Snouts in the Trough

In 2011 we lost a true hero, Vaclav Havel, the Czech Republic’s first democratic president. Havel knew about the evils of communism and was one of the few European politicians to dare speak out against the ever-increasing, undemocratic power of the EU superstate. Fortunately 2011 also saw the death of one of the world’s greatest scumbags when Kim Jong-il became Kim Jong-very-ill and then croaked. May this bastard, who killed 2 million of his own people so he and his cronies could enjoy the finer things in life, rot in hell.

But whose deaths would brighten up 2012? First on the list must be the repulsive Robert Mugabe whose greed and stupidity have probably caused as much suffering as his mate Kim Jong-il. Then there’s the head of Equatorial Guinea who is rumoured to be personally pocketing up to $40m a day while his people live in grinding poverty. In fact, most of Africa’s leaders are so rotten, stupid and corrupt that their deaths would probably come as welcome to their oppressed people. Then there’s the bunch of brutal crooks running Myanmar – the sooner they move on, the sooner their people can experience freedom. And what about the fat freak Kim Jong-un – an early coronary there would not go amiss. In fact, the world is still so full of thoroughly evil scumbags that a few timely deaths would bring a little light to our lives amidst all our economic problems.

The politically-correct brigade have predictably been outraged over Jeremy Clarkson’s comments about toilets in India. Allegations of racism are flying. But Clarkson was too polite – India is a disgusting cross between a garbage dump and an open sewer. In India you can always spot a railway line by the long line of people crouching on the rails defecating.  In the West we have a tradition of using taxpayers’ money to build roads, hospitals, schools, sewage treatment plants, electricity networks and much more. This improves everybody’s standard of living and also provides much needed jobs. But India is so corrupt that the few taxes that are collected are mostly embezzled by corrupt bureaucrats and politicians. Whenever money is spent on a public-sector project, there is so much corruption and incompetence that what is built is so shoddy and substandard that it is usually collapsing within a few months.

Indians would like us to think of their country as modern and high tech. But the greed, corruption and stupidity of the ruling classes have condemned three quarters of the population to grinding poverty – no electricity, no water, no sewers, no hope. There have been protests about corruption. But the politicians have united to block any new laws limiting their freedom to steal as much public money as they want. India doesn’t need to be a corrupt, stinking open sewer – its rulers have made it that way. But Mr Clarkson was far too polite – India is worse than most people could ever imagine. (By the way, I’m not a racist – I have two adopted children from India. It’s a pity that the greed, corruption and incompetence of India’s rulers mean that my children had no future in their own country)

Great excitement in Oz because Australia has just “won” a cricket match against India or Pakistan (actually it was India). We have to remember that India and Pakistan have repeatedly been shown by surveys of businesspeople to be two of the most corrupt countries in the world. You have to pay bribes for everything. These can range from a few pounds to local officials to tens of millions to government ministers. And Indian and Pakistani cricketers have repeatedly been caught fixing matches in return for bribes.

So did Australia actually win the cricket match? Or did they just pay the Indians to lose? Or did a betting syndicate pay the Indians to lose? We’ll probably never know, but unfortunately in today’s corrupted “sports” anyone who takes seriously the result of a cricket match involving India or Pakistan is a fool.

I’m struggling through the turgid, self-justifying drivel that is Alan Greenspan’s book about his time as Chairman of the US Federal Reserve. Although I’m only at page 197, as far as I can see, Mr Greenspan feels he was an extremely brilliant economist working together with lots of other extremely brilliant people guiding the US to prosperity. But let’s test this claim. The role of the Fed is “putting in place the monetary conditions for maximum sustainable long-term growth and employment”. Yet buffoon Greenspan put in place the conditions for the biggest economic collapse since the Great Depression. Tens of millions lost their jobs and their homes -though not the highly-paid Mr Greedspan.

So given his failure, will Mr Greedspan give back the millions he took in pay and perks from US taxpayers? I doubt it. And will he give up the rights to his huge taxpayer-funded pension? Don’t hold your breath. The most telling part of buffoon Greedspan’s book is the inclusion of a photo of him and our own buffoon Gordon Liar Brown happily laughing together as they wrecked the eonomies they were meant to be growing. So is Greedspan a fool, lunatic or liar? I know what I think.

For more than two years, the Bank of England’s monthly inflation forecasts have been wrong. Every single time. In any other job, you’d get fired for such incompetence. But in our overpaid, self-serving, useless public sector, such incompetence is the rule rather than the exception. But is it really incompetence? Or dishonesty? After all, it’s much better for King and his appropriately-named number two, Mr. Bean, to forecast lower inflation and then to be “surprised” that “outside events” have pushed inflation higher than expected, than to admit they are deliberately using high inflation to lower the country’s debts. Remember, King and Bean have inflation-protected salaries and pensions so they don’t give a toss about how high inflation actually goes – they’re all right Jack.

Inflation is basically a tax on savers, particularly pensioners. It impoverishes savers while reducing borrowers’ debt levels. Savers are being fleeced, but King and Bean will live the rest of their lives like multi-millionaires – at our expense.

Apparently there were some football games on Boxing Day and some overpaid, pig-ignorant, preening footballers scored some goals. The press immediately calls these spoilt thugs “heroes”. I don’t see much that is heroic in being paid millions a year to try and cheat and foul your way to scoring a few goals. As for our troops in Afghanistan – are they heroes? They are facing hardship and danger to carry on a disastrous and pointless war that their political masters have started and don’t know how to stop. But given that our troops are there protecting a corrupt, drug-dealing puppet government wouldn’t it be more heroic to refuse to take part in the continued illegal occupation of a country where we are not wanted?

Meanwhile the Chinese are laughing – British soldiers get killed while Chinese companies get the right to prospect for oil in Afghanistan. You couldn’t make it up.

As we emerge from Christmas we can be thankful that it’ll be another year before we have to once again listen to multi-millionaire popstars telling us to “feed the world”. But perhaps it’s time to say the unsayable – most poverty is self-inflicted. Most poverty is caused by greed, stupidity, mismanagement  and corruption. Why is North Korea starving and South Korea rich? Mismanagement. Why is South America poor and North America rich? Because in North America land was distributed to people who wanted to farm it and wealth was reinvested in developing schools, hospitals roads etc. Whereas in South America a corrupt elite of a few families stole most of the land and other natural resources, used force to keep their power and didn’t reinvest any of their wealth in developing their countries. Why are most African countries basket cases? Because their leaders steal most of their wealth and channel it into their offshore bank accounts. In Africa, countries like Libya and Zimbabwe are the rule rather than the exception.

The good news is that we can feed the world. But only when the international community acts to force greedy, incompetent tyrants from power. But giving a little extra to charity at Christmas will change nothing – UN studies estimate that over 80% of all foreign aid is stolen by corrupt Third World politicians and bureaucrats or wasted due to the incompetence of the people spending the money.

We ordinary taxpayers have lost tens of billions bailing out banks that continue to pay their staff huge salaries and massive bonuses in spite of the fact that many are effectively bankrupt. Now the useless EU has come up with a new way of handing our money to the bankers. The European Central Bank (ECB) will ‘lend’ our money to banks at just 1% interest so the banks can buy Eurozone government bonds paying 5% to 6% interest. This guarantees the banks wonderful profits that we taxpayers will pay for. The bankers will no doubt celebrate by giving even bigger bonuses to their bosses while we taxpayers get screwed again and again and again.

It’s great to be a politician, bureaucrat or banker – it’s not so funny being a taxpayer who has to pay for the luxury lifestyles of the ruling elite of politicians, bureaucrats and bankers.

One thing you notice on arriving at any major Australian city (Sydney,  Melbourne, Perth etc) is the extraordinary number of Chinese. The continuing flood of Chinese immigrants into Australia has brought huge economic benefits. The Chinese have set up new businesses, regenerated rundown areas of Australian cities and ensured their children have the best education. They have made a massive contribution to the Australian economy unlike the benefits-grabbing scum that the incompetent, politically-correct UK immigration service welcomes into Britain. So the beer-swilling, sports-loving, happy-go-lucky Aussies can congratulate themselves on a reasonably successful immigration policy. But what happens in 20 years time? By then the Chinese will control restaurants, estate agencies, accountancies, shipping companies, law firms, retail chains, hotels, a few banks, and much much more. Who will the Chinese owners give jobs to? Beer-swilling, sports-loving, happy-clappy Aussies or hard-working, highly-educated Chinese? Of course there will always be jobs for Aussies flipping burgers in Chinese-owned McDonalds franchises and filling sandwiches in Chinese-owned Subway franchises. But the real jobs – they’ll mostly go to young Chinese and not Aussies.

Then a lot of Aussies will be sitting around with a beer in one hand and a barbie in the other wondering why, when the economy is still growing, their children can’t get jobs. Be careful Australia, you are playing with fire and you might get very burnt.

Anyone who has regularly trevelled with BA will probably be tired of the endless waits to book a flight, the pompous and incompetent check-in staff and the overpaid, arrogant and rude cabin staff. But BA is a flying paradise compared to its partners AA (American Airlines) and Quantas. AA recently deservedly went bust, but they sought Chapter 11 protection and are still inflicting their appalling lack of service on their long-suffering passengers. I spoke to three AA staff and all said they were ashamed of how poorly their incompetent management forced them to treat their passengers.

As for Quantas, they had so many strikes as their overpaid staff demanded more and more money, that management shut the airline down stranding thousands of passengers and only started flying again when ordered to by the Australian courts. With Quantas you wait about 30 minutes for them to answer the phone, then they cock up your booking and cut you off repeatedly so a single booking can take 1 to 2 hours. For that you have to pay a $80 per person service charge. Their overpaid check-in staff try to rip you off by making you pay fictitious charges for your luggage and their overpaid cabin staff complain continuously about how old and crap their planes are due to years of delays in them getting new planes.

Having experienced the awful AA and the worthless Quanta, how I look forward to BA’s arrogant unhelpful staff – they’ll be a pleasure compared to the even worse AA and Quantas.