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By  David Craig, on March 21st, 2013 There’s a small detail about the Cyprus crisis journalists seem to have missed. Less than a year ago, the Bank of Cyprus was paying interest of up to 9%. How did it manage to do that when interest rates in the rest of the Eurozone were 2% to 3%? The only answer I can think of is that the bank must have been running a Ponzi scheme – paying depositors impossibly high interest using money from new investors, while the bank bosses skimmed off millions for themselves before the Ponzi scheme collapsed.
Here’s the text from an announcement the now bankrupt Bank of Cyprus made less than a year ago in the Ukraine in order to attract deposits from rich Ukrainians. I believe the same announcement ran in Russia.
Bank of Cyprus increased deposit rates for individuals
On May 28 th, 2012 Bank of Cyprus increased interest rates on term deposits for private individuals in U.S. dollars for 6, 9 and 12 months. Within some deposit programs rate reaches 9%. Along with the reliability of foreign currency deposits the increased interest rates from Bank of Cyprus provide more favorable terms for customers to receive a stable income.
“Bank of Cyprus cares about long-term savings of its depositors, and therefore offers one of the most profitable conditions on the market for term deposits in foreign currency – says Head of Product Management Department PJSC “Bank of Cyprus” Anna Makarenko. – We increase the interest rates on deposits within the long-term balanced strategy of financing Ukrainian business.”
Deposits at Bank of Cyprus are protected by the Deposit Guarantee Fund and with the confirmed deposits reliability ratings by independent rating agencies.
https://www.bankofcyprus.com.ua/en-GB/ukraine/News-Archive/Bank-of-Cyprus-raises-deposit-rates-for-individuals/
By David Craig, on March 20th, 2013 Ha-ha-ha he-he-he. I’m sorry but I have to admit that I’m rather enjoying the shenanigans over bankrupt Cyprus. At the weekend, the idiots from the EU and IMF imposed strict terms on bankrupt Cyprus in return for a bailout. But the idiots forgot the oldest adage in the book about debt – “If you owe the bank £500, you’re in trouble: if you owe the bank £500m, the bank’s in trouble”.
The idiots had expected the Cypriots to swallow their bitter medicine as they assumed bankrupt Cyprus had no other options. Instead the Cypriots stuck two fingers up at the idiots and told them to stick their bailout where the sun doesn’t shine (obviously not Cyprus, where the sun does shine). Because, of course, Cyprus, although it is bankrupt, has a very strong hand to play. For example, if Cyprus went bust, there would be a risk that the whole of the idiots’ great Euro project to create a EUSSR could come crashing down as massive bank runs in the Club Med countries would bankrupt the European Central Bank. And that’s something the idiots can’t risk.
But Cyprus’ real trump card is Russia. Russia has something Cyprus wants – money, lots of it. Cyprus has two things Russia wants – loads of gas reserves and a possible Mediterranean base for the Russian navy. At this very moment the Cypriot finance minister is in Moscow. I imagine that behind the scenes in Brussels and Berlin there is something akin to total panic as the EU idiots gradually realise that their great plan for Cyprus has spectacularly exploded in their faces. Moreover, I can’t imagine the Americans being particularly chuffed if the EU idiots push Cyprus into the welcoming arms of a cash-rich Russian bear.
Once again, because of their arrogance and stupidity, the overpaid, over-pensioned EU idiots make a total balls-up of a relatively simple situation. Thank you Mr Barroso for some first class entertainment – I haven’t had so much fun in ages.
By David Craig, on March 19th, 2013 When the euro was introduced 11 years ago, we were promised that: “The euro will ensure full employment and make Europe the economic powerhouse of the world”.
Please enjoy this short (2+ minutes) Youtube video where the wonderful Nigel Farage lays into idiots Barroso and Van Rompuy for the economic catastrophe their great European project has wreaked on many European countries https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j_0g-LImpoU
Of course, those overpaid, overpensioned buffoons Barroso and Van Rompuy couldn’t give a toss what Farage says as they’ve got the power to do what they want. But it’s still immensely enjoyable seeing Farage giving them a good verbal kicking.
And while I’m busy plagiarising other people’s work, I found this rather amusing comment on a Yahoo article about the situation in Cyprus – “Give a man a gun and he can rob a bank, give a man a bank and he can rob the world”.
Oh and btw, the Governor of Cyprus’ central bank is called Panicos Demetriades. I wonder if there’s a hidden message in his name?
(click on headline to leave a comment)
By David Craig, on March 18th, 2013 If you’ve got 12 minutes and 33 seconds available, here’s one of many Youtube videos exposing the man-made global warming myth https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nq4Bc2WCsdE
Otherwise, Here’s a comment I’ve copied from a Torygraph reader who actually seems to know what he or she is writing about:
“Have you actually worked out what effect the de-carbonisation of the UK will have on the prospects of future generations? Do you know exactly by how much GLOBAL temperatures would be reduced by a complete de-carbonisation of the UK? Are you aware that CO2 is a trace gas that every single living thing on the planet relies on for survival? Are you aware that CO2 currently represents less than 4/100ths of 1% (0.0394%) of the total composition of all Thermal Insulating gases?”
“The IPCC’s own scientific literature tells you, should you care to read it, that a doubling of CO2 from pre-industrial times is likely, at most, to result in a 1 degree Celsius rise in the AVERAGE global temperature. The rest of the scary scenarios are premised on unproven forcings of which no one can produce conclusive evidence.”
“Even if there was a need for carbon reduction scams, which there is NOT, other than to make rich vested interest and conflict of interest “troughers” richer still, NOTHING done by the UK or Europe combined, will make one bit of difference to global temperatures. Miliband, Cameron and Cleggy’s unhealthy obsession with “windfolly whirligigs” will only result in catastrophy for Britain, while the rest of the sane world profits from the incompetence of our politicians.”
“There is absolute and irrefutable proof that there has been NO statistically significant warming for ~15 years and counting in spite of the continued increase in atmospheric CO2, falsifying the conjecture that increasing CO2 is the dominant driver of global warming.”
“Britain has hundreds of years of coal reserves, indeed all fossil fuels are NOT in any danger of running out. CO2 is NOT a significant player in climate change, windfolly whirligigs can NEVER deliver the required power to the grid and any scientist not in the pay of the “renewables” lobby will confirm that fossil fuels CANNOT be replaced by wind or solar because the laws of physics do not allow it.”
“Now, why are we in such a mess? POLITICAL INCOMPETENCE, which began with the ridiculous Climate Change Act and the unfounded fear of man-made Climate Change nonsense, where politicians vapourise £billions of taxpayers money to combat a non-existent “threat”.”
“The case for climate alarm is based almost exclusively on the output of models that have been demonstrated, time and again, to fail. Not one of the models on which the whole AGW (anthropogenic global warming) hypothesis is based, predicted that there would be ~15 years without any statistically-significant “global warming”,”
“Although the AGW brigade froth over their “hottest years on record” nonsense, as if this was an indication of something important, clearly the warming trend (which began at the end of the last ice age) has stopped, and THAT could be an indication of something more important than a natural and well understood interglacial warming trend.”
“So, why do the GC models continue to fail? Simples, a program created for the specific purpose of finding “warming” will always fail when there is no warming to find, and while great chunks of required data are clearly “missing”.”
“We are told to believe this nonsense or be held responsible for the destruction of the planet. On a daily basis we get vague and absurd warnings like “crop devastation, melting glaciers, water shortages, rising sea levels and displaced people will drag the military into conflict… So we must act now to save the world! If we don’t, man-made “climate disruption” will melt the rainbows and make bunnies cry.”
“We are told that, based ONLY on the AGW hypothesis, we must reduce the anthropogenic contribution to the atmospheric concentration of the trace gas CO2 because the hypothesis predicts that failure to comply will result in “catastrophic” warming.”
“When a hypothesis makes such predictions it is totally acceptable, even obligatory, to investigate those predictions. When a hypothesis is based on certain fundamental assumptions regarding underlying science it is perfectly logical to question that hypothesis when its underlying assumptions are shown to be in error. This is not cherry picking, it is how science works. It may discomfort those who complacently believe in the “consensus view” of AGW, but that is of no importance to science.”
“AGW supporters say there is “overwhelming” evidence to support their beliefs. BUT THEY ARE UNABLE TO PRODUCE ANY. They could save the world a bucket load of money on climate models if they’d just share all the info they just “know”.
“Argument by Authority is meaningless. It’s a cheat shortcut. It’s unscientific. The IPCC is a government committee. Its rapidly shrinking “consensus” proves nothing.”
“Science increasingly suggests that carbon dioxide is NOT a significant driver of dangerous climate change and that none of the claims about windfollyfarms’ eco-friendliness stack up; Economics shows us that there are many better, cheaper, more effective means of energy production on our doorstep than renewables – eg shale gas, coal, nuclear – and that the reason these aren’t being embraced quickly is because of a determined effort by the rent-seeking renewables lobby to keep their gravy train going as long as they possibly can.”
Oh and by the way, the number of polar bears – you know the ones that we’re told are being wiped out by melting ice – has more than doubled over the last 20 years. Has nobody told these stupid bears that they’re meant to be disappearing not merrily multiplying?
By David Craig, on March 17th, 2013 I’ll keep it short today as I’m still in a state of shock at the latest news from Cyprus. I’m shocked that what I predicted yesterday has happened so quickly.
In my blog yesterday I wrote about the coming financial crisis about to hit Britain because no government has the courage to reduce wasteful, unproductive public spending. And I suggested that when our debts got to around £1.8trn, there would be a collapse in market confidence, interest rates on government debt would shoot up and our desperate government would launch a series of measures to grab more of our money to pay for its financial incontinence. One of the things I wrote was that the goverment (Tory, Labour, Coalition or whatever) would ” make a punitive tax raid on our savings (new taxes on dividends, pension funds and even bank deposits)”.
Well, that’s what’s just happened in Cyprus – their government has confiscated/stolen 6.75% of all bank savings under 100,000 euros and 9.9% of all savings above this amount. One person who’ll be watching with interest what’s happening in Cyprus will be our future chancellor Ed Balls. If the Cyprus government can get away with confiscating billions of people’s savings, he’ll be thinking he could do it too.
Yesterday my claim that our government would make a punitive tax raid on our savings may have looked alarmist and exaggerated. Hoprefully today, in view of what has just happened in Cyprus, my warning yesterday doesn’t look quite so far fetched.
Though, at least there’s a funny side to the Cyprus story. As much of the money in Cyprus’s banks belonged to Russian criminals, they’ve just lost around £3bn. There are going to be some rather unhappy Russian gangsters today.
(click on headline to leave a comment)
By David Craig, on March 16th, 2013 You may know about this. But in case you don’t, here’s a link to a “documentary” made by the investment magazine MoneyWeek. https://pro.moneyweek.com/myk-eob/EMYKP239/?a=5&o=67020&s=69733&u=113050&l=254012&r=MC&g=0
The aim of this rather over-long supposed “documentary” is to terrify viewers into taking out a subscription to MoneyWeek. So the claims made are probably hugely exaggerated. But it does make some useful points.
In essence MoneyWeek point out that the current situation where no government has the courage to cut public spending will end in a major economic crisis. As you probably are tired of hearing, debt under the Coalition will shoot up from about £750bn in 2010 to close to £1.6trn by the time of the 2015 election. We have been able to sustain this debt because government borrowing costs are at a record low level of about 2%, when the historical average is around 5%. But at some point, as debt continues to increase by over £120bn a year, financial markets will lose confidence in Britain and will demand a higher rate of interest to lend to our financially incontinent government. And if we reach a point by 2017 where debt is say £1.8trn and interest rates return to the historical average of 5%, then we’ll need to find £90bn a year to service our debt.
At some point there will be a massive crisis because our manufacturing sector is not large enough for us to grow and export our way out of ever-increasing debt. The MoneyWeek film paints a lurid picture of social breakdown, rioting, banks collapsing, savers losing everything, the government confiscating our pension money to pay its debt and so on and so forth. While probably exaggerating, at least the film should push people to think ahead about the inevitable crisis and how it will affect them.
Some things are fairly predictable – we know no government will ever have the cojones to make a real cut in spending as people will always vote for the politicians who promise them something for nothing. So any government will be forced to do some of the following – push up inflation so that they can repay today’s debts with tomorrow’s debased money, trash sterling, massively increase taxes (Osborne’s disastrous 2012 omnishambles budget contained plans to increases taxes by 30%), make a punitive tax raid on our savings (new taxes on dividends, pension funds and even bank deposits), cut the state pension to generate money to pay for a new wave of 2 to 3 million economic immigrants and so on.
I know it’s easy to be alarmist. But at some point, our government cannot continue taking in £600bn in taxes each year and spending £720bn. This has to stop. But no government has the courage to stop it. So it will be the financial markets’ refusal to keep lending us money at low rates of interest that will set off the coming crisis. And each of us needs to think though what’s likely to happen and how we can preserve our wealth when the crisis does hit.
If you’ve got any smart ideas, you’re welcome to add a comment or contact me
By David Craig, on March 15th, 2013 There’s a Finnish expression which can be translated into English as “pointf##king”. Pointf##king is when you present someone – for example a bureaucrat or a police detective – with a mass of evidence proving one thing and they seize on just one tiny point of detail and f##k that tiny point to death using it to prove the opposite of the rest of your evidence.
A few years ago, I wrote to the chief inspector of Staffordshire police asking for those involved in the unnecessary deaths of about 1,200 patients at Staffordshire hospital – Martin Yeates, Cynthia Bower and Sir David Nicholson – to be prosecuted for Corporate Manslaughter. Of course, my letter was ignored. So I wrote again at the beginning of this year and now have received a reply from Det Chief Supt Laurie Whitby-Smith on beautifully-headed paper with Staffordshire police’s fine-sounding logo “Keeping our communities safe and reassured”.
In this letter, I believe I can already identify the excuse Staffordshire police will use to avoid prosecuting anybody for the 1,200 unnecessary deaths. Det Chief Supt Laurie Whitby-Smith quotes Assistant Chief Constable Nick Baker who announced, “Staffordshire Police will be reviewing information brought to light by the Francis Inquiry in order to identify whether there is any potential for criminal charges”. Assistant Chief Constable Nick Baker then went on to say, “This is a very substantial report which we will link to what is already known by previous police investigations, to see if there are any additional investigative enquiries that are required”. Then follows a whole lot more bureaucratic blah blah blah.
But we already know that bureaucrats at the Department of Health watered down the Francis Report so that it concluded that no individual was to blame for the 1,200 unnecessary deaths as they were all caused by what was called “the system”. I fear that the pointf##king Staffordshire police will ignore all the evidence of Corporate Manslaughter and use this one tiny point – “the system was to blame” – to avoid any prosecutions of the three main people involved – Martin Yeates, Cynthia Bower and Sir David Nicholson.
If just one or two patients had died unnecessarily in a private hospital, our leaders would be howling in outrage and the police would be crawling all over that hospital. But in the case of the 1,200 unnecessary deaths in Staffordshire, the ruling elites are doing everything they can to avoid taking action and protect their own. I may be wrong. Who knows?
By David Craig, on March 14th, 2013 I’ve used this chart a few times on my blog to raise my concerns that were’s heading for a massive financial crash around 2015/2016 when our debt hits £1.6trn, Ed “borrow-borrow” Balls as chancellor proposes that the solution is to borrow even more money and when international lenders lose confidence and slam up the interest we have to pay on our national debt.
However, someone who is no doubt more knowledgeable than myself has pointed out that the above chart is not adjusted for inflation and when it is adjusted (see chart below) a different picture of our economic situation emerges: https://coppolacomment.blogspot.co.uk/2013/01/the-end-of-britain-not-yet.html
The picture looks scary, but not quite as terrifying as the first chart. However, this picture only goes up to 2010. By the time we get to 2015, our debt will be £1.6trn. And that would make the above picture an awful lot more scary.
Then there is another picture that is possibly interesting. It’s total government spending as a % of GDP (adjusted for inflation). This shows that our government spending has been higher in the past – twice. But that was when we were fighting two World Wars.
But this chart too only goes to 2010. By 2015, the government will be spending more as a % of GDP than any peacetime government since 1900.
So are we bankrupt or not? Can we ever recover from owing £1.6trn and paying over £60bn a year in interest charges? And can we do it led by either Cameron/Osborne or Miliband/Balls? I wish I knew the answers. Actually, I suspect I already do and that’s why I’m trying to get all my savings out of sterling.
By David Craig, on March 13th, 2013 There have been plenty of scare stories about the number of Romanians and Bulgarians about to come to Britain. MigrationWatch are predicting 500,000 will come here. Meanwhile the politicians from all parties desperately try to play down the problem to cover up their own impotence in preventing the corrupt, wasteful, undemocratic EU forcing us to take every single Romanian and Bulgarian who decides to move to Benefits Britain. So here are some real (I think numbers).
Since joining the EU 20% (1.5 million) of Bulgaria’s 7.5 million people have left their country. For Romania the figure is about 15% (3.2 million) of their 21.4 million. And this has happened during the seven years when there were restrictions placed on Romanians and Bulgarians moving and working throughout the EU.
Of the 4.7 million Romanians and Bulgarians who have moved to other EU countries, probably about 500,000 are already in Britain. So, what happens when restrictions on movement are lifted? If the migration rate doubles then 9.4 million will leave these two countries with one million coming to Britain. If, as is more likely, the migration rate triples, then 14.1 million will leave for a better life, with 1.5 million coming to Britain. They will cost us about £20bn to £30bn in housing, education, healthcare, benefits and policing. And they will overwhelm our councils, schools, hospitals and police forces. We also happen to be bankrupt with government borrowing to hit £1.6trn by the 2015 election. This is a totally predictable economic and social catastrophe that is about to swamp Britain and our leaders can do absolutely nothing because they have handed over control of our borders and our benefits system to the corrupt, wasteful eurocrats in Brussels.
As most of Northern Europe freezes in yet another record cold winter, you might be wondering how the man-made global warming alarmists can justify their claims that we’re all about to fry. When it first became clear that global warming might not be happening, the alarmists changed their tune and started talking about “climate change” rather than “global warming”. This meant that whatever happened to our weather, they could claim the climate was changing. Their new trick is to claim that weather is not the same as climate. So, even if the weather is getting colder, they can claim the earth is heating up.
When are we going to stop believing their self-serving lies and fiddled figures? When are we going to stop committing economic suicide in a fruitless attempt to stop something that isn’t even happening? The answer – never, because politicians and bureaucrats will never admit they have made a mistake and so will continue to pursue useless “green” policies that will hasten the West’s economic collapse while China looks on in amazement at out stupidity.
By David Craig, on March 11th, 2013 Politicians, economists and journalists are forever spouting total garbage about their countries’ economic condition from the safety of their well-paid jobs. But as they’re usually protected from economic reality, they either know what’s really going on but are afraid to tell us the truth or else they they haven’t a clue.
But the people who do know about world economics are those who have to work for a living – like Thai gogo-bar girls. Ten years ago, most of their customers came from Britain, Europe and the US. These were countries that were flourishing and men who couldn’t get any sex at home could come to Thailand with plenty of cash in their pockets and with the intention of having what they considered a good time.
All that has changed. There still some Brits, Europeans and Americans around but with their currencies having fallen by 30% to 40% against the Thai baht (the pound had dropped from over 70 baht to 44 baht), they have less money to spend than before. But when groups of Arabs, Russians, Indians, Japanese and Chinese walk into the gogo bars, the girls usually start screaming with delight. The Arabs, Russians, Indians, Japanese and Chinese have got money – lots of it – and they want to spend it having fun.
So don’t believe the politicians, economists and journalists. The Thai gogo-bar girls know what’s really happening in the world economy and they have instinctively realised that Britain, Europe and the US are to all intents and purposes bankrupt.
As I’ll be travelling tomorrow, I won’t be writing anything. So I’ll leave you with this article from the wonderful Christopher Booker yet again explaining that Global Warming is a hoax and that when the history books are written in 20 to 30 years’ time, they will show how the West committed economic suicide for absolutely no purpose at all while stupidly allowing the carbon-dioxide emitting countries like China and India to eclipse their economic power. https://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/environment/globalwarming/9919121/Look-at-the-graph-to-see-the-evidence-of-global-warming.html
And here, for balance, is a blog proving Global Warming is happening https://openparachute.wordpress.com/2013/03/11/extreme-confirmation-bias-in-action/
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