page seeking donations toward a multimillion-dollar fund she said was needed to request reviews of the results in Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin.

The drive has already raised more than $4.5m, which the campaign said would enable it to file for recounts in Wisconsin on Friday and Pennsylvania on Monday.

Stein said she was acting due to “compelling evidence of voting anomalies” and that data analysis had indicated “significant discrepancies in vote totals” that were released by state authorities.

“These concerns need to be investigated before the 2016 presidential election is certified,” she said in a statement. “We deserve elections we can trust.”

Stein’s move came amid growing calls for recounts or audits of the election results by groups of academics and activists concerned that foreign hackers may have interfered with election systems. The concerned groups have been urging Hillary Clinton, the defeated Democratic nominee, to join their cause. - GUARDIAN.

560 Trump Lies - 4 Nov 2016 - Go to this article in the Toronto Star 4th November 2016 to see the lies Trump used to convince Americans to vote for him.

How can America field a President to represent the nation who is such a proven, glib, incontinent liar. His lies spill out like verbal diarrhea? This elderly, tawdry fascist KKK showman cannot, must not, be allowed to represent the West in international meetings. And he must not be allowed to have the nuclear weapons codes - ever.

America could build a plastic replica White House in Las Vegas, studded with paste diamonds and powdered with gold dust, with a cast of a few hundred actors, and Nigel Farage, to dance attandance on Demented Donald - until he's deemed to be fully cured of insanity, fifty years from now. In the meantime - Hillary won the popular vote by 1.7M, so she should and can run the Washington White House and represent the country. He has to go! We cannot allow such a gibbering, narcisistic clown onto the world-stage.

(Gibbering? e.g. "I'm going to halve income taxes, spend billions on infrastructure, and reduce the fiscal deficit - and build a 2,000 mile wall across the Mexico-US border. And deport 11 million Hispanics - Honest I am." Maybe he'll pay his 35 years of back-taxes to enable the US Treasury to afford it all.)

With apologies to the Toronto Star for copying their text - but, what isn't shown here is the excellent and complete table, "All of the false things" The Star has put on its website. It is the most comprehensive I have found. Click this headline link to view it:-

Donald Trump said 560 false things, total

The Star’s Washington Bureau Chief, Daniel Dale, has been following Donald Trump’s campaign for months. He has fact checked thousands of statements and found hundreds of falsehoods

By DANIEL DALEWashington Bureau
TANYA TALAGAGlobal Economics Reporter

Fri., Nov. 4, 2016

Sure, all politicians lie. But Donald Trump is in a class by himself.

He lies strategically. He lies pointlessly. He lies about important things and meaningless things. Above all, he lies frequently. Since he began his campaign last June, the Republican presidential candidate has subjected America to a daily barrage of inaccuracy and mendacity.

His rival, Hillary Clinton, has her own reputation for dishonesty. Some of it is no doubt earned: she has made false claims this campaign about her email scandal, about her flip-flop on the Trans-Pacific Partnership, and about assorted other things. But our scrutiny shows there is just no comparison in their level of accuracy on the campaign trail. At the three presidential debates, for example, we counted 104 false claims for Trump to 13 for Clinton.

The extreme, unprecedented quantity of Trump falsehoods is why we started fact-checking everything he said. From mid-September through Sunday, we did 28 “#TrumpCheck” analyses of every word he uttered or tweeted in a given day.

The total: 560 false claims, or a neat 20 per day.

Below, find the complete list of the false statements Dale has found.

After that (very long) list, Tanya Talaga examines the errors, exaggerations and lies for patterns. Some remain hard to explain. Click here to jump directly to this analysis.

All of the false things

Saturday 12 November 2016

WILL THE WHITE HOUSE KILL TRUMP?

This morning, my daughter, three-year-old grandson and my wife's publisher and her daughter are coming for coffee. At 73, I now have to go and crawl around the floor as creche minder, playing with Lego and avoiding impact from fantastically heavy and strong infants. I will probably be too stiff to move tomorrow. So, I have little time to develop a full scientific and futurist rebuttal to Trump's mad and bad pronouncements - which have profound implications for your and my family's immediate future.

In fact - I hear the thunder of not so tiny feet in the next room. My time has come. Will I survive this Close Encounter? But first - what on Earth is Trump up to?

"Global Warming is a Chinese Hoax" says President Elect Trump. Reading the background to this widely reported idiocy, I find it stems from Donald-the-Master- Builder lobbying against a wind-farm, off the Scottish coast, opposite one of his Country Clubs for the additional comfort of the super rich. So, to get his way, he said bugger the planet and campaigned for coal and oil and against green energy. Spewing any lie that comes to mind, however silly and unfounded, to bully people, it may be OK for a thuggish building developer, shoving poor folks out of the way on the east coast of Scotland; but it is lunatic behaviour for a senior world politician.

This untutored, undisciplined serial-bankrupt will say anything without research or thought for the consequences - just so long as he can get his way and fill his offshore bank-accounts - tax-free, of course. When it suits him - the next minute he reverses his position. He thinks dodging, weaving, bullying, swaggering and lying to the world is a great business strategy. It may be - but it is not going to work in global, or local, politics. Wait for the local voters' reaction when he doesn't build the wall, re-open the steel factories, or export 11 million Hispanics.

Looking into the near future, as a futurist, I fear that Trump is too old, too fixed and too rich to be taught new tricks. To switch from being, for 50 years, the unchallengeable, infallible Emperor in his small family business, of building (and bankrupting) plastic casinos in Atlantic City and Las Vegas, and of erecting Trump hotel towers in Manhattan, to working on reams of vital, globally important and complex diplomatic documents - may be too much to ask of this elderly old groper. I imagine he will bridle at the constant surveillance and protection; will be way out of depth with world leaders; will be baffled by the intricate machinations of US and global politics; and will rapidly tire. To change careers at 70 is no easy task. To change jobs at 70 into the most demanding job in the world - could make this by-the-seat-of-the-pants operator ill. It could finish him off. My prediction is that he will be a sickly President. We must pray that as he declines, as his ego deflates, that they keep him away from the nuclear button. We don't all want to die with Donald.

A little science from an impeccable source: National Geographic "The stakes for the United States, and the world, are enormous: If humankind does not reduce its greenhouse gas emissions immediately, climate scientists say, Earth could face as much as 11 degrees Fahrenheit of warming by 2100 relative to pre-industrial temperatures, leading to increases in droughts and wildfires, rising seas, and major disruptions to global agriculture."

Washington Post "On the campaign trail in 2015 and 2016, Trump has generally been fairly consistent in his opposition to taking action on climate change. He's again called it a hoax and implied that there's a profit incentive behind the idea, presumably resurrecting his past claims that scientists make up the problem so they can get grant money. This is a long-standing theory, skipping over how lots of money would certainly be (and has been) offered for evidence that the oil and gas industry isn't accelerating a massive environmental shift."

AD2516 - After Global Warming sets out the reality of global-warming; and my second novel Out of the Depths, details how London and New York will be inundated. Both books are good-reads.

TRUMP BANS THOUGHT

Thursday 10 November 2016

MOB RAGE - TRUMP MUST DISTRIBUTE WEALTH

PRESIDENT ELECT DONALD TRUMP

Sane or Insane? The World Watches & Waits.

Is it a sinister, magical, perverse and eerily significant, numerological twist of fate that President Elect Trump won the US election on what the rest of the world, except Americans, would write as 9-11? The Trumpets have sounded. Ooooer ! The 9th of November 2016 could be the start of the beginning of the End of Days. Where now assemble the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, the Ten Headed Beast and The Scarlet Harlot? - Whence will they issue from the Scalding Pit of Hell?

Trump won the most electoral-college votes, 279 out of 538, while Hillary Clinton won the largest number of votes 59.8 million (final count 65,746,544) of the popular votes. Trump won 59.6 million (final count 62,904,682) - a Hillary victory of 2.8 million. With more College Electors, Trump wins the USA presidency - possibly the most powerful position in the world. Yet, even though Hillary won more individual votes, the world's media is citing Trump's victory as a rallying cry for the poor, down trodden, disaffected, white working class masses. Perhaps they are right.

Since 1980, since Friedman's, Thatcher's & Reagan's bonkers monetarism experiment, all western politicians and VIPs have impoverished the 99.5% and enriched the 0.5% elite - tax-free, offshore; whose immense hoards of gold, $32 trillion, are locked away, doing nothing, not invested - fatally clogging up the global economic arteries. Money must circulate to keep the economy healthy.

PS - Will "they" disconnect the nuclear button while Mr Trump is in office, please. Pretty please.

The West's 2016 unlikely revolutionary leaders, Donald Trump and Nigel Farage should consider their own personal safety and read their history books about the French and Russian revolutions. Both men have descended to the gutter tactics of stirring the mob to revolutionary violence, in order to take personal power. What goes around comes around. (I have never before used that trite phrase - but it fits this particular bill).

"They are stealing our jobs, homes, children and our women"

Trump incites American mobs to arrest and deport 11 millions of Mexican and other "immigrants"; cynically obscuring the fact that his family and his wife's family are recent immigrants to The Land of the Free. Trump's solution to the fact that blue-collar and lower-class Americans haven't had a pay rise for 30 years, exist in trailer-parks and have no health insurance; and that their roads, bridges, energy and all infrastructure are in ruins - is "Make me President and I Will Build a Wall". He will also halve taxes on the richest 1% and stomp the poorest even harder underfoot.

Farage, also from an immigrant family, with a German wife, pricked and prodded the halfwit Prime Minister David Cameron into calling a Referendum then stirred up UK Members of Parliament and the mobs to vote to deport millions of "Europeans", by broadcasting pictures of war refugees from the Middle East and North Africa, struggling to get to Turkey - not to the UK. His followers are too stupid to see the difference and so have been fooled to believe that all immigrants are from the European Union. Their dumb answer? BREXIT.

The UK is walking away from its privileged position in the European Open Market, carefully negotiated over 60 years of UK membership, by insulting 550 million of the richest customers on Earth, who are 47% of the UK's export customers. And in doing this, Farage is risking the settled lives of millions of UK citizens who currently work and live in "Europe", in the EU.

6 NOV 16 -Nigel Farage appeared on BBC One's Andrew Marr Show today and warned there will be disturbances on the streets if Parliament attempts to prevent or "water-down" Brexit. The interim Ukip leader said "political anger the likes of which none of us in our lifetimes have ever witnessed" will emerge if voters feel they are going to be "cheated" over the result of June's referendum to Leave the EU. Will Nigel Farage MEP be arrested for inciting violence?

The tax-free revolution.

A common factor in both men is that they have very large incomes and pay no tax. They do not join in. They evade the sweat and toil of their fellow country-men. Draft-dodger Trump, with $100M a year income, boasts that "I'm Smart" not to contribute to his country. Farage, a velvet collared creature of The City, similarly gouges $150,000 a year tax-free from the EU he so despises. He wants to sell the unparalleled NHS to the insurance industry - doubling health costs for the poor. Is he on 10% of the deal? They also both have fake-tans and bleached teeth.

These two leading revolutionaries are mobilising the disaffected, The Mob, who have been repeatedly exploited and cheated by the 1% since 1979, and who are debarred from sharing in the wealthiest society the world has ever seen. In this era of the Electronic Revolution "We have worked hard to abolish work - and have succeeded" - but we have forgotten to share the riches. And governments have turned their backs on the justifiably, increasingly angry poor.

French economist Thomas Piketty's masterful academic analyses, CAPITAL, warns the world of the dangers of cramming more and more wealth, gouged from the poor, into the gullets and bellies of fewer and fewer super-rich. The global super-rich today number less than half-a-percent of the population but own most of the world. City and Wall Street lobbyists for increasing interest rates, such as the oddly persistent UK MP John Redwood, are demented demonic creatures, the servile familiars and sycophants of the already bloated super-rich. In the UK every 1% increase in Base Rates feeds The Beast with another risk-free, effortless $60 billion a year - gouged from the already struggling, marginal poor. Read Piketty.

CAPITAL & THOMAS PIKETTY

This is fertile soil for revolution to take root. "Let them eat Crunchy Cremes, drink soda, watch TV and die of Obesity". The human soul needs far more - we also need future-hope and a spiritual dimension, to give our lives meaning and purpose. My book, AD 2516 - After Global Warming, is a novel that paints a Utopian picture of the future; a light in the darkness to guide us to a better world. Though a good-read novel, it is is based on my forecasts of what will actually happen; three of the scientific forecasts have already happened. We won't have to wait 500 years. Innovation is moving very, very fast - bringing hope to the young at heart. Buy the book - its an enjoyable read.

It will get ugly.

But - we do not have a spiritual dimension or uplifting vision, we have Trump and Farage. What history tells us will happen to these loud-mouthed mud-slingers and mud-stirrers is that within the first year of the revolution, The Mob will inevitably be disappointed. Their heroes will be found to have clay feet. Trump and Farage will be unable to deliver. The Mob will turn on them and tear them to pieces. The Mob will then rampage through the land, chaotically and mindlessly destroying everything and everybody - until their chaotic misdirected rage is spent. New leaders will then emerge from the ruins. Historians will write best-sellers about the early revolutionaries and their savage deaths at the hands of The Mob.

Dopey David Cameron, The Right Honourable David Cameron MP, Prime Minister, the Ivy League gentleman who unleashed The Mob in Britain, might be right to have slunk away so quickly. He might have timed it just right to get out and hide, to go and live with his inherited money and Family Trust in Caribbean tax-havens. Trump's family might escape the rage of the mob by fleeing to Russia, and seeking the protection of Trump's admirer, Vladimir Putin.

We live in interesting times.

Tuesday 8 November 2016

BREXIT BATTLE - TAX-FREE NON-DOMS

BREXIT - Out of Europe but desperate to defend our sovereign tax-havens from EU rules and scrutiny.

This is one of the main drivers behind the LEAVE campaign. The determination to pay no tax, anywhere, ever, explains why many UK VIPs back BREXIT, and explains where the big money for the LEAVE campaign comes from. The UK Parliament, Government and Civil Service is stuffed with embedded tax-evaders, non-doms, and professional tax-planners - who want to escape the EU (and UN) nets that are closing around them. The majority of popular UK media and the London Times, are all owned by offshore non-tax-payers - who want to use Britain as their tax-free fiefdom; which explains the relentless media campaign, verging on violence, to quit Europe and "take back our sovereignty".

Of the tens of thousands of people identified in the Panama Papers and the Zurich HSBC lists and the Luxembourg lists, the UK tax collectors, HMRC, have prosecuted only one case. A single tax-evader has been pursued for a few million pounds. The Head of HMRC, Dave Hartnett, resigned in 2013 and joined Deloitte - big tax-planners - with the necessary blessing of Prime Minister David Cameron, whose dad made his money via Panama and Caribbean tax-havens - where it still sits. My estimate of UK tax-evasion-capital-flight is $3 trillion (8 million good jobs for 10 years and 3 years of the total UK Budget).

...And now (10 NOV 2017) we have of course the Paradise Papers. Another huge batch of UK tax-evaders - all pushing to quit the EU and turn Britain into a tax-haven, before HMRC brings cases against them. Desperate and Dangerous. "Sod the People. We don't and won't pay tax." What are HMRC doing about these hundreds of thousands Panama and Paradise and Zurich and Luxembourg tax-evaders who have been outed? There are trillions of pounds at stake.

NB - 9 Nov 2016 - Guardian "Tax inquiries for 22 people after Panama Papers, says Hammond"

To put the 22 cases in context; one branch of HSBC in Zurich found 7,000 UK taxpayers. Say 10 international banks x 75 tax havens = 5.2 million UK accounts. The Panama Papers (PP) reveal 240,000 anonymous companies. Lets conservatively say 10,000 Brits in 75 tax-havens = 750,000 tax-evaders. So the HMRC ratio is 22:750,000. I estimate $3 trillion of UK tax-evasion-capital-flight is recoverable. HMRC MUST TRY HARDER.

PP "active intermediaries" Britain came third with 32,682, (that's 32K professional tax-evasion advisors in the UK).

PP The files also name Mr Cameron's late father Ian as allegedly using the law firm to shield his investment fund, Blairmore Holdings Inc, from UK taxes.

PP Daily Mail: “It was reported that in total six members of the House of Lords, three former Conservative MPs and dozens of donors to British political parties have been shown to have had offshore assets”.

HSBC bank 'helped clients dodge millions in tax' - BBC News

www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-31248913

10 Feb 2015 - Banking giant HSBC helped wealthy clients across the world evade ... The documents include details of almost 7,000 clients based in the UK

LuxLeaks Pepsi, IKEA, AIG, Coach, Deutsche Bank, Abbott Laboratories and nearly 340 other companies have secured secret deals from Luxembourg that allowed many of them to slash their global tax bills.

The most definitive calculation of global tax-haven assets is $32 trillion, made in 2012 by James Henry, Wall Street, McKinsey and Tax Justice Network economist. The OECD calculates that $1 trillion a year is added to the off-shore total; so by 2016, the figure will be $36 trillion (90 million good jobs). $36,000,000,000,000 buys a lot of friends in high places - and low places. Perhaps the USA will collect their $17 to $20 trillion offshore loot - and pay off the national deficit.

TAX-HAVEN OWNERS IDENTIFIED - DAVID GAUKE, HM TREASURY

Bloomberg on tax-haven capital flight.

From The Guardian - 8 NOV 2016 - EU & Tax havens

Treasury tries to thwart EU plans for tax haven blacklist

UK territories such as Jersey, Guernsey and Cayman Islands should not be singled out because of zero-rate tax, argues David Gauke

The UK government is fighting a rearguard action to prevent Guernsey, Jersey and British overseas territories from going on an EU blacklist of tax havens.

At a meeting of EU finance ministers on Tuesday in Brussels, David Gauke, chief secretary to the Treasury, will tell his counterparts that the UK opposes attempts to put territories with a zero rate of corporation tax on an EU list of “non-cooperative” jurisdictions.

The EU vowed to draw up a blacklist of tax havens following the revelations in the Panama Papers, an unprecedented leak of 11.5m files from the database of the world’s fourth-biggest offshore law firm, Mossack Fonseca. Brussels pledged to throw light on the shady “treasure islands” that help multinationals and wealthy clients avoid paying tax.

Crown dependencies Jersey, Guernsey and the Isle of Man, as well as British overseas territories Bermuda and the Cayman Islands, are among the jurisdictions that have a zero rate of corporation tax, according to the EU’s executive arm, the European commission, in a recent analysis of risk factors intended to show whether a jurisdiction may be promoting tax avoidance.

The commission has been leading the charge for greater transparency on tax havens and wants to draw up a list of “non-cooperative jurisdictions” by the end of next year.

Brussels officials think that a zero or near-zero rate of corporation tax in a non-EU country should be a red flag for “unfair taxation”.

But EU member states are split on whether zero corporate tax rates should count in the criteria for determining whether a country is a “non-cooperative jurisdiction”, according to draft conclusions seen by the Guardian. The UK, Ireland, Sweden, the Baltic states, the Netherlands and Luxembourg are blocking a plan to put jurisdictions with a zero or almost zero rate on the blacklist.

These countries argue that the EU has no right to penalise outside jurisdictions for setting zero rates because corporate tax is not an EU competence. In contrast, Germany and France think zero rates should automatically mean a country is deemed “unfair” on taxation and goes on to the blacklist.

The division may frustrate hopes of agreeing the blacklist criteria on Tuesday, as EU tax policy has to be agreed unanimously.

The UK is also pressing to allow potential blacklistees more time to meet the EU criteria: jurisdictions would be allowed until 2020 to meet all EU rules on transparency, rather than 2017.

Although the UK is not the only country looking for extra time, London’s support for delays has caused anger, because Britain could have left the EU before the rules would come into effect.

Sven Giegold, a German Green MEP, said he did not have a problem with the UK raising its voice as an EU member state, but the British government should not be allowed to set deadlines that clashed with the Brexit timetable.

“It is particularly nasty that the UK does not only want to weaken the criteria of the blacklist but also wants a transitional period until [31 December] 2019,” he told the Guardian. “Such negotiation strategies are inconsistent [and] unfair during a Brexit process. We must not allow any precedent in this regard.”

If Theresa May keeps to her preferred timetable of triggering EU exit talks by the end of March 2017, the UK could have left the EU by mid 2019.

The MEP added: “We need a strong EU blacklist of tax havens. It is unacceptable that member states are trying to water down the good draft of the commission.”

Aurore Chardonnet, tax and inequality adviser at Oxfam, said the EU would be missing an opportunity by failing to target zero corporation tax rates.

“The EU should be explaining to people that some jurisdictions are providing advantages to some multinationals to help them avoid paying taxes,” she said. “We cannot only blame the multinationals by doing name and shame. We need to target those countries that are helping those multinationals avoid paying tax. It is not only a matter of secrecy, it is also a matter of the tools they give to those multinationals.”

A spokeswoman for the European commission said it would continue to insist on including “extremely low rates” of corporate tax being considered as part of the criteria”, adding that transitional periods should be “as short as possible”.