Sorry Folks,
My last post for acouple of days....(I must get on with some outstanding tasks)
BUT, I did uncover this......
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Com1ZiAV80Y
I think he's a little inebriated.....but perhaps he's right...?
Wasn't the size of the banks at the root of the problem when it came to the most recent meltdown...?
I seem to remember something called 'The Monopolies Commision ' ?
Found this...
Tons of stuff on You Tube relating to this
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mxs7Ja2SBVw
Has anyone seen the full film ?
No, not muddled at all. He is five or six years younger than both of us and there have been real signs of health problems and memory issues. You and I might be fine (fine line in my case occasionally) but if he loses it there is nobody waiting in the wings is my point. None of us is forever, mind you if we are still rattling away at this in 20 years shall we complain?
Brian, let us hope so.
You are somewhat muddled regarding age.
In one post you say that you are only 1948 vintage and yet Putin is only 60. I am 1947 vintage (excellent for champagne) and feel far from being at the end of my useful life. I hope that goes for you too.
Otter's nose anyone??
I agree with this. But actually I think 15 Years would be better. One of the benefits of getting older is the realisation of how little we know and the more cynical we become. I certainly appreciate how naive I was when I was younger! I also strongly believe that becoming a Politician should be seriously financially appealing as well, thus attracting highly motivated achievers whom have been successful in business! Hopefully then we'd see fewer of the catastrophic wastes of money we have seen in recent years. The NHS data base and Military helicopters that can't fly in the dark to name just two...
Sterling might be worth a couple of cents more for a while, which we would all greet, if that is what you mean. The € and $ seem to be working toward parity which is part of the TTIP plot. The portents say that signing the treaty is looming up fast. If sooner rather than later, Cameron will need a quick think about the excuse for not having a referendum or if he has it and the UK wants out will be in very deep water when the treaty is signed but UK excluded because it is no longer in the EU. Greece is a minor matter, but the chances are highest that Greece could leave the Euro but stay in the EU. If they leave both then the country will be bankrupt in a few weeks because they will have no access to funding to sustain them and whilst Russia could step in, they do not have the international financial credibility to save the country.
Average university leaving age 23, plus five makes 28. That flies in the face of what young voters are saying about not feeling represented. There is the stumbling block with that. The other end is that I think there should be a compulsory retirement age. Some sitting MPs in their 80s are dottering old fools, the HoL is worse. I am looking 70 square on but I do not want politicians of my age or older trying to come to terms with a present they may not really understand or feel part of. To be honest, I would rather see 16 year old MPs. There are plenty of competent young people, I have worked with hundreds worldwide, but our problem is we all get older and not really wiser and take our distance from youth that we forget we were once part of but now no longer understand.
Tata has been vast since the 1920s. How could their growth in their own country have been prevented? They are simply one of the many multinational corporations who own everything. Bear in mind the largest power generator in the world has the UK in its fist, our beloved EDF. Then British Leyland is actually Ashok Leyland now, owned by the Hinduja brothers who also own Gulf Oil and large parts of other companies, dear uncle Rupe Murdoch owns large amounts of the media. Much of the car and truck building industry is Asian owned, albeit a couple of USA companies control some bits of a couple. Iron and steel manufacture, not much of it left, is all foreign owned. The list goes on. Even the City is largely dependent on foreign banks but then even HSBC as the biggest UK owned financial house has already said it will have to leave if the UK leaves the EU.
The way things are going with Greece is not that significant and the chances of them leaving the EU low although they might need to leave the Euro, albeit that would put them in deeper trouble including more debts. Italy and Spain are running deficits, but the UK's one is many times greater. Do not be fooled by 'positive' news ever, clouds with silver linings also bring heavy rain and when it pours... The reforms the UK are demanding are not the same ones as the rest of Europe would like to see, so they are in a minority, thus the UK leaving the EU would please some countries no end. The 30 national EEA that the UK believes they could trade with at present consists of 27 EU and three EFTA members. Take the UK out and they will still have to deal with 26 EU and three closely aligned EFTA members who would certainly close some doors but still ensure the UK has no concessions, which with th eopt out but still obliged to follow EU regulations would make everything uncomfortable for the country.
As for the EU, Commonwealth and so on. The TTIP will deal with that. Firstly Canada is part of NFTA and would be a member, then there are Australia, New Zeeland, Malaysia and Singapore who are with Indonesia and Japan in the ASEAN group equivalent of the EU or NAFTA. Just about all African countries rely principally on China, then either South Africa (now very economically independent and thriving, hence being the S in BRICS) or Korea. South America is becoming very self sufficient, especially with Brazil, Argentina and a couple of other economies doing well. Where then are the commonwealth countries the UK could turn to?
The European countries not in the EU? A few are on the waiting list to join, the EFTA countries would not and what does leave. Not much. That is why economists, financiers and industrialists are saying do not leave, preferably forget the referendum.
It is not that I am in some way pessimistic, it is that I keep my nose in economics as well as politics constantly. The picture and Osborne paints and Balls would have had he replaced him is not what the rest of the world watches. For all of us as individuals it is hardly good news anyway. So, whatever the election brought us, the future is unclear but we can be certain that we will get the downside of a lot of it and others will walk away smiling with vast fortunes that buy them their 'happiness', choice and freedom in this world.
Some greedy vultures, picking over the bones of a failed economy, would get their feast snatched away from them. But Greece, by itself, would be unlikely to do any more than rock the boat a little. But some think it could be a catalyst that could cause others to follow and that might sink the ship. But Spain and Italy (among others) have a big stake in trading with their EU partners and are unlikely to seriously contemplate secession.
Just tried to respond to Brian......system couldn't see my short response then, so here it is again...
Thanks Brian,
Will give this some thought....
Thanks, but no thanks.....Too 'Carry On'.....for me.....
Jane, he is over 60 and he is more like Lavrentiy Beria than Iosip Jugashvili, with his KGB background, therefore suspects everything and puts it down. Hence opponents' deaths that are clearly political assassinations. However, unlike the Stalin/Beria epoch, he has no reliable supporter of the nature of Beria. He also has several large opposition movements that seem to grow each time he has somebody bumped off, diminishing youth support and certainly a lot of the ethnic minorities east of European Russia who are feeling neglected, which they are, along with Russians living in formerly powerful industrial and mining cities that are suffering unemployment and political neglect they never had before. central Asian Russia is not happy. Bear in mind that people thought the Soviet Union and the Cold War was forever and within a short time beginning in 1989 it was all over. Putin is not immune to that and everybody in Russia who is oppositional knows that. Sure, the Russians are showing 'strength' at present using ageing Soviet submarines, ships and planes but that is possibly because the are aware of how vulnerable they are and wish to show they are otherwise. Two weeks before the Berlin Wall fell, there was a major Russian military exercise in East Germany... History does repeat itself.
The problem with trying to re-establish trading links with the old Commonwealth is that the old Commonwealth has moved on. Australia, for example, sees it's market as being Asia, in particular China, Malaysia etc.
The world can be seen as three massive trading blocks, Asia, the Eu and America. We can not go back, but we can re-model the EU to bring back the concept of 'subsidiarity'.
Re European news in the UK. Alas the UK media sees itself closer to the USA rather than Europe. For the British, Europe is a love/hate relationship.
Brian,
The way things are going with Greece, isn't it all unravelling now ?.....I'm expecting Greece will have to leave,,,then there's Spain & Italy..etc...
I am pessimistic about whether the EU will allow the reforms that Cameron will be asking for....
but maybe they will do enough to enable us to stay in....Hopefully, they will recognise this has to be done ....for the future of the EU as well as for Britain......If it is unreformable...do we want to be part of this 'monster' ......?
I'm sorry but I can't believe that 'running our own show' if we do have to leave would be such a 'disaster'.....we would just have to re-establish our old links with the Commonwealth, (we shouldn't have dumped them in the first place)....and as for Tata and its influence....was it/is it wise to have allowed these mega giant firms to have grown so large to then have such an impact.
Perhaps we could build a new trading relationship with all the Europen countries not in the EU ?....like the Impressionists, a sort of 'Salon de Refuse'......
Hilary Jane , I have an obselete nurses uniform going if you need it ?
I do feel that one shouldn't be able to become an MP until after you have spent about 5 years in the world of work outside of that rarified atmoshphere...
Brian,
Thanks for your imput (helpful to a non- historian who hasn't made over to political biographies yet)..very interesting dialogue with Peter also...
All the stuff that I've seen on TV lately, is that everyone agrees that in order to win an election a party has to be identified with the 'centre ground' and aspiration......That means that the old style polarised position politics is 'dead in the water'.....'the People'...have rejected dogma...
Surely we don't want to go back to the days of 'you can't be on our team because your dad was an accountant and you're our class enemy'.....or 'don't even think of leaving the mines .son, know your place,,' So I'm glad that Dogma has had it's day....
I'm glad we've lost Arthur Scargill, 'President for life'.......and as for the hyper intelligence of such as Tony Benn and Enoch Powell....may be we wont't see their ilk again, but I feel what matters most is a degree of intelligence, good old common sense, a desire to make improvements and do the best for people, but in the end, some sort of result......without that all the platitudinous outpourings (and trying to sound statesman-like) won't give you credibility in the eyes of any electorate
Cameron has, to start with( I am very pleased to note), put a few more women into the top jobs ...and Boris is lurking in the wings....UKIP 'wont let Nigel go'.......looks interesting to me..
Hilary, there are funds for lobby groups. BUT they require recognition by the country that they are lobbying within, an existing sponsor (i.e. already have some campaigning capital) and usually need an actual figure head who, in this case, would ideally be a tame politician. I have been member of several (think I still am a couple) and it helps if the Home Office says there is no reason to doubt the sincerity of the lobby. The problems are firstly that it takes an average of three years to get money, secondly that that would take it past any referendum, thirdly it would need to be shaped by the outcome of that referendum as well as the things you mention (if the UK stays in then what would be the main thrust...) and also how long the lobbying is intended to last.
This thread is not the actual place, so I suggest you put a discussion up. It affects us all in one way or another and thus I think you may be on to a good topic that could develop and produce many more ideas and perhaps even solutions to the type of criteria I have just touched on.