fahrenheit451:034

It is axiomatic that Capitalism has a tendency toward over-production. In the delusional alternate-universe according the the acolytes and devotees of Adam Smith et al, the thaumaturgy of  " Competition " and " efficiency " and all the rest of the associated nonsense somehow exerts an influence that , again somehow, regulates any given market as if by an invisible hand.  And all this frenzied,remorseless competition takes place in some perfect anodyne set of historic / political /socio-economic circumstances that said acolytes and devotees don't bother too much at all in in trying to understand and analyse rationally. " Free market ! " they exclaim interminably or "neoliberal " ,whilst competition, competitiveness and competing are all too readily excreted from their ideological orifices. Except, of course when Realpolitik manifests itself and geo-strategic long term goals of rival sovereign nation-states with genuine clout bend the supposedly pristine operations of the capitalist free markets to their Will. The actual stuff of Human History and not the moribund, archaic piffle of the whiners and bleaters crying out for justice and fairness in the wilderness. There ain't any, in case you haven't noticed. Human History is not a cosy parlour game with rules.

Ambrose Evans-Pritchard, columnist non-pareil at the Daily Telegraph reports the following in the edition of 31 March.

The British are sacrificing an entire European industry to say thank you to China for signing up to the nuclear power project at Hinkley Point, and pretending it is about free trade," said one official in Brussels bitterly.

What they are blocking is a change to an EU regulation intended to beef up Europe's 'trade defence instruments' (TDI), enabling it to respond much more quickly to Chinese dumping and too impose much tougher penalties.

 The British have cobbled together a blocking minority in the council, much to the annoyance of the French, Italians, Spanish, and Germans.

The UK view is that the Commission mixed up good changes with bad changes, and that punitive tariffs merely hurt your own consumers, so you shoot yourself in the foot.

Yet the outcome is that it still takes Brussels 16 months to crank up full sanctions, twice as long as it takes the US. It is why the EU limits itself to a 'Lesser Duty' regime that often fails to reflects the full injury.

While Washington has slapped penalties of 267% on Chinese cold-rolled steel, the EU peashooter has so far managed just 13% .

Redcar has already paid the price for this ultra-free trade ideology, and Port Talbot is about to follow. There will eventually be little left if the current drift in trade policy is allowed to continue.

China's share of global steel output has risen from 10% to 50% over the last decade. It has installed capacity of 1.2bn tonnes a year that it can never hope to absorb as the construction boom deflates.

On OECD estimates it has built up 400m tonnes of excess capacity, twice the EU's entire steel production. China's unwanted steel is finding its way systematically into Europe, greased by export subsidies, tax breaks, cheap state credit, and the panoply of measures used by a mercantilist power to rig global trade.

China has captured 45% of the UK market for high fatigue rebar steel, from near zero four years ago. The price of hot rolled steel in Europe has fallen to $369 a tonne from an average of $650 from 2009 to 2013.

There you go, quote from Capitalist-Ideology Central , "Redcar has already paid the price for this ultra-free trade ideology, "

They ought to be pleased by all of this , it's free trade, it's Darwinian, the strong exterminating the weak through the rigours of Competition and efficiency. And best of all it comes, fortuitously, right slap bang in the middle of the Referendum on Britain's continued incarceration in the EU State Mental Hospital. Lovely !

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And here is the news as widely reported on Monday 28 March 2016.;spot the Glaring headline.

Boris Johnson has praised Putin for his 'ruthless clarity' after Syrian forces, assisted by Russian troops, liberated the historic site if Palmyra from ISIS.

The Mayor of London said Vladimir Putin deserved credit for 'winkling ISIS maniacs' in their successful recapture of the desert site.

'If Putin's troops have helped winkle the maniacs from Palmyra, then (it pains me to admit) that is very much to the credit of the Russians,' he wrote in his Daily Telegraph column.

Syrian government forces succeeded in driving ISIS fighters from Palmyra today and have vowed to next target the ISIS stronghold of Raqqa next, state media said.

Mr Johnson called on the British government to send archaeologists to help reconstruct the ancient city of Palmyra after parts of the site were destroyed by ISIS.

and that from the Daily mortgage-enslaved consumerist Mail. Did you notice their reference to the Syrian Government ? Whatever happened to Regime or hated regime or despot or tyrant? Of course,that's before Russia exposed the West's involvement in and manipulation of the Syrian regional crisis as an act of shameless hypocritcal posturing,bluster and mendacious incompetence, ( to put it charitably ).

Given the historic fact that the United States wishes to see Russia wiped off the face of the cartographical globe, and the sovereign nation state of Russia itself smashed and crippled beyond all hope of repair ; the US and its NATO satrapies within the Germanic EU are doing an absolutely lousy job in trying to achieve their publicly voiced strategic policy goals. Absurd venal posturing by one pathetic western demagogue,such as Cameron has been succeeded by an equally ludicrous pantomime act by a whole retinue of strutting half-wits from Tusk and Hollande to Merkel and so on down the imperialist food chain.

Schadenfreude just got epic !!

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Nee, naw...Nee, naw !! Here comes The Plod combatting crime and keeping the Citizenry safe from ne'er do wells. Actually, upon reflection no they, The Plod aren't combatting anything nor keeping the rest of us safe from any and all forms of crime and criminal behaviour- or should that be the behaviour of criminals ?  Stupid, ideologically driven wiberals and their self-referencing " progressive " co-conspirators have indoctrinated virtually all of Civil Society and Polity with the insidious, debilitating poison of political correctness. Hence this risible farrago that was just so much poorly scripted farce rather than the tragedy/drama those forces had hoped it would be. As reported, ad infinitum on March 26th. ( this gleaned from The Daily Telegraph ) :-

11:38PM GMT 25 Mar 2016

 

A man is no longer facing a social media race-hate charge after Doyle, a partner at a south London-based talent and PR agency, allegedly posted a tweet on Wednesday morning saying: "I confronted a Muslim woman in Croydon yesterday. I asked her to explain Brussels. She said 'nothing to do with me'. A mealy mouthed reply." The tweet, which appeared to refer to this week's bomb attacks on the Belgian capital's main airport and Metro system.

Matthew Doyle, 46, from South Croydon, was due to appear at Camberwell Green Magistrates' Court on Saturday.He had been arrested on Wednesday and charged on Friday with publishing or distributing written material which is threatening, abusive or insulting, likely or intended to stir up racial hatred.

On Friday night the Met police said the charge had been dropped after it emerged the police officer in question had jumped the gun and charged Mr Doyle when in fact he needed CPS approval to do so.

In a statement, the Met said: "Matthew Doyle, 46, of South Croydon was charged by police on Friday, 25 March, with an offence under Section 19 of the Public Order Act 1986.

"Following discussion with the Crown Prosecution Service, Mr Doyle is no longer charged with the offence and will not be appearing at court.

"Police may not make charging decisions on offences under Section 19 of the Public Order Act."

A great big fuss over nothing ; a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury and signifying nothing. The Plod had itself acted illegally, violated due legal process ,how thick is the average Copper these days ? Don't they teach them about the Law of the Land -which they themselves as The Plod on behalf of the Citizenry must first and foremost without fear or favour uphold ? Of course not. And how the heck do 140 characters on a self-obsessing social media platform come anywhere close to the mickey mouse charge of  " incitement to racial hatred " ?

The wrongfully arrested and charged Mr.Doyle was lucky in one respect,given the fascistic manner and attitude of our everyday Plod.He ought to be grateful that he wasn't just some Brazilian electrician on his way to work, running to catch the Tube.....

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As I'm writing this, it's some 50 hours since Islamic terrorists brought chaos and carnage to the city of Brussels. ISIL/ISIS/ DAESH, like some Rock band ought to bring out a " On Tour " sweatshirt itemising all their gigs. If nothing else, this latest insane farrago highlights,with a sense of palpable redundancy , the irrelevance and impotence of the European Union and its conjoined western imperialist sibling NATO.

The first order of priority after every major terrorist attack ( and the concomitant mass slaughter of civilians going about their law-abiding daily lives ),is for the Authorities and it usually falls to the Police,to speak out in defence of,offer reassurance to and shield Islam and its adherents.

The terrorists, we are informed are trying to goad us to respond in ways which would encourage and fuel the alienation and radicalisation of Muslims and hence add to the many thousands of volunteers who've been streaming to Syria and Iraq to join the monstrosity that is DAESH.

It is,of course a circular argument that leads us precisely nowhere.Because that is what motivates the authorities, i.e. western governments, to spout such utter bullshit in the first place. They whimper and cower before Political,Weaponised Islam because of their deluded,multiculturalised ideology that has poisoned and weakened virtually every national polity throughout Europe and the west in general.

And so it is inevitably scheduled to continue for many more decades still.Yes,the European Union will fall as a result.But we do seem to be going about it in the hardest way possible.

This from the Daily Telegraph,the day after the Brussels Massacre :-

The UNHCR said that migrant reception centres on Aegean islands such as Lesbos, where refugees have until been able to come and go at will, had been turned into grim detention centres.

The agency said it would no longer transport refugees by bus to the centres because they were being held there against their will.

“The camps now have limited freedom of movement. We do not support closed centres in principle,” Boris Cheshirkov, a UNHCR spokesman on Lesbos, told The Telegraph.

“The majority of arrivals here are from Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan. People should not be punished for seeking safety.”

And so it ends.

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In a little over three months time,on June 23rd. the British electorate will vote to leave the European Union. And with each passing day, the propaganda being spewed out by those forces opposed to Britain reclaiming its freedom, is becoming increasingly hysterical. So hysterical in fact as to be intimidating. Clearly, it is nowhere near as intimidating as, for instance, Nazi Germany's propaganda aimed at a defiant Britain in 1940 but nevertheless clearly aimed at achieving the same basic outcome. A widespread and decisive loss of nerve,of will,of determination,of self-confidence. Why shouldn't the British be governed by their own sovereign nation state ?  June 23rd. is one of those very rare occasions when most of those in power, the Ruling Elites and their governments fail in asserting their Will on the electorate. Not every Tory /Lib Dem / Socialist or Green is necessarily a bourgeois cretin and enemy of the workers . Neither does virtue ,honesty and integrity reside exclusively on our side on every issue ever. As for my part, I re-affirm that I hate, loathe and despise everything the European Union stands for and everything it says and does.

There are none righteous, no not one. ( ROMANS 3:10 )

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And so , on the day that Iain Duncan-Smith's resignation from the Tory Austerity Regime is the headline news ;

the facebook page of mine , #DansLaMerde publishes the latest instalment of the continuing Alice-in-Wonderland ....

I.D.S. RESIGNS BUT THE MERDE CARRIES ON !!

‪#‎Interserve‬ STRIKES AGAIN !!
WHEN DO YOU GET PAID FOR A PAID WORK TRIAL?
IF YOU GOT THE JOB, HOW MANY WEEKS CAN YOU SURVIVE ON 2 WEEKS PAY ? ANSWER - 5.
Here's some correspondence between me and my JCP.

If you work 16 hours or more and the work is going to be paid, benefits don’t consider when that work is going to be paid only that you have done paid work.

So if the worktrial is completed and it changes from an unpaid trial to paid work you would need to close your claim down from the commencement of it i.e. 21.03.16 no matter when payments are going to be received for it.
.......................................................................................................

Thank you for clarifying the situation. The wisest and most sensible course of action for me,based ( on the information you've provided and adding to that Interserve's flat out refusal to give me any reassurances whatsoever ) , is not now to start the proposed work trial. DWP Rules are the DWP Rules . There is an utter and complete lack of any transitional arrangements for those who would graduate from JSA into full time employment. Even if my week long work trial was a success, Interserve could not assure me that I would be allocated the shifts and the choice of days off which the Employer asked that I make on their application form. This renders the week long trial pointless ,especially since Interserve belatedly and at my prompting told me that my first pay day would be April 28 -at which point I would only receive,at the most 2 weeks pay-which then somehow I would have to survive on till the end of May. The supposed promise on the employer's application form ( which Interserve refused to reassure me on) is not a guarantee ,it is in verifiable mathematical terms a chance probability. A 66% probability of NOT getting my choice of Shifts ( any 1 of 3 ) and a 75% probability of NOT getting my choice of 2 days off ( any 1 pair of 4 in the week ). Although to quote Interserve discussing with me what happens after a successful work trial , " You're 99% guaranteed to get the shift you've asked for and days off "

" And the white knight is talking backwards and the red queen's off her head " ( Jefferson Airplane )

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" Every major downturn since the First World War has been caused by the Fed, determined to snuff out inflation as the credit cycle matures.  Expansions rarely die of old age. They are killed. "

Public discourse on virtually any topic or issue of note,tends invariably toward the sensational and the superficial . Even those who once might have been acquainted with a modicum of academic/intellectual rigour are nowadays prone to the self same vices afflicting the great majority. The Right articulates and expresses its worldwiew in bullet point, tabloid speak as does The Left. There are, however the odd exceptions to this general rule of thumb. Ambrose Evans-Pritchard,writing in the Daily Telegraph being foremost amongst that small grouping. Whilst the Right and Left bleat and rail and hurl calumnies at one another with the joyous abandon and nihilistic lack of rational foresight and analysis we have all become accustomed to from those mutually antagonistic quarters, the likes of A.E.P. et al endeavour to maintain and promote what seem now like hopelessly arcane qualities of journalistic candour.  Chancellor of the Exchequer Osborne's fairy-tale pronouncements about growth, recession, productivity, investment and this or that tax, are exposed, as indeed are all variants of such thematic nonsense, as the grand idiocies for which they are. Herewith gleaned from AEP in the Telegraph of 15 March - the day before  " The Budget " ritual was performed in Parliament.

" The trigger for the next global recession is at last coming into view after a series of loud distractions and false alarms.

The Atlanta Federal Reserve's gauge of "sticky-price" inflation in the US soared to a post-Lehman peak of 3% in February. This index is a 'pure' measure of core inflation - the underlying story once the noise is stripped out.

The Fed's veteran vice-chairman Stanley Fischer is itching to tighten "We may well at present be seeing the first stirrings of an increase in the inflation rate,” he said in a portentous speech last week.

Every major downturn since the First World War has been caused by the Fed, determined to snuff out inflation as the credit cycle matures.  Expansions rarely die of old age. They are killed. "

Dans la Merde. That's where the faltering,dysfunctional global capitalist economic system is heading straight into, yet again. Not even having gotten itself out of the Merde it jumped into back in 2007/08. We - the 99% - can expect no better. Austerity is endless, or at least until a sufficiently critical mass of mobilised public opinion gets around to initiating an epochal sea change.

Harsh and brutal and as unjust as they are or might appear to those most affected by them, the paltry economic/fiscal policies announced and at some stage enacted by whatever government in any " Budget " are as  but a few individual lashes from a single whip held by a solitary Roman soldier serving an army of an empire whose global pre-eminence is predicated on the enslavement of millions. Getting them to desist from using whips would be a start...

It has ever been thus.

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There aren't half some right cheeky bastards sticking their unwanted noses into Britain's domestic politics these days. The BBC's news website of 15 March reports:-

" If Britain votes to leave the European Union it could have a negative impact on the Nato alliance, a senior US military commander has warned. Lt-Gen Ben Hodges, head of the US Army in Europe, said he was "worried" the EU could unravel just when it needed to stand up to Russia. He acknowledged the vote was a matter for the British people, but said he was concerned about the outcome. "

Have we suddenly become El Salvador or Guatemala ? Don't tinpot,strutting warmongers like him over at the Pentagon have better things to do right now ? Such as targetting the next North African / Mid East sovereign state that US  foreign policy requires be bombed to smithereens for no accountable reason ?

Apparently the British electorate's decision on June 23 is of " strategic interest " to the General. The correct term to be applied to anyone making any such pronouncements about a sovereign,democratic nation state's political processes,is " egregious ". The general's remarks are egregious. And the words he uses stink of an altogether unpalatable arrogance and hubris common amongst military commanders of the World's pre-eminent war-mongering, imperialist power.

With historical hindsight,it was really a pity that the British failed to snuff out the little monster at its birth in 1776.Just imagine of all the subsequent pain,misery and sorrow that could have been avoided - such as President Obama's visit to the UK next month.

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The operation and functioning of the capitalist economic system, is as the general populace is given to understand, an ultimately rational, purposeful and ordered undertaking. The financial commentator-non pareil ,Ambrose Evans-Pritchard writing in the Daily Telegraph uses words though more appropriate to a discussion on Medieval thaumaturgy. Just take a look  for yourself.

 " 10 MARCH 2016 • 9:21PM

The European Central Bank has pulled out all the stops to avert a dangerous deflation-trap, launching a blast of triple stimulus despite angry criticism from Germany that it is entirely unnecessary and will do more harm than good.

The markets reacted wildly to the package of measures, surging at first and then plummeting on creeping fears that the bank has exhausted its policy options and may be defenceless against a fresh shock.

Mario Draghi, the ECB’s president, no longer seems able to conjure confidence with his former panache. His magic has, for now, deserted him.

The ECB cut the deposit rate by 10 basis points to a historic low of -0.4pc and stepped up the pace of quantitative easing (QE) from €60bn to €80bn a month. It buttressed the effect with unlimited four-year loans to banks at near-zero cost, hoping this will limit the damaging side-effects of negative rates for banks. "

"Dangerous", "Harm", "Wildly","Surging","Creeping", "Conjure", "Magic".  Sounds suspiciously like no-one is in charge let alone in overall control. An everyday weather forecast has less uncertainty and uses far fewer adjectives than what Economists require to try and get a handle on and describe Capitalism in Crisis. And once the High Priests and Acolytes of Mammon have recited their catechism and expounded on their monetary/financial theology ,the 99% can get ready for another thorough shafting.

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Nothing quite beats a huge dose of hyperbole when it comes to inflaming an already tense and hyper-sensitive political discourse on which is supposed to hang the very future of a Nation. The Daily Telegraph's City page achieves this outstanding feat with commendable ease and aplomb in that Paper's March 9 edition with :-

City warns: Brexit could leave UK in same position as Bolivia

and continues, rather more factually and eruditely on the germaine issue of how, the soon to be former ,relationship of ourselves in the role of Provincial satrapy is to be undone. -

" Following a vote to leave, the British authorities would begin renegotiating trade deals with the EU. The CityUK estimates that there are 80,000 pieces of legislation tying the UK to Brussels, which would require a large number of lawyers and civil servants working on the rules, even before there are any new efforts to create trade treaties with the EU and with other countries around the world."

80,000 pieces of legislation..and who says the EU isn't a bureaucratic hindrance to all and sundry ?  Well,quite a lot of its Petainist/Quisling political stooges masquerading in the House of Commons for a start.As well as the interminable plethora of Lovers /Acolytes of alien Gulags presided over by Kommissars from some obscure Ruritanian polities with rather unwholesome and unpleasant pasts.

Still, Schadenfreude all round on 23 / 6.

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The Capitalist economic system is predicated upon the tenets of exploitation and expropriation and they are underpinned by the practise of Usury. The recent worldwide hit movie , " The Big Short " captured, highlighted and explained in accessible everyday vernacular those very basic tenets. And that's how come we - the 99% -are where we are today ,up shit-creek without a paddle still paying out extortionate amounts to the very people and institutions who plotted ,engineered and finessed the crash of 2007/08. The generalised,almost universal adoption of the economic policies of  " Austerity " across the advanced,industrialised nations and supra-national  entities such as the EU, are merely the development of the original policy goals of Usurer-Capitalism's Ruling Elites - the intensification of the measures of pauperisation and ever more acute  socio-economic marginalisation of the 99%.   So, when even the slightest modicum of perceived social justice makes the headlines, it is a cause, albeit a limited one for celebration and study.A moment to savour in a on going,seemingly endless War waged against us by a far superior enemy, who it turns out is not invincible. Gleaned from a plethora of social media -

Iran's billionaire tycoon Babak Zanjani has been sentenced to death for corruption, a judicial official said March 6, after a trial in which he was accused of fraudulently pocketing $2.8 billion.

Zanjani became notorious during the era of president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, finding ways to channel hard currency to Tehran despite financial sanctions imposed on the Islamic republic's banks as punishment for its nuclear program.

Zanjani was convicted of fraud and economic crimes and as well as facing the death penalty he must also pay money to the state in restitution, judiciary spokesman Gholam Hossein Mohseni-Ejeie said at his weekly press conference.

 

The Islamic court convicted the defendants of "spreading corruption on earth", a capital offence, and ordered them to repay funds embezzled from, among others, state-run National Iranian Oil Company, judiciary spokesman Gholamhossein Mohseni Ejei said on live television.

The defendants can appeal against the ruling.

Were the same standards to be applied within the UK ,the City of London would become a ghost town. Schadenfreude .

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Here's something I emailed to the local press ; Wakefield Express , Yorkshire Evening Post and Yorkshire Post.

Sir - On March 9, UNITE Union's campaign Day of Action against Benefits Sanctions ,took ( takes) place with protests across the country in over 100 towns and cities including several in our region . With the government's Austerity policies continuing to flatten everything in their wake ,the role of punitive sanctions against welfare claimants plays a central role in their overall Austerity plans.  Over 1,000,000 benefits sanctions annually are routinely imposed on JSA and ESA claimants ,with barely 5% of those Sanctioned getting to the Appeal stage.  In April last year,I was  wrongly sanctioned thanks to a false and misleading report from my Mandatory Work Activity Placement -Flutterbuys Charity Shop -which was passed to Interserve who in turn without checking the accuracy of that report passed it on to the DWP. Suffice to say that in October I won my Appeal at HMCTS,the Judge agreed with my position that the original report made no sense whatsoever. Had it not been for the active support of others,I would not have been able to endure 13 weeks of being virtually starved into submission.  As a Christian and Trades Union activist, I challenge all those organisations,especially those who purport to be faith-based,who use Workfare conscripts via MWA and CWP to desist immediately from exploiting claimants who are forced to work under the threat of Sanctions .State-approved forced labour is an entirely abhorrent practice and goes against Scripture. It is a sad reflection of our City and District, that the plight of many thousands of fellow citizens who are subjected to such treatment is a matter of indifference to our elected local and national politicians and those Trades Unions,Political parties and Faith organisations who stand idly by and refuse to speak out.

 

 

Yours Sincerely ,

 

Louis Kasatkin ( Vice-Chair , Leeds Community Branch ,UNITE ) in a personal capacity.

 

 

( Lots of posts on this blog on Sanctions - see also #DansLaMerde on fb )

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Politics, or rather what passes for supposedly serious, philosophical political discourse these days is simply meretricious rubbish.And nothing exemplifies this seemingly endemic condition more than Labour’s position on the question of leaving the European Union. Labour List, whose various dim-witted spokesbots are churning out the most contentious,vacuous twaddle dressed up as serious class politics since Keir Hardie found his way to the lectern,are the prime movers in trying to persuade the Electorate into remaining stranded in the swamp of Europsychosis and ignorance. In coalition with mainstream Tories,Liberal Democrats,the SNP and other duplicitous Petainist charlatans , the likes of Mary Creagh MP for Wakefield count out for the rest of us ,one by tedious one, all the apparent blessings bestowed upon the British Electorate by EU Kommissars over the decades. And it comes down to these,as to why the generally supine,conformist,unimaginative voter ought to consider assenting to our continued national enslavement and eternal captivity within the EU Gulag.  ” These ”  being the blessings bestowed upon us by EU membership alone and otherwise impossible :- The outlawing of incandescent lightbulbs; environmentally cleaner beaches and a whole raft of pro-employee/worker legislation on hours and holiday pay. Oh,and the UK gets a say as to when and how the EU Satrapies’ collective within NATO get to provoke a nuclear armageddon with Russia. Mary Creagh’s best arguments for staying in our cells. Quick ,call the Nurse !!