ETTL is big on consumer empowerment. And in these crunched times why not use the leverage (so to speak) ordinary folk have to affect change when those at the top fail to?
Sir Fred Goodwin is clearly a greedy willy-waving twat of the highest order. Regardless of whether or not his pension gets cut, taken away or whatever by our betters, take your money out of RBS, if you have any in it. ETTL has already heard of people doing this in the last week or so and I think it is a splendid example of progressive income redistribution.
In fact a run on RBS might be quite a laugh. Any bank that rewards failure and greed would then know that retail depositors would punish them for doing so, even if HMG stands by pathetically. ETTL would recommend stashing cash into the Co-operative Bank given their unique position in not being total shits like all the other high-street banks.
All money is dirty money. But some banks clean it up.
Saturday, 28 February 2009
Is Peter Mandelson a complete shit?
ETTL is pretty confident that he is.
The world of Westminster was expecting the postal reform bill to enter the Lords on Thursday. Why then did it appear a day earlier, when the world of politics was focussed on the death of Cameron's son? Oh wait I've answered my own question there.
Burying bad news is pretty bad politics at the best of times, and when the death of a 6-year-old is involved it's just completely dire. Truly actions like this will endear the Labour party to the public in a time when the Tories are already 20 points ahead.
Indeed the fudging of the timetable is but one aspect of the dodginess of the postal bill's legislative process. The very fact it is being put to the Lords before the Commons is borderline offensive, whatever one thinks of the bill's content and implications. Quite why a load of unelected free-loaders should be looking at this crucial piece of legislation before the people who fought (and won) elections based partly on it is something Lord Mandelson might like to share with us plebs.
Lloyd George must be turning in his grave...
The world of Westminster was expecting the postal reform bill to enter the Lords on Thursday. Why then did it appear a day earlier, when the world of politics was focussed on the death of Cameron's son? Oh wait I've answered my own question there.
Burying bad news is pretty bad politics at the best of times, and when the death of a 6-year-old is involved it's just completely dire. Truly actions like this will endear the Labour party to the public in a time when the Tories are already 20 points ahead.
Indeed the fudging of the timetable is but one aspect of the dodginess of the postal bill's legislative process. The very fact it is being put to the Lords before the Commons is borderline offensive, whatever one thinks of the bill's content and implications. Quite why a load of unelected free-loaders should be looking at this crucial piece of legislation before the people who fought (and won) elections based partly on it is something Lord Mandelson might like to share with us plebs.
Lloyd George must be turning in his grave...
Saturday, 7 February 2009
Jerk-off liberals
Is what Andreas Baader thought of people like ETTL, at least according to the film which bares his name and which though sexy and interesting, says an awful lot (all of it bad) about armchair warriors on the far-Left.
Baader and his pals had an awful lot of fun blowing up department stores, robbing banks and generally terrorising the people of then West Germany. Obviously this is a lot more cinematic than lobbying your MP or signing petitions but then self-described communist urban guerillas seem to think even less of Guardian-types who do such things than they do red-blooded capitalists. Frankly when it comes to direct action, ETTL will be sticking with the latter course of action, given his liberal squeamishness when it comes to things like killing people - let alone any sense of ends and means.
Direct action for the Red Army Faction consisted of the murder of 34 people, of which some were rather ordinary guys like the chaffeurs and bodyguards of those perhaps more guilty of the crimes the RAF judged them for. For this no workers' paradise materalised; indeed the RAF's actions gave the authorities carte blanche to behave far worse in relation to civil liberties than they had before. Thus like all unregulated violence, the consequences of the RAF's thuggery were far from beneficial.
Liberal democracy has its faults. But improving the human condition has always come from working to change society, not destroying it first. The RAF had an air of glamour about them but ultimately their actions did nothing to help the people they claimed to act in the name of. The same cannot be said of jerk-off liberals.
Baader and his pals had an awful lot of fun blowing up department stores, robbing banks and generally terrorising the people of then West Germany. Obviously this is a lot more cinematic than lobbying your MP or signing petitions but then self-described communist urban guerillas seem to think even less of Guardian-types who do such things than they do red-blooded capitalists. Frankly when it comes to direct action, ETTL will be sticking with the latter course of action, given his liberal squeamishness when it comes to things like killing people - let alone any sense of ends and means.
Direct action for the Red Army Faction consisted of the murder of 34 people, of which some were rather ordinary guys like the chaffeurs and bodyguards of those perhaps more guilty of the crimes the RAF judged them for. For this no workers' paradise materalised; indeed the RAF's actions gave the authorities carte blanche to behave far worse in relation to civil liberties than they had before. Thus like all unregulated violence, the consequences of the RAF's thuggery were far from beneficial.
Liberal democracy has its faults. But improving the human condition has always come from working to change society, not destroying it first. The RAF had an air of glamour about them but ultimately their actions did nothing to help the people they claimed to act in the name of. The same cannot be said of jerk-off liberals.
Iran (away)
As Mr Spock once drily observed, only Nixon could go to China. ETTL would love to imagine Obama would break with years of US foreign policy and visit Teheran, but is this likely?
Thirty years after the Islamic Revolution and the the signs look good. What never comes out from Ahmadinejad's tirades is that Iran has a massive pro-western culture bloc in the form of the 60% of the population under 30. If he is ousted in the forthcoming elections and replaced with a moderate like Khatami there is no reason why, given some courage, the Obama administration could not begin a normalisation of relations with Iran.
Ordinary Iranians do not hate the west because of liberal democracy or free markets, in the main. They hate western support for Israeli warcrimes and Saddam Hussein in the Iran-Iraq war; and actions like the CIA/MI6-engineered coup in 1953 which brought the brutal Shah to power. So there is the weight of history to be dealt with before we can all be friends again.
But there is no reason for Iran to remain isolated, and plenty to gain from engagement on both sides. Indeed the Islamic Republic is a far more natural ally than the feckless boneheads of Saudi Arabia or the smaller Gulf states. Most Iranians are progressive and place a high value on education and enlightenment values, albeit in an Islamic context. We shall need them almost as much as they shall need us.
Thirty years after the Islamic Revolution and the the signs look good. What never comes out from Ahmadinejad's tirades is that Iran has a massive pro-western culture bloc in the form of the 60% of the population under 30. If he is ousted in the forthcoming elections and replaced with a moderate like Khatami there is no reason why, given some courage, the Obama administration could not begin a normalisation of relations with Iran.
Ordinary Iranians do not hate the west because of liberal democracy or free markets, in the main. They hate western support for Israeli warcrimes and Saddam Hussein in the Iran-Iraq war; and actions like the CIA/MI6-engineered coup in 1953 which brought the brutal Shah to power. So there is the weight of history to be dealt with before we can all be friends again.
But there is no reason for Iran to remain isolated, and plenty to gain from engagement on both sides. Indeed the Islamic Republic is a far more natural ally than the feckless boneheads of Saudi Arabia or the smaller Gulf states. Most Iranians are progressive and place a high value on education and enlightenment values, albeit in an Islamic context. We shall need them almost as much as they shall need us.
Wednesday, 4 February 2009
On torture
Another charming reminder of what actually the "special" (sic) relationship entails once again with the case of Binyam Mohamed, just out of Guantanamo and presumably not the biggest fan of liberal democracy given how it has treated him in recent years.
The US government could "inflict on the citizens of the United Kingdom a very considerable increase in the dangers they face at a time when a serious terrorist threat still pertains" if the full details of the torture, undertaken by thugs of said government and to which UK intelligence was complicit, was revealed. Effectively this means that if Blighty makes a fuss the US stops helping us with intelligence sharing. Thanks guys!
ETTL will never understand successive British governments' subservience to Washington. If not at the point where UK residents are being tortured by them, and then a threat is made to stop help if the rule of law is enforced, at what time will Britain stop being pissed on by l'hyperpower?
Maybe if Mr Mohamed were blonde and female?
The US government could "inflict on the citizens of the United Kingdom a very considerable increase in the dangers they face at a time when a serious terrorist threat still pertains" if the full details of the torture, undertaken by thugs of said government and to which UK intelligence was complicit, was revealed. Effectively this means that if Blighty makes a fuss the US stops helping us with intelligence sharing. Thanks guys!
ETTL will never understand successive British governments' subservience to Washington. If not at the point where UK residents are being tortured by them, and then a threat is made to stop help if the rule of law is enforced, at what time will Britain stop being pissed on by l'hyperpower?
Maybe if Mr Mohamed were blonde and female?
Bob's your reputable uncle
ETTL thinks Robert Peston is awesome. He is a walking bag of spazzy self-expression and funky financial acumen. Indeed if nothing else recession means more Peston, which is probably worth a few bad quarters.
So how dare the Treasury select committee spend hours grilling Bobby today for breaking the news, amongst other things, regarding Northern Rock's plea for state cash back in September 2007. One imagines the time could have been better spent shouting at willy-waving bankers who actually caused such catastrophes through excessive leverage and a reliance on wholesale sources of finance.
But of course the British Bankers' Association had accused Peston - and the BBC in general - for acting "injudiciously" in reporting the Rock's travails. Which strikes ETTL as something akin to desperation given the utter twattiness of bankers. I imagine the British taxpayer, adrift on a sea of debt and bailouts, rather feels that the banks acted "injudiciously" in fucking up the UK economy and refusing to participate in society via tax like us mortals do.
The Prime Minister is often heard to assert that the Tories cannot solve the recession as they do not understand its causes. Neither, apparently, do our elected representatives.
So how dare the Treasury select committee spend hours grilling Bobby today for breaking the news, amongst other things, regarding Northern Rock's plea for state cash back in September 2007. One imagines the time could have been better spent shouting at willy-waving bankers who actually caused such catastrophes through excessive leverage and a reliance on wholesale sources of finance.
But of course the British Bankers' Association had accused Peston - and the BBC in general - for acting "injudiciously" in reporting the Rock's travails. Which strikes ETTL as something akin to desperation given the utter twattiness of bankers. I imagine the British taxpayer, adrift on a sea of debt and bailouts, rather feels that the banks acted "injudiciously" in fucking up the UK economy and refusing to participate in society via tax like us mortals do.
The Prime Minister is often heard to assert that the Tories cannot solve the recession as they do not understand its causes. Neither, apparently, do our elected representatives.
Sunday, 1 February 2009
British jobs for British workers
Is an impossible promise, and the PM is a fool for ever having said it. Like everything that would sit more comfortably in a BNP manifesto, the idea is semantically seductive but ultimately illiberal and fantasist.
The UK is a member state of the biggest single market in world history. Italians have as much right to work in the UK as British workers (notorious for their immobility) do to work in Italy. That is what is meant by the free movement of labour, alongside capital and all else that keeps the EU rich as birthrates decline and productivity growth stalls.
If we start making populist exceptions the whole thing comes apart; in a similar vein the UK Government is quite rightly condemning protectionism in world trade. Frankly as long as the job gets done and the workers are treating with respect and the necessary protections their nationality is irrelevant. The fact that Total is a French company working in the UK and now contracting out work to Italians should be a cause for intra-European celebration, not regret.
Gordon Brown is at his worst when he addresses Labour, mainly because he seems to put being PM second to being leader of that party. The men on strike may be on the wrong side of economic history but they are right to be angry when the political elite send out such contradictory messages. After all, how concerned did the Prime Minister seem when all the best City jobs were being hoovered up by professionals from Europe, the US and beyond? Where is the workers' bail-out?
The UK is a member state of the biggest single market in world history. Italians have as much right to work in the UK as British workers (notorious for their immobility) do to work in Italy. That is what is meant by the free movement of labour, alongside capital and all else that keeps the EU rich as birthrates decline and productivity growth stalls.
If we start making populist exceptions the whole thing comes apart; in a similar vein the UK Government is quite rightly condemning protectionism in world trade. Frankly as long as the job gets done and the workers are treating with respect and the necessary protections their nationality is irrelevant. The fact that Total is a French company working in the UK and now contracting out work to Italians should be a cause for intra-European celebration, not regret.
Gordon Brown is at his worst when he addresses Labour, mainly because he seems to put being PM second to being leader of that party. The men on strike may be on the wrong side of economic history but they are right to be angry when the political elite send out such contradictory messages. After all, how concerned did the Prime Minister seem when all the best City jobs were being hoovered up by professionals from Europe, the US and beyond? Where is the workers' bail-out?
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