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By  David Craig, on March 15th, 2014 Below are pictures of two obviously extremely courageous men. One is Malaysia’s Chief of the Armed Forces General Tan Sri Zulkifeli bin Mohd. Zin and the other is Sacha Baron Cohen as General Aladeen, ruler of the Republic of Wadiya, from Baron Cohen’s film “The Dictator”.
There is one striking similarity between these two great warriors – the impressive array of medals adorning their manly chests. I think we know how General Aladeen got his medals. As for Malaysia’s Chief of Armed Forces General Tan Sri Zulkifeli bin Mohd. Zin – I’m not sure what all his medals and ribbons are for, but I guess that plane spotting wasn’t one of them.
Have a good weekend.
By David Craig, on March 14th, 2014 As we move towards yet another Osbornomic budget, all the usual idiots are blethering on about how we need tax cuts. After all, these buffoons argue, with the economy growing, our great chancellor can afford to give us back a bit of our money. What planet are these utter twats living on???
Yesterday, I hopefully showed that the only way our masters could make it look like the economy was growing was by fiddling the inflation figures. Today, I’ll try to show how “healthy” our national finances are.
1. Government spending – is still totally out of control and is still heading remorselessly upwards. It was £672.3bn when the Coalition took over in 2010, it will be £728.7bn in 2015. (I know there seems to be a drop in 2013, but suspect when all the figures are in, 2013 will go a bit higher) (click on charts to see more clearly)
2. Government debt in £trn – this is also shooting ever upwards in spite of the supposed “economic growth” which I believe doesn’t exist
3. Government debt per capita – this is also climbing towards the skies
I’m not an economist. And I realise that there are many very clever economists running the country, writing in the press and appearing in the media. But when I look at the above 3 charts, I fail to see the bright lights of economic recovery that everyone else is celebrating. I apologise for being really really stupid.
By David Craig, on March 13th, 2014 We hear it every almost every day – “the UK economy is growing”, “we’re out of recession”, “the worst is over”, “there’s light at the end of the tunnel”, “UK economy is fastest growing in Europe”, “UK growing faster than Germany” etc etc. And sure enough, if you look at the basic numbers, this seems to be true (click to see charts more clearly)
But these figures don’t take account of inflation. And once you throw in inflation, as far as I can see, the UK economy grew in real terms by £16bn in 2010 and then shrank in real terms by £18bn in 2011, £15bn in 2012 and £9bn in 2013
And I’m just using CPI as a measure of inflation. Had I used RPI, things would look a fair bit worse.
(Many of you will be a lot smarter than me and you might look up the official Government ONS inflation-adjusted GDP figures. If you do, you’ll find the economy grew each year and didn’t shrink as I suggest in the above chart. But the Government and ONS don’t use either CPI or RPI when adjusting GDP for inflation. They use their own special measure called the “GDP deflator”. This is usually much less than CPI and a country mile less than RPI. For example, in 2010/11 when CPI was at about 4.5% and RPI probably over 5%, the Government’s wonderful GDP deflator was only at 2.8%. By using the GDP deflator, our masters can make decline look like growth. Yet we hear not a peep of protest from the (IMHO) sycophantically, self-serving Robert Chote, boss of the £2m a year, laughably titled “Office for Budget Responsibility“)
If I’m right, this is far from good. But there’s worse to come. The supposed growth the politicians and economists blether about has been bought at enormous cost. We borrowed £140bn in 2010, £150bn in 2011, £130bn in 2012 and £120bn in 2013. That’s £540bn that will have to be paid back at some point. Again, one would expect a genuinely “independent” Office for Budget Responsibility to be howling in protest against this appalling level of economic mismanagement. Sorry, I can’t hear you Robert Chote.
So, taking account of CPI inflation and government borrowing, does this mean the Coalition is effectively destroying massive amounts of value every year?
I don’t know. But I do understand that the faster we supposedly crawl out of recession, the deeper we sink into a cesspit of debt. And that just doesn’t look (or smell) like something we should be celebrating.
By David Craig, on March 12th, 2014 (I’ll deal with the myth of our economic growth tomorrow)
I’ve written before about why I think the state pension will eventually be abolished https://www.snouts-in-the-trough.com/archives/8608 Last night I found out how this will happen.
I attended a meeting held by a think tank called Policy Exchange. The subject was how to get more ordinary people to save more for their pensions. There were two kinds of attendees:
Firstly, some public-sector big bosses and middle-ranking bureaucrats from the Bank of England, the DWP and the financial regulators. The great Lord Turner, formerly boss of the totally ineffectual and probably institutionally corrupt and now abolished Financial Services Authority, was one of the speakers as was Tory MP and former Minister of State for Work and Pensions Mark Hoban. Note that all these people would have extremely generous final-salary, inflation-protected pensions (paid for by us) as well as a delightfully early retirement age.
The other group were people from pension fund managers eager to encourage the Government to make us save more as that meant more money for them in management fees.
The general theme of the meeting was that we ordinary people were not saving enough and had to be pushed or even coerced into saving more as our pensions were unaffordable. Moreover, too many of us were living too long and our care costs were becoming an intolerable burden on the state. Their own hugely generous, taxpayer-funded pensions and early retirement were, of course, completely affordable and well deserved after the huge contribution they had all made to our country.
The majority there felt that we should fully adopt the Australian model. There it’s compulsory for everyone to save 10% of their salary into a superannuation fund and (if I understand correctly) very few people get the Australian state pension as they are considered to have sufficient savings to provide for themselves. However, the great and the good (and of course well-pensioned) at the meeting realised that they couldn’t immediately force us plebs to save for our pension as we might realise that pension savings were just another tax in addition to income tax and NI. So, they planned to do what they called the “art of the possible” – move to compulsory pension saving in steps.
Step 1 – Introduce auto-enrolment for the Workplace Pension. This is already happening with 2.9 million workers in larger companies already signed up and millions more in smaller companies set to join over the next couple of years all paying about 8% (including employer contributions and tax rebates)
Step 2 – Once people get used to paying into a pension, move the goal posts – make paying about 6% compulsory and then auto-enrolling us to pay another 4% to 6% ” voluntarily” because the 8% of the current Workplace Pension was not sufficient to provide most people’s pensions
Step 3 – Cut the link between years of NI contributions and entitlement to the state pension, so that the state pension became a “benefit” (like unemployment benefit) rather than an “entitlement” based on years of NI contributions
Step 4 – Now that the state pension was a benefit, not an entitlement, only those with little to no pension savings would get the state pension
In the meantime, our masters would keep on increasing the age at which the state pension would be paid to us, while preserving their own early retirement opportunities.
This move towards compulsory saving and abolition of the state pension for all but the very poor will happen over several years – maybe 15 to 20. But it will happen as the state pension is unaffordable.
This means that, for anyone earning less than say £20,000, every pound they save into a pension scheme will result in reducing their eligibility for the state pension. They are being suckered.
Oh, and there was one other conclusion from the meeting – that setting a cap on the fees pension fund managers can charge us would “restrict financial innovation“. This was enthusiastically endorsed by the attendees from pension fund management companies like Schroders.
Are we being scammed? Yes we are!
(Sadly not a single person bought a copy of GREED UNLIMITED yesterday, so I’m not going to reach my absurdly low target of selling just one copy a day. Though my thanks to the reader who offered to buy his 3rd copy if it helped me fund the costs of running this website. But there’s no need to go that far. It’s not the money that’s important, it’s just my hurt pride that I wrote what I thought was a reasonable book and hardly anyone wanted to buy a copy)
By David Craig, on March 11th, 2014 I’ve been trying to understand if the UK economy is really growing as much as the politicians and mainstream media tell us. If readers will be patient, I’d like to split this story over two days.
Firstly, I’ll look at the so-called “Brown boom” of six years from 2002 to 2007 (inclusive). Our GDP increased – there’s no doubt about that (click on chart to see more clearly)
But if we look at the figures another way – the GDP per capita (the amount of GDP generated per head of population) – a different picture emerges. Our GDP per person actually declined by about 1.9% while that of most other countries shot up (click to see more clearly)
This seems to suggest that, because of the massive level of immigration – perhaps three million or more during the Brown boom – we actually produced less per person over the six years.
This decline in GDP per person indicates two things – that many immigrants are not working and that some of those who are working are displacing British people and forcing them onto the dole. So, in general, those people who came to Britain during the boom reduced our GDP per person, rather than (as our masters like to claim) benefitting our economy. And, of course, public spending is forced up as three million immigrants need housing, schools, healthcare, policing etc.
It’s a pity Tony Blair’s “education, education, education” actually became “immigration, immigration, immigration”.
(I have found other figures which suggest that our GDP per capita did actually grow during the “Brown boom”, but that GDP per capita grew at a slower rate than GDP. So, the argument that immigration is lowering rather than increasing our economic well-being still stands)
Tomorrow, I’ll look at (and maybe tear apart) the supposed GDP growth we’ve had since the financial crash.
(I’d be grateful if people could show some support for this website by helping me reach my pathetically unambitious target of selling just one copy of GREED UNLIMITED per day)
By David Craig, on March 10th, 2014 As we prepare for former MEP and now leader of the useless LibDems Nick Clegg to take on Nigel Farage in two debates (26 March and 2 April), we know what Clegg will say – that we’re better to stay in the EU and reform it from within. This is, of course, a pretty similar message to Cameron’s boasts about how he’s going to get “a new deal for Britain”. But it can’t be done.
Any major change in the EU has to be unanimously approved by all EU members. (Some minor changes can be approved by “Qualified Majority Voting” which gives larger countries more say) But the majority of countries in the EU love things the way they are. Why? Because they get lots more money from the EU, than they pay in (click on chart to see more clearly)
Around 9 countries are major net contributors. While 15 countries are net beneficiaries. And if someone is generously handing you (mainly corrupt politicians and their business cronies) billions of euros every year, why would you want to rock the boat? The only way for Britain to get change is to get out of the oppressive, asphyxiating control of the corrupt, wasteful, undemocratic Brussels elites. As 46,000 immigrants pour into Britain every month, surely it’s obvious we have to get out of the EU before what’s left of our country is destroyed.
Meanwhile having almost started the Third World War with her attempt to grab the Ukraine away from Russia, blundering buffoon Baroness Ashton is in Tehran to talk about the mad mullahs’ nuclear weapons programme. No doubt her negotiations there will be just as successful as her incursion into the Ukraine.
And finally, thanks to a reader who pointed out that hidden away in one clause of the Lisbon Treaty is the requirement that Britain (at some point in the future) hands over control of our nuclear weapons to the new European army Brussels is trying to create. Funny, Cameron, Clegg and Miliband never mention that small point. That might help focus voters’ minds on the implications of handing over our sovereignty to a socialist superstate.
By David Craig, on March 9th, 2014 I doubt there are more than a handful of people in Britain who fully understand the extent to which we’ve handed control of our country and our future to the corrupt, unelected kommissars in Brussels. One reason is that the many treaties we’ve signed are so full of legalistic gobbledigook that few people, including those who signed them, have any idea what’s really in them. After all, the American Constitution 0f 1787 was a mere 4,600 words, whereas the EU Constitution (renamed the Lisbon Treaty) stretched to over 160,000 words. So, I’ll try to explain:
Apparently, the vast majority of Europeans passionately support the new superstate:
“Reflecting the will of the citizens and states of Europe to build a common future, this constitution establishes the European Union, on which member states confer competences to obtain objectives they have in common.”
Countries must subordinate their national independence and security to the higher purpose of creating the new union:
“The member states shall facilitate the achievement of the Union’s tasks and refrain from any measure which could jeopardise the attainment of the Union’s objectives.”
The EU now has all the main symbols of statehood, including a president, a foreign minister, a police service, a judiciary, military forces, a flag and a national anthem. The EU has exclusive powers over all issues connected with the operation of a single market, including trade agreements, tariff levels, agriculture, industrial support, fisheries, competition policy, movement of capital and movement of people. Moreover, EU countries have forever forfeited the power to pass any of their own legislation of any kind in any of the areas where the EU had exclusive competence:
“When the constitution confers on the Union exclusive competence in a specific area, only the Union may legislate and adopt legally binding acts.”
The EU has power over many other aspects of our lives, including tourism, culture, asylum, education, healthcare, industrial relations, workers’ rights, environmental policy, social policy, humanitarian aid, youth sport, care of the elderly, human rights, consumer protection, food safety, energy, space exploration and some areas of taxation.
In these areas the EU has what the eurocrats call ‘shared competence’ with member states. The words ‘shared competence’ would suggest to most normal people that the eurocrats and the member countries should work happily together as equal partners in these areas of shared competence. However, the EU’s definition of ‘shared’ is rather far from the normal everyday meaning:
“When the constitution confers on the Union a competence shared with member states in a specific area, the Union and the member states may legislate and adopt legally binding acts in that area. The member states shall exercise their competence to the extent that the Union has not exercised, or has decided to cease exercising, its competence.”
In plain language, in the areas of supposed ‘shared competence’ countries can manage their own affairs and pass their own laws only if the EU has specifically decided not to legislate in that area. Given the tendency of the EU to continually extend its authority wherever it can, the scope for countries to pass their own laws under shared competence will become ever more limited.
Moreover, the EU can take over economic policy, employment policy, foreign policy and increase its control over defence:
“The Union shall have competence to define and implement a common foreign and security policy, including the progressive framing of a common defence policy.”
And the EU wants the authority to present the EU’s policies at the United Nations Security Council, thus preventing countries like Britain and France, both of which have a permanent seat on the Security Council, from expressing their own countries’ policy positions independently:
“When the Union has defined a position on a subject which is on the United Nations Security Council agenda, those member states which sit on the Security Council shall request that the Union Minister for Foreign Affairs be asked to present the Union’s position.”
Linked to having a common foreign policy is the idea of an EU military force:
“Member states shall make civilian and military capabilities available to the Union for the implementation of the common security and defence policy.”
This means that in the future we might see Irish or Swedish or Danish or British soldiers dying to defend the business interests of corrupt Romanian or Bulgarian politicians under the leadership of Italian officers being commanded by French generals. All in all, this is not exactly something likely to inspire many young soldiers to want to sacrifice their lives.
There you have it folks – the complete surrender of Britain to the Democratic People’s Republic of Europe!
By David Craig, on March 8th, 2014 As I’ve blogged before, the Government likes to talk about “net migration” as this makes the scale of immigration seem smaller. But this blatant artifice hides the fact that our country loses economically if financially-independent pensioners leave and are replaced by unskilled, poorly-educated immigrants from Africa or the Indian sub-continent.
Anyway, I’ve looked at the official Government figures for the quantity of National Insurance (NI) numbers issued to foreigners for the period 2002 to 2012 (the latest period for which figures are available). Here are the levels of NI numbers issued by geographic area where the immigrants have come from (click on chart to see more clearly)
This is the equivalent of a Bristol, Sheffield, Leicester or Brighton arriving in Britain every year for these 10 years.
But for me, such large numbers are difficult to grasp. So, I’ve broken these figures down to the level of NI numbers issued to foreigners by month over the 10-year period of 2002 to 2012 (click to see clearly)
Hopefully this gives a better feel for the invasion of our country that our masters have encouraged – about 46,000 new NI numbers have been issued to immigrants every month for the 10-year period!!!!! That’s over 2,000 every working day!!!!
When did we vote for this?????
(If you find any of these posts interesting or useful, you’re welcome to show support for this website by buying copies of my latest book GREED UNLIMITED)
By David Craig, on March 7th, 2014 (a short blog today)
With all the heat and noise in the media surrounding the level of immigration forced on us by our Europhiliac leaders, I felt that the following quote exposed the utter absurdity of the open doors immigration policy being forced on us by our EU masters:
“You can have open borders or a welfare state. But you can’t have both”.
Nobel Prize winner Milton Friedman
Case closed? We have to control immigration!
Meanwhile down in the Ukraine, Putin has wrong-footed our useless leaders yet again. The Crimean Parliament have voted to leave the Ukraine and join Russia. Moreover they’re planning a referendum within the next few weeks. That leaves our worthless leaders threatening Russia to deny the democratic rights of the people living in the Crimea. What a farce! Are we really going to economic war with Russia to prevent the Crimeans choosing which country they want to belong to?
This makes Putin the defender of democracy. Obama, Kerry, Cameron and Hague have revealed themselves to be even stupider than anyone thought.
Oh, and here’s a very serious-looking Cameron talking to President O’Bummer about starting the next world war https://twitter.com/bounder/status/441317397921026048/photo/1 Giggle, giggle
By David Craig, on March 6th, 2014 When I returned to the UK in 2005, I was amazed at the way journalists (with the honourable exception of Jeff Randall) were constantly praising Gordon Brown for being an “Iron Chancellor”, a Presbyterian Scot would wouldn’t waste any taxpayers’ money and who was keeping public spending below 40% of GDP over “the economic cycle”. As far as I could see, the man was a financially-incontinent buffoon without the slightest understanding of the economy and also a blustering recidivist liar.
So, with the help of a journalist from Private Eye, I wrote a book PLUNDERING THE PUBLIC SECTOR about how Blair and Brown were wasting about £70bn of our money on their favourite management and IT systems consultants. I think we sold about 6,000 copies, which is pretty acceptable for such a “serious” book. But still, the main journalists (hello Mr Peston, hello Ms Flanders – how are you today?) seemed to me to continue with their adulation of the (IMHO) utterly useless lying fool Brown. Moreover, there didn’t seem to be a single Tory MP willing to or capable of taking on Brown and exposing him for the complete charlatan that he (IMHO) was.
That made me try again and I wrote SQUANDERED How Gordon Brown is wasting over one trillion pounds of our money. This got wonderful reviews from some more enlightened commentators (Jeff Randall, Dominic Sandbrook and a couple of others) and I believe this sold over 10,000 copies. But still the adulation of Brown and the passivity of the Tories continued – right up to the 2008 financial crash.
Now, of course, everybody says they knew all along that Brown was a total disaster for Britain. And several of those, who were (IMHO) grovelling sycophants at the time, have gone on to lucratively write their own books proving they understood what was really happening. A pity they “forgot” to tell us at the time.
I’ve always wondered why so many journalists were so silent for so many years as Brown, ably assisted by the (IMHO) equally useless Ed Balls, bankrupted Britain.
A week or so ago, I did a talk for the Economic Research Council. At the talk, I met an economist who had been an adviser to several government departments and MPs. So I asked him why nobody – no journalists or Tory MPs – ever criticised the lying spendthrift Brown. He explained that, right from Brown taking over as chancellor in 1997, whenever a journalist wrote anything even slightly questioning Brown’s competence and policies, Brown would ring up the journalist’s editor and start screaming abuse and threats while demanding the journalist got sacked. Journalists have mortgages and school fees to pay. Soon Brown’s threats were effective and the press were cowed into submission. As for the BBC – the Blair Broadcasting Corporation – they were already so biased pro-Labour that their supposed “journalists” would say and write anything, provided it showed the worthless liar Brown in a good light.
But what about the Tories? Why didn’t they expose Brown? Because so many of them were busy getting rich from the second, third and even fourth jobs or from building up their property empires using our money or from cheating on their expenses or from employing family members, friends, lovers, sex partners etc as supposed “assistants” with our money, that none of them had the time, energy, intellect or desire to rock the boat.
And all these people – politicians and journalists – have got rich at our expense while reducing the rest of us to penury and bringing Britain to the verge of bankruptcy.
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