Beat The Drums

There has been a deal of grim reading around the web this week on the worlds finance, business and economics.  The Automatic Earth and Zero Hedge have not been pulling their punches.  Meanwhile back in the UK we seem to be happy in our own little la la lands.

The President of The Peoples' Republic of China, Mr. Xi Jinping and his wife, Madame Peng Liyuan are due to arrive shortly to be greeted by The Royal Family and our political leaders.

Mr. Corbyn is claimed to be asking about Human Rights, Messrs. Cameron and Osborne are anxious to be promised lots of loot to go nuclear and possibly a number of estate agents will have a good week.  The SNP will be giving a standing ovation.

In the meantime up North we are closing down steel making plants.  Hello China, goodbye British steel because the world markets are now dominated by what goes on in China.  For a long time now it has all been go and expansion and the UK, once the coloniser is now a colony in many respects.

There is another view on China today and in the future that is shared by others.  This from Quartz says essentially, that it is all  changing now and we do not know what is going to happen. We have had around thirty years of a growing China and its wealth that is coming to a halt.

What we do know is that one of the key services our government offers to overseas clients is financial operations of several kinds for anyone who wants them.  We are still a world centre for this and our institutions are flush with money moving through British and British related accounts.

A great deal of it is money laundering for criminals, embezzlers, tax evaders, drugs cartels etc.  You name it, Britain is doing it via the City and its dependencies.  There was a time when the words Chinese and Laundry were always together in the literal sense.

Now it is all changed and we are doing the dirty washing.  Now thrive the launderers.