CoffeeHousers' Wall, 6 October - 12 October

PhilM

BBC subliminal bias on US election.

Their ident is USO8, the 'O' being a letter (for Obama?) rather than a figure zero for 2008.

Tim

BBC Radio Five Live 4pm news Friday last week. Third item.

"Kevin Spacey does not think Sarah Palin is a suitable candidate for Vice President"

Why was this news?

Augustus

The US Federal Election Committee (FEC) forbids the acceptance of donations from:- Foreign governments, political parties, and individuals or immigrants without a Green Card. But according to the Republican National Committee Obama has not, in many cases, properly investigated where his funds came from. They now want the FEC to investigate over $450m worth of illegal foreign donations.

CG

It should not be news that anybody states that Sarah Palin is an unfit VP candidate. It is so obvious it shouldn't even need saying.

From The Beginning of Time - And Before! The movie!

CG - and you would know this how? Are you an American Constitutionalist? Are you a student of American governance and the structure of the Federal Government and the States?

Did you think Bill Clinton was a fit candidate? Indeed, a fit President? Did you think Jimmy Carter, with an IQ around ankle height was a fit candidate and president? Did you think John Kennedy, with not one shred of administrative experience was a fit candidate to take over the Federal Government?

Or do you just hate attractive women because you feel they have an unfair advantage?

Do think Obama, with not one shred of experience in formulating legislation and zero administrative experience and a box in the attic full of lists of unsavoury associates - Retzko, Jeremiah Wright, William Ayers, Bernadine Dorhn is a fit candidate or an unfit candidate?

Dirty Euro

FDR did not run the USA in the depression. The depression lasted from 1929 - 33 It was Herbet Hoover.

Verity

And now, Ladies and Gentlemen, in the fight for the American Vice Presidency, the swimsuit competition!

http://blog.wired.com/27bstroke6/2008/09/palin-beauty-co.html

Please note that Governor Palin is referred to throughout by her maiden name, Sarah Heath as this was made before her marriage.

Dalesman

Why shouldn't the BBC back Obama if they want to?

They support Brown here.

jb

Thank you Verity-that clip is great.

Lord Elvis of Paisley

Any of you fine chaps know how Norway and Switzerland are coping with the financial crisis? Be interesting to see if their associate membership of the EU is proving to be a help or a hindrance.

The Beginning of Time, And Before! - The Movie!

Lord Elvis, I'm sure James Forsyth knows. He knows absolutely everything else. They're waiting for him to give the thumbs-up to the re-start of that big physics machine dealie underneath Switzerland.

Or perhaps he gave the nod on Friday, and that's why nothing's moved this past weekend, and all opinion on this previously lively site since then has been on Rest.

Archbishop Cranmer

As £100bn is wiped off the value of UK shares and recession looms, the Prime Minister pontificates that ‘markets need morals’. But he might first reflect on the amorality of his own intervention in the financial turbulence sweeping the globe, not to mention the absence of his own ‘moral compass’.

For his tiresome mantra of ‘prudence’ and endless boasting of the end of ‘boom and bust’ were nothing but a house built on sand.

And this is the theme taken by Pope Benedict XVI as he asserts that the global financial crisis ‘shows the futility of money and ambition’. He notes: ‘He who builds only on visible and tangible things like success, career and money builds the house of his life on sand. We are now seeing, in the collapse of major banks, that money vanishes, it is nothing.’ And he added: ‘The only solid reality is the Word of God’.

Of course Cranmer wholly accords with this - as he seems to with approximately 96.75 per cent of what His Holiness talks about – but it is a little irksome to hear the head of what is probably the wealthiest state on the planet warn of the ephemeral nature of Mammon (does the Vatican not have a bank?). It is no less irksome to hear the Archbishop of Canterbury praising Marx and bemoaning ‘paper transactions with no concrete outcome beyond profit for traders’. Or the Archbishop of York denouncing short-sellers as ‘bank robbers and asset strippers’ while the Church of England is itself knee-deep in shares and readily uses short-selling tactics to maximise profits on its £5bn investments.

It was the Governor of the Bank of England Mervyn King who referred to ‘moral hazard’ when he vowed that he would not step in to bail out England’s banks for their irresponsible lending. The concept originally referred to the prospect that insurance distorts behaviour: for example when holders of fire insurance take less precaution with respect to avoiding fire or when holders of health insurance use more healthcare than they would if they were not insured. Thus it is that a party insulated from risk may behave differently from the way it would behave if it were fully exposed to the risk.

When we do not bear the consequences of our actions, there is indeed the creation of a false sense of security. While abortion is available on-tap, why not indulge in endless irresponsible sex? And so it is that national governments are granting the banks endless abortions, because the consequences of delivering the children conceived during their age of irresponsibility are too frightening to contemplate.

Banks and building societies are in the business of lending money, and the risks of doing so are offset by the potential for making high returns. But a moral hazard arises when those banks and building societies enjoy all the fruits of the good years but are bailed out in the lean years. Shareholders appoint boards of directors who make decisions on risky loans, and they all profit when the investment turns out well. But Cranmer is more than irked that it is he who shall subsidise their lean years, especially since he never profited during their years of plenty. It is a perverse financial morality when the humble and oppressed taxpayer is forced bear part of the burden of risky financial decisions made by irresponsible lending institutions.

Consider the home. For what family can survive or function without one? And then consider the effects of a moral hazard upon the peace and security of domesticity. The whole ‘sub-prime’ mortgage crisis was inevitable precisely because it wasn’t so much built on sand, but on thin air. Each lender in a very long chain raked in profits while believing they were absolving themselves of risk. The brokers exposed the lenders to loans not only above the value of the asset, but beyond the means of the borrower to repay. The lenders sold these risky mortgages on to investment banks, who in turn fragmented the securities into high, medium or low risk. And another tier of investors bought these securities, hedging (and praying) against the risk of default, and pushing those risks even further along.

Reliance on central banks coming to rescue as lender of last resort is bound to discourage prudent behaviour. When a government guarantees the liabilities of a financial institution, it also risks weakening the currency and causing an increase in interest rates, with all the consequent unemployment, recession, inflation and increased poverty. This is an undoubted moral issue, for people are reduced to hardship and depression, firms are condemned to closure, more workers to unemployment and more families to homelessness through unprecedented levels of repossession. The total number of suicides, heart attacks, divorces and mental breakdowns is never known.

God cares for the poor, the oppressed, and the underdogs in society. He pours his wrath upon those who corrupt justice or create economic machines designed to provide more wealth for the wealthy and deprive the poor. The story of Naboth’s vineyard in 1 Kings 21 establishes that authorities are not free to pursue any policy they please or to ride roughshod over the rights of the poor. These same concerns are vehemently expressed by the prophets Amos, Hosea, Isaiah and Micah, writing in the 8th century BC. God demands conscience above political conviction, and a government which places narrow economic considerations above liberty and justice is guilty of worshipping Mammon above God.

It is a pity that the British Government is impotent, for they have abdicated their control over these crucial powers of state to a foreign power. The Prime Minister and Chancellor must now make their supplications to the Caesar in Brussels, for it is there that the power now resides, and it is thence that morality is defined.

And so we arrive at what Pope Benedict refers to as the ‘Godless character of modern culture’, with the warning that ‘Christianity in Europe could become extinct’.

‘If we look at history we are forced to notice the frequent coldness and rebellion of incoherent Christians. Because of this, God, while never shirking in his promise of salvation, often had to turn towards punishment.

‘Nations once rich in faith and vocations are losing their own identity under the harmful and destructive influence of a certain modern culture. There are those that, having decided that 'God is dead', declare themselves 'god’, believing themselves to be the only creator of their own fate, the absolute owner of the world. When men proclaim themselves absolute owners of themselves and the only masters of creation, are they really going to be able to construct a society where freedom, justice and peace reign?

‘Is it not more likely — as demonstrated by news headlines every day — that the arbitrary rule of power, selfish interests, injustice and exploitation, and violence in all its forms, will extend their grip?’

Within this moral hazard the love of Mammon may indeed be seen as the root of all evil. But, as His Holiness observes, evil and death never have the final word’.

Augustus

Your Grace -

You mentioned the Vatican Bank. Considering the multitude of scandals in which this institution has been involved, even to the extent of laundering the monies of Holocaust victims and other illicit money dealings during and after WW2, you would expect His Holiness to keep quiet about the illusionary aspects of money. Also, America is by far the largest donor of annual support to the Holy See, without which the vicar of Christ would be that much the poorer.

Paul B

ould some kind person explain to me , where HM Government is getting the money from to inject the 200Billion liquidity into the market (not mentioning the mere 50 bill to partially nationalise the bank- mere small change) Are they having to borrow the money themselves?Iin which case the taxpayer will have to pay interest on the loans, or are they simply turning the printing presses on? If the are borrowing the money, doesn`t it also take 200 billion out of the markets, so in affect all you have is a merry go round.

I am a simpleton in economic terms, but what I liked about Mrs T is that she explained economics in terms of household budgets, which I did/do understand. It made sense- she explained governments are no different, again that made perfect sense. Back in those halcyon days Chancellor Howe & Lawson use to publish and set targets for the M figures- M1 M2 M3 etc, which although I didn`t fully understand, I did understand they related to various different counts of actual cash circulating in the economy. Under the monetarist system as I understood it, if cash in the system was restricted , inflation would fall. My point being, if Brown is turning on the printing press- as I suspect he is- and at the same time is pressurizing the BOE to reduce interest rates, are we not likely to incur raging inflation in a couple of years time- allied to which an inevitable recession/mass unemployment. To me the simpleton, this would appear to be similar to a 1920s German situation- truly truly nightmarish.

Someone please tell me I have it all wrong and that I have misunderstood the situation .

puzzled and in need of simple explanations

Paul B - Like you I have been puzzling as to where the money is coming from for all this. What money?? (Surely there isn't enough from taxes etc to throw at this - to me, - black hole?)
I thought there was only so much money in circulation and the only way more (ie wealth) can technically materialise is when someone actually makes something more of value out of it, rather paying out to bet more on a previous bet etc. I understand the banks want more money for confidence, but aren't we also refuelling the whole mess all over again?

Augustus

Governments throughout the world have proved their inability to regulate the financial markets. This is particularly true in America and Britain. Now politicians have little choice but to guarantee bank deposits, which has little to do with economics, more with political survival.

It used to be the case that growing a business, creating jobs, and providing a decent return on the capital employed, was the real engine of growth in the economy, and the fabric on which a nation depended. But in recent times investors and their bankers discovered the easy killing which they could earn by leveraging amounts of capital on property prices that spiralled ever upwards. A chain of speculative and often funny money which has now broken apart. Unfortunately, the result is now that the ordinary citizen, and the small businessman, who often relies on credit to provide cash to fund growth, will have to suffer and bail out the greedy spivs of the finance world.

Verity

Has there ever, in British politics, in history, been such an unpleasant, venal, thoroughly corrupt and personally unappealing clump of politicians as Tony Blair, Gordon Brown, Peter Mandelson and David Cameron?

Paul B

Its not just the spivs of the financial world though, is it Augustus ? Its the spivs in government who have banqueting irresponsibly on the tax receipts the city bankers have paying all these years. How about the fat cats of the public sector, who have been dining high at the publics expense for god knows how long. We also all need , to look to ourselves, because,to a greater or lesser degree its all our fault. I suspect that like many a junkie , we don`t really want to hear the truth, do we ? Its very easy to blame the city spivs and absolve ourselves . We all need to learn to live within our means in the years ahead. We all have to learn to balance our own personal books and we need to elect governments that will balance the nations books and to spend our money judiciously and wisely. We having been living high off the hog for to long, now we are all going to suffer one mother of a hangover.

Puncheon

Paul B @ 6:29 - Well said. It's all too easy to demonise dealmakers in the City and of course they must carry a large part of the blame, but the whole economy has been living in a fool's paradise for over 10 years. Yes, it's preposterous for employees to think they can become millionaires without any personal risk, or politicians to become seriously rich through fiddling their expenses. But those idiots who thought an increase in property prices increased their wealth; the even bigger idiots who financed ephemeral pleasures, eg holidays, on credit cards and yes single mothers who thought they could loaf around having babies at the taxpayer's expense are all to some extent culpable. Having said that, the burden of responsibility must rest with the political class, particulalrly the Government of the past 10 years. One of their functions is to provide a regulatory framework that helps to protect the more foolish of their citizens from their own folly, not join in the fools' orgy themselves. All those who participated in this mad bubble should be forced to face up to reality, but what the Government looks like doing is, as usual, punishing those who lived prudently within their means and saved a little. This is exactly what Labour did in the 1960's/70's when they beggared my parents' generation with deliberately engineered inflation. They are about to do the same to my generation, with the Conservatives standing on the sidelines indulging in bi-partisan applause. Thanks a lot boys and girls. Obviously your electoral positioning is worth far more than my economic future.

Augustus

Yes, it is true that rampant deregulated bank lending has fuelled asset (property) price inflation. It is also true that there are many people who seem to have confused a large debt (mortgage) with an investment (property) that was expected to provide for their future, and believed that upward property price momentum would go on forever. But as any experienced investor knows, bubbles always have a habit of bursting.

There are historic precedents when banking systems have over-extended themselves, as in Scandinavia and Japan. What they have shown is that bank lending will contract severely for several years. It is typically sad that the alternative to pumping in capital at the wider economy's expense would be a complete disappearance of any bank lending at all, and a possible domino topple effect where the weak 'bad' banks bring down the strong 'good' banks.

But it is the impact on the world's real economies which the credit crisis will have which remains the big question. The risk of serious capital erosion remains high, however much government sponsored initiatives attempt to draw a line in the sand. So now, as much of the liability of the debt has been passed from the irresponsible to the innocent, we face not just uncertainty in financial markets but a weakening economy and a severe recession as well.

Tiberius

Verity: I can understand you finding all those politicians personally unappealing, but Cameron unpleasant, venal and thoroughly corrupt? When was that?

In Btitish politics, I'd hazard a guess that William I and even the Tudor monarchs were rather more fearsome than all those you mention (the threat of being hanged, drawn and quartered being particularly dreadful), and in history, the list is endless - Genghis Khan and the Imperial Japanese Army are just two.

TBF

Cameron isn't like Mandelson at all. And neither is Blair. Some politicians are 'decent', and others are machiavellian and evil. Tarnishing all with the same brush is just unintelligent.

Verity

Tiberius - Cameron has mislead the British about the EU. Actually, he's a Tony Blair style lefty liberal one-worlder and he is personally looking forward to a sinecure after his turn in No 10. He is insincere and treacherous.

I never liked him, but I began to dislike him intensely when he ordered a standing ovation in the HoC for the most evil, venal prime minister in British history. Frightfully sporting, what?

I think he is too metropolitan and elite. I think his hail-fellow-well-met attitude is patronising.

I also think if he can't live in Downing St then he shouldn't be prime minister. The nation shouldn't have to adjust itself to his family situation. Downing St is the home of the British Prime Minister. Sorry. Harsh, I know, but politics is a harsh game.

Archbishop Cranmer

Is the credit crunch the new bird flu?

Remember avian influenza? The global pandemic which began somewhere in Asia, was spreading to Europe, reached the UK in Norfolk, and was supposed to be the greatest cataclysm since the black death which would claim millions of victims? It was an issue of national security: veterinary surgeons were urgently interviewed, doctors and hospitals were placed on emergency alert, governments were producing medical supplies for millions of people, and the outlook was , to say the least, bleak and depressing.

And then the media discovered a distraction – was it the departure of Tony Blair? – and the moment bird flu left our screens and departed the headlines, everyone forgot about it. And millions did not die, and entire continents were not decimated, and nothing much happened except Bernard Matthews had a very lean year.

Cranmer has this feeling over the ‘credit crunch’. Yes, certainly there is some sort of global financial phenomenon going on. A few banks are collapsing, recession looms, house prices are falling, and governments are spewing out billions in bailouts just as they were mass producing Tamiflu (and where has all that been stashed?). Oh, and Iceland is bankrupt, but who really cares about a lump of volcanic rock with half the population of your average shire? Zimbabwe has been bankrupt for decades, yet the global economy has continued merrily rolling along.

We have been here before, and we recovered through application, effort, ingenuity and free enterprise which enabled economies to once again thrive and people to feel financially secure. And doubtless we shall be here again, for 'boom and bust' is as natural to capitalism as 'snap, crackle and pop' is to rice krispies. It is only when they are soaked and soggy that they lose their life and vibrancy; and it is only when capitalism is drenched in regulation and artificially controlled through state intervention that it ceases to function as God intended.

Edward the Thirst

Was Shakespeare a socialist?

Verity

Your Grace - Very entertaining! I remember how ebola was going to turn everyone into wood. Do you recall, the ebola virus? And the worldwide AIDS epidemic never happened, either.

I think you may be right. I might even say that the banking crunch is the new man made global warming and melting polar ice caps!

Puncheon

Archbish - On the button, yer grace. I expect you remember too all those millenarian movements of the middle ages and before - the end of the world is upon us etc. I suppose all this is just our version of an old human theme. A key question is, why? Why do we need to frighten ourselves so much. Is it just a lot of con-artists taking advantage of human frailty, or is there more to it. Is it a Christian invention, and so linked to the notion of a hereafter? I don't think this sort of thing happened in the pagan world. These are deep waters and we need your guidance.

Paul B

The new millennium bug perhaps ?

U Toper

Was Thomas More a Communist?

Verity

OK - so we've got the Millennium bug that was going to bring the financial and business world, not to mention your personal bank account, crashing down.

Asian bird flu that was going to fell millions. All you had to do was be in the same room as an infected person, and you would die.

Ebola, that was going to turn all our sinews into wood. Within a matter of days after being infected! No time for treatment!

AIDS, of course, that was going to infect every man and woman on the planet.

Global warming with rising oceans, melting polar ice caps, tens of thousands of species dying out, whole countries being flooded at the same time as being made into hostile deserts where life couldn't survive.

I think His Grace absolutely has a point.

Puncheon

On Y2K (I thought that coinage was the masterstroke of the con) it is timely that Mrs Beckett is back with us, and can explain why it was that those countries that decided to ignore the perceived threat, eg Italy, experienced no problems at all. So what was it Mrs B that you got for all those £million of taxpayers money?

Paul B

So we have a recession upon us,during the dark days ahead, what do we have that may brighten our lives ?

I'm hoping that our music scene, may come to the rescue. Not since The Prodigy hit my televison screen with their stunning video of "Firestarter" has fresh & new talent entered the charts. We have a succesion of bland rock muzak bands , I`m thinking of the Kaiser Chiefs, Keane, Coldplay all the other numerous,tedious formuliaric bands. Can someone tell the Gallaghers its not cool or particulary rebellious to swear, its so 1976 darlings. Talking of 76, where are the bands with energy and passion and the in your face attitude of the Pistols and Clash, the brilliance of early Weller, Costello and from across the pond, young Brucie, who was born to run. Where are the angry and at times brilliant young journos of the NME, the Burchills, Parsons and Kents of this world. Where are the new generation that demand you sit up and take notice, even if you don`t agree. I'm hoping the recession will flush em out.

Wither our drama, especially TV drama, Where are the brilliant new Bleasdales & Potters, sending us their boys from the blackstuff with pennies from heaven. Where is the modern equivalent of the incredible Yosser Hughes character, raging against society, beating up social workers and quite, simply essential & gruesome viewing, played the brilliant Bernard Hill. All we are fed is an endless stream of soft soap costume dramas and whodunnit detective and casualty wards. Where is the drama that grabs you by the balls and simultaneously kicks you in head ? Where are the brilliant comedic drama heroes of today, the Rumpoles of the Bailey, the Blotts of the landscape, where have they all gone.? Whats happening with childrens drama? We sadly saw the last edition of Grange Hill a few weeks ago, admittedly it had overstayed its welcome, but where is its modern equivalent, with raging knife & gun crime, binge drinking, angry young people. Surely they must be very annoyed with us, the oldies, who have loaded their futures with debt whilst we enjoyed ourselves phisssing it up. They deserve a program where they can at least vomit their disgust over us and our selfish depraved antics of the past few years.

Lets just hope the recession acts as a surgeons knife cutting away all the crap society has indulged itself with in the last decade and that some fresh , new exciting talent hits our screens, books, magazines (the humble Speccie aside) & record players (imo it all started to go downhill with the invention of the CD, bring back vinyl!!)

Edward the Thirst

My favourite words this week are Verruca and Palimpsest. The utterance of one complements the other somehow.

Verity

"Palimpsest - A Memoir" is the title of Gore Vidal's autobiography. I thought the title rather contrived and precious.

Edward the Thirst

Tried reading a Gore Vidal book once, but I'm alright now.

He was preening himself on the radio recently and seemed interested only in intimidating both the interviewer and the assembled audience in order to leave an indelible impression on listeners.

It worked.

Frank P

U Toper

Was Thomas more a communist than what?

James

Coffee House - can you please start to delve into the detail of the banking package. The mainstream media is simply running reports from no.10

For a start - why is Lloyds being compelled to buy HBOS and then become part-nationalised. This isn't in the interests of taxpayers or Lloyds shareholders. The only benefit seems to be Labour's electoral prospect.

We need scrutiny of this policy - the details of which are still opaque.

Paul B

From an anon on Guido,

Gordon. Not Flash, just CRASH !

Very good

Joe Camel

Today is Saturday, 18 October, and this is the latest Wall I can find. What happened to the current week's wall? Did it get pulled down, like the Berlin Wall?