It is 5.20 am and for the first time in two weeks I am on track again in my sleep cycle, rising in time to go to for a half a mile swim, albeit in a heated pool, but also wanting to stay and write for instant publication. I went to the pool and it has been a mixed week at the pool completing 50, 48, 68 and 50 lengths, thus achieving 22 lengths above the present 48 average, but only 4 times out of seven and one below my minimum of 5 days out of seven. However I have maintained the 5 days out of 7 average over the past 13 weeks, which includes 3 weeks maximum, two at six and one at 5.
I must also begin by declaring a financial and political interest. I was personally affected by the statement of the Chancellor on the economic and financial changes announced on Wednesday after Prime Minister’s Question Time. However I am one of the few who while believing that the financial and economic measures are not fair, they are necessary because they begin the process of Britain having a more responsible and ethically acceptable position in relation to other countries. However I am not saying that the Conservatives have the same agenda although the Liberal Democrats might.
It was evident from Prime Minister’s Question time that young Ed is going to adopt the soft approach in his first question and then bring out what he hopes will be if not disabling, at least a politically embarrassing second. The Prime Minister has quickly reassessed his approach and his adopting ridicule and generalization.
In terms of performances The Chancellor was excellent in his delivery, appearing to have substance and integrity. It was politically good too in that it included all the positives while adopting the Brown principle of leave as much unpleasantness as you can to the small print. I was also impressed by Alan Johnson for the Opposition who admits he knows nothing about economics.
I consider this to be an asset, and therefore adopted the effective approach, as indeed Labour did with greater justification against Thatcherism, by making the accusation of ideological motivation, especially in relation to the budget of the Welfare State, the Public Sector and public Sector pensions which the majority of people including most Labour Voters will agree with the former while trying to personally benefit from the latter.
So this is the truth. The Coalition is going faster in the cuts than they need to in terms of the present economic situation in the UK and they do run the risk of a making it more difficult to get out of a another slowing down generated by the Chinese as a positive response to the needs of the USA. Whatever they do the very rich and those who caused the banks to near fail will escape because they are the very rich. This means that the bulk of the measures will fall on everyone else with the exception of convicted criminals and the underclass generally.
The worst hit will be the bulk of the working and middle classes who play by the rules and live decent lives, that is always in the nature of things. Between half a million and million more people with lose their job than at present. Primarily these will be civil servants and local government workers. Many will not gain other work as this will go primarily to those in the new EEC who will work harder for less than their UK counterparts.
The biggest problem will be to actually reform the welfare budget into one single system so that it always pays to work than live on benefits. One system will cost huge up front money because the old will have to continue until it is all incorporated into the new. That is why universal benefits are cheaper because one the simple basic eligibility test is met, you have a child, you are over 65, you have been assessed as on eligible for a tax credit. No large form of information is filled, no personal interview and no hours of verification with other agencies before making decision, which is then subject to appeal.
However what I can accept that that the Coalition is genuine in its intent and with Ian Duncan Smith in charge fo work and pensions there is someone who will have a serious go at doing so. What is likely to emerge is a better system, easier to operate for both applicant and government but it will not save money or reduce to the overall total, in part because more and more will have to be spent on the elderly. The key to success is getting more off the new better to work than be on benefit policy.
Every government and every Minister in charge of the system wants to crack down on benefit cheats and tax dodgers. However this is always impossible to achieve unless you are prepared to spend more money than you get back, especially if you do not want to put those caught and proven in jail.
This brings me nicely to Wall Street, Money Never Sleeps, In the 1987 first Michael Douglas Oliver Stone film Gordon Gekko played the star of Wall Street, taking over good companies and then asset stripping and using as much Insider information as he could buy. He was brought down mainly on the evidence of a colleague and rival and in order for the public to continue to buy the confidence goods and services, he is made an example of and has to serve more years in prison than the average murderer.
In the second episode of what could become a trilogy Michael leaves prison in 2001 and finds there is no one to greet him. Eight years go by and the film opens for proper in the bedroom shared by a Wall Street Whiz for a firm Keller Zabel, which like Lehman’s is about to be allowed to go bust putting 1500 employees out of work and loosing a few people a lot of money, and we soon learn, the estranged daughter of one Gordon Gekko. From the telly which she insists is turned off, because lover boy is rarely away from business news screens, when her father appears advertising his new book. He is now a renowned lecturer warning that bubble is about to burst because of the leveraging by the speculating financial institutions.
The reason for the estrangement is not the financial and business behaviour of her father as such or his serial infidelities because she had her brother agreed to being part of Trust in which daddy had secreted $100 million in a Swiss bank which they inherit at the age of 25 but on the understanding that a substantially proportion of the total is used to enable their father to re-establish himself. The reason for the estrangement is that her father was in prison when his son and her brother died from drug addiction. She is now running a not for profit web site revealing truths about this and that.
The relationship between these two is one many flaws in the film. Given the attitude and lifestyle of the girl and that of her lover it is difficult to accept that they would have met and having met that she would have been attracted to him given that to him her father remained a business hero. The day gets better for Jacob, Jake Moore, the young man, is given by his boss, a spot bonus to the value of $1.45 million for his good work and Jake’s confidence in the firm is such that he invests the greater part of the bonus in buying more shares on leverage, that is in Futures, the right to buy the shares in the future at the present price so if the price rises you can sell the futures at a profit. So if the shares are now trading at say £80 with the right to buy costing $8 $1million will buy you can buy 125000 shares instead of 12500 so if the prices rises $10 you make another £1.25million doubling you money instead of only 125000. You pay out more in dealing charges which is how individual dealers make their money and their bonuses.
This is legitimate practice. What would not be legal is to create false rumours to escalate or reduce the price.
This is what in fact one of the other controllers of finances/banks, Churchill Schwartz, does in relation to the rival firm and when the bank begins to crash and seeks help from the other banks and the US government it is allowed to fail, with the man who leaked the rumour leading the others against a bail out. The chief of Keller Zebal, Louis Zebal throws himself in front of a subway train having accepted a buy out of his shares in the company for $3 after an initial offer of $2. Meanwhile Jake has persuaded Gekko’s daughter to marry him and bought her a large rock of a ring which she persuades him to return so they have something to live on now he is out of work.
Jake then goes in search of Gekko to reunite with his daughter and Gekko agrees to help Jake find out who brought Keller Zebal down in exchange. It emerges that that the man whose evidence brought Gekko down, Bretton James, was also behind the failure of Jake’s bank, but in addition had made a fortune for himself and his separately for his bank from his actions which can bring charges of criminal conspiracy as well as breaking financial regulations and rules.
Jake uses the information to creates a similar bad rumour against Bretton, without making personal profit, costing Churchill Schwartz, the firm over $100 million dollars. This impresses the Chief Executive who hires Jake and is further impressed when Jake outwits the firm’s previous Whiz but hooking Chinese government investors in renewable energy research investments. When however his bosses persuades the Chinese to invest in a different approach to that recommended by Jake because it is less threatening to the firm’s interersts in oil. Jakes walks out and is jobless again.
All appears not to be lost because having reunited Gekko with his daughter, Gekko discloses the existence of the Trust fund and offers to get hold of the money and for his daughter to sue for the renewable energy project. This will avoid her being answerable for non disclosure of the interest liable for tax on the trust fund earnings over the years. That she or father did not know this is another of the many stretches of incredulity. Of course Gekko has no intention of doing what he says and uses to the money to re-establish himself as an operator in London, implying that the London financial people would allow him to set up and start new Hedge business which quickly amount over $1 billion.
Jake has lost Gekko’s daughter who is pregnant by him after he admits to her that he met Gekko behind her back when she had told him not to do so. This breaks her trust and confidence in him. In order to try and win her back and reunite daughter with father, Jake travels to London with a DVD showing the ultra sound of the grandson, but having made it again into the big time Gekko says no.
Meanwhile Jake has given the daughter the story of how his firm was brought down through the illegal activities of the Bretton James if the Bank said to resemble JP Morgan Chase and Goldman Sachs as Wall Street is gripped with the collapse of capitalism as the various leverages, housing and insurance scams take their toll. The US government agrees its own form of bail out as the banks having previously let Keller Zabel go bust cling together. But they cannot afford any further cover up so when the story circulated by Gekko’s daughter through Internet site gains traction and leads to official investigations, the ranks close again, but this time against Church Stewart’s CEO, although at a preliminary hearing it is revealed that he is likely to get himself a better deal because of his previous cooperation which brought down Gekko.
The film is about to end with the daughter about to become a single mum, still unable to accept Jake’s sincere regrets and atonement measures and Gekko profiting from the near collapse. When the situation changes. Gekko has a change of heart, cashes in $100 million dollars which he invests in the renewable energy project and comes back to the States to beg forgiveness and help reunite his daughter with Jake. All this takes away from the main subject and Gekko’s latest slogan, the former was Greed is Good, the new one Money Never Sleeps.
The sub theme of the film is it was inevitable and is always inevitable that a system dependent on the use of capital will ensure that capital survives whatever the cost to the majority of the population because the rest of the population is dependent upon the continuation of capitalism.
And this brings me back to why we will all pay to ensure capitalism survives.
Did you know that the total amount we are borrowing at present is about the same as the total amount it will cost to replace the Trident nuclear defence system?
I must also begin by declaring a financial and political interest. I was personally affected by the statement of the Chancellor on the economic and financial changes announced on Wednesday after Prime Minister’s Question Time. However I am one of the few who while believing that the financial and economic measures are not fair, they are necessary because they begin the process of Britain having a more responsible and ethically acceptable position in relation to other countries. However I am not saying that the Conservatives have the same agenda although the Liberal Democrats might.
It was evident from Prime Minister’s Question time that young Ed is going to adopt the soft approach in his first question and then bring out what he hopes will be if not disabling, at least a politically embarrassing second. The Prime Minister has quickly reassessed his approach and his adopting ridicule and generalization.
In terms of performances The Chancellor was excellent in his delivery, appearing to have substance and integrity. It was politically good too in that it included all the positives while adopting the Brown principle of leave as much unpleasantness as you can to the small print. I was also impressed by Alan Johnson for the Opposition who admits he knows nothing about economics.
I consider this to be an asset, and therefore adopted the effective approach, as indeed Labour did with greater justification against Thatcherism, by making the accusation of ideological motivation, especially in relation to the budget of the Welfare State, the Public Sector and public Sector pensions which the majority of people including most Labour Voters will agree with the former while trying to personally benefit from the latter.
So this is the truth. The Coalition is going faster in the cuts than they need to in terms of the present economic situation in the UK and they do run the risk of a making it more difficult to get out of a another slowing down generated by the Chinese as a positive response to the needs of the USA. Whatever they do the very rich and those who caused the banks to near fail will escape because they are the very rich. This means that the bulk of the measures will fall on everyone else with the exception of convicted criminals and the underclass generally.
The worst hit will be the bulk of the working and middle classes who play by the rules and live decent lives, that is always in the nature of things. Between half a million and million more people with lose their job than at present. Primarily these will be civil servants and local government workers. Many will not gain other work as this will go primarily to those in the new EEC who will work harder for less than their UK counterparts.
The biggest problem will be to actually reform the welfare budget into one single system so that it always pays to work than live on benefits. One system will cost huge up front money because the old will have to continue until it is all incorporated into the new. That is why universal benefits are cheaper because one the simple basic eligibility test is met, you have a child, you are over 65, you have been assessed as on eligible for a tax credit. No large form of information is filled, no personal interview and no hours of verification with other agencies before making decision, which is then subject to appeal.
However what I can accept that that the Coalition is genuine in its intent and with Ian Duncan Smith in charge fo work and pensions there is someone who will have a serious go at doing so. What is likely to emerge is a better system, easier to operate for both applicant and government but it will not save money or reduce to the overall total, in part because more and more will have to be spent on the elderly. The key to success is getting more off the new better to work than be on benefit policy.
Every government and every Minister in charge of the system wants to crack down on benefit cheats and tax dodgers. However this is always impossible to achieve unless you are prepared to spend more money than you get back, especially if you do not want to put those caught and proven in jail.
This brings me nicely to Wall Street, Money Never Sleeps, In the 1987 first Michael Douglas Oliver Stone film Gordon Gekko played the star of Wall Street, taking over good companies and then asset stripping and using as much Insider information as he could buy. He was brought down mainly on the evidence of a colleague and rival and in order for the public to continue to buy the confidence goods and services, he is made an example of and has to serve more years in prison than the average murderer.
In the second episode of what could become a trilogy Michael leaves prison in 2001 and finds there is no one to greet him. Eight years go by and the film opens for proper in the bedroom shared by a Wall Street Whiz for a firm Keller Zabel, which like Lehman’s is about to be allowed to go bust putting 1500 employees out of work and loosing a few people a lot of money, and we soon learn, the estranged daughter of one Gordon Gekko. From the telly which she insists is turned off, because lover boy is rarely away from business news screens, when her father appears advertising his new book. He is now a renowned lecturer warning that bubble is about to burst because of the leveraging by the speculating financial institutions.
The reason for the estrangement is not the financial and business behaviour of her father as such or his serial infidelities because she had her brother agreed to being part of Trust in which daddy had secreted $100 million in a Swiss bank which they inherit at the age of 25 but on the understanding that a substantially proportion of the total is used to enable their father to re-establish himself. The reason for the estrangement is that her father was in prison when his son and her brother died from drug addiction. She is now running a not for profit web site revealing truths about this and that.
The relationship between these two is one many flaws in the film. Given the attitude and lifestyle of the girl and that of her lover it is difficult to accept that they would have met and having met that she would have been attracted to him given that to him her father remained a business hero. The day gets better for Jacob, Jake Moore, the young man, is given by his boss, a spot bonus to the value of $1.45 million for his good work and Jake’s confidence in the firm is such that he invests the greater part of the bonus in buying more shares on leverage, that is in Futures, the right to buy the shares in the future at the present price so if the price rises you can sell the futures at a profit. So if the shares are now trading at say £80 with the right to buy costing $8 $1million will buy you can buy 125000 shares instead of 12500 so if the prices rises $10 you make another £1.25million doubling you money instead of only 125000. You pay out more in dealing charges which is how individual dealers make their money and their bonuses.
This is legitimate practice. What would not be legal is to create false rumours to escalate or reduce the price.
This is what in fact one of the other controllers of finances/banks, Churchill Schwartz, does in relation to the rival firm and when the bank begins to crash and seeks help from the other banks and the US government it is allowed to fail, with the man who leaked the rumour leading the others against a bail out. The chief of Keller Zebal, Louis Zebal throws himself in front of a subway train having accepted a buy out of his shares in the company for $3 after an initial offer of $2. Meanwhile Jake has persuaded Gekko’s daughter to marry him and bought her a large rock of a ring which she persuades him to return so they have something to live on now he is out of work.
Jake then goes in search of Gekko to reunite with his daughter and Gekko agrees to help Jake find out who brought Keller Zebal down in exchange. It emerges that that the man whose evidence brought Gekko down, Bretton James, was also behind the failure of Jake’s bank, but in addition had made a fortune for himself and his separately for his bank from his actions which can bring charges of criminal conspiracy as well as breaking financial regulations and rules.
Jake uses the information to creates a similar bad rumour against Bretton, without making personal profit, costing Churchill Schwartz, the firm over $100 million dollars. This impresses the Chief Executive who hires Jake and is further impressed when Jake outwits the firm’s previous Whiz but hooking Chinese government investors in renewable energy research investments. When however his bosses persuades the Chinese to invest in a different approach to that recommended by Jake because it is less threatening to the firm’s interersts in oil. Jakes walks out and is jobless again.
All appears not to be lost because having reunited Gekko with his daughter, Gekko discloses the existence of the Trust fund and offers to get hold of the money and for his daughter to sue for the renewable energy project. This will avoid her being answerable for non disclosure of the interest liable for tax on the trust fund earnings over the years. That she or father did not know this is another of the many stretches of incredulity. Of course Gekko has no intention of doing what he says and uses to the money to re-establish himself as an operator in London, implying that the London financial people would allow him to set up and start new Hedge business which quickly amount over $1 billion.
Jake has lost Gekko’s daughter who is pregnant by him after he admits to her that he met Gekko behind her back when she had told him not to do so. This breaks her trust and confidence in him. In order to try and win her back and reunite daughter with father, Jake travels to London with a DVD showing the ultra sound of the grandson, but having made it again into the big time Gekko says no.
Meanwhile Jake has given the daughter the story of how his firm was brought down through the illegal activities of the Bretton James if the Bank said to resemble JP Morgan Chase and Goldman Sachs as Wall Street is gripped with the collapse of capitalism as the various leverages, housing and insurance scams take their toll. The US government agrees its own form of bail out as the banks having previously let Keller Zabel go bust cling together. But they cannot afford any further cover up so when the story circulated by Gekko’s daughter through Internet site gains traction and leads to official investigations, the ranks close again, but this time against Church Stewart’s CEO, although at a preliminary hearing it is revealed that he is likely to get himself a better deal because of his previous cooperation which brought down Gekko.
The film is about to end with the daughter about to become a single mum, still unable to accept Jake’s sincere regrets and atonement measures and Gekko profiting from the near collapse. When the situation changes. Gekko has a change of heart, cashes in $100 million dollars which he invests in the renewable energy project and comes back to the States to beg forgiveness and help reunite his daughter with Jake. All this takes away from the main subject and Gekko’s latest slogan, the former was Greed is Good, the new one Money Never Sleeps.
The sub theme of the film is it was inevitable and is always inevitable that a system dependent on the use of capital will ensure that capital survives whatever the cost to the majority of the population because the rest of the population is dependent upon the continuation of capitalism.
And this brings me back to why we will all pay to ensure capitalism survives.
Did you know that the total amount we are borrowing at present is about the same as the total amount it will cost to replace the Trident nuclear defence system?
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