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http://blogs.aljazee...ug-24-2011-0824 http://www.sandraoff...y-habib-haddad/ http://jeffreyhill.typepad.com/english/2011/02/gadaffi-cartoons.html

Pretty much says it all about the irrationality behind the current mess: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-14587364 Some of the conclusions we'd already reached here, but it takes a wider view of them. The "Sooner or later leaders will emerge who accept that Greece will have to leave the euro, even though the process is bound to be extremely traumatic” has obvious parallels in the UK experience of the 1980's. General conclusion: politicians can't change their spots; you just have to hope that more rational ones come along to save something from the stupidity, and the unenlightened self-interest, of their predecessors.

Share Capital actually works pretty well. Where it's inefficient is once again due to over-regulation - which kills competition, allows merchant banks to charge exorbitant fees, and excludes smaller enterprises on cost grounds. I've had people say that all the post-flotation market trading is froth and does nothing to further enterprise. But that ignores the fact that investors have to be provided with an exit on their own timescale or they wouldn't commit in the first place. Ditto the evil "shorting", which - rather than the parasitic activity it's often represented to be by poor managements - limits excess and brings the guilty and inept to book. Day traders generally trade themselves into the ground, and longer-term investors near universally win on the law of averages providing they spread their capital around enough. The public purse creams off a cut on every transaction win or lose. So it's not a part of our system that's badly broke, and so doesn't need much fixing. It has - in most respects - actually improved over the years, particularly since the advent of on-line trading. Nothing at all the FSA did of course; just market forces!

It's a well known fact that outdoor air-con comes a lot cheaper in the UK. BTW, I said here when we "won" the Oilypics that it was a disaster, and that the French would have the last laugh given the size of the looming economic disaster. Not sure how many members agreed then - but they sure do now! You can't blame Dave making political capital out of the completion even if there is mass amnesia as to the original figures. That's what p-oily-ticians do for a living. c.f. The Millennium Dome and the Mandelsonian/Prescott !*!@#-up! Anyway, Dave isn't likely to go as overboard as Teflon Tony at The Dome's opening ceremony: "In the Dome we have a creation that, I believe, will truly be a beacon to the world".

World leaders you say! That's exactly what we haven't got! There are solutions out there but they are all politically unacceptable. For the UK the first thing that needs to be done is to kill the minimum wage to get people back to work according to their capacity. Then get rid of all the politically driven so-called employment protection - get back to the days where an employee could walk straight into employment without their potential employer having to worry about all the long-term consequences. The dole should rapidly become a top-up system - not a substitute for work that everyone else has to shoulder. The planning laws need to be scrapped too. There's already a start on this but it doesn't go far enough. There should be an implicit right to build, and anyone who feels that it's inappropriate should have to do a lot more than write a letter of objection. That's how we got all those listed buildings - and precious few since we started overprotecting them, and making people conform to lowest-common-denominator style for new constructions! Overprotection in Banking (and fat bankers) led up to the present mess, and a lot of the banking regulation needs to be quickly rolled back to allow local banks (ones that can be allowed to fail) to exist once again. We'll get back truly local banking jobs again, bank managers that can manage with local knowledge, and real competition for our savings. Hundreds of other reforms are needed, but none are going to be floated by the present spineless political class, because they have to explain in more than a sound-bite why they are truly necessary. That's not to mention the fact that their party probably supported the populist crap that introduced much of the self-immolating stuff in the first place - so they'd have to admit to being wrong! With all this goes an automatic reduction in state expenditure on things that at the end of the day limit growth, and are only there for political gloss. i.e. The cuts become automatic and obvious; no need to agonise about which is the lesser evil, and how to "fairly" apportion scarce resources. Huge droves of government/quasi-government drones would have to find real and productive jobs, with the release of their wages redeployed to pay down Gordo's debt mountain, and properly fund working people's pensions (not theirs!). Maybe we need the collapse of the World as we know it to shed all the baggage wished onto us by the liberal elite, and to get back to basics? There is no leadership to speak of out there at the moment, so natural forces may have to do the job for us.

It's calculating the root of all minus numbers - so I guess it must be imaginary.

Heard on the radio today from ardent lefty female justifying the behaviour on the grounds that the police had indulged in an illegal shooting in London: The problem is that the riots were hijacked by criminal elements. Clearly something to guard against when planning future riots!

Where is the appalling Ed Balls in all this? Bogus cheque writer extraordinary, and the Albert Speer of the current meltdown. At least Gordo had the elementary decency to scurry away to a dark hole somewhere. And, if Ed isn't enough balls, you get a double helping with that mouth-disconnected-from-brain Mrs Balls (who for some strange reason prefers to be known as Yvette Cooper).

God save us from the politicians making excuses for the arson and looting. Events predicted here just a few short years ago. I'm talking you Ken Livingstone, and all the other lefties trying to make political capital out of the mess you yourselves created! You are always quick to shout down opposing opinions, but when the results of your pet social experiments (in this case Multiculturalism, but it could just as easily been a federal Europe) surface, you are keen to place the blame elsewhere, or more often are retired and simply duck the blame.

http://www.bbc.co.uk...nology-14370878

Dogs now located. Thanks for your attention!

Just now in the Front Street East/ Marketplace area. Please phone xxxxxxxxxx if you spot them. Thanks! Or in case of difficulty please post sighting details here.

...is likely to be a person who was in contact with her, but who chose to do nothing! The signs were all there a couple of short weeks ago. How many times has this happened before, and how many more times will it happen again? Amy only needed one true friend, and in the final countdown she had none! So take those tinsel-town tributes and file them in the WPB; if you knew her at all you should a least acknowledge her demise with a respectful silence.

Even hoarding gold isn't too sensible financial advice. It's already way way above any sustainable historic level; production is leaping as the price encourages more exploration/mining and bringing back into production formerly uneconomic mines. Plus there aren't too many real industrial uses for the stuff these days. Classic signs of a bubble market set to catch the financially naive. Far better to hoard something they don't make any more - like prime agricultural land.

Unfortunately the World isn't that simple, and your favourite people - politicians - have made it even more complicated than it needs to be. Who cared about some archduke no one had ever heard of getting shot in some place people had to refer to a map to find? The result of that insignificant event was that just about every family in our country had to bear a tragedy, and the entire World changed over the course of a very few years. We are teetering on the brink of another major event, this time an economic one. You will feel the results, and all around you. You'd be very wise to care!

I think that proposal would be a tiny bit provocative. But I'd have to say that when I went down to London by train some years ago after not having used the train for decades I was truly shocked by the gleaming North London skyline. Buildings totally out of character with our native architecture in almost every direction I looked, all in the name of the now discredited "multicultural society". This is often made worse by petty planning decisions by local authorities, refusing small near-inconsequential improvements to people's homes, whilst waiving-through monster buildings that look like they've been transported directly from a middle Eastern city. Nothing could be more calculated to stir resentment! The British sense of fair play assumes that others will adopt the same tolerant approach; when the other party doesn't understand even the basics of live and let live it's time for a major rethink!

Don't think so; Rupert has a plan, and he'll not throw away a 2.8M readership just like that. The Sun on Sunday or some other reincarnation is probably already on the screens. My favoured title for a scandal sheet: The Sunday Bugyoul - sorry Bugle!

Symptoms is definitely more a Marx type than a Wolfie Smith. Though I'm not sure which brother!

And today's Mole to Whack is..... http://www.bbc.co.uk...siness-14038529 The more you hand out the more you may. Moral hazard (or rather the lack of same) is the term used by economists. But when - not if - the music stops... There, but for the demise of Gordon - Prudence - Brown, treads the UK! And, the nation doesn't even realise what a "damn close-run thing" it was!

I think it's intended to be ironic Malc. But granted you can never be quite sure with local one-size-fits-all socialists, and it could indeed be aspirational - they do often end up on the grouse moor themselves. c.f. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alfred_Robens,_Baron_Robens_of_Woldingham

And if you want the full list of the 37 labour chiefs who "earn" over £100K you'll find it here: http://www.taxpayers...ichlist0611.pdf Wonder if they fiddle their expenses too? You'd probably have to in a job like that; times are tough!

Starting to look like exactly what the majority of the French public believed. This could backfire on the US; there's a very good chance that he will end up as French president!

..or has he joined Johnny Reb? ..or has his dickey ticker finally caught up with him? Tune in to next months thrilling episode of I'm dictator, but you can't get me out of here! - only on Bedlington.co.uk !

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oU8kYwqZKgM

http://www.bankrate....tell-you-1.aspx ..and remember, always turn left(ish) and head towards the back of the store without stopping to look at anything!