Obama, Romney and Lord Black

The third debate between the presidential candidates was interesting but yet something of a disappointment. As anticipated it was hardly a debate with both candidates making statements and neither being allowed to take up points and discuss and develop them. Obama did not wipe the floor with Romney and indeed Romney came across as more Presidential. The reason for this I think was because Romney did not sink to the personal insult whereas Obama came very close to being petty at times. It seems to me that Obama is in danger of losing the election but who am I to say and for those who have yet to make up their minds about which way they will vote no doubt the campaigns will provide the decider. I felt Obama demeaned his office particularly when he boasted about killing Osama bin Laden. For me though it was a great disappointment that Romney said he would have given  the same order. Clearly the rule of law about which American politicians speak with such fervour is neither understood nor cherished as it is in these islands. Perhaps Conrad Black is right and that despite the origins of American law being English their laws and criminal system can do result in convictions that would never happen here. Black is the first person I have seen make Paxman blush when he defended himself against Paxman's claim that Black was a criminal. Black accused Paxman of not having done his homework and pointed out that at his appeal hearing he was exonerated from all save one charge which was on an issue peculiar to American law which is not a crime here. This charge related to an expenses payment of some $200,000 odd for which there had been board approval. The Appeal Court apparently criticised the judge of first instance. It is not unknown in the States for wrong judgements to be made in courts of first instance since decisions by elected judges are made for political reasons rather than on the facts of a case. I do not know whether that happened here but it would not surprise me. It seems that you always have to appeal decisions from courts of first instance. Apple may have been awarded huge damages in a recent case but it is most unlikely that the damages amount will be upheld on appeal and even the result. The fact remains Black was convicted but will undoubtedly continue with a campaign to clear his name.

Oddity

The world is really an odd place. New evidence turns up each day that confirms this statement. Two stories which particularly struck me this morning are the comment by Merkel that she'll cancel the EU summit next month if Britain refuses to do approve any increase in the EU Budget and the report of the result of a case in Italy where 6 scientists are to be imprisoned for 6 years for failing to give spot the coming and giving warnings of the Aquila earthquake. Until very recently I had dismissed stories about the German desire to rule the EU by use of its pre-eminent financial and industrial muscle as fanciful but now that it is clear Merkel thinks she can dictate whether or not an EU summit can be held I am no longer persuaded that the stories are untrue. If the EU is to be run as a German fiefdom for the greater good of the German economy rather than for the greater good of all europeans then that is reason alone for us to leave. Germany is not the repository of all wisdom as we know only too well in this country and so does the rest of Europe. The extraordinary Italian law that allows people to be fined and jailed for getting earthquake forecasts wrong is another reason for leaving the EU. Which Italian scientist will now be willing to offer any opinion at all on the strength and imminence of an earthquake for fear of being found guilty of underplaying what happens. How could scientists have known what numbers would be killed, what buildings would be destroyed or damaged or the exact position and extent of infrastructure failure. No one in their right mind would fail to pass on information that would save lives. If scientists are forced to express an opinion then they will veer on the side of excessive caution no doubt resulting nine times out of ten in unnecessary costs and inconvenience to the frustration of all. There are some things in this life which are wholly or largely unpredictable and no one can be blamed for what used to be called acts of God. What was not an act of God was the well documented (by economists at least 10 years ago) disaster the euro would turn put to be. The perpetrators of this appalling catastrophe are guilty as hell for having ruined the lives of thousands upon thousands of people and they not the scientists should be in prison. Even now the guilty ones want to make matters worse by continuing the euro folly. Furthermore the Germans do not wish their landesbanks to have to reveal the extent of their reckless purchases of both subprime and Greek debt. Their purchases would of course have to be brought into the light of day if the euro were to be abandoned. Other governments want to save the euro to cover up their criminal mistakes but as Iceland has shown that, despite the pain of devaluation, a country can grow again in short order if it devalues. No country can of course devalue unless it leaves the euro. Another remarkable story of a different kind came to light today - that of a seven year old girl who not only plays the piano and the violin quite beautifully but has written an opera and is in the process of writing a concerto. A genius? Her name is Alma Deutscher.  

The EU Has No Future

It is becoming more and more difficult to have any sympathy at all for Germany. They saw to it that the euro worked almost exclusively in their favour and to the detriment of almost everyone else by ensuring the interest rate applied in the eurozone was suitable for themselves and pretty much no one else. This enabled them to sell their goods to the eurozone periphery at deflated prices in euros rather than at the price they would have had to sell them at in Deutschmark. The Germans guessed the eurozone periphery countries would greedily ignore the reasons behind these windfall prices and borrow at German low interest rates to buy discounted German goods. These fake prices are the reason why there are so many German cars, white goods and even televisions here in the UK. They may cost less than they should but are they that good? In my experience they are not the ne plus ultra they are sold as being. Now the cat is out of the bag about their grand plan to dominate the european industrial market  you would think the Germans would offer to pick up their share of the cost but no such offer has been forthcoming. They have obligingly said though that they will agree to some sort of banking union with all the banks coming under the scrutiny of the ECB but only so long as the ECB does not get to supervise the smaller regional banks for whom responsibility will rest with their respective central banks. The reason for this is because Germany is paranoiac about the solvency detail of their smaller regional banks becoming known to the world. Their regional banks could well be insolvent in light of the sub-prime and Greek debt they bought before the crisis. If the state of Germany's smaller regional banks were to come to light Germany would be forced in to having to mount a huge rescue operation or see many of such banks go to the wall. So instead of being european minded ( a state of mind that has only ever lived in the arses of european hypocrites) Germany is behaving like every other nation and putting its own interest first. The EU myth was always a farce but has now become seriously bad for our health in its anti-democratic prejudice, rigidity, lack of competition, internal wrangling, corruption and excessive cost. The EU pretends to be something it is not, never has been and cannot be. As always I'm amazed by our decency and forbearance in politely not pointing this out. It has been wonderful for a lot of third rate bureaucrats and other nonentities like Barroso and van Rompuy who could never have made it in their own countries - alright Barroso and van Rompuy were Prime Ministers of their respective countries for a few months but this does not destroy my point, it strengthens it.  All the EU is is a group of countries in a certain part of the world that have a history of trading and fighting between them. Rather than just getting out we should be working to bring the whole diseased structure down before it starts a war.      

Bravery Lacking

One issue that Ron Suskind raised at Chatham House on Tuesday was the inability of any politician to tell the economic truth as it is. The closest we have got to it in this country is Cameron's speech to the Tory Party Conference last week in which he said that it was sink or swim time as he warned the country about deepening austerity. He was confirming what Osborne had already said in his conference speech in which he pronounced that he would be looking for significant cuts in welfare spending. This is as far as our leaders dare go in admitting that we are truly living in tough times and that there is no alternative to cuts in government spending. It is a great shame that proper cuts weren't made when the Coalition came into power as we would have been over the hardest part by now instead of having it still to come. It seems that not only did the Government not appreciate the depth of damage done by the previous administration but was also scared that we would react badly to real cuts. If we were given the bad news straight we would have accepted the necessary medicine on the basis that taking it quickly in the right dose stops the situation getting worse and then having to take more medicine. If the purpose of their pussyfooting around was to try to keep as many people employed as possible then I would say they have succeeded well since the private sector has taken up the slack caused by the reduction in numbers of civil servants. More civil servants need to go and apart from other cuts we need to slash the amount we pay to the EU including to the CAP which is hugely to our disadvantage costing UK households in excess of £300 a year. The other item which desperately needs cutting is household energy bills which amount to something like £1,200 a year for which we have to thank that lump of lard Mr Ed Davey, a fine example of a LibDem although he's not a liberal and not a democrat. If he were a liberal he would believe in a free market in energy and if he were a democrat he would be prepared to listen to those who have a well researched but different take on climate change.      

Confidence and Obama

Ron Suskind at a lecture this evening at Chatham House believes Obama lost his confidence following a dispute with his advisers on how to handle the banks. Initially Obama had relied on people like Paul Volcke for advice on how to handle the banks. Volcke and his cohorts had advised that the banks should be nationalised and brought down to size. No longer should they be too big to fail and neither should they be allowed to be both a commercial and investment bank. Unfortunately Obama was persuaded to change advisers with Tim Geithner as Treasury Secretary. Geithner and his cohorts both supported the status quo in the banking sector and bank bail outs and, despite Obama requesting a Swedish as opposed to a Japanese solution for the financial crisis, Geithner and co. wore him down to the point where he gave in. All the research carried out by Obama which had led him to demand his advisers prepare a Swedish style plan was for naught. In Suskind's opinion this took the stuffing out of Obama to the extent that he lost his confidence with the result that he simply failed to engage with a confident Romney in the first televised debate. Obama will likely do better in tonight's debate as he has a better grasp of foreign affairs than Romney but Suskind's guess is Obama is likely to fail in the third debate. It does not seem to matter what a politician does or says that wins him votes but how he presents himself. A candidate who comes across as confident in what he says will win more support than a candidate who appears hesitant or uncomfortable or who lacks confidence. It is possible Obama will hide his lack of confidence in the third debate but according to Suskind Obama is not an actor and can only be true to himself.  

Scotland The Brave

Yesterday Cameron and Salmond signed the accord to enable the Scottish  Independence  Referendum to be held on the 700th anniversary of the Scots victory over the English at the Battle of Bannockburn. Salmond hopes the choice of date will boost the independence vote by reminding the Scots of how they can beat the English. The Scots are not fools though and Salmond's choice of date will not persuade them to vote in favour of independence anymore than by allowing 16 and 17 year olds to vote. 16 and 17 year olds are supposed to be more romantically attached to their country and more fervently patriotic and thus more likely to vote for independence but if the polls are anything to go by they will vote in the same percentages, for and against, as their elders. Even though it is disagreeable to be on the receiving end of what is in effect a divorce petition that generates a desire to tell the Scots to 'get lost', sentiment and reason tells us to hope that the referendum is lost and that we remain one nation. If the referendum is won the Scots still intend to use the English pound in the same way as the Irish did following their independence. The Irish though swapped the pound for the euro as soon as there was a chance to do so, which is a decision that many of them must now be bitterly regretting as a result of the total failure of the euro as a currency. The Scots have posted a desire to switch to the euro as soon as circumstances allow. No doubt the euro will have a false dawn or two when, if the SNP are still in charge, they will decide to make the transition and, I predict, bitterly regret it. Marry in haste, repent at leisure and all that. Should the vote be in favour of independence then the amount of national debt, the portion of the North Sea oil and gas fields and other such shared assets and liabilities to go to Scotland will have to be negotiated. This could last for months and could leave a bitter taste with either the English or the Scots or both. If the two countries are to split we will have to look for the silver linings. There is one that immediately comes to mind and that is that the SNP are much keener on green issues than the Tories in whom I detect a shift towards a more sceptical approach. Such shift is still far too little for my liking but has been enough to frighten Blair's discredited climate change guru Stern into writing an article in the FT this morning calling for Cameron to embed decarbonisation of the power sector in a framework for the reform of the electricity market. Stern does not of course mention the cost of such an unnecessary policy to be added to the 6% or so increase in the cost of energy we are all going to have to suffer this winter caused by the green stratagem that has already been imposed on the UK.          

BBC Scandals

The Jim'll Fix It show was a great put off as far as I was concerned. I could never understand the adulation with which it seems he and his show were greeted. To me it exploited the stories of not only the unfortunate but also the naive and having seen it once I never watched it again. I do recall though being told when the country was going through one of its paedophile scandals some years ago that Jimmy Savile was guilty of child abuse, that the police knew about it but decided not to do anything because of the help and pleasure his show brought to millions. At the time I was sceptical and thought what I had been told was tittle tattle and likely untrue. I do not know whether the police were involved in the cover up of Savile's crimes but it is now certain the BBC protected Savile from his just deserts. Any private organisation that has behaved like the BBC has done would be the subject of a police investigation to find those who authorised the cover up or rather perverted the course of justice and aided and abetted a criminal to carry out his crimes. I will fall off my chair if the BBC and its responsible executives are charged with anything or suffer any other consequence for their actions. It just goes to show that the BBC is above the law that the rest of us, including private companies, have to abide by. This is why the BBC can continue its bias against the Tories, the Republicans and even the natives of this land contrary to its statutory duty to be impartial. This is why it can continue its bias in favour of the climate change scam, the EU, immigration and the Labour Party. The BBC just carries on its dishonest way with impunity and will do so until it is wound up. Patten's inquiry will be a damp squib and the BBC will get away with it once again. I accept it is not possible for each of us to be impartial all of the time. In order to achieve any kind of impartiality it seems obvious therefore that a plurality of providers is required. Thus the BBC should be replaced by private companies which like the newspapers can follow their own political star and we the public can choose which particular flavour suits us best. The solution is simple but will any politician dare administer the medicine? Probably not but at least the BBC with 60% of the market could and should be cut down to less than a 50% share thus giving space in which Sky and/or other providers can grow. The obligation for providers to be impartial should be abandoned as should the iniquitous licence fee.