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Monday 14 November 2011

Verity Murphy | 14:56 UK time, Monday, 14 November 2011

Tonight we are putting Britain's long term relations with Europe in the spotlight.

At this crucial time of economic crisis in the eurozone some are talking about a two-speed Europe - a "federal" core of the members of the eurozone, with a looser "confederal" outer band of the non-euro members.

If that vision came to fruition could Britain really lead an outer core bloc to prevent a German-dominated eurozone undermining our interests, or is that fanciful? What should Britain's strategy be to protect national interests?

Tonight David Grossman reports on this issue and Jeremy Paxman interviews former European Commissioner for Trade Lord Mandelson.

He will also be speaking to France's former minister of European Affairs Noelle Lenoir and former UK foreign secretary Sir Malcolm Rifkind.

Plus, hot on the heels of an Arab League vote to suspend Syria's membership, King Abdullah of Jordan has told the Â鶹Éç that Syrian President Bashar al-Assad should step down in the interest of his country.

Tonight Tim Whewell looks at Syria's increasing isolation, its likely effects and what options Damascus has for striking back across the region.

Richard Watson reports on the opening of an inquiry led by Lord Justice Leveson
examining the culture and practices of the press following the News of The World phone hacking scandal.

And Jeremy interviews Eliot Spitzer, the former New York State attorney general and governor of New York, who was forced to resign as governor in 2008 when it was revealed that he had been seeing call girls.

Before his fall Mr Spitzer was known as the Sheriff of Wall Street and took on a series of special interests over corporate pay, securities fraud and insider dealing.

He had been elected governor with the largest margin in New York state's history and many believed he was on his way to becoming the nation's first Jewish president.

Comments

  • Comment number 1.

    I wonder if Mr Paxman will ask Eliot Spitzer about the massive fraud that may be lurking within the recently collapsed MF Global?



    And how about asking his views on the Occupy movement:

  • Comment number 2.



    We could easily be on the brink of a total global stock market meltdown, which will inevitably cause all the Banks to go bust, and with them lots of FTSE listed companies. Of course if we idly stand by and do nothing the result could end in serious civil unrest, but perhaps we need to take the following approach.

    1. Nationalise all the UK listed Banks, and then if the companies they have lent to can't stump up the cash, ( no asset stripping allowed ) nationalise them also.

    2. Introduce a Citizens Income at a level where everybody can afford to keep warm and dry and have a full belly.

    3. Introduce a tax system where it pays dividends in tax credits to employ people and prescribes a maximum wage for those not directly employing others.

    4. Established small business should be able to stand on its own feet, but the individual units of FTSE companies need to be converted over time into workers cooperatives.

    5. All mortgages which go into default converted into National Council Houses, and their occupier charged a suitable rent, ( no need to throw anyone on the street )

    By doing the above it should be possible to reach a position where all cash savings are valid up to the 85k bank limit, all National Savings accounts retain full value.

    In this way the National Bank will have money to invest in our future !


    Rough outline anyway, anybody else got any ideas ?

  • Comment number 3.

    Tonight we are putting Britain's long term relations with Europe in the spotlight.
    ++

    Really? I think its the short & medium term relationships which are currently of most concern.

  • Comment number 4.

    brossen99 wrote: "Nationalise all the UK listed Banks, and then if the companies they have lent to can't stump up the cash, ( no asset stripping allowed ) nationalise them also."

    Please enumerate (list/name) membership of the class "UK listed banks".
    As you do, think about the nature of "listing" in your sentence.

  • Comment number 5.

    I DON'T LIKE IT - IT'S TOO QUIET (THE CHILCOT ENQUIRY)

    Heir-to-Blair, Dodgy Dave, appears to be busy, helping to save the world from it's worst practitioners of corrupt power. But - as I did my best to point out, to the Chilcot Enquiry: its remit was TO LEARN LESSONS. It is abundantly clear that the terrible lesson of BLAIR'S WAR (aka The War of IDS' Gullibility) is that THE WESTMINSTER ETHOS, ELEVATES DELUSONAL PRIME MINISTERS (who find war attractive).

    Lesson 2: WE HAVE GOT OURSELVES ANOTHER ONE.

  • Comment number 6.

    Carrying on from last Friday



    White poppies all around next year?

  • Comment number 7.

    OH NO! THE EU ADVENTURE WAS DESIGNED AND INSTALLED BY THE (political) 'BEST OF THE BEST' (#2)

    How can ANY plan defeat the corrupt and needy Bro? They sleep little, and they are devoid of finer feelings. Look at the EU: the most recent construction of a political elite. It is more like a religion than an organisation that is: by the people, of the people, for the people. Pope Barroso - it has a ring . . .

    When religions lose grip, they get nasty. It will take total social breakdown - however engendered - to bring down the status quo.

    Nuff sed.

  • Comment number 8.

    LEGALISE THE GRATUITOUS KILLING OF JOHNNIE FOREIGNER - ANYWHERE (#6)

    No need to travel to his own land - he is well represented here.

    In the AGE OF FAIRNESS, this also puts WARMONGERING PRIME MINISTERS AND MPs ON THE FRONT LINE, where they belong.

    Nuff sed.

    PS The above is 'telling irony' Blogdog.

  • Comment number 9.

    Mandelson and Rifkind are first rank political brains so let us hope that Jeremy Paxman can somehow raise his game up from the aggressive/garrulous to quiet/probing/intelligent discourse.

    Or is that too much to hope for, given that Paxman is only on £1M per annum?

  • Comment number 10.

    This comment was removed because the moderators found it broke the house rules. Explain.

  • Comment number 11.

    IT IS THE MARK OF A GENTLEMAN THAT HE CANNOT BE BOUGHT (#9)

    Especially if he is already paid for. (Parable of the Talent.)

  • Comment number 12.

    This comment was removed because the moderators found it broke the house rules. Explain.

  • Comment number 13.

    barriesingleton @ 11

    'It is the mark of a gentleman that he cannot be bought'.

    I think you'll find that gentlemen are pretty thin in the ground these days, Barrie.

    This seems to be the age of the cad, the bounder, the toff and murderous footpads.

  • Comment number 14.

    At this crucial time of economic crisis in the eurozone some are talking about a two-speed Europe - a "federal" core of the members of the eurozone, with a looser "confederal" outer band of the non-euro members.

    ++

    Yes - 'some' (of us) have been talking about it for two years along with the demise of the Euro (at least in its present form) - but even now just as the entire Euro project is heading off the rails at high speed - still no proper discussion in public, at least.

    Italian austerity measures put forward by their bureavats include an INCREASE in VAT? Can you believe it? Why increase a hideously regressive tax on spending?

    Two main possibilities regarding current stalemate/lack of progress/ action:-

    1) The eurocrat/technocrat/ bureauvat discussions are entirely behind closed doors, in secret, as a display of EU brinkmanship in pressurising the PIIGS i.e Spain, Greece, Italy into firm austerity programmes.

    and/or

    2) The Germans, particularly, + Netherlands, Belgium + ?? are looking for an exit from the Euro & a 'soft landing'.

    The Germans are playing a dangerous game & which can backfire & have long term consequences for the new economic & perhaps social & political division of Europe.

    What 'Black Wednesday', in part, proved - 20 years ago - is that when 'the market' volatility reaches danger level things can happen quickly - and the demise of the Euro to it becoming worthless paper & coin - Can now probably happen in less than a day - even in hours.

    Why do these power mad eurocrat nutters play these mind games and gamble with the jobs, incomes, pensions, living standards of hundreds of millions of people in this way and stand-by as the market speculators also stand ready to cash in with their spread bets on the demise of the Euro as now keeping the value of the Euro artificially high before the technology & systems accelerates the Euro crash.

    Behind the problems of the eurozone lie the dark murky secret of the global money markets & industrial scale tax avoidance and the lack of adequate regulation, accounting and a strategic Tobin tax to address these problems & rein in the short term, over-privileged profiteering, greed, speculation & vultures.

    The point about a global economy is that the successful countries learn how to integrate with it while protecting their own domestic economy - but in Britain the only sector of our economy that has protection and indeed 'protectionism' is the City of London/FI as is 'joined at the hip' (as the most powerful & influential vested interest) with the UK political classes, as a major source of political donations, favours etc.

    Things to get a lot worse before anything gets much better in the medium to long term & Europe learns how to adjust to overall much lower living standards and acceptance of the perversity of a range of embedded inequalities.

    Europhiles need to reflect on the mess, corruption & perversity of the EU and understand that there is no democratic mandate for resolving this series of EU crises.

  • Comment number 15.

    Awesome post....

    /blogs/newsnight/fromthewebteam/2011/11/friday_11_november_2011.html?postId=110877397

    If only the brainwashed ones could work it out!

  • Comment number 16.

    nautonier @ 14

    This blogger is a somewhat reluctant europhile.

    To explain, my view is that when we English had the opportunity in past decades, we should have played a fairly sophicated triangular game which saw us having healthy economic and political ties with the Commonwealth, Europe and the USA.

    However, our political leaders decided otherwise, left the Commonwealth high-and-dry, and mostly threw our lot in mostly with the EU, so here we are.

    It is obvious now that the political leaders within the EU were in far too much of a hurry to build the economic and political mass they deemed necessary to box with the BRICs and the USA.

    Now it has come a bit unglued but I am sure that the policymakers within the eurozone will keep the thing intact and ultimately emerge as a very powerful bloc within the EU.

    Part of tonights programme will tackle that issue - will it be the fate of us English to be like Orwell's animals looking in whilst the (reformed) Eurozone PIIGS enjoy themselves?

  • Comment number 17.

    This comment was removed because the moderators found it broke the house rules. Explain.

  • Comment number 18.

    State Sponsored eco-terrorism to make the 2008 Climate Change Act look populist ?

  • Comment number 19.

    This comment was removed because the moderators found it broke the house rules. Explain.

  • Comment number 20.

    >18

    The fact remains that this guy enabled a lot of potentially dangerous individuals to escape the full force of the law despite the fact that they intended to risk the lives of many vulnerable individuals at risk through power cuts. Meacher was on the programme alleging that it was all the corporates at fault for burning coal, but it looks as though government policy has since played into their hands allowing them to sell less energy for more profit ?

  • Comment number 21.

    :o) Outstanding interview by Jeremy with Lord Mandelson tonight! Oh how he whinged when Jeremy pointed out how he had wanted to adopt the Euro..........Priceless.

  • Comment number 22.

    Note how Mandelson tried to repeatedly personalise the argument over the Euro with Paxman.

    Everything that "brown-dog" has been trying to explain on these very blogs was ecapsulated and embodied in what Mandelson was preaching on NN tonight.

  • Comment number 23.

    This is my favourite story of the day :o)

    And good for her!

  • Comment number 24.

    Re my censored posts...

    It would appear that you cannot comment on this blog about the link between those members on the Iraq inquiry and those on the inquiry on the freedom of the press...how bizarre!

  • Comment number 25.

    GROWTH: IN NATURE IT IS SELF-LIMITING, IN POLITICS IT IS UNENDING

    Ergo: politically motivated policies run counter to nature and must cause harm - then fail. It follows that politicians are not concerned with good and stability. Well - not the sort we have at the moment. So what ARE they concerned with? Just watch Dave.
    Nuff sed.

    DISMANTLE WESTMINSTER - INSTALL INTEGRITY.

  • Comment number 26.

    This comment was removed because the moderators found it broke the house rules. Explain.

  • Comment number 27.

    This comment was removed because the moderators found it broke the house rules. Explain.

  • Comment number 28.

    I LOVE the fact the Newsnight Crew put the Baroness Trumpington story on to close the show :o)

  • Comment number 29.

    Perter Mandelson.

  • Comment number 30.

    This comment was removed because the moderators found it broke the house rules. Explain.

  • Comment number 31.

    This comment was removed because the moderators found it broke the house rules. Explain.

  • Comment number 32.

    Oh i give up!
    You win Moddy.

  • Comment number 33.

    #29

    How dare you mention the anti-Christ!

    You shall be moderated forthwith.

  • Comment number 34.

    Anyone watching REV?

    Yet another attack on Christianity. It's so obvious....secularism promoted in the favour of the chosen few.

    I am an agnostic btw.

    Only joking.

  • Comment number 35.

    @29 What has Lord 'Voldemort' Mandelson Ever been good at, apart from promoting himself to lazy journalists, and being sycophantic to those with wealth and/or power?

    I remember James Landale once saying that he (Voldemort) had "won three General Elections" for Labour. I have never seen evidence to support this. What I do know is that antipathy to him and Tony Blair lost the Labour party many long-standing members. Voldemort alienated even more party "colleagues" than his grandfather Herbert Morrison. I'm afraid he always reminds me of the second of Jonathan Swift's verses on "an Upright Judge" (Google it.)

  • Comment number 36.

    Very inconsistent Paxman tonight.

    Firstly, kept harping on about what Mandelson had said years ago about joining the euro when Mandelson was trying to make a crucial point about Cameron's refusal to accept Merkels offer to sit in and influenice eurozone inner core meetings. Quite a waste of the master politicians time really.

    At least, Paxman allowed Rifkind to pose a completely different view of how Europe may develop going forward, which was an excellent counterpoint to the Mandelson view.

    Two political titans in Mandelson and Rifkind, who needed a better interviewer really.

    And finally, Paxman did make an excellent interview with Spitzer, who saw the faults in the economic system and really tried to bring an effective regulatory framework into place. If only he had succeeded and not given in to human fraility.

    After the Syria piece, I switched off as the phone hacking thing started up again ... zzzz.

    BTW. A relative told me that Richard Madeley was whinging on the radio about being 'stalked'. What, by Judy, I asked? I suppose that any self-loathing celeb who has now found out that they were'nt on the NoW hacking list, must be full of anguish.

  • Comment number 37.

    @36, Actually JC, What Madeley was upset about, rightly, was his teenage daughter and her boyfriend being videoed, and focussed upon, in the street by the private detective Derek Webb.

    /news/uk-15669081

    Madeley may not be the most sympathetic character, but he has a point. Mr Webb's activities do seem rather like stalking.

  • Comment number 38.

    Sasha Clarkson @ 37

    I just watched that clip (/news/uk-15669081%29 and Richard Madeley is, as you say, rightfully annoyed.

    But Madeley then refers to 'the banality of evil'.

    Correct me if I'm wrong but does'nt that refer to the mass murder of miilions of people, not a minor celebrity being monitored for a few days.

    Anyway, in my opinion, the rot set in way back when newscaster Anna Ford, a person who never courted any sort of publicity, lost a court case where she had complained about being photographed on holiday with her family.

    That was a bad day for the law and effectively gave the nod to more and more intrusion into private lives.

  • Comment number 39.

    #22

    What is it with you and brown dog?

    Narcisissm by proxy?

    By way of an appeal to a split personality, you both say some interesting and worthy things but manage to conspire to spoil it by being rooted in the hallucination of Aristotle while believing that you have escaped from Plato's Cave.


    Without being patronising (lol).. please .. think about what I am advising you :)


    Hmmm is it narcisism to laugh heartily at my own jokes I wonder?

    Must dash.. got to keep up the Australian language lessons.


    The aboriginal language is quite tricky y'know, I am progressing well with playing the digeridoo and dancing around fires under clear star filled skys though....

    Most fun I have had in years, illuminating even.


    Plato would be pleased or maybe Diogenes of Sinope would be anyway.


    Speaking of which Barrie S, ever considered following his example and walking the streets of Westminster in the daytime with a torch?


    Tallyho

  • Comment number 40.

    @38 JC You are right! :-) Madeley is neither bright nor very sympathetic, but that doesn't justify the kind of stalking he and many others were subject to. It seems to me that NI was trying to build up a database of as many people as possible, AND THEIR FAMILIES, including lawyers acting for its (alleged) victims. Why would they do that?

    @39 LOL - a modern Jungian-style analysis would conclude that JJ-Sméagol is telling us to read more of the tens of thousands of words produced by JJ-Gollum last week. I wonder how many more sockpuppets there are. Perhaps once of these days there'll be an "I'm JJ" Spartacus moment.

    BTW - good lick in Oz Jericoa: send us an epistle every now and then!

  • Comment number 41.

    All this user's posts have been removed.Why?

  • Comment number 42.

    All this user's posts have been removed.Why?

  • Comment number 43.

    uk natural gas future prices still falling of a cliff in a downtrend. So where are the retail price reductions? where is the regulator? where are the MPs to speak up for ordinary people?

    are they all on the gravy train of exploiting of british people?

    why were there no or tiny price increases in europe where those energy countries have their home base? Are british fuel payers subsidising european energy prices and so keep them low?

  • Comment number 44.

    This comment was removed because the moderators found it broke the house rules. Explain.

  • Comment number 45.

    16.At 21:45 14th Nov 2011, JohnConstable wrote:

    What the EU mess shows us is that there is no disadvantage to a country outside of the EU, trading with the EU.

    The EU mess shows us that the EU was a con trick right from the start as EU has become a mechanism for benelux countries to find it easier to export & invest in e.g. Sunmed when those in Sunmed would otherwise be e.g. very nervous about e.g. the Germans.

    The rich Benelux countries have no interest whatsoever in substantially equalising their 'growth', wealth, resources, incomes etc with poorer EU countries - unless there is a massive export advantage accruing to them, in return, to pay for the privilege of some equalisation.

    Germany & Benelux are, in effect, now saying, unless we are 'top dogs' in Europe - Europe/Eurozone will be divided and this is going against the perceived EU message about an EU community - sharing happy Europeans supporting each other.

    This notion about a big society in Europe - sharing, happy EU equals is ***.

    The cover is blown - the lies are exposed - the German Chancellor is talking about things being as bleak as WW2 unless the eurocrats get their way.

    One of the questions remaining is whether the EU ideology is (strategically?) 'national socialist' or is it 'fascist'?

    The EU started out as a good idea & had good intentions (even though De Gaulle 'repaid' the UK for saving his **** in WW2 by opposing UK entry for many years) as a Council of Europe & later a common market - and that is where the EU should be operating at and at a strategic level only, IMO.

    UK membership of the EU is NOW holding Britain back & is not adding anything NOW except a massive straightjacket, naively open borders and billions of £'s pa in costs to UK business - and of course the EU added the wretched VAT; which outside of bloated domestic economic conditions - is NOW killing our UK domestic growth stone dead.

    Voila!

  • Comment number 46.

    Sasha Clarkson wrote: "9 LOL - a modern Jungian-style analysis would conclude that JJ-Sméagol is telling us to read more of the tens of thousands of words produced by JJ-Gollum last week. I wonder how many more sockpuppets there are. Perhaps once of these days there'll be an "I'm JJ" Spartacus moment."

    Spartacus was a Left-Wing Communist (Libertarian/Social Democratic aka
    anarchist) Infantile Disorder according to Lenin. The origin or the New "Left"

    Not focusing upon WHAT is written but on who is doing the writing may taken as example of an attention deficit. The question which one then has to ask is whether said student doesn't follow what's said (sometimes euphemised as "not interested") or that they're "creatively" following something irrelevant.

    One may ask if that's evidence of

    a) bad teaching (environment)

    b) SEN/lack of aptitude/bad behaviour.

    These days it's often put down to bad teaching, but is that just so the Libertarian powers-that-be can privatise state education as the population is genetically dumbed down through differential fertility and immigration?

    A word to the could-be-wiser: Beware of seeking supply which just keeps one addicted to self-destructive behaviours.

  • Comment number 47.

    Logically, there MUST be austerity in the wake of what happened over recent decades as much of the glitz that we experienced was built on debt.

    What has to happen now will not, therefore, be popular with a) those who profited from selling debt nor b) with those who lived off that debt.

    That's a major system problem. Austerity won't be popular with anyone, and the worrying part of this is that Libertarian-democracy is premised on populism.

    The beneficial outcome measures will be a long-term change in our demography, i.e the differential birth rate. But this is along-term, inter-generational measure. If we don't address that though, matters can only get worse.

    Jauntycyclist wrote: "where is the regulator? where are the MPs to speak up for ordinary people?"

    They're working in Command, Planned Economies jauntycyclist. They won't be found here. If any group did have the temerity to try, they'd soon find themselves subject to "regime change".

    I'm not joking, and people here and elsewhere really do need to come to terms with what they've been voting for as "freedom" all these years and must stop complaining now they're getting what they unwittingly asked for. They gave Libertarians like Mandelson and Rifkind a mandate, much as Faust did Mephistopheles.

  • Comment number 48.

    JohnConstable wrote: "Two political titans in Mandelson and Rifkind, who needed a better interviewer really.

    And finally, Paxman did make an excellent interview with Spitzer, who saw the faults in the economic system and really tried to bring an effective regulatory framework into place. If only he had succeeded and not given in to human fraility."

    It's worth noting that Eliot Spitzer was GOVERNOR of NYC during the credit crisis and prior to that served as New York State's Attorney General.



    Many politicians were exercising "light-touch", facilitating the Libertarian market freedoms which helped oil the problem situation in Wall Street/USA and Europe. Think of the well documented directives from New Labour with respect to the FSA etc. "Light touch" was de rigueur.
    Picking on a few offenders doesn't change that. We have a mass of the evidence of that, nearly a meltdown in fact.

    There are many who have actively contributed to the "destruction" of national sovereignty in recent times, i.e by doing far too little. That was how it was done.

    Mr Mandelson actively pushed a "non-metal-bashing" (i.e Service Sector, largely Private (Financial Service) Sector economy even though, from OECD/PISA data, we appear to have a dwindling cognitive skills base.
    These policies were part of a policy to promote internationalism which actively excluded any truly left-wing Command Economy orientated socialist nations, often not only describing these as "totalitarian dictatorships", but actively levying sanctions against them, sometimes military.

    The following is worth watching. It might give you some clues as to why some of these behaviours are incorrigible.



    Jericoa wrote: "The aboriginal language is quite tricky y'know, I am progressing well with playing the digeridoo and dancing around fires under clear star filled skys though..."

    In your escape plan you appear to be hoping to join a disaffected group which has often resorted to drink having been unable to adapt to the ways of their European immigrants. Perhaps it would be better to stay and fight? If you did, it would be wise to pick one's friends and foes more wisely.

    Some helpful technical background:

  • Comment number 49.

    All this user's posts have been removed.Why?

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    All this user's posts have been removed.Why?

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  • Comment number 52.

    49.At 12:23 15th Nov 2011, Globaliist wrote:
    @45 Nautonier

    "De Gaulle knew very well that the City of London would act as an asset stripping and defrauding Trojan Horse for Wall Street. He knew our presence would spell the end of a social democratic Europe free of American control.!

    +
    IMO - "No" - French protectionism would have & has prevented that and does, indeed, still do now.

    De Gaulle was genuinely 'anti-British', as rival largely ex-colonial powers, although DeG may have realised that, eventually, when the real EU agenda became apparent i.e. since 1995? - most in Britain would be unhappy with the long term results and effect of the EU on UK sovereignty & independence as EU power centered & became concentrated in & around the area between between Berlin and Paris.

    The underlying hidden plan or indeed a conspiracy of the EU, was to focus EU direction & decision making in a 'closed door coalition' of France & Germany.

    Another point, Britain was not an asset stripper in 1970's - it allowed or encouraged itself to be asset stripped by vulturising greedy globalists because of trade union disputes and inflation as re-investment in UK industry, was generally not economic at that time. Plus a lot of unscrupulous operators overseas ignoring patent law & intellectual property rights and with weak international trade agreements. Also, a feeble, treachourous UK establishment was then moving their capital overseas for finding less regulation & lower costs in less civilised jurisdictions.

  • Comment number 53.

    All this user's posts have been removed.Why?

  • Comment number 54.

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  • Comment number 55.

    Globaliist wrote: "Libertarian "democracy" may in fact be premised on "populism" but for over fifty years I have been noticing that we live in a dictatorship (run by the right of US and Israeli politics) where I can vote until I am blue or red in the face and it won`t make a jot of difference to "my" governments policies or behaviour."

    Indeed, because the parties one gets to "choose" between are all do-almost-nothing Libertarian. That's the nature of the dictatorship, an anarchistic (infantile-disorder) dictatorship.

    "Has it ever struck you that using the word populist pejoratively rather gives the game away? Surely democracy is all about the popular will?"

    Of course, but if the critical mass of the dumbed down will of the people is child-like the politicians will abuse the popular vote to implement de-regulative policies which exploit them as consumers - it's still about the will of the people - it's just not in the best interests of most of the people, and that's far too subtle for most. An obvious example is all the fast food franchises which sell junk food to kids.
    The kids want it, even though it isn't good for the kids.

    There are so many examples of this that it isn't worth enumerating many more of them, but one is worth mentioning. There is a worrying increase in TV advertising of short term loans at nearly 2000% which explicitly targets the "cognitively challenged and impaired - especially the aged.

    Where are the regulators? It's so obvious that it's odd that anyone has the temerity to disagree but that's Axis II Cluster B and its cognitive impairment. One will find these types everywhere, many, paradoxically, are "high-functioning" too (it's a modular impairment). and they'll have the gall to cite caveat emptor and freedom of choice given that they profit from exploitation, either directly or indirectly. They are incorrigible. It's the bane of most clinician's lives and we are breeding more of them, because the Libertarian system needs them.

  • Comment number 56.

    All this user's posts have been removed.Why?

  • Comment number 57.

    This comment was removed because the moderators found it broke the house rules. Explain.

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  • Comment number 59.

    Globaliist wrote: "Those are very subtle observations BD but fortunately societies "have ways" of overcoming individual pathology by drawing on a large well of persuasive ideas in what I suspect Jung was describing with his concept of "the collective unconscious mind"."

    Alas, they're not so subtle. These observations are evidence in many population measures, from our own school SATs published by the DFE to OECD PISA data. These data and the trends will be familiar to the ONS and EuroStat and thus all of the Governments.

    "Capitalism (as run and abused by organised crime) draws upon the sort of gullibilities you describe but am I alone in thinking that no amount of propaganda/brainwashing will be sufficient to hide its collapse in the next few years? "

    One has to be careful about what one's referring to as "capitalism".
    China (like the former USSR) has a money supply, and they have markets.
    but they have regulated money supplies and regulated markets. That's what Government does, it regulates. If everyone works for the state, everyone has a public duty to regulate. In their system it is a crime against the people to exploit another.

    The problem is not capitalism per se (Stalinist China today has its capitalists as one class), the problem looking at the data, is Libertarian-Democracy - de-regulated, i.e NAKED capitalists.

    "Our world population is also far too large for old fashioned American fraudulent capitalism to cope with. There will have to be pandemic or world war soon if we don`t wake up to the need for a social democratic global politics."

    The West is dysgenically depopulating. So is Japan, and South Korea.
    This appears to be a Libertarian phenomenon if you look at the data.
    Forget Jung It's hocus-pocus.

    "There is nothing like enough work to soak up unemployment in the west ....and immigration will just cause another genocide or war.......and that`s before we survey the crisis in the "developing world"!

    The scams you describe are death spasms ..reflex behaviours...Madoffian Tremors?"

    We will move either towards statism (regulation) or perish. Ironically, as our populations continue to go in the direction which they're going, we will become less competitive. The OECD know's this, as did ETS. All the people who are arguing to the contrary are really just struggling to come to terms with something which they haven't seen. The data is clear, as are the trends. Self-centred (child-like, feminised-brained) people tend to confuse what they think or understand with what is actually true. They can't see that there is a difference between the beliefs which they hold true, and what IS true. Even though some of their beliefs have turned out to be false in the past, they forget this and try to preserve their status quo. Beliefs and other self-centred states are unreliable.

  • Comment number 60.

    54.At 13:04 15th Nov 2011, Globaliist wrote:
    @52 Some merit in those ideas Nautonier ....but what sort of European civilisation do you favour and would you reform the EU or abolish it?

    ++

    No one (outside of closed doors in Brussels) knows what the EU is or stands for so no one knows what we think we might be 'for' or 'against'.

    I can't reform or abolish the EU and neither can Britain on its own.

    Britain has to make a decision on in or out - if the status quo is doing Britain damage.

    European civilisation is not dependent on the EU - it is not a matter of EU or 'nothing'.

    EU as it now is a Franco German conspiracy to colonise & control Europe through a flawed mantle of being 'European'.

    What we need is a new consensus on what a common market & council of Europe is or isn't and maintain other mainly European institutions such as NATO.

    It is NATO that keeps us safe & prevents wars in Europe - not the EU.

  • Comment number 61.

    '24. At 23:04 14th Nov 2011, museV -
    It would appear that you cannot comment on this blog..


    It rather depends on who 'you' are, and what is being said.

    Fit the criteria... no problem.

    Coupled with being altogether too comfy with unelected people, unelected institutions and unique funding in perpetuity without any option, and it all makes pretty good sense.

    If you have a poor grasp of history.

  • Comment number 62.

    All this user's posts have been removed.Why?

  • Comment number 63.

    #53

    I was not mocking Aboriginal culture, it is interesting that you assumed I was.

    Mocking, like beauty, is in the eye of the beholder.

  • Comment number 64.

    All this user's posts have been removed.Why?

  • Comment number 65.

    All this user's posts have been removed.Why?

  • Comment number 66.

    All this user's posts have been removed.Why?

  • Comment number 67.

    All this user's posts have been removed.Why?

  • Comment number 68.

    nautonier wrote: "EU as it now is a Franco German conspiracy to colonise & control Europe through a flawed mantle of being 'European'."

    It isn't a German-French conspiracy, it was a US Project after the war to stop France and Germany going to war again by integrating both of their steel and coal mining i.e a common market of the mean of production. That and their funding through the Marshall Plan (which became the OECD) and the writing of the German Constitution is what the European Project and EU is. It is no conspiracy. It was open. The USA does its foreign policy through its NGOs like banks on Wall Street, the UN (NY), World Bank (Washington) the IMF etc.. As the USA is NOT a Command Economy it has to do its politics this devolved way, i.e.
    through its "market forces".

    Please take this on board. Russia and China etc know this. So should you and others. Too many people demand action here when they don't live under that sort of "dictatorship"..

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