The Invasion Of The Jelly Men

On The Hill in Washington DC on 24 July, a Congressional Briefing took place in which the representatives of Global Financial Integrity, Citizens for Tax Justice, and the Tax Justice Network (TJN) (see their blog) made presentations about the effects of rampant and increasing tax avoidance and evasion both through tax havens and inadequate and corrupt tax regimes in the developed world, I name no names, but take the District Line.

In a TJN presentation (Ms. Sarah Lewis of TJN-USA) the concept of Rock Jelly was introduced. It means a bowl of jelly with a small rock. When pressure is applied the rock simply moves and the jelly is rearranged to compensate for the pressure. So when the USA decides to push at the Swiss bank, UBS, all that happens is that UBS starts dumping its American clients, and shifts its attention to other places. In the case of UBS it is the Latin states of South America.

The concept may be a derivation of the idea of Rock Soup, known as Stone Soup in its several earlier versions. It’s most famous exponent was General George Smith Patton of Second World War fame, “Old Blood and Guts”, who applied it to securing the means of initiating and forcing attacks on the enemy, when he was supposed to be holding the line. Wikipedia has the details. Perhaps the idea can be taken to another stage.

Quite simply it is that as far as the political and economic management of both the USA and Britain are concerned there has been an Invasion Of The Jelly Men. This is not a horror film or story, it is the horror of reality. Essentially, we are ruled by Jelly Men. When you try to finger them, they just spread, or slip from your grasp, and then spring back, only dirtier and nastier. If you do manage to swallow them, they block your system, putting your interior economy in a state of chronic constipation.

Who rules the USA? The President? Well he might think that, but who else does? Congress? Pass the smelling salts. The Executive? Cue canned screaming laughter. It is the Wall Street Annexe in the money departments, and they are Jelly Men. How else does Goldman Sachs, and JP Morgan Chase etc. and a few others control all that happens? Goldman Sachs even owns a major pipeline. Thumb on the artery indeed.

In the UK, however, the Slickers of the City and the Hedge Fund Financiers of inner Mayfair may hold the reins and crack the whip, and the Government may think it owns the banks, but in reality they are all in hock to the representatives of a group of international companies, largely based in tax havens, and oligarchs of one kind or another, who have only to phone one of very few numbers to get what they want and when they want it.

We have a government of Jelly Men, and a Political Class and Media of Jelly Men affiliates. Pressure them for justice, morality, or decency and they will simply bend, slip, or slide away, to retain their ability to evade, lie, and then to take all they want. The Jelly Men in the public sector are taking enormous amounts, not in declared income or expenses, but in all their other activities, all or most of salted away in tax havens with secrecy jurisdictions. The UK judiciary is creating such a jurisdiction in the UK under the civil Libel laws, one breath or hint of criticism and you are up before the beak, guilty as charged, and your innocence impossible to prove. The wealthier elements in the UK private sector have long gone offshore. Almost all the rich and well connected are paying virtually token taxes.

To pay for the fiscal deficits and huge debts created for the benefit of The Jelly Men it will not be the owners of wealth and the powerful who are the ones responsible for the mess, it is the working population who cannot avoid taxes, and most of all the poor that will be left to pick up the bill. It is already happening, pensioners in sheltered housing have been facing rises in charges of close to 10% compound for a year or two now, and it is getting worse. This is not for public services, but for a range of prestige projects and private obsessions of the powerful.

In the UK, it is clear that the twelve years of Labour government have significantly widened the gap between the rich and poor. The Jelly Men have had everything they asked for, and much more than any past Tory government would have dared to give them. Any new Tory government themselves will be in thrall to The Jelly Men.

In the USA, they have been given the keys to Fort Knox, the Federal Reserve, its allied offices, and all the currency printing presses, so they control the government in that they control the money systems, the regulation and issue of money, and the nature of the money in the markets. Through this they control the administration and by that the Presidency. Congress does not even control itself. All the voters get is a theoretical choice between the flavours of jelly, and they are synthetic. You are either with them or subject to them, make your choice.

So, either The Jelly Men will destroy the nation states, or the nation states will have to destroy The Jelly Men. Don’t miss the next episode, in fact you can’t.

Blowing In The Wind

Just when you thought it was safe to go out in the dark……….. For those of us who enjoy a good Apocalypse and as it is the beginning of August, it is time to reflect on the more permanent features of our planet rather than our obsessions with money and the mess we make of using it.

Many of the documentaries and feature on volcanic eruptions on TV and in information sources relate to those in the America’s. This arises from the amount of research and financial support done in the USA. This is understandable, given the number of active volcanoes they have, the existence of the Yellowstone Megachamber of lava, and the risks that are ever present. Because while everyone knows that they erupt, nobody can predict the timing or the incidence.

That so little information or comment is in the history books about the effects on human history and populations about geophysical and climatic events is again understandable. Firstly, so much has only been established in very recent decades as new scientific methods and techniques have become available. Secondly, because the complications of geophysical information are difficult to align with theories of politics, religion, or history. Thirdly, few historians know much, if anything, about the scientific side, or have any concept of theories of catastrophe, or collapse dynamics.

So to cheer you all up this weekend, I am going to suggest that the time is nigh for a big volcanic eruption in the near future. Just as the Chinese had a major earthquake in time for their 2008 Olympics, we ought to have something else for ours by 2012.

Where will it be? Krakatoa is getting lively, but is claimed to be too small at the moment. That is on top, nobody knows how much is underneath. This is attractive, in that this is one volcano that many know about. The 1883 one did affect world weather patterns, so there is plenty of material about. Others with known major effects are Tambora in 1815, following another in the America’s in 1812, Laki of Iceland, an island on top of a large volcanic plug, in 1783 that did serious damage in the Northern Hemisphere, and Vesuvius in 1944, never mind the one of 79 AD. In the summer of 1939 part of the Royal Navy were detached to deal with Kick ‘Em Jenny off Grenada, an undersea one.

It is said that the Little Ice Age from the 14th Century onward, may have been the consequence of a series of Latin American eruptions in earlier decades. The jury was still out as to what happened in the 6th Century, although it is now agreed that the Santorini catastrophe in the Mediterranean around 1500 BC ended a number of early civilisations. The real big one was around 75,000 years ago when Mount Toba in Sumatra went up, and did for a lot of species, and nearly the human race reducing us to a small number, suggested to be all in Africa. The unlucky feature of that one was that the surviving hominids were largely a greedy, aggressive, predatory lot, who bred rapidly and have since devastated the planet.

Personally, I have a small wager on Vanuatu, very much an outsider. True Apocalypse types tend to prefer something around Alaska, because it might take out lumps of the USA, Russia, Japan and China at the same time. But you never know, as with the Credit Crunch, Iceland may surprise us all in the spring of 2012.

Have a good weekend.

Life Is A Terminal Condition

The Royal College of Nursing on the basis of an internet response of 0.3% of their 390,000 strong membership have decided that their position on Assisted Suicide will be neutral in the future and not in opposition. I wonder how many nurses with particular religious principles may be struck off or have careers ruined for refusing to assist in cases where a patient, or the patients family or associates, want to end it all? More interesting is just who was involved in promoting this decision, why, and what representations were made to them? We shall never know, but we do know that in circles that exert influence there have been moves in the recent past to encourage euthanasia, if only to allow a marginal increase in GDP per head, and therefore claim economic growth. Inevitably, it is all alleged to be really quite simple in principle, and only a small number of cases will be involved. Where have we heard that one before? Then we are amazed at how many more occur.

As if our Parliamentarians haven’t found themselves in enough messes, including being invited by the Government to surrender their constitutional rights to the judiciary, the risks are that they might now make of muck of the more basic business of life and death. Many of us older persons probably can recount the errors of judgement and moments of insanity that might have resulted in The End, without the rolling credits. There are some who have narrowly survived the same made by medical staff, but now we have to face those about to be made by lawyers and human rights activists.

John Mortimer, the wonderful writer, humanist, and perceptive commentator on our world was reckoned to be well towards the Left in his philosophy, but was violently against any suggestion of euthanasia or “assisted suicide”. He was a lawyer by trade, but he had served in many Probate cases, and had realised that when money, wills, legacies, and families or others, often members of the clergy, were involved, those concerned were liable whatever their background, education, or other qualities, to relapse into a primeval state of predation and determination to take all they could get imaginable. Civilisation and conscience would be lost at the moment the possibility of a valid death certificate arose. John was certain that if euthanasia etc. became possible and legal, the same would occur whether death was possible or even improbable.

An uncle who became aware that a local clergyman who was ever willing to turn up in the last days of a parishioner often arrived with a will form from the local stationers and witnesses in need of indulgences. Because of his zeal in hounding the local diocese for justice, we came to know my uncle as “The Willfinder General”, but he did save carers from destitution and others from serious loss, at the cost to the clergy of their regular trips to the Cheltenham Gold Cup.

The issues have become more complicated in recent decades as reliable food supplies, better housing overall, and advances in medicine and science have kept most of us alive for longer. The price of this has been many people surviving to a great and infirm age, despite serious conditions, or in some cases major handicaps. By the use of high technology a human being can be kept in a state of half life, or at the margin of death for long periods, albeit at high cost. Theoretically, it is these cases that the idea of euthanasia and the connected assisted suicide has come to be regarded as a palliative by some, and a good vote winning wheeze by others.

The trouble is how do you make the decisions at the margins? How many cases will be at the margins? Who will effectively be making the decision? Who will advise those about to die of the full implications? If any money at all is involved then how far will Mortimer’s Law apply, “Where there’s a will there’s a way”? The figures mooted at present are suggested to be small and only really the very difficult cases. But only it would take only a slight shift of the margins of decisions to send the actual figures much higher up the curve.

If your nearest and dearest start going on about how they need a special holiday or a wonderful Christmas to remember, or a new car, or how they are troubled by heavy debts incurred in their lifestyle, and then offer to help with the medication, go out and spend every penny you can and make a new will leaving what is left to the donkey sanctuary. That will teach them!

Your Tax Break Is My Tax Increase

The UK government has just installed Direct Rule over the Turks and Caicos Islands as a result of a report to the effect that there has been widespread corruption, and extensive malpractice in its governance. The Islands are one of a number of tax havens in the region dependent on the finance sector, tourism, and all that goes with these activities. Wikileaks has a good deal of information. There is little or nothing to be found in the UK Media, despite so much of our wealth being churned around the many computer servers on the Islands.

Many of the locals are not happy, and have declared their opposition to British Rule. Quite how far they will go is yet to be decided. It all looks very messy. They now want to throw off the yoke of colonialism, and the last thing our Government needs is another messy potential military commitment, especially in the Caribbean.

What is not mentioned is one of the other local difficulties that came to light this week with the lost of a Haitian vessel full of refugees off the Islands. The tragedy of Haiti has led to large numbers of its people taking small boats to reach other places and the many other communities in the area and Florida now have a substantial Haitian underclass who do the low paid work and live in very poor conditions. But at least they can find food.

Just before the crisis emerged the Institute of Directors urged upon the Government and the Chancellor of the Exchequer that instead of clamping down on tax avoidance (and evasion) the UK should actively compete with tax havens in a race to the bottom for tax breaks for the wealthy and the high rollers.

This is what they mean, culled from a Turks and Caicos web site:
NO INCOME TAX
NO REAL ESTATE TAX
NO CAPITAL GAINS TAX OR CAPITAL TRANSFER TAX
NO VALUE ADDED TAX
NO ESTATE DUTY TAX OR INHERITANCE TAX
NO GIFT TAX
NO LAND TAX
NO WITHHOLDING TAX
NO TAX TREATIES AND THEREFORE NO EXCHANGE OF INFORMATION WITH FOREIGN COUNTRIES
NO EXCHANGE CONTROLS, NO RESTRICTION ON HOW MUCH CAN BE BROUGHT IN OR OUT OF THE COUNTRY
ECONOMICALLY & POLITICALLY STABLE
STRICT SECRECY LAWS
BRITISH DEPENDANT TERRITORY
IDEAL CLIMATE & GEOGRAPHICAL LOCATION
EXCELLENT COMMUNICATIONS SYSTEM
LAWS CONDUCIVE TO CONDUCTING BUSINESS IN A TAX FREE ENVIRONMENT

Oh my word, if the Government followed the Institute of Directors recommendations that our nation should follow the example of the Turks and Caicos Islands just how would UK budget be managed, notably the large fiscal deficit, given the impact on revenues?

But if we now have direct rule, perhaps the Government should make it a UK local authority, and part of the UK, much as the French do with some territories, freeze all the accounts and levy taxes accordingly. Then things will get really interesting.

Are the Royal Marines on standby?

Elections, Franchises, And Voting Systems

Suddenly, there is a rush for constitutional change, or rather more of it, and fast. Quite why in the last twelve years these matters have not been dealt with is an interesting question, but then property speculation does take up a lot of time. It seems that now, according to The Guardian, electoral reform is a matter of most urgent importance.

Just over fifty years ago, I recall a discussion led by Dr. William Pickles, a political guru of his time much consulted by others. He was one of those who helped to churn out all those wonderful constitutions that brought so much happiness, peace, prosperity and security to former colonies. Also, he played a part in advising the French on how a new Fifth Republic would be so much better than the old and discredited Fourth. I think he changed his mind after General De Gaulle was elected in 1962 and opted for a directly elected Presidency, but there you go. To give him credit, he did not charge consultancy fees; it was enough to be highly regarded in academic circles. There was someone called Ralph Miliband sitting in, if only to police our thoughts, I wonder what happened to him.

This is not the place to go over all the many voting systems that might be employed in Britain in the 21st century and the difficulties of what exactly we might do. Our present system has had some very unsatisfactory consequences, notably the way in which representation at Westminster has been distorted both within all the major parties in comparison with the political realities around the country. If anything, this has worsened in recent decades.

So how and why do we go about changing the system and to what effect? One big problem is that the Government that does change the system has to believe, and the political system has to realise that the time has come. It would be better if a large majority of the people also believe, but our present system does not allow much for truth, or reason, or reality, so what the people are told is what the present ruling establishment wants them to know.

The Federal Republic of Germany was born in 1949 out of the collapse of the Third Reich in 1945 and direct rule by the Allied Powers. It became sovereign in May 1955 (I was there). The Fifth Republic of France was born out of the collapse of the Fourth Republic in the stress of decolonisation and war in 1958. Whether the UK at the moment is in a state of collapse at present or only on the brink is another question. The upshot of our discussion was that whatever the merits of changing the UK voting system were, it was unlikely in practical terms to come about unless there were some particular political imperatives of benefit to the government that introduced the relevant legislation.

So what gives with the government and the urge to change the voting system now? Is it that they are looking at a Labour party in the Commons of perhaps less than 100 members after 2010? Is it because some of the High Tories are talking about dismantling most of the structure of the non-elected Quango’s and regional bodies that have provided a huge client structure for the Labour Government?

Is it because they hope that if the Tories get less than 50% of the vote and therefore MP’s Labour might then be able to wreck any programme the Tories might have, because they will then have to trade policy for support from other parties? Is it because such a new Parliament with changed allegiances would become too chaotic to allow the Tories to do much at all in any way? Is it because if the Lisbon Treaty becomes effective Labour will be able to control any rule through its European connections? If these are the reasons for changing the system, then we all better worry. Firstly, we could all benefit from looking at what happened under the Weimar Republic in Germany in the 1920’s, which led to the rise of the Nazi’s, and the hapless Fourth Republic of France which staggered from crisis to crisis between 1946 and 1958.

We know that the Labour Government does not do “history”, but those of us who do are all too aware of just how easy it is for a debtor state under foreign domination and unable to make effective decisions can go into long lasting and utter collapse.

Harry Patch

The last Tommy has gone, and no more will march again. Harry of the Duke of Cornwall's Light Infantry would have been in the line at Passchendaele in September 1917 at the same time as my grandfather, of the King's Liverpool. Harry was injured by shrapnel from shellfire, grandfather picked up a dose of mustard gas, but he was to return to Arras in time of the German Offensive of March 1918. His great grandfather stopped one at the Battle of Corunna in January 1809, but survived, with the 43rd Light Infantry, and the old 32nd, forerunner to the DCLI was in the line with them. I wonder if any of Harry's were there with him as well.

At the going down of the sun...............

The Electrification Of The Union

The election campaign is beginning to be serious. There is now a plan to electrify the main line from London Paddington to Swansea, accompanied by another to do the same for the main connection between Manchester London Road and Liverpool Lime Street. As George Thomas observed in the 1960’s when the closure of the rambling scenic line from Craven Arms to Swansea was suggested, it passes through a number of marginal constituencies.

Quite why is has taken all this time to realise that the Paddington routes had good potential for electrification is a mystery, unless you take into account the long obsession with the East and West Coast Main Lines which dates back to the old Board of Trade and since. Almost all of the former Southern Railway routes were done, to meet the imperatives of intensive short haul commuter traffic, but unluckily on the third rail system which is restrictive and unsuitable for fast long haul services. When British Rail was created in 1947, to take over a run down system in need of full scale investment and renewal, there were those who realised then that electrification was the way to go. But between the politics, the outside vested interests, and critically, the failure to create a management organisation that could do the job that was needed, meant that all the opportunities were lost.

No doubt there will be other promises made here and there of what might be done. Will there be associated proposals to electrify the old Midland Railway main lines between Bedford and Leeds through Leicester, Derby, Sheffield, and Nottingham, and perhaps restoring the old Leicester to Rugby line as a key link? One could go on and on.

But what all this does is to distract attention by offering up relatively inexpensive projects to draw attention away from the rather greater problem. Electrified lines need power, and there is every chance that electrical power may soon be in short supply. This is not an accident about to happen, it is a hugely expensive complex set of problems that came over the horizon almost twenty years ago and has been coming closer ever since. A good many nuclear power stations are near the end of their life, and new ones take a decade at least to build, even if you have your own nuclear industry. The sort of coal fired ones that are being built almost by the week in China, also take time, and come with some very difficult environmental problems.

So we have wind mills, a subject of fierce controversy. But they are not the answer either, only a subsidiary source at best, and nor are some of the other bright ideas. Using all the land we have to grow biofuels creates another set of issues in a world where the population rapidly increases, but the crop yields do not. To rely on foreign oil and gas means becoming dependent on the suppliers, and on their political masters. When Moscow says jump, Westminster will jump, in concert with Europe.

The USA are not much better placed than we are, indeed much of their infrastructure for electrical supply needs renewal and reorganisation, without the money, the political will, or the commercial incentives to do it.

There is one possible answer, for us all to cut our power consumption by up to 40%. Because if we do not do it, it will be done for all of us in the shape of power cuts, and not even the trains will be running.

It is enough to bring a smile to the face of Lenin.