The Opium Of The People

Short of doing the Kow Tow (see Wikipedia) and grovelling in the manner of functionaries George Osborne, our Chancellor of the Exchequer and Boris Johnson, Mayor of London, attempting to ape the Eunuchs of the ancient Imperial Courts have been doing the rounds in China.

China is now a major creditor of the West, especially the USA but of the UK and Europe generally.  The situation will have given many in China the feeling of sweet revenge for all the humiliations suffered in the 19th Century and into the early 20th Century.

Few in the UK know much if anything about the history of the Far East and what might be taught in schools is sketchy and distorted.  It is an immense and complicated area of study, fraught with the problem of understanding all the cultural, religious and other features that are critical.

An area of intriguing academic debate is whether there were major Chinese expeditions into the Atlantic in the first part of the 15th Century. There is a theory that a major fleet rounded Cape Horne and sought to trade and colonise. 

A change of rule in China not just brought all this to a stop but cut off contact with outsiders as a matter of state policy.  So in the following centuries the venturing and acquisitive Europeans had the initiative.

By the 19th Century they were securing territory and power in China often by military intervention as well as naval authority.  In the early stage the British Opium Trade, along with wars was a feature, and British Merchants did very well out of it as well as others in the infrastructure between India and China.

In the later part of the 20th Century, China set out on a policy of economic development in which not only did production and trade grow rapidly but care was taken to ensure the relevant financial and monetary arrangements to both inspire and protect it.  This was done especially in relation to global markets.

During this period in the USA and Europe, while economic growth was occurring a great deal was done on the back of extensive debt obligations and financial manipulation.  As well as our own drug issues, consumerism, celebrity and entertainment have become almost the religions on which we base our lives.

When the media and our ministers of government talk happily of foreign investment and how critical it is to our future and to the remaining industrial structure we are left with they leave out the reality.

Yes it will mean jobs and activity.  But the profits and real returns will go abroad. Moreover, those who provide and control the money flows will by extension begin to control much else, one way or another.

The concessions we make, in terms of influence, control and authority mean that whatever sovereignty we have left will be steadily eroded and the more we have to pay out and the more we borrow the more we cede the essentials of government.

In the 19th Century when the West was doing this to others it was called "Colonisation".  What do we call it in the 21st Century when the West is on the receiving end?  One who suggested that religion was the opium of the people was Karl Marx.

As we have given up religion in favour of entertainment and consumption, then we have simply replaced it with other opiates.  Like others who are hooked we now beg to borrow to keep it all going, for the short term at least.

In the UK, essentially, the sell out began in the 1970's because we had failed to realise the way it was going in the previous decades.  Probably, it has now gone too far to stop.

So referring to the picture above, how long will it be before the Chinese Navy are in the Medway?

The Times They Are A' Changing

In the USA they should be aware of earthquakes. The US Geological Service is a body central to our understanding and knowledge about them.  Even so the complexities may be less understood by most people and the media.

It is the difficult area of Collapse Dynamics and how they affect structures, however well built or central to communities, that are a particular issue.

But this item is not about geophysics it is about money. The idea is that a 'quake may cause some buildings to fall, others to be so badly damaged that they cannot be used but others may survive but their weaknesses difficult to judge until the next 'quake.

A principle that can be applied, with a little difficulty to financial systems and markets and by extension to nation states and other political entities.  The Austrian School of Economics is not necessarily the one of choice but often the web site, The Mises Institute has some pertinent things to say.

A recent post deals with the US dollar as a reserve currency, that is one that underpins a great deal of world trade and financing and is supposed to help the US economy.  But the message in the last two paragraphs is, in building terms, that falling down is easy if you know how  and if the US does not curtail borrowing the Chinese walls could come down.

On the other hand the IMF are saying that the USA should lift its "debt ceiling" very soon to avoid major turbulence on world markets and presumably the consequences for its own currency and the economy.  But who matters in this?

A book review on the LSE web site, a long hard read, deals with the question of who is the piper calling in terms of the centrality of Hedge Funds and how they operate.  Given that a lot of the statistics etc. are decidedly dodgy, they move both money and locations at will and there are great mysteries about what their money is and why this is not encouraging.

So if our existing financial structures are given a shaking it could just be that the Hedge Funds are in fact supporting walls put up by a fly by night builder who took the money and ran.

If the USA does stop the extra monies it is highly vulnerable in the view of some expert opinion.  On the other hand if it does not stop them then it is highly vulnerable according to others.

If the 'quake does come where will the epicentre be?  It may not be on Wall Street, my bet, sorry speculative investment, will be on the, pictured above, Change Alley in the City of London.

Unluckily, the USGS web site is closed for business.

Chilling News?

The Daily Express,which likes to wind up its readers, if only for circulation reasons, has decided to splash on the winter weather.  Observing, as many of us have done already, that the Jet Stream has shifted south and delivered "blocking highs" it says that this is bad news.

It is all very well in the summer when delighted TV forecasters and the media can talk of hot and sunny days, but not in the winter when they can deliver all the weather we do not want and leave it there for weeks.

You need to be knocking on to recall the winter of 1962-1963 and more to have memory of 1946-1947.  There is material online dealing with these.  I was lucky both times.  No car to worry about and living within short walking distance of work, shops and other facilities, including rail stations. 

In those days along the line of supply at all stages there were substantial stocks held when possible and much of what we ate came from far shorter distances. Nowadays it is all very different, just in time applies to everything.

As the Minister for Fuel and Power in 1947, Emmanuel Shinwell found out that if you took the risk that the winter would be a mild one it would not simply be embarrassing, it could destroy the credibility of your party.  He decided in October 1946 not to press for increased coal production to avoid more trouble with the miners just when the coal mines were to be nationalised.

In general economic terms both of these winters came at bad times.  The 1947 winter was a particular case.  The UK was in serious economic trouble after World War Two.  Because there was so little to consume and severe rationing was in place for many goods there was little to cut.  The War had run down public services so badly that there was little left at the margins.

The consequence was a major setback to the economy and a political disaster for the Labour Party, coming just 18 months after an election where promises had been made.  Because of the scale and nature of other problems of the period the impact of the severe weather on the margins of economic activity at the time was severe.

The 1962-1963 bad winter was different in scope.  However, a Conservative Government that had won re-election by upping spending in 1959 was now in the situation of trying to control and correct rising inflation and major balance of trade issues, among other serious problems.

The economic impact of this winter was worse in some ways.  Notably, this was on consumption spending by now a much larger feature of the economy.  But it hit badly on those parts of the economy where the government had tried to drive up activity. 

In a world without credit cards and banks being obliged to operate strict credit controls the cost of the winter to the ordinary people had a large impact on overall spending.  Food prices shot up and household fuel spending rocketed with an immediate impact on other spending.

If we do have a long cold and difficult winter it will not be easy to work out what would be the overall effect in 2013-2014 as we try to struggle out of the financial disaster.  This is especially the case as so many government and other indices have been manipulated to tell other stories.

It may be that all the pessimism about what the weather conditions are likely to be in the next month or two may be wrong.  But bad winters can and do happen from time to time.  In 1946-47 in some respects we were more ready and had the labour to deal with some of the worst.  1962-1963 was troublesome but there was still enough flexibility and  know how to deal with many things.

This time round if it is a bad one at that kind of level it is possible that we no longer have the labour, the wide expertise or the facilities to deal with it properly.  If some critics are correct we are too close to the margin if the demand for energy rises sharply and persists.

Cameron may need to have a key committee and other government emergency advisers looking at this one if he isn’t going to go the way of Attlee and Macmillan.

Just how bad can it get?  Germany, at present, thanks to the EU malign energy policies, is in hock to Gazprom. There was a time when it was very bad.  If it was severe in the UK in 1947 it was far worse there.

The quote below is from the Manchester Guardian that year when it was a respected journal fierce on the accuracy of its reports, how much it has changed.

Quote:

The Manchester Guardian: "Postwar Germany: a place of horror." by JP Hogan, Thursday October 30, 1947.

In the square in front of the station, a few lamps shed pale incandescence over the deserted pavements below, emphasising the desolation and dereliction. I floundered over pavement edges with the aid of a torch.

I would shy at the approach of a glowing cigarette-end. I knew, well enough, that human lips held the cigarette, that human feet propelled the wooden shoes.  But there are times when it is hard to believe what one knows; and in Oberhausen I could never be sure that I was not a dead man among the dead in a dead town.

The platform was just light enough for one to see that an enormous crowd of men, women, and children had congregated, with suitcases and portmanteaux and sacks.

They are "hamsterers", town-dwellers who go into the country to "scrounge" potatoes, fruit and vegetables. "Hamstern" means to hoard; but in Germany today it means to take the requisite action to keep body and soul together.

In Oberhausen (and probably elsewhere) secondary schools were closing on Saturdays in October so that the children might go and get potatoes wherever and however they could.

Rolf had not expected to see this crowd; he had brought me to see the returning "hamstering" train from the country districts between Hamm and Hanover. But this crowd, from the easy way they swung their suitcases, was obviously at the beginning of its journey.

Then a loudspeaker announced that the train from Hanover was already over a hundred minutes late.  Almost as he spoke the German voice, announced the night train from Cologne to Hanover was approaching.  The train drew in. Every compartment and every inch of corridor was already crammed, but this did not deter the people on the platform.

Within a few seconds men were already on the roof, on the buffers, between, the coaches, on the running-boards.  The occupants, if charitable, opened the windows. I saw women handing in their babies and husbands their wives, themselves following as best they could.

The Ruhr today, if you like facades, is a place where children play boisterously, in streets that are not unlike Stockport and Bolton, Rochdale and Oldham, if you discount the rubble.

But under it all is hunger and horror: in the hundred and one secret places of the Ruhr, thousands know that the coming winter will bring them little soup, less fuel, and no hope.

Guardian Unlimited © Guardian News and Media Limited 2006

Unquote.

The Atlantic Isles occupy only a small part of the globe.  So whether climate change is going one way or another or whether there are just shifts in existing patterns it could happen that we could be in for colder conditions for a while.

Or we might not.

But we have all forgotten how bad it could be.

Leaks Can Cause A Nasty Mess

The business about Edward Snowden, formerly of the US NSA, all the leaked information and the implications for security are things that on the whole I prefer to avoid.  But the suggestion in Zero Hedge that he can be ranked with a notable famous former leaker in the great scheme of things is intriguing.

With Douglas Carswell, the alleged "Right Wing" MP, in reality a traditional Gladstone Liberal at heart, telling us that we are now attempting to control a digital age with analogue regulation, it is all about those pesky computers again.

Recently, I did some "real research", going to an Archive and looking at pieces of paper and hard back books.  It took hours with more work needed transmitting and editing the information. 

Alongside this was related work, much greater in scope, but which was online.  It took minutes and is also fully saved and edited on the machine for either transmission or future use.

The scale and nature of what is possible if a single person decides to make use of material, whether legally or not or whether they are supposed to or not, is now vast.

We have governments and those responsible for security services believing that by one means or another they can hold on to large amounts of information gained and stored by digital means, when it can be so easily lost or taken. 

Yet even around fifty and more years ago, the UK government were selling Enigma type encryption devices without the courtesy of telling the buyers that they still possessed in the later Colossus Computers the means to decrypt them.

A problem we do have is shaking off all the stories and fictions and the rest about the realities of Intelligence, spying and the rest.  The people you rarely saw on film in the past are the operatives sweating the incoming material, the analysts ploughing their way through it and other work.

A lot of this work now can be handled digitally with the huge increases in power, storage and programmes to do our will.  Also, there is not so much above ground to indicate that Something Is Going On in the shape of heavily guarded buildings with a lot of masts, wiring and discs.

What did go on was a highly segmented and stratified business with the most basic need to know at all levels.  One aspect of this is of current interest.  Apparently, Ralph Miliband was promoted to Petty Officer rank as a teenager in the space of only a three year service.

This means he was up to something highly specialised and in the context this means intelligence work.  Given what this was likely to be although he would not be aware of it and may never have known it as a forward operator close to the action, but his job was linked to that of the Enigma operations at Bletchley Park.

With the row escalating in the UK between The Guardian, the government and the others in the security services weighing in over the large scale leaks from Snowden and Assange, there is a question.

As well as what Cameron, our less than secretive Prime Minister, resident not far from the Cheltenham GCHQ, thinks, it will be very interesting to hear what Edward and David Miliband make of it.

But I suspect that all of them may want to keep their real views confidential.  If so, they had better avoid the emails and web sites, or even their own Parliament and government servers.

One of the interesting aspects of the past is that it was Churchill who ordered the destruction of all the Bletchley Park computer facilities and the burning of the records.  

But you could not destroy what was in people's heads, if they survived, so it was Attlee, the incoming Labour Prime Minister who reinstated all the relevant activity.

Nessun Dorma

Having mentioned yesterday one of the Russian aristocracy who fled in 1917 as a youngster from the Soviet Revolution in the inbox today came a link about the current situation.  It seems that the rich are even richer with 35% of the wealth owned by 110 people.

The continuance of this division of the spoils in Russia is said to be owed to deals struck by President Putin with members of the select group who were the first there when the old Soviet Union collapsed to take over the key assets.

As we know their command of this wealth has had implications in other places.  It may not have given them control of Russia other than the influence money may bring.  It has certainly put them in strong positions elsewhere, notably the tax havens and choice locations.

One of these, as we know to our cost, is Central London, where a subservient government is almost at the point of structuring the entire crucial economic property market of the UK to meet the requirements of the investors there.

North of the Border the monetary needs of an independent Scotland could mean the effective surrender of control of the maritime areas around to the Russians in exchange for a good enough helping of the cream for the interested parties.

In Moscow the Putin administration has not wholly won the admiration of foreign observers.  Laws that are said to be harsh on Gays and others have caused some protests.  Valery Gergiev, the leading conductor, close to Putin, has had some barracking , at concerts.

It is perhaps as well that he is not down to conduct any performances of the Puccini opera "Turandot", which had a run at Covent Garden last month. 

This piece of splendid hokum is a about an Ice Princess who demands suitors answer riddles, get one wrong and you lose your head.  The body count is high.  The role of the executioner is a silent one but very theatrical.  His name is Pu Tin Pao.

The Russian's have had property interests before, some of their aristocracy either rented or in some cases owned properties in England in the Victorian era.  In 1901 the Grand Duke Mikhail, pictured above, here for the Queen's funeral, was put up at Sneyd Hall, at Keele, in Staffordshire.

He was quite taken with it but the owner, Ralph Sneyd, declined to sell.  But sell he did after World War Two when his money ran out to the Stoke on Trent Council who founded a University College, now Keele University, there under Lord Lindsay of Birker.

If Keele University does go broke as many of our universities are now under financial stress, how good it would be to see it taken over by a Russian.

Perhaps it could go in a competition to answer The Riddle of Russia.

Playing Games Is Serious

After the political rows recently there is a very good case for keeping the family out of it, but they can and do intrude.  Jack Wilshere of Arsenal and England soccer, already reprimanded for being caught out having a quick ciggy on the quiet, has made the headlines again.

This time, on the loose from his media rights adviser he has commented that them that play for England ought to be born in England.  Predictably, the media is full of examples of sports persons who were not yet helped to win the game or get the medal.

The England Rugby Union team has long been a haven, if you can call it that, for those from furthest places, too many to list.  But my favourite is Prince Alexander Obolensky (see Wikipedia) and I have to declare an interest.

Obo, as he was known, played for Tigers, that is Leicester RFC, for a time.  On the team was the husband of a cousin of my fathers who was a good friend and now and again he had a drink or so with some of the Tigers.

There is a story that father, a former butcher cum professional boxer among other things, offered advice on hand off techniques.  So when Obo scored twice to help England beat the New Zealand All Blacks in 1936 did this help?

One can but dream.

Marianne Is Working For The EU Now

There are many and various changes overcoming us, some more rapidly than others.  Some are thought to be "progress", although that is debatable.  Others are thought to be going backward, others simply being taking another direction.

A couple of centuries ago, and at times earlier, there were attempts to create societies on a basis of, at its simplest, Liberty, Equality and Fraternity.  In some nations and places there were situations which approximated to this, notably in those which were then among the wealthier.

Today, it looks like we could all be headed for Servility, Partiality and Diversity.  The ancient Romans and Greece, for all the ideas in their philosophies and literature, would have understood this to be the norms of reality. 

As you look around human history and much of the present world these are much closer to the actual life of most places than of those happy, or not quite so happy developed states.  One of the perverse effects of "human rights" is that the rights of some becomes the oppression of others.

If we look at what is going on in Washington DC, London, Brussels, Berlin etc. it is not just that government is becoming highly centralised with dominating elites, it is that the tidal waves of laws and directives are issued with scant concern for the opinions and needs of the lower orders.

This is prompted by reading an item in Science Daily about academics Looking For Slaves in ancient Pompeii with its vivid description of what ordinary life may have been like.  Today we look on all this as old history.

In fact much of human history since we moved into towns and settled communities has been like this.  Even in the more rural and less wealthy groups there were usually clear divisions to be observed and adhered to.  These were usually reinforced by religion as well as laws and the behavioural demands of those who ruled.

It is possible that what has happened in the West for a few generations now is simply a system that went wrong as opposed to being a new world system for all and for all our futures.  Our new religions are those imposed by the media and consumer economies.

There is a fairly simple test for anyone.  Who are you obligated to, bound by and have to obey.  Why is that and what can you do about it?  Just what real freedoms do you have?  Why do you have to spend so much and so much time on things you neither want or need?

Don't forget to pay the mortgage/rent, credit card bills, energy bills and TV costs.  Also, there are other things to be done if you do not want to find yourself being in trouble.  Be very careful what you say and how you function in relation to others.

And remember to put the right rubbish bin out at the right time or there will be penalties.